North Korea calls sanctions push after nuclear test 'laughable'

What other response does anyone think they will have?

What would be even more laughable (in a sad way) is the response of these folks if they ever got the opportunity to see the rest of the world and get to taste freedom that so many others take for granted.

Little kim and his cronies likely are laughing - for now. One day the tipping point will come and that will be the end of little kim and his cronies. It is quite strange how naive they are - in the long run.

It is quite strange how naive they are - in the long run.

The long run? You mean longer than the half century and 3 generations that the Kims have had absolute rule over that country? I'd say they have been very successful in the long run, which makes the rest of us look like the naive ones.

Yes, there will be a tipping point. Someday. But long runs that exceed human lifetimes don't do us much good in politics.

has anyone considered talking to them.... the americans for instance.. after all they are the ones responsible for most of this mess...

It IS laughable.. nothing has any affect...what else can you DO?

commanteer - the little kims are still recent history... not yet 'history' enough of course.., but the current tiny offspring will be the one that brings them down. Guaranteed.

Summer is nearly over, this was NK's big bang until next year, NK is so cold during the winter nothing happens there in winter.

If China (and all other nations engaged in trade with NK) agreed with and implemented a full-scale embargo on North Korea in terms of food, clean water, gasoline, and other similar things until they gave up their nuclear program altogether, I don't think it would be too long before NK and the government would implode. Can't run a country without the bare necessities.

They need some freedom - US military style.

They have never worked, North Korea is right to laugh at them. they will keep doing what they do until someone stops them. why hasn't USA done something yet? USA says they are in Japan to keep us safe but they never do anything. just let japans enemies grow stronger.

Kind of like having a death sentence pronounced on you, if you were at court, and then after flipping iff the judge, getting two months of extra jail time on top of your death sentence. Yeah, so it is LAUGHABLE, but it is interesting for them to actually "say" it publically.

If they did anything that resulted in deaths they would most likely get kick up the backside.

Well, let the Norks laugh. I have said it before and I will say it again. Kim is going to figure out that nuclear weapons are just not all they are cracked up to be. He is a starving man who has found a gun with no bullets. When it comes right down to it, he cannot use the weapons to get anything his people need. His situation is not improved. Nations are not cowering before him.

I have heard new cases brought up for and against sanctions and war. I am pretty sure that the world is doing what it should be doing. Nobody was ever going to invade the DPRK anyway, and now there is even less reason to do so. But nobody invaded Albania either. It just fell apart.

Many people posting here have missed the point. The weapons were not developed OUT OF strength. They were developed TO SHOW strength. OK. Maybe that is over now. So what else? The regime is pretty well maxxed out on that dimension, and is increasingly unable to succeed on any other dimension. Nukes will fail to feed people and give them hope for a better future. They won't get sanctions lifted. They won't even provide extra security. It is time for the DPRK to wake up and notice what we have figured out since Pakistan and India developed their weapons. Nuclear weapons solve a single well-defined problem. Without a certain kind of government, they create many many more problems than they solve. The DPRK cannot diplomatically support these weapons.

Need an example? If you were the South Korean military right now, do you think you would be trying to figure out a way to explode a low yield device in a Russian or Chinese port? With a little paperwork of the right kind, the DPRK would be blamed and this whole nuclear thing might wind up solving the DPRK regime problem once and for all. If the DPRK denied it, who would believe them? These nuclear bombs, missiles, and subs are nails in the coffin of the regime. Each is a sword that can cut both ways. And the DPRK is very vulnerable.

@Ronald Hassem I am curious to know how the Kim family's oppression of North Korea and breaking every agreement they have ever made is the "Americans" fault? If you want to point the finger at anyone it should be China. The only reason there is a North Korea is directly as a result of their involvement in the Korean War.

I suppose the US and South Korea don't do anything because China won't allow it. At what point will China do something about them? I'm not sure, however i sense danger on the horizon. It's seems like a game of chicken. The other question is about the motive of the North Korean government. Is it deterrent/security? Leverage? Or are they truly so crazy?

* At what point will China do something about them? China is sweating because Korea decided to install THAAD anti missile system on it near its border with the Nth. As the way its going it inevitable that Sth Korea will have to acquire nuclear weapons of its own. The only way the Nth will change is if China gets tough on them also

Japan should shoot missile to nk coast facing Japan other sôde, let SK sorry. And say self defense.

Now can we start ending them?

USA had the hundred opportunities to destroy NKorea while China was still Africa-tier in the 90s and 2000.

Too bad that was all squandered with middle-east misandventures.

Not that any of this is a laughing matter, but Kim's thinking that the DPRK can defeat the combined forces of the rest of the world minus China and Russia is kind of laughable. Perhaps he doesn't know the expression "He who laughs last, laughs best"...

talking about meaningless sanctions until today is highly laughable

Well, they're totally right about that.

Reckon we should stop paying top dollar for quality NK goods (fashion, technology, medicines, food etc) that would teach them!

Only sanction that might work is kidnapping kju's private hairdresser.

pointofview

If they did anything that resulted in deaths they would most likely get kick up the backside

Umm, the sinking of a South Korean warship in 2010? Artillery shelling of a South Korean island, and what? No backsides kicked, just another trainload of empty rhetorics.

Japan Violet

The other question is about the motive of the North Korean government. Is it deterrent/security? Leverage? Or are they truly so crazy?

No, Kim is not crazy, in fact he is very logical. The matter is that the whole NK nuclear program is the result of, and the NK answer to US military agressions against Yugoslavia back in 90s and Iraq in 2003. NK got the right idea: if you do not possess a serious deterrent, then you can be invaded (oops, I mean "democratisized") any time the current US administration feels like it. And the harsh truth is that Kim will never give up his nukes. Again, he is very logical: Saddam gave up his nuclear program, and where Saddam now? Qaddafi also gave in to Western demands on his nuclear program, and what happened to him? For Kim the nukes are his insurance policy not to meet the same fate.

Japan should "thank" Clinton and Bush for nuclear antics of its nasty little neighbor.

All I have ever hoped for was for S. Korea and N. Korea to become one country during my lifetime, but that is a very laughable dream I suppose.

North Korean leaders can afford to laugh. They will have enough money, food luxuries for the forseeable future. It is the North Korean people that do all the suffering.

It is lol!!

Not hard to erect 200 laser weapons near the only city NK can hit with mass Artillery rounds.

Laser weapons in hundreds would stop like 4,000 rounds a min.

South Korea can stop NK from hurting them bad, and NK can't fit a nuclear bomb on there missile yet.

Time to get NK to test more bomb's, so they only have 1 - 2 left.

We must bomb the nuclear reactor plant now.....Before they make more!

It's truly laughable as long as China and Russia keep on supporting the Big Fat Boy's regime. The UN must convince/tame the big two first so the sanctions would be truly effective and felt by the North...

@Boy Next Door

Yep and all you have to do is look at the border and see truck after truck crossing 24/7 with goods and so on from China.

Sanctions will fail to we need to limit and stop there nuclear arsenal.

It would be a great pleasure to see Don Quixoic Kim Jung-Un launching a ballistic test near the Sino-Russian military drill in the Southeast Asian Seas.

Sanctions will fail to we need to limit and stop there nuclear arsenal.

How, by invading them?

Look how well that turned out in Iraq.

@Strangerland Nope, but by bombing their nuclear plant.

Iraq war was won with zero American troops killed for almost 1 year. The Terrorist fled Iraq and American/CIA new they were rebuilding and should of acted.

We bomb NK nuclear plant and stop them getting more.

As it stands they have 3 - 4 left.

We can stop all their Artillery rounds and can stop them attacking.

It would take 16 hours for America to destroy all their artillery canons, because they are on rails.

We can stop an attack if we spend about $2 - $3 billion dollars.

The US has already plenty of Nuclear weapons and have used against Japan, similarly US has given the Nuclear weapons to Israel,an illegal state and Israel have already set all the missile towards each capital of the world with nuclear weapons. how can it work when the US himself have the large number of nuclear weapons and gifting these weapons to the Israel, who has wiped up the nation of the Palestine and still killing women and children and bulldozing their houses.

It would take 16 hours for America to destroy all their artillery canons

Seriously? 16 hours, exactly? Not 17 or 20, but 16? And your estimates are based on what?

We can stop all their Artillery rounds

Can you describe the process of stopping artillery rounds? I bet it's very interesting.

I think you speak about war too lightly. Anyway, you'are welcome to enlist, go to the border with North Korea and try your cannon-catching technique.

This post from /u/GTFErinyes on reddit recently should answer a lot of the questions posed above...

*Inevitably, the question that always gets asked is - why isn't the world doing more about North Korea?

Any war, not started by North Korea, is simply a lot of risk with too little reward

As callous as it may seem, with 25 million oppressed and often starving citizens, the risk to nations that would be willing to topple the Kim regime is simply too great. Even ignoring the political issues around doing such a thing (whether the UN, particularly China, would allow it), consider that:

The US has 28,500 troops in South Korea, and over 30,000 more in neighboring Japan and Okinawa, who are the first troops to respond to any war in Korea. The US has been there for over 60 years now, and will be drawn in. South Korea has hundreds of thousands of troops, with hundreds of thousands more in reserve. Many are along the DMZ, where if hostilities flare, they will likely be caught off guard. While Seoul is close to the DMZ, it isn't as close to currently established North Korean gun emplacements on the other side of the DMZ. That said, there are parts within reach of longer guns, and as the Yeongpyeong Island bombardments show, civilians are easily caught in the fire in a artillery exchange. The Korean War cost 2-3 million lives over the course of 3 years. While North Korea can't win against a war against the South + US, even a short conflict will be very bloody. Both sides have spent 60 years planning for one another, and have positions marked and weapons in place. Even aside from the costs of the direct conflict, the humanitarian cost will be huge. 25 million citizens of North Korea with little in the way of valuable worldly education - many have been indoctrinated into the Kim cult at an early age - will trigger a disaster with refugees pouring into China and the South.

Keep in mind the heavy cost of German reunification, which was peaceful, and one that dealt with far smaller of a difference in culture and mindsets. Or the costs of integrating Eastern Europe with Western Europe after the Iron Curtain fell and a lot of the social costs that have come of it.

Geopolitics have shaped how the world deals with North Korea

Throughout the Cold War, with China and the Soviet Union as its benefactors, North Korea was largely shielded despite being the aggressor of the Korean War, a war that only ended in a cease fire, not a formal end.

At the end of the Cold War, many predicted North Korea would either collapse on its own or reform as China and Vietnam did. Instead, North Korea held on tight - Kim Jong Il even being more repressive than his father, while doing little as famine killed an estimated 2-3 million in the North.

Through it all, China has helped prop up the regime - again, in part to avoid the possibility of a flood of refugees across its border. In recent years, China has started to care less about North Korea, and even joined in on the condemnations and sanctions. Still, they are the #1 business partner, and strategic considerations (like not having a pro-US nation directly on its border) means they tacitly accept North Korea.

And the question always arises is what would happen if a war did erupt? Would China join in, as they did in 1950? They've never officially left as a party to the cease fire, and have never stated their position. Its highly unlikely they would, but is that a risk the US and South Korea are willing to take, even if the human costs are ignored? No.

Staying the course while waiting for North Korea to collapse has kept a relative peace, but it may not see an end to North Korea anytime soon either

For the most part, all the parties are generally okay with the status quo, given the costs. That said, the hope has long been that economic sanctions and political isolation will eventually cause the Kim dynasty to collapse from public revolt, or from a coup near the top.

Even then, the Kim family has outmaneuvered all of that. Dissent is utterly snuffed out, and their political prison camps are notorious for their brutality. And a coup at the high end? Kim Jong Un had his own uncle executed. In fact, according to analysts, of the hundreds of Kim Jong Un's father's generals and commanders in the photo taken with him upon his accession to the top, over half have been purged/executed.

As the saying goes... any regime willing to kill as many of its own people, tends to stay in power a very long time*

"All I have ever hoped for was for S. Korea and N. Korea to become one country during my lifetime"

I had heard someone was hoping for that, and now I have found you! And you might be the only one.

I cannot imagine why anyone in SK would want this. It appears that NK people don't want it either. I don't think the world would be any better off. North Korea took most of the country's capital after WWII and left South Korea as an agrarian, poor section of the country. Then Seoul was devastated during the war, leaving South Korea with not very much of anything. Here we are 70 years later and South Korea has an extremely successful economy (with the usual problems) and a high standard of living. North Korea looks like Albania of 1956. They have squandered everything to get these bombs which are just about the most useless thing in the world. Their GDP is less than 20 billion dollars. That ranks them somewhere around 100 to 120 among world nations. They already get a lot of help, which makes it even sadder. No credit. No tradeable currency. No trade as modern people think about it.

North Korea just has very little of value. They do labor for Russia and China. They build statues in Africa. And that is about it. Why would South Korea want to deal with that? As a hobby? A project? Yikes. Life is too short. Take up knitting or bowling instead.

And you know what would happen? The NK people would start trying to argue with the SK people and boss them around. They think of themselves as legitimate, even though they have not accomplished anything. They can't even get re-runs of I Love Lucy. The SK people, on the other hand, started with nothing and now they are world contenders. That unification thing is never going to work out. Maybe NEVER is too harsh. I guess if North Korea started TODAY to turn itself around, I would think unification might occur in about 2100.

When the Romanians brutally killed Ceausescu, their leader, in the early nineties, they asked themselves how they could be so stupid to follow this guy for so long when he just impoverished their people and ruined their country. How could they fall for that? They were enraged and numbed. The fall of North Korea will be something like that. It is not going to be a happy reunion situation. North Korea will have to go through some heavy duty grieving.

I cannot imagine why anyone in SK would want this.

SK people want it because the NK people are technically their people. It's the regime that has kept them apart, not the people.

It appears that NK people don't want it either.

The people may or may not want it, depending on what they've been told to believe. But it would be the regime that specifically doesn't want it.

When the Romanians brutally killed Ceausescu, their leader, in the early nineties, they asked themselves how they could be so stupid to follow this guy for so long when he just impoverished their people and ruined their country. How could they fall for that? They were enraged and numbed.

That was true at the time, although a poll a few years ago in Romania suggests that nearly 45% of the population feel that life was better under Ceausescu than it is now.

I personally very much doubt that the ordinary NK population will ever rise up against their leaders. A coup, if it ever does come, will be by senior members of the ruling party who KNOW what life is like outside their country.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/raluca-besliu/communist-nostalgia-in-romania

Lil Kim can laugh now and starve later!

@Asakaze yes got that from the media that got it from the pentagon....16 hours.

@obliqueweapons

Pentagon said that? Guys from there are horribly optimistic. It took them a month to finish the Iraqi army in 2003, but now they talk about 16 hours?

goldorac got it perfectly right.

"SK people want it because the NK people are technically their people."

Uh. What? I have lived long enough to see that this is seldom true. Just roughly speaking, this racially based view of people liking those who have similar DNA, and automatically getting along is .... suspect to say the least.

Starting out personally, let me say that I don't particularly like people from the country to which I trace about 40% of my ancestry. The people I generally get along with the most account for 0% of my ancestry.

But all over the world, this DNA explanation for affinity makes almost no sense. Yugoslavians slaughtered each other over religious beliefs, and you could not tell them apart in terms of DNA. I have heard from various sources that African Africans have zero affinity for African Americans. The French, Germans, and English will swear up and down that they are distinct and special peoples, and have wars with each other for hundreds of years, which would seem baffling to someone with a world view of "SK people want it because the NK people are technically their people."

I mean, how could civil wars ever occur if people with similar DNA automatically got along.

And just to cap that, I have to say that I have never met a person from SK who has thought unification was a good idea. Just like I have never met a Canadian who thinks unification with the US is a good idea.

eventually they will have both the warheads and missiles, and it wont be too long until that. the sanctions have not worked in a bit other than push the normal nk people into misery

@5SpeedRacer5 "I have to say that I have never met a person from SK who has thought unification was a good idea. Just like I have never met a Canadian who thinks unification with the US is a good idea."

Americans often seek for eternal enemy. Russians, Chienese, North Koreans....

Lesson learn from the demise of Saddam huessein, Col. Quadafi and many leaders in history who has been in the cross hair of Uncle Sam is you should: Do it by yourself with homemade nuclear arsenals unless you are like Fidel Castro who has been in the top list of US assassinations but he escaped death by the protection from Vatican.