Kim is slowly being bought to his knees without a bullet fired , there will be no war why fight when there is no need , he cannot fight the US he knows it , his Generals to a man know it and they also know that to retain power his only hope is via the negotiating table with the US

Every drought every hungry NK will bring him ever closer to finding a way out of his mire

BM

Ithink we are agreement, no you have not asked befor, ut I think never.

Yes, brought to his knees by our standard, but, but when people have the feeling of nothing to loose, their reaction is often no reaction, because any act has two possibilities, improvement of their condition, or worsening of it. when people are that down, they usually jus suck their thumb.

RGoss99 said:

Ithink we are agreement, no you have not asked befor, ut I think never.

In fairness to Americans, there has been one such case ever.

It was 207 years ago when the Brits were busy elsewhere putting down a European dictator, Napoleon.

This contrasts rather with some other nations who eg took on the Germans twice just last century.

Even Argentina could surely retaliate when we took them on 8,000 miles from home.

I was NOT comparing our standards to theirs , there is a limit which they can absorb and accept and with every crop failure every draught so the situation worsens .

BM

Yes, brought to his knees by our standard, but, but when people have the feeling of nothing to loose, their reaction is often no reaction, because any act has two possibilities, improvement of their condition, or worsening of it. when people are that down, they usually jus suck their thumb.

The US (and in another place they've told me this) seeks to take to North Korea the benefits they took to Iraq and Libya.

Government collaps, millions of refugees, chaos and suffering.

I was thinking of the Russians under the Tsar, as miserable as they were it took WWI to get them to rise up.

RGoss99 said:

I was thinking of the Russians under the Tsar, as miserable as they were it took WWI to get them to rise up.

I'm coming to think the 1919 Peace Conference did terrible harm.

It saw the breakup of the Austria-Hungary Empire and the Ottoman Empire.

We tried to complete the demolition of the Russian Empire - but they pulled themselves back together again at terrible cost.

Why was it a bad thing to do? Because Empires, although they're brutal to outlying areas they're actually quite tolerant of multi-culturalism and minorities. 

And Empires are necessary to have reasonable levels of stability - smaller countries can't control immigrant crime, gangs etc.

Actually that is the back story behind the Basque and Catalan problems in Spain. England and France so the Ausrian hegemony as a threat to their colonial ambiions, In fact that Empire and Spain was a collection of autonomous cultures sharing the same monarch, who basicly left them along. So the War of Austrian succession limited the Austrians to central Europe nd imported e Bobons with quite a different attitud towardscentralized governmnt. As a esult all he non spanish speakig regions of Spain have strong independence movents and are deanding a refied Constitution. with more local autonomy.

I seem to be getting problems in here - my answers appearing under the wrong postings!