Sunday, January 22, 2017

Is North Korea's Army A Paper Tiger?

Soldiers march past the podium during a military parade in Pyongyang (Reuters)

Daniel R. DePetris, The National Interest: Is North Korea's Military the Ultimate Paper Tiger (That Could Still Kill Millions)?

Iran’s regional aggression. Budget turmoil at home. Domestic politics. An establishment in Washington resistant to reform. Ongoing wars in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. President-elect Donald Trump will have all of this to focus on and more, including the possibility of a Republican Party—a party that, let’s be honest, wasn’t especially happy that Trump won the GOP nomination—opposing a Trump White House on the construction of a border wall and on a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan.

None, however, will come as close on the Richter scale as rising instability on the Korean Peninsula, powered first and foremost by a North Korean nuclear and ballistic-missile program that is advancing in both quality and quantity. Indeed, just like his predecessor, Trump comes to office dealing with a North Korean government that isn’t particularly interested in negotiating its nuclear deterrent away—except today, Pyongyang for all intents and purposes is a nuclear-weapons state, whether Washington will accept that reality or not.

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WNU Editor:The South Koreans have invested tens of billions of dollars in their military because of their fears on what North Korea is capable of. In their eyes .... North Korea is not a "paper tiger".

1 comment:

B.Poster said...

North Korea is no "paper tiger." In spite of their investment, South Korea has no chance at beating their North Korean adversary. Perhaps they can make North Korea's inevitable victory costly enough tbat they wouldn't consider the attack in the first place.

"Is America a paper tiger?" Yes it is. It's military is incapable of even basic national defense let alone actually challenging major world powers. America and it's military are a modern day "Ptomkin Village." &