Is China's 200,000,000 man army the REAL reason why Bush is backing off from a confrontation with North Korea?

Question

Why is Bush so bellicose with Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, but soft-pedaling his differences with the most dangerous rogue State of all, North Korea?

Apparently, most of you do not know anything about the Korean War in the early 1950's. The United States had plently of reasons to be afraid of the Communist Chinese army then because they caused the longest military retreat in the history of the U.S. Army. Incidentally, this war is not over because a peace treaty has never been signed.

Answer 1

I don't think it's backing off so much as giving the diplomacy route a chance. A lot has to do with the apparent world view of the United States as bullies. From all that I've heard NK is still a couple years away from posing a real threat. What they are doing now amounts to insult as much as anything...plus the fact that they are clearly demonstrating a goal to be in a position to threaten us in the future. China is a consideration but I don't think it's a matter of fearing China.....it's fearing what could potentially be a massive nuclear exchange. Personally though I am afraid the world will let China minimize the threat NK poses and will back down. I hope not...and I hope we don't back down either. Once we back down to China we'll be backing down forever.

Answer 2

If only the answer was so simple. There are actually several reasons why a war with North Korea will probably not take place.

Basically, it's a damned if we do, damned if we don't situation. If we DO attack North Korea before they make any kind of preemptive strike, we could risk alienating countries in the UN who could have helped us deal with this and other global threats. We risk alienating China - which is bad not because of their army, but because of the billions of dollars they fuel into our economy through global trade each year. One more thing. Right now, the US has very few troops to spare - even in the countries we already occupy, our fighting men and women are spread very thin. Some solders are on their 3rd or 4th deployment. Logistically, this means that we do not have the fire power necessary to start another war against North Korea.

If we DON'T confront North Korea - well, I think the possible doomsday scenario speaks for itself.

Basically, politicians must decide which action (DO or DON'T) has the greatest risk of a disaster at the end of the day. Right now, the risk of doing something outweighs the potential risk of doing nothing. Until that situation changes, we will not issue a strike against North Korea.

Answer 3

If you don't remember, Iraq was playing games with the weapons inspectors for many years before we liberated the people there. We are not at war with the country of afghanistan, but certain people that are in the country.

The way Bush is treating Iran and North Korea are very similar.

China's large army is only capable of defending their country. They can not afford to sustain such a large army if they were to attack another, so I don't think fear of attack from china has much do to with it.

In case you havn't noticed, Bush has done everything he can to avoid physical confrontation with everyone.

How many times did saddam have to turn away U.N. inspectors before they should have used force? The only reason the U.N. did not vote to use force was because countries like russia and france had oil contracts with Iraq, and did not want to jeopardize them. Bush decided the safety of our country, and the world was more important than oil contracts.

Answer 4

It's not the army. They don't have a sufficient air force or navy to get their army here to harm us. The US would beat them in any ground war because of better weaponry anyways.

It's the nuclear weapons and the economic power. If they stopped making stuff for us, our prices would go up really high, really fast.

Answer 5

No Army is a threat anymore against Navel and Air power! Bush wants cheap goods for cheap labor!

Answer 6

1. He does not want to give NK a reason to invade the south;
2. NK is not like Iraq; its people support the idiot dictator and there is no war option with NK other then strategic strikes on targets - but those might incite the dictator to attack SK.

China has nothing to do with it; all Bush is doing is asking them to help and we get to see if they want to help us or don't give a darn....my guess is its the later.

Answer 7

Because North Korea can be brought down without war because they have no natural resources to speak of.

Answer 8

Kim is a rather unstable person and might do anything.

China is a consideration, but may not get involved if Korea strikes first.

Answer 9

because thier is no oil in north korea

Answer 10

no. He is waiting for China to do something about it. Plus we can't spread our troops too thin.