North Korea

So'all right, the youth will no doubt have a protest in a couple of days which seems to be the thing to do these days.
 
fecking hell. I'm more scared of Trump's reaction than anything else.

Nah. You'd expect a normal President to realize the gravity of the threat, the fact that too meek a response could motivate Japan to pursue solutions/deterrence on its own. I don't think this one understands these 2nd and 3rd degree effects, he won't have a visceral reaction to someone launching a missile over Japan (they took our jobs!). My lame-ass guess.
 
Feck me the clips of sirens and early warning alerts that went out are terrifying. Glad our biggest worry is moaning about Trumps dodgy tweets
 
Feck me the clips of sirens and early warning alerts that went out are terrifying. Glad our biggest worry is moaning about Trumps dodgy tweets

Can't imagine how I'd feel if I got such an alert on my cell, plus sirens blaring in NYC. Would certainly be chaotic.
 
Nah. You'd expect a normal President to realize the gravity of the threat, the fact that too meek a response could motivate Japan to pursue solutions/deterrence on its own. I don't think this one understands these 2nd and 3rd degree effects, he won't have a visceral reaction to someone launching a missile over Japan (they took our jobs!). My lame-ass guess.

Pretty sure the US is responsible for Japan's defence so it couldn't pursue its own solutions. Trump needs to respond strongly to this and China needs to reign the North in.
 
Pretty sure the US is responsible for Japan's defence so it couldn't pursue its own solutions. Trump needs to respond strongly to this and China needs to reign the North in.

My point was that Trump might be the kind of President that doesn't "get" that.
 
Trump only knows one type of response and it sure as feck wont be measured. The only hope is the Generals make the decisions and talk Trump down from overstepping the mark. The trouble is he has nowhere to go really. He said that any further escalation and provocation by North Korea would be met with "fire and fury" then he said at his rally last week that he felt North Korea respected the USA now. Then obviously they fired some over the weekend but got no response because all news was focused on the hurricane and the Trump news dump of pardoning Sherriff Joe so they go and do this. They are literally prodding the bear and asking it to bite them. As I've said before, it's not Kim that worries me but the ginger child in the White House.
 
I usually judge these things off the reactions and having Japanese broadcasting interrupted telling people to take shelter is enough to make me gulp a little bit.

Feck.
 
Creating a nice ambient for the japanese to rebuild the military with nuclear weapons, in other words in a few years the japanese will be the super power in asia.

The obvious response for Japan is to develop their own military, and I wouldn't blame them, but they don't have the GDP, the growth or the demographics to be 'the' superpower anymore. Times change.
 
The obvious response for Japan is to develop their own military, and I wouldn't blame them, but they don't have the GDP, the growth or the demographics to be 'the' superpower anymore. Times change.

They'll just build an army of robots and crush us all.
 
The obvious response for Japan is to develop their own military, and I wouldn't blame them, but they don't have the GDP, the growth or the demographics to be 'the' superpower anymore. Times change.
They dont have to be "the superpower" to rebuild their military. You seriously underestimate the size of the Japanese economy, growth and demographics. Its more than capable of building a decent military.
 
Went pretty far from where I live, but I'm worried about what the response might be.
 
The obvious response for Japan is to develop their own military, and I wouldn't blame them, but they don't have the GDP, the growth or the demographics to be 'the' superpower anymore. Times change.

Don't they rank as the 4 largest GDP in the world after the US, EU and China?
 
Don't they rank as the 4 largest GDP in the world after the US, EU and China?

Yeah. Plus generally speaking they're on par with the West in key areas (GDP per capita and democracy, education, human development and quality of life indexes) and significantly better in others (e.g. homicide and infant morality rates). They're in a pretty good place all in all. Except for the increasing threat of missile attacks, obviously.
 
Yeah. Plus generally speaking they're on par with the West in key areas (GDP per capita and democracy, education, human development and quality of life indexes) and significantly better in others (e.g. homicide and infant morality rates). They're in a pretty good place all in all.

Not really. They have a huge issue with debt and their ageing population, and deep seated cultural issues that prevent them from really addressing any of it.

Still, they have recently changed their constitution to move their military from a defensive force to an offensive force. Gives an idea of their future intentions.
 
Creating a nice ambient for the japanese to rebuild the military with nuclear weapons, in other words in a few years the japanese will be the super power in asia.

It would be a massive about face for Japan to get Nuclear weapons.

I usually judge these things off the reactions and having Japanese broadcasting interrupted telling people to take shelter is enough to make me gulp a little bit.
Feck.
It probably looks worse when your not used to it, but TV is often interrupted with warnings or threat alerts in Japan. The issue in this case is that the missile supposedly broke into 3 pieces so may have fallen on land.

Except for the increasing threat of missile attacks, obviously.
They aren't attacks, Japan just happens to be in the path of missile tests. I think people are more worried about a favourite holiday resort (Guam) being the target. Yet people have still been travelling there.
 
The obvious response for Japan is to develop their own military, and I wouldn't blame them, but they don't have the GDP, the growth or the demographics to be 'the' superpower anymore. Times change.

Oh they have, my guess is that they secretly have the blueprints and all that and if need be they can mass produce anything in a few year

They have the GDP, probably not the population though
 
I did a 5k, got drunk and was stumbling into bed last night when I received a breaking news alart on my CNN app that just said "North Korea fires a missile on trajectory to Japan" and I thought I would wake up to nuclear war and some half burnt countries.
 
They dont have to be "the superpower" to rebuild their military. You seriously underestimate the size of the Japanese economy, growth and demographics. Its more than capable of building a decent military.

They're the 8th highest defense spending nation on earth, the idea that they need a radical course change to 'rebuild' their military is off base. Don't be fooled by them calling it a self-defense force, Japan is under no illusions about the threats posed by its neighbours and has been taking steps to ensure it is not left open to attack.
 
Don't they rank as the 4 largest GDP in the world after the US, EU and China?

Yes they do, and they have the wealth to create powerful armed forces, I wasn't dismissing them.

I was replying purely to barros' claim that 'in a few years the japanese will be the super power in asia', implying dominance, which is unlikely as China has three times the GDP, and India's relative growth means they will likely overtake them too.
 
The obvious response for Japan is to develop their own military, and I wouldn't blame them, but they don't have the GDP, the growth or the demographics to be 'the' superpower anymore. Times change.
Do we really need millions of soldiers to be a superpower? They are superior in technology and that's whats is going to be the future in the military.
 
Good point, however if your first post had said 'a superpower' instead of 'the superpower' I might not have commented.
China in trouble...
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As much as I cant stand Rex Tillerson and despise what he is doing to departments in the US Government, he really does appear to be a voice of reason in this clusterfeck of a situation. Trump just looks weak and full of piss and wind after his fire and fury comments. Kim knew it was a bluff and called it and he's made Trump look more of a chump on the world stage than he already did. That's some feat in itself.

This is now where it gets dangerous because Trump backed in to a corner isn't good and we all know his usual response to that situation. I can only hope his advisors are able to keep him from talking anymore shit when he gets a crowd or a microphone in front of him.
 
As long as trump keeps with the rhetoric, they will keep calling his bluff. Trump and Un are two sides of the same, narcissistic psychopathic coin.
 
As long as trump keeps with the rhetoric, they will keep calling his bluff. Trump and Un are two sides of the same, narcissistic psychopathic coin.

Some of you have quite the obsession with Trump. Oddly enough not everything revolves around Trump and his tweets.

Its ridiculous to think Trumps tweets are more provocative than the UN sanctions.
 
Creating a nice ambient for the japanese to rebuild the military with nuclear weapons, in other words in a few years the japanese will be the super power in asia.

Japan has bigger issues with negative population growth and decreasing birth rate, fertility in the young people. They're not being anyone's superpower anytime soon.