N. Korea no longer a nuclear threat

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Cuddles, Jun 13, 2018.

  1. Bugenhagen

    Bugenhagen

    If you don't know what they are paying for how do you know the price is fair? South Korea signed a defence agreement with China three days ago due to this. Of course Korea can afford it just it is viewed as a mob boss style tactic politically and it is. It is a stunt for his base.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...agreement-south-korea-us-angers-seoul-demand/



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    World & Nation
    How much do allies pay for U.S. troops? A lot more than Donald Trump says
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    Flags of U.S. and Japan flutter in U.S. Kadena Air Base on the southern island of Okinawa in Japan on Sept. 23, 2001.
    (Kyodo News via AP)
    By David S. Cloud
    Oct. 1, 2016
    3 AM
    Reporting from Washington —


    Five years ago, Hillary Clinton reached one of the least-noticed diplomatic agreements of her tenure as secretary of State — a deal obligating Japan to continue paying nearly $2 billion a year to help defray the cost of U.S. troops stationed on its territory.

    The money is used to build housing and training areas for U.S. forces, pay wages to thousands of Japanese workers on U.S bases and supply water and power.

    The payments, which began in 1978 and are considered a pillar of the post-war U.S.-Japanese alliance, cover about a third or more of the cost of keeping 49,000 U.S. troops in Japan.

    The five-year extension was disclosed in a dry communique after closed-door talks in June 2011 between Clinton and Japanese officials at the State Department. Clinton didn’t announce the deal, but the payments were never a secret.

    Despite that history, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has insisted repeatedly that Japan and other U.S. allies contribute little or nothing to the United States for their own defense.

    “They do not pay us. But they should be paying us, because we are providing tremendous service and we’re losing a fortune,” Trump said Monday in a debate with Clinton, the Democratic nominee, at Hofstra University in New York.

    The Pentagon spends an estimated $10 billion a year on overseas bases. More than 70% of the total is spent in Japan, Germany and South Korea, where most U.S. troops abroad are permanently stationed.

    In return, the Pentagon receives various forms of compensation from the host countries, from rent-free real estate where the bases are located to actual cash payments meant to offset U.S. costs.

    Trump’s attacks on allies as freeloaders is core to his political message that the U.S. is being outmaneuvered by both friends and adversaries overseas.

    National security experts say his false claims on defense issues could undermine the network of military and diplomatic alliances constructed around the globe by U.S. presidents of both parties over the last 70 years.

    “Can we drive a better bargain in some cases? Yeah, and [U.S. officials] are always negotiating” for better terms, said Barry Pavel, a former Pentagon official who now is vice president of the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank that supports NATO and other U.S. alliances.

    “But we gain the most out of these alliances because it helps keep threats much farther from our shores than they otherwise would be,” he added.

    In Asia, said Zach Cooper, a security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a nonpartisan Washington think tank, Trump’s suggestion on the campaign trail that he might withdraw U.S. troops or fail to come to the aid of allies in a crisis is generating unease among allies.

    “Japan and South Korea already pay large amounts to host U.S. forces on their soil,” he said. “Trump’s comments make it more likely that competitors will escalate crises into conflicts, and that U.S. allies will develop their own independent defensive capabilities, which could increase the danger of nuclear proliferation in Asia and elsewhere.”

    It’s difficult to make exact comparisons of “host nation support,” as the Pentagon calls contributions from allies, because assistance comes in different forms and the Pentagon doesn’t provide an accounting. An annual Defense Department report tallying foreign contributions was halted in 2004.


    Especially opaque are contributions from allies in the Middle East. The Pentagon maintains large permanent bases in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, but those countries keep details of their military relations with the U.S. shielded from public view.

    In Germany, where the United States maintains 38,000 troops and dozens of bases, compensation from Berlin is largely indirect. It includes tax waivers and rent-free use of facilities as well as construction of roads and other infrastructure in communities where installations are located.

    Japan has been one of the most generous hosts of U.S. forces, although its willingness to pay has waned lately.

    Tokyo’s payments grew steadily for the first 20 years of the funding agreements, peaking at more than $2.5 billion a year in 2000.

    But the support has dropped in the last decade due to budget pressures in Tokyo and domestic opposition in Japan to the U.S. military presence, especially on the island of Okinawa, home to more than half the U.S. troops in Japan.

    Japan has agreed to pay as much as $12 billion to build a new U.S. base on Okinawa for thousands of Marines now at the U.S. installation in the town of Futenma. But that project has been repeatedly delayed by local opposition.

    Those pressures would make it difficult for Trump to fulfill his vow to force Japan to pay more money, experts say.

    Under the 2011 agreement, Tokyo agreed to continue paying just under $2 billion a year. But the deal also called for a “phased reduction” in Japan’s contribution to utilities and workers’ salaries on U.S. bases.

    The 1953 U.S.-South Korea defense treaty allowed the Pentagon to station troops there. But with the country devastated by war, the U.S. paid the bills.

    In 1966, Seoul agreed to provide “all facilities” to the U.S. military at no cost, with the Pentagon picking up “all expenditures” for keeping troops there.

    But in 1991, after the South Korean economy had grown into one of the world’s largest, Seoul agreed to start picking up more of the expenses of the U.S. military presence.

    The most recent agreement, signed in 2014, increased South Korea’s contribution to more than $800 million a year. That’s equal to about half the annual cost of the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed there, according to Pentagon officials, not including personnel costs that the Defense Department would have to pay no matter where the troops were posted.

    The money doesn’t go to Washington, however.

    It’s used to pay salaries of Koreans working on U.S. bases or is in the form of non-cash contributions of services and construction at the installations, according to Army Gen. Vincent Brooks, the commander of U.S. troops in Korea.

    South Korea also is funding most of a $10.8-billion construction project that will allow U.S. troops to move from bases near Seoul and the Demilitarized Zone along the border with North Korea to new installations farther south.
     
    #81     Nov 21, 2019
  2. Trump said the short range missiles which Kim keeps firing doesn't bother him.
     
    #82     Nov 21, 2019
  3. Cuddles

    Cuddles

    well, there certainly is an argument to be made, I just wonder if the bill is truly 500% higher than last year.
     
    #83     Nov 21, 2019
  4. Cuddles

    Cuddles

    Thank's Trump

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/worl...b203d4-11be-11ea-924c-b34d09bbc948_story.html
    North Korea launches two projectiles in Thanksgiving message to Trump

    The launch continues a more aggressive posture by North Korea over recent months as talks with Washington hit a stalemate. Pyongyang has warned that its patience is running thin, and has given the United States until the end of the year to change its “hostile” policy and salvage the dialogue process.

    Thursday’s launches appeared timed to coincide with the Thanksgiving break and the second anniversary of Pyongyang’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile known as the Hwasong-15, emphasizing the message to President Trump, said Rachel Minyoung Lee, a senior analyst at the North Korea-focused website NK Pro.
     
    #84     Nov 28, 2019
    Bugenhagen likes this.
  5. TRS

    TRS

    Give the compulsive lying shyster a break. He can’t be in two places at once. He’s about to hammer out peace talks with the Taliban. He will then get around to having a chat with his great friend Kim.
    Rest easy, he has everything under control.....
     
    #85     Nov 28, 2019
    RedDuke likes this.
  6. vanzandt

    vanzandt

    Who's the girl on the horse?

    Entirely up to the United States to choose what “Christmas gift” it gets from the North.
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    By Press Association
    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un rode a white horse on a sacred mountain during his second symbolic visit in less than two months, as his government warned over any US refusal to make concessions in ongoing nuclear diplomacy by the end of the year.

    The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) released photos showing Mr Kim taking a horse riding to the snow-covered Mount Paektu along with his wife and other top lieutenants, all of whom were on white horses.


    Mr Kim previously climbed the mountain, the highest peak on the Korean Peninsula, on horseback in mid-October.

    Mount Paektu and white horses are symbols associated with the Kim family’s dynastic rule. Mr Kim has made previous visits there before making major decisions.

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    North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the sacred site (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service/AP)
    The North Korean leader said that “we should always live and work in the offensive spirit of Paektu”, according to KCNA.

    “The imperialists and class enemies make a more frantic attempt to undermine the ideological, revolutionary and class positions of our party.”

    On Monday, Mr Kim visited Samjiyon at the foot of Mount Paektu to attend a ceremony marking the completion of work that has transformed the town into “an epitome of modern civilisation”, KCNA said.


    It said the town has a museum on the Kim family, a ski slope, cultural centres, a school, a hospital and factories.

    Samjiyon is one of main construction projects Mr Kim launched in an effort to improve his people’s livelihoods and strengthen his rule at home.

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    A completion ceremony is held at the new city Samjiyon (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service/AP)
    The construction spree has also been seen as a demonstration of his power in the face of international sanctions designed to squeeze his economy and get him to give up his nuclear programme.

    The latest mountain trip comes as a year-end deadline set by Mr Kim for Washington to come up with new proposals to salvage nuclear diplomacy is approaching.

    The negotiations remain stalled for months, with North Korea trying to win major sanctions relief and outside security assurances in return for partial denuclearisation.

    READ MORE
    ‘Serious misconduct’ by Trump takes centre stage at impeachment hearing

    The North’s foreign ministry warned it is entirely up to the United States to choose what “Christmas gift” it gets from the North.

    North Korean officials have previously said whether North Korea lifts its moratorium on long-range missile and nuclear tests depends on what actions the US takes.

    [​IMG]
    The North is seeking concessions and an easing of sanctions in return for partial denuclearisation (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service/AP)
    Last week, North Korea test-fired projectiles from what it called a “super-large” multiple rocket launcher that South Korea’s military said landed in the waters off the North’s east coast.

    On Tuesday, US president Donald Trump urged Mr Kim to follow through on what he described as a promise to denuclearise the North. Mr Trump and Mr Kim have met three times since North Korea entered nuclear negotiations last year.

    “My relationship with Kim Jong Un is really good, but that doesn’t mean he won’t abide by the agreements … he said he will denuclearise,” Mr Trump said.

    “Now, we have the most powerful military we ever had, and we are by far the most powerful country in the world and hopefully we don’t have to use it. But if we do, we will use it.”


    Mr Trump also revived a nickname he had previously given to Mr Kim when he traded crude insults and threats of destruction during a provocative run of North Korean nuclear and missile tests in 2017.

    Mr Kim “likes sending rockets up, doesn’t he?” Mr Trump said. “That’s why I call him Rocket Man.”
     
    #86     Dec 4, 2019
  7. Cuddles

    Cuddles

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/21/world/asia/north-korea-missile-test-trump-kim.html

    U.S. Braces for Major North Korean Weapons Test as Trump’s Diplomacy Fizzles
    President Trump’s summits with Kim Jong-un have failed to bring concrete results, and the diplomatic vacuum has given North Korea more time to build its nuclear arsenal.

    WASHINGTON — American military and intelligence officials tracking North Korea’s actions by the hour say they are bracing for an imminent test of an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching American shores, but appear resigned to the fact that President Trump has no good options to stop it.

    If the North goes ahead with the test in the coming days — Pyongyang promised a “Christmas gift” if no progress had been made on lifting sanctions — it would be a glaring setback for Mr. Trump’s boldest foreign policy initiative, even as he faces an impeachment trial at home.

    American officials are playing down the missile threat, though similar tests two years ago prompted Mr. Trump to suggest that “fire and fury,” and perhaps a war, could result.
     
    #87     Dec 21, 2019
    Tony Stark likes this.
  8. RedDuke

    RedDuke

    I am all for meeting anyone to try to make deal. But the way Trump met Kim was like best friends. It is clear the only way to make sure regime survives is for them to have nuclear weapons. They will never give them up. Unfortunately our Admins show there is no such thing as American word. Each Admin can do what ever they want without any regard to previous.

    Kim is brutal but very smart.
     
    #88     Dec 21, 2019
  9. vanzandt

    vanzandt

    Yeah the next few days will be interesting. Its almost like blackmail at this point really. If he tests one, it'll really make Trump look bad. I wonder if we'll be told what secret deals are being made, or will they all end up in the the now infamous "code-word" server. I think lifting any of the monetary sanctions we have in place however will be de-facto public knowledge simply due to international banking norms.

    If I had to bet, I don't think Kim will do anything. I think he likes Trump, thats my gut feel anyway. Kim can kick his tests down the road for now, see what happens here in the next 10 months. I bet in 20 years though, we'll see the mother of all Trump properties somewhere along a beautiful stretch of the NK coast. That's the long game for Trump. It'll be the only place that'll have him anyway. Saudi would, but that place is way too ugly. Trump can build one hell of a golf course there for sure. Better than Pebble Beach.
     
    #89     Dec 21, 2019
  10. Cuddles

    Cuddles

    Trump got played, no need to overanalyze it
     
    #90     Dec 21, 2019
    TRS and Tony Stark like this.