The June 19 defense pact signed between Russia and North Korea included a promise to provide military assistance to one another – within days Pyongyang said it was sending troops to Ukraine.
We just waiting for the other shoe to drop… Is US Marines landing in Crimea or other wild scenario where everyone goes: " well damn and that’s how it turned into ww3"
They didn’t start calling WWII what it is until 1944, but I think we can all agree it didn’t start in 1944.
Just like later historians placed the start of WWII on multiple different events depending on which country you’re in, the start of World War III will be long before we start calling it that.
I’m in the camp that the start of WW3 will be the Russian invasion of Ukraine if things continue to escalate the way they’re going, because that’s when you really started seeing lines being drawn between the axis and allies.
Russia, China, Iran, and NK are the most recognizable names that have aligned themselves with the axis so far.
The lines are already drawn and future events will dictate whether or not we’re currently living in WW3 today.
Pretty sure Iran adopted “Axis of Resistance” already. Least they already know what side they are on.
Really getting sick of people deciding to just like…starting shit instead of focusing on constructive competitions like science or space races to other planets. Why do people feel the need to kill the shit out of each other and subjugate their population whilst climate change is bearing down on us? :p
I am also sick to the core about this aspect of humanity. I feel that we as a species are just about developed enough to understand how a better world would look like, and how people should act, what’s “the right thing to do” - and very much not developed enough to overcome our egoism and narcissism to make it happen, so we do the wrong thing despite knowing better far too often.
For most of history you would be better off if you could kill the next village over. You want to be friends with the people in your village, but if you kill the next one you can expand your farm/hunting/gathering grounds and then leave it to your kids - while otherwise you won’t have enough food for all the kids and your DNA is in danger of not getting passed on.
In our modern world we mostly have plenty of food (and when we don’t lack of land is not the issue), but that isn’t what our DNA is evolved to “think”
For most of history you would be better off if you could kill the next village over.
That is an incredibly stupid take. For most of history, the planet was so vast that people had plenty of room to hunt / farm / whatever.
And no, killing other humans is not in our DNA, the only people who feel like that are those with brain damage / development defects.
Most of the planet was not accessable. It was there but your local population grew until the land couldn’t support more. There wasn’t much opportunity to move as the surronding villages had the same problem.
of course when a famon came you got a few generations of peace here and there
And some would argue that WW1 was WW2 and WW2 WAS WW3. The 7 years war/French and Indian (not French vs Indian) war are commonly referred to as the real first world war. And then the Nepoleonic wars are similarly thought of by some to have been a world war of sorts
WWI was called the great war, and the war to end all wars until WWII broke out. I sometimes call WWII just the great war part 2 - the treaties that “ended” WWI were clearly setup (on hindsight!) to make the war break out again in the future when Germany got sick of those treaties.
The point is names are added after the fact and often don’t make a lot of sense if you know details.
He was right for the wrong reasons. He believed the treaty was too lenient, when in retrospect it seems pretty clear that the punitive nature of the treaty was a significant factor in Hitler rising to power and then WW2 starting.
Pretty asymmetric that isn’t it. On one side you have a nation that is rapidly running out of, well basically everything, and on the other side you’ve got an alliance of nation states which contain among many other things the largest most powerful military on the planet.
Finally the nation that is running out of resources is now getting military support from quite possibly the worst place they could get it from.
It’s going to be one of those ridiculous situations that only happens in Civilization, where you’re bombing cavemen with nukes because your adversary has failed to advance through the tech tree fast enough.
Unfortunately China is not running out of everything and they are looking like they might back Russia here. Iran is also backing Russia and not to be underestimated.
The Korean War had over a million NATO troops and also tens of thousands of Soviet troops and, somehow, remained a proxy war. A particularly bloody one, but there was still no actual open full-scale warfare between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Even China and America remained officially at peace, despite making up the majority of the forces on each side
Apologies, I was using “NATO troops” as a shorthand for the large number of countries involved rather than the specific command structure. You are right to bring that up
Russia is actively in Syria from the end of 2015 as an official belligerent, it’s not something new for Russia to fight directly while others use only proxies.
But I can see your point; still - officially - this is only a three days military operation. When that stance will finally change in the official channels, it will mean they can’t hold the mask anymore.
To me, it does not seem wise to just let these two continue along this path, but I am certain there are numerous internet experts out there who can explain to me why we should not intervene.
What can “the west” really do to prevent or stop troops from NK being sent to the Ukraine front?
Stop sabotaging peace talks, pressure Ukraine to accept the terms as they exist now before they get worse, lift the sanctions on North Korea in order to incentivize them to integrate with the rest of the world, withdraw US military equipment from South Korea. Kim Jong Un is often presented in American news like a crazy person, but truthfully he (and the rest of the actors in the North Korean state) is a rational actor and the “hermit kingdom” is not an aspirational goal of the DPRK but a state of affairs that has been forced upon them by decades of sanctions and isolation - give them a reason to be neutral, and assurances that they won’t be stabbed in the back (as they have been in previous deals with Western countries), and there’s a good chance they’ll take it.
Hmmm. While that would technically stop Russia from needing the troops in Ukraine, I don’t think that just giving a dictator sections of land because he claimed them is a good path.
“Just give up when I take your shit” is a shit take.
Ukraine had an opportunity to keep the Donbas by implementing the Minsk Agreements. Zelensky literally ran on the promise of ending the war and implementing the agreements. This path was not chosen by Russia, it was chosen by the Ukrainians, who refused to reconcile with their Russian-speaking minority groups. With every passing day, the deal will only get worse for the Ukrainians, and the sooner they accept the better the deal they will get.
But instead America and Europe are ready to do whatever it takes to throw every single Ukrainian body directly into Russian (and North Korean) artillery.
Nobody’s average soldier age is 45. Has nothing to do NK being rock bottom in country rankings. And the younger you are in NK, the more you are probably screwed.
Plus, North Korea may be poor by western standards, but they have a lot of comforts that many third world countries lack, so even if you discount my example they’re still not the worst by a wide margin.
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging rocket fire, and Israel is talking about a ground invasion.
Hezbollah has a defense treaty with Iran, Iraq, Russia, and another ME country I’m blanking on.
If Israel invaded Lebanon in an attack on Hezbollah, that draws in Russia, and likely NK.
Israel and Russia are the two countries invading others that I believe are the primary drivers towards WW3. NK is just a long for the ride until/unless they launch an attack on SK.
But I think before that happens, we’ll solidly be in WW3. I think NK is onboard now, with the promise to be backed against SK later. No one is attack NK unless NK starts some shit, they don’t need a defense treaty.
I honestly think he might legitimately believe that a couple platoons of NK soldiers will clear this whole mess right up and then the world will have to take them seriously.
The North Korean leadership is not exactly well known for their excellent grasp of reality.
It never leads anywhere though. North Korea has always been fobbed off with decades-old technology,it’s not like they will know.
So everyone continues to ignore them because they continue not to be a threat. It’s not in Russia’s interest to give them anything really advanced, assuming they have anything left to give them. The best thing Russia could give them would be infrastructure engineers but they’re probably not interested in their own populace enough to consider that a worthy exchange.
I hope everyone that keeps down voting me for talking about WW3 are right…
But man, it really is starting to look like WW3
a yes, one country against the entire world, truly the ww3 of all times, we downvote your take is stupid
People forgot how long it took the other world wars to really get rolling. (Presumably because they weren’t alive when it happened.)
I’m also of the opinion that unless something happens to de-escalate this conflict it will inevitably draw Europe, the US, and China in.
It didn’t take long at all for WW1 to get rolling.
June 28, 1914 Archduke Francis Ferdinand is assassinated.
July 28, 1914 Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia, beginning World War I
WW1 has an insane pace compared to WW2. Battles where a single day has casualty numbers that compare to an entire month past D-day.
Everybody is already in and picked the side…
We just waiting for the other shoe to drop… Is US Marines landing in Crimea or other wild scenario where everyone goes: " well damn and that’s how it turned into ww3"
We are also hoping it doesn’t turn into WWIII. It could for sure, but there is the possibility that things can calm down in a few years.
I hope it won’t. Afterall I have CK3 campaign to finish.
The Somme, part two: Rasputitsa
They also forget about the 4+1 treaty.
If Israel expands to other countries, it would draw Russia in on their side, and the US on Israel’s
Which now also brings NK in. And we’ve got a multi front multi country war with two distinct fronts.
People might not call it WW3, but there’s a world war coming straight ahead, and as good of a movie as it was, I dont want to recreate the Titanic
They didn’t start calling WWII what it is until 1944, but I think we can all agree it didn’t start in 1944.
Just like later historians placed the start of WWII on multiple different events depending on which country you’re in, the start of World War III will be long before we start calling it that.
I’m in the camp that the start of WW3 will be the Russian invasion of Ukraine if things continue to escalate the way they’re going, because that’s when you really started seeing lines being drawn between the axis and allies.
Russia, China, Iran, and NK are the most recognizable names that have aligned themselves with the axis so far.
The lines are already drawn and future events will dictate whether or not we’re currently living in WW3 today.
Also, the winners will interprete who gets to be the axis and who gets to be the allies in history books…
Pretty sure Iran adopted “Axis of Resistance” already. Least they already know what side they are on.
Really getting sick of people deciding to just like…starting shit instead of focusing on constructive competitions like science or space races to other planets. Why do people feel the need to kill the shit out of each other and subjugate their population whilst climate change is bearing down on us? :p
I am also sick to the core about this aspect of humanity. I feel that we as a species are just about developed enough to understand how a better world would look like, and how people should act, what’s “the right thing to do” - and very much not developed enough to overcome our egoism and narcissism to make it happen, so we do the wrong thing despite knowing better far too often.
For most of history you would be better off if you could kill the next village over. You want to be friends with the people in your village, but if you kill the next one you can expand your farm/hunting/gathering grounds and then leave it to your kids - while otherwise you won’t have enough food for all the kids and your DNA is in danger of not getting passed on.
In our modern world we mostly have plenty of food (and when we don’t lack of land is not the issue), but that isn’t what our DNA is evolved to “think”
That is an incredibly stupid take. For most of history, the planet was so vast that people had plenty of room to hunt / farm / whatever. And no, killing other humans is not in our DNA, the only people who feel like that are those with brain damage / development defects.
Most of the planet was not accessable. It was there but your local population grew until the land couldn’t support more. There wasn’t much opportunity to move as the surronding villages had the same problem.
of course when a famon came you got a few generations of peace here and there
And some would argue that WW1 was WW2 and WW2 WAS WW3. The 7 years war/French and Indian (not French vs Indian) war are commonly referred to as the real first world war. And then the Nepoleonic wars are similarly thought of by some to have been a world war of sorts
WWI was called the great war, and the war to end all wars until WWII broke out. I sometimes call WWII just the great war part 2 - the treaties that “ended” WWI were clearly setup (on hindsight!) to make the war break out again in the future when Germany got sick of those treaties.
The point is names are added after the fact and often don’t make a lot of sense if you know details.
Ferdinand Foch, 1921
He was right for the wrong reasons. He believed the treaty was too lenient, when in retrospect it seems pretty clear that the punitive nature of the treaty was a significant factor in Hitler rising to power and then WW2 starting.
For sure, I know allll about that stuff (former history teacher)
To me it looks like N Korea wanting to acquire some direct combat experience to continue to develop their skills and capabilities.
But yes, personally I was not expecting this.
Skill acquired: cannon fodder
The truth is, we don’t fucking know. No expert would tell you that Russia is ready to invade Ukraine, and here we go.
I’m not an expert either and I could have predicted the invasion based on:
I wasn’t even an expert but I knew they would do that just by distribution of military. Did not expect Civ 5 to be accurate, tho
Be careful here. Experts would tell you that Russia was going to invade Ukraine. However as you say Russia wasn’t ready for it.
Pretty asymmetric that isn’t it. On one side you have a nation that is rapidly running out of, well basically everything, and on the other side you’ve got an alliance of nation states which contain among many other things the largest most powerful military on the planet.
Finally the nation that is running out of resources is now getting military support from quite possibly the worst place they could get it from.
It’s going to be one of those ridiculous situations that only happens in Civilization, where you’re bombing cavemen with nukes because your adversary has failed to advance through the tech tree fast enough.
Unfortunately China is not running out of everything and they are looking like they might back Russia here. Iran is also backing Russia and not to be underestimated.
Not really, proxy wars have been fought with multiple nations before.
… practically everyone was in Syria… Russia, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Armenia, Qatar, The USA, ISIS, Al-queda, and Syrian forces.
Not exactly a proxy war when Russian troops are personally in Ukraine. That’s just a war.
It’s not a proxy war between Russia and the US. It’s a proxy war between China and the US.
Russia and Ukraine are the pawns
The Korean War had over a million NATO troops and also tens of thousands of Soviet troops and, somehow, remained a proxy war. A particularly bloody one, but there was still no actual open full-scale warfare between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Even China and America remained officially at peace, despite making up the majority of the forces on each side
The Korean War was led by the UN. NATO wasn’t involved.
Apologies, I was using “NATO troops” as a shorthand for the large number of countries involved rather than the specific command structure. You are right to bring that up
Russia is actively in Syria from the end of 2015 as an official belligerent, it’s not something new for Russia to fight directly while others use only proxies.
But I can see your point; still - officially - this is only a
three daysmilitary operation. When that stance will finally change in the official channels, it will mean they can’t hold the mask anymore.It’s a proxy war because the two major powers are fighting in an area neither of them own.
Iraq was a proxy war, even though US troops were there.
How was Iraq a proxy war?
Because Russia was funding one side, ask George Bush senior.
I’d say not since Russia is trying to directly annex those portions of Ukraine. How is that a proxy?
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To me, it does not seem wise to just let these two continue along this path, but I am certain there are numerous internet experts out there who can explain to me why we should not intervene.
How would you propose the intervention happen? Sit Kim down and say “bad boy, stop it”?
What can “the west” really do to prevent or stop troops from NK being sent to the Ukraine front?
Russia isn’t going to stop them from crossing their border.
Stop sabotaging peace talks, pressure Ukraine to accept the terms as they exist now before they get worse, lift the sanctions on North Korea in order to incentivize them to integrate with the rest of the world, withdraw US military equipment from South Korea. Kim Jong Un is often presented in American news like a crazy person, but truthfully he (and the rest of the actors in the North Korean state) is a rational actor and the “hermit kingdom” is not an aspirational goal of the DPRK but a state of affairs that has been forced upon them by decades of sanctions and isolation - give them a reason to be neutral, and assurances that they won’t be stabbed in the back (as they have been in previous deals with Western countries), and there’s a good chance they’ll take it.
Hmmm. While that would technically stop Russia from needing the troops in Ukraine, I don’t think that just giving a dictator sections of land because he claimed them is a good path.
“Just give up when I take your shit” is a shit take.
Ukraine had an opportunity to keep the Donbas by implementing the Minsk Agreements. Zelensky literally ran on the promise of ending the war and implementing the agreements. This path was not chosen by Russia, it was chosen by the Ukrainians, who refused to reconcile with their Russian-speaking minority groups. With every passing day, the deal will only get worse for the Ukrainians, and the sooner they accept the better the deal they will get.
But instead America and Europe are ready to do whatever it takes to throw every single Ukrainian body directly into Russian (and North Korean) artillery.
“They could have not gotten invaded if they just gave up their rights to protect themselves!”
Drop leaflets on them inviting them to surrender and upgrade their lives to South Korean national.
Considering that North Korean defectors are a heavily discriminated against minority in South Korea, this is unlikely to be an attractive offer.
Considering that North Korea is literally the worse country in the world to live it, this is super likely to be an attractive offer.
worst* in*
And I dunno about that. North Korea’s average soldier age isn’t forty-five.
Nobody’s average soldier age is 45. Has nothing to do NK being rock bottom in country rankings. And the younger you are in NK, the more you are probably screwed.
The average age of Ukrainian soldiers fighting Russia is 43-45. Ukraine is almost certainly the worst developed country to live in right now.
Plus, North Korea may be poor by western standards, but they have a lot of comforts that many third world countries lack, so even if you discount my example they’re still not the worst by a wide margin.
To be honest that’s likely the most effective. Though not very effective compared to threats against family.
You mean Russia and NK?
Or you meant the two countries in the middle of illegal invasions: Russia and Israel?
Fuck Israel, but that being said what the hell does Israel have to do with anything here?
Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging rocket fire, and Israel is talking about a ground invasion.
Hezbollah has a defense treaty with Iran, Iraq, Russia, and another ME country I’m blanking on.
If Israel invaded Lebanon in an attack on Hezbollah, that draws in Russia, and likely NK.
Israel and Russia are the two countries invading others that I believe are the primary drivers towards WW3. NK is just a long for the ride until/unless they launch an attack on SK.
But I think before that happens, we’ll solidly be in WW3. I think NK is onboard now, with the promise to be backed against SK later. No one is attack NK unless NK starts some shit, they don’t need a defense treaty.
Israel would solo Russia ggez.
It looks more like Crimean War II to me.
I’m wondering what Kim gets from this though?
I honestly think he might legitimately believe that a couple platoons of NK soldiers will clear this whole mess right up and then the world will have to take them seriously.
The North Korean leadership is not exactly well known for their excellent grasp of reality.
My thought is maybe either food or arms or research for arms production/nukes from the Russians.
Edit Addendum: the article says as much actually lol. This is what I get for just trying to get an idea of NK actions from the title.
It never leads anywhere though. North Korea has always been fobbed off with decades-old technology,it’s not like they will know.
So everyone continues to ignore them because they continue not to be a threat. It’s not in Russia’s interest to give them anything really advanced, assuming they have anything left to give them. The best thing Russia could give them would be infrastructure engineers but they’re probably not interested in their own populace enough to consider that a worthy exchange.