At 11:28 AM 03/21/2003 -0500, John Kelsey wrote:
At 07:52 PM 3/20/03 -0800, Tim May wrote:
...
But the imperial power goes after the skinny kid it knows it can beat up,
not the greater threats in the region (and in the world). Grenada,
Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iraq again. But not North Korea, not
China, not Saudi Arabia, not Russia, not Pakistan, and not Germany or France.
I wouldn't bet too much on us not going after North Korea sometime in the
next year or two, if the invasion and takeover of Iraq goes well.
I'd be surprised if we invaded them -
North Korea is strategically important to the US,
because it's an excuse to keep military bases in South Korea,
nearby to China and Japan, and in spite of being in near-total collapse
for decades, it's got leaders who can be depended on to
make scary speeches and rattle sabers at us so that
our military-industrial-complex can make scary speeches and
rattle sabers back at them and everybody can stay in power.
Otherwise, there was starting to be a real risk that we'd
have to declare North Korea to be too lame a threat to
justify keeping troops over in Asia, or start shipping
lots of free Texas or California rice and Kansas wheat to them
to keep the population from starving while subsidizing farmers here.
It's possible that the place will collapse into violent disaster,
but the big risk is that if there's another bad harvest,
the governments will succeed in keeping the population of the north
from fleeing to South Korea or China before they all starve.
