President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

Learn something new every day ...

 

Legitimately awesome.

While Everybody Slept, Congress Did Something Extraordinary for Vulnerable Children

 

That depends on how you define "provocation." This administration has publicly said that it's simply unacceptable that North Korea succeed in developing a nuclear weapon that has the potential to strike the U.S. mainland. NK is clearly taking every step it can to do just that. Even the CIA chief recently said that they're more like months rather than years from being able to achieve it. [That's from memory; I'll have to chase down the exact quote.]

Thus the "significant provocation," by this standard, is already occurring. And if NK succeeds in a test that shows they're every bit as close as we fear, that's clearly even more provocation, if indeed we intend to uphold the red line that's been laid. (Insert Obama Syria red line whataboutism here.)

However I'm much more optimistic than you appear to be on the likelihood of complete annihilation. My fear is a "bloody news" devolving quickly into a significant, though mostly conventional, regional war that is extremely unlikely to affect the American mainland, but could easily be at least as deadly (in American terms) as Vietnam and has an unfortunately higher ceiling.

 

Heartened to see it.

 

I mean actually use it, not just have it.

That's not likely to happen though, because the number one goal of a dictator is ___ ____ ____ _____.

 

FTFY

 

I'm genuinely not sure what you're saying here.

Are you saying that the Trump admin would employ the "bloody nose" strategy only if the NK regime fires a nuclear missile at the U.S. mainland? If yes, I think that's a pretty thorough misunderstanding of what the bloody nose strategy is. Though as I said, I may well be misunderstanding you.

And I'm not really sure where you're going with the "number one goal of a dictator" fill-in-the-blank exercise. Can you help me out?

 

to stay in power.

You get nuked off the Earth, not only are you not in power, you're dead.

 

Oh, to answer your other question, something aimed at the US will not trigger a small response. Total turning the country into glass.

A ground invasion into SK could trigger this nose stuff.