"Military options are unthinkable. And sanctions won't work … [T]he only likely result would be a lot of dead farmers. North Korea's great famine of 1996–99 demonstrated that the locals do not rebel when oppressed, even under terrible circumstances. North Koreans are terrified, disorganized and still largely unaware of any alternative to their misery."

"The past 15 years have seen the spontaneous growth of grassroots markets in the North and partial disintegration of state controls. Rumors of South Korean prosperity have begun to spread, assisted by popular smuggled DVDs of South Korean movies. The world's most perfect Stalinist regime is starting to disintegrate from below. The best way to speed things up is for Washington and its allies to push for active engagement with the North in the form of development

aid, scholarships for North Korean students and support for all sorts of activities that bring the world to North Korea or take North Koreans outside their cocoon. Such exchanges are often condemned as a way of appeasing dictators, but the experience of East Europe showed that an influx of uncensored information from the outside is deadly for a communist dictatorship."

"This is one of the more assinine (sic) comments I have read on this site."

I would have guessed the comment asking GI how many times he jerked off to the photo of the nude North Korean soldier would have eclipsed it… but I guess Comment Asinization Level is not really a subjective matter.

The fault must be mine for using literary devices to indirectly convey a point… thinking my true intention would be clear to all but those looking for offense or seeking to find fault.

More clearly…

Despite your implication, I certainly didn't say the pre-WWII sanctions on Japan were incorrect… the statistics and points you stated are valid and we are in agreement.

…but there is something to learn from those sanctions.

Once Japan was hopelessly backed into a corner, their choices became increasingly limited until an attack on our fleet was their best option… hence the sinking of the USS Arizona.

North Korea is in a similar situation… a point not lost on those who put pressure on North Korea but have avoided backing them completely into a corner.

Having a grandfather nervously waiting on Guam for a mainland invasion of Japan made me aware that our use of big, scary nuclear bombs was certainly the correct thing to do… at least from an American (and personal) standpoint… so we are not in disagreement there either… hence it was a very good thing we had the monopoly on nuclear weapons.

What you failed to get out of my comment is that, unlike WWII Japan, North Korea seems to have nuclear weapons and a strong desire to stay in power.

If North Korea gets backed into a corner to the point that the leadership could find themselves hanging from a rope Saddam-style, would they use them…

…say, in a container that went from NK to Syria to Europe to New York?

That might get a lot of attention focused away from North Korea while everyone tried to figure out what happened.

There are many other scenarios which the vagueness of my comment allowed the gentle reader to imagine.

So, once again, the last time we sanctioned a country into a corner, they attacked us.

Gerry, is there really anything to disagree about here?

However, I suspect any sanctions to stop an invasion of the Chinese mainland that killed an estimated 10,000,000 Chinese (very low estimate, some estimates go as high as 30,000,000 Chinese), would not be enough cause for any sanctions at all. Nor the 100s of thousands of Philipinos, Malaysions, and so on and so forth throughout Asia.

The total number of 'enemy' civilians killed during the Pacific war is estimated at 430,000. (including all those killed by the 'big scary atomic bombs.) Yes, we have the Arizona memorial, and they have 'Nagasaki" and 'Hiroshima' memorials. Tough s**t for them.

What does the U.S. have to lose anyway?

The last time we sanctioned an Asian country into a corner, all we got was a shiny, new USS Arizona memorial.

Fortunately, that time, we were the only ones with the big, scary nuclear bombs.