War, Piracy and Cars

[chris_gerrib]

Like the label on the tin says.

War: I see that North Korea decided to shell South Korea. I really have no idea what the North is thinking. Are they trying to start a war? Sure looks like it to me.

Piracy: So, the first US piracy case in nearly 200 years is in the hands of the jury. Per the article, deliberations won't start until after Thanksgiving. BTW, for anybody that says "in the Good Old Days (tm) we used to hang them!" please note that the last US piracy trial was held in 1819. So, we did used to hang pirates, but they got a trial first.

Cars: Apparently Rush Limbaugh is upset that the Chevy Volt was awarded Motor Trend's Car of the Year. Well, the Motor Trend people are not amused. The most humorous part of the article? If you can stop shilling for your favorite political party long enough to go for a drive, you might really enjoy the Chevy Volt. I’m sure GM would be happy to lend you one for the weekend. Just remember: driving and Oxycontin don’t mix.

Comments

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

I see that North Korea decided to shell South Korea. I really have no idea what the North is thinking. Are they trying to start a war? Sure looks like it to me.

North Korea wants tribute from South Korea and the United States of America. This is at least semi-rational behavior for them because we have established a track record of appeasement. This will only begin to change when we punish rather than reward them for their actions, and, unfortunately, the cost of doing so has increased because we have tolerated their behavior long enough that Kim Jong Il now has atomic weapons of some sort.

BTW, for anybody that says "in the Good Old Days (tm) we used to hang them!" please note that the last US piracy trial was held in 1819. So, we did used to hang pirates, but they got a trial first.

Well yes, of course. That was something we got from the English legal system.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

Protection rackets only work if paying is cheaper than resisting. Now that South Korea is down one corvette and dead civilians, I doubt they'll be in a mood to pay.

I could be wrong - I expected Northern ships to be sunk in retaliation for the previous incident.

The Bully and His Larger Victim

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Protection rackets only work if paying is cheaper than resisting. Now that South Korea is down one corvette and dead civilians, I doubt they'll be in a mood to pay.

Even if North Korea has no functional nuclear weapons, the price of resisting to be paid by the South might include the levelling of Seoul by conventional bombardment. The problem with South Korea's traditional appeasement is that they have set up a pattern of expectations on the part of the North that the appeasement will continue.

Tribute has become part of the North's psychological "territory," so if the tribute is discontinued then the North will react as you or I would if a stranger broke into our home and started making demands on us, which is to say with righteous fury. They may also assume that the South, having shown itself cowardly during decades of continued provocation, won't really mean it when if the South says that it won't yield this time.

Consider a bully hitting you up for lunch money. If you treat this as an attempted mugging the first time and fight back, he is unlikely to try to get your lunch money again (unless you fight very ineffectually), because you've demonstrated that the cost of your lunch money will at a minimum be having to fight you.

If you're in fact bigger and stronger than the bully, the cost will be a painful humiliation for him, and he won't even get the lunch money. Indeed, if the bully can see that you are bigger and stronger than him, his demand is almost certainly a bluff: he is unlikely to attack you if you refuse him the money.

By contrast, if you give the bully the lunch money again and again, and then one day refuse the tribute, the bully feels that he is being deprived of his due. Even if you are bigger and stronger than him, he will see himself as "fighting back" against your unprovoked aggression of denying him his rightful tribute.

This is a dangerous situation, because once someone considers tribute from you his right, he may escalate to extreme means in righteous indignation. For instance, the bully might bring a knife or gun to the next confrontation, even though he knows that the price of using it to him may be severe, because he feels that he must punish you for your denial of his right as a point of honor. He would probably not have done so had you resisted him on your first encounter.

The case of North and South Korea is especially interesting in this regard. In the beginning (1950), North Korea was much stronger than South Korea, and hence the bully was bigger than his intended victim. South Korea grew, while North Korea stayed roughly the same size, in terms of wealth and might.

It is as if the bully started picking on his victim when both were in the third grade, but the bully's growth was stunted while the victim had a growth spurt. Now, in the sixth grade, the bully is a pathetic little shrimp; his victim a husky young man: but the habits of victimization were not unlearned.

At each encounter, South Korea backed down because the short-term cost of giving in to North Korean demands was less than the short-term cost of war with North Korea. So now, North Korea expects South Korean tribute as a right, and the long-term costs of appeasement are revealed. Now, the pathetic little shrimp bully considers the lunch money his right and due, and is prepared to shoot the husky young man should he resist.

All I can say is that South Korea should fight, and fight before North Korea upgrades its BB gun to a .44 magnum.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

We're stuck between a rock and a hard place with Korean and I wish I could think of a sane solution. If the Koreans didn't have a stubborn streak about the width of the peninsula and had ensured that their core manufacturing, industry and everything else was in the South of the country this wouldn't be such a problem.

The issue is more that in leveling Seoul you can take out Seowon City too which is, to all intents and purposes, Samsung and LG are similarly close.

That's a non-trivial proportion of the worlds consumer electronics supplies even today.

The north are pretty aware of this and are probably seeing how far they can push things before the Chinese make them stop again...

There's currently no sane full out war scenario that doesn't frag a chunk of the global economy at the same time.