http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11840385

- Interesting article, especially as no one has yet commented on the recent crisis with the Koreas.

The article didnt really seem to have much of a point, other than I guess to say "this is gunboat diplomacy of the 21st Century". Not really sure why that would be any revelation, the US has been using aircraft carriers as a diplomacy tool for over 50 years now - as the author even notes in the article.

So, was there much of a point in this article besides reiterating things that are already known, and have been known for a long time now?

As far as the author's hints about China working on anti-carrier missiles, it's already pretty easy to kill a carrier - submarines sneak close to carriers all the time in wargames and do silly things like fire flares across the carrier's deck. One modern torpedo can sink a carrier, disturbingly quickly too...

Probably because publicly available information about what's going on in Korea in the last few days has varied from nonexistent to pointlessly hyperbolic.

The carrier was going to be there anyway as part of an annual exercise. For the US, its best for us at the short term to just keep things at business as usual with an eventual draw down out of that region. China is not going to tolerate us in their neighborhood for too much longer as they gain more and more economic leverage on their more Western friendly neighbors. Which really means...this is Asia's problem. Not ours.

Otherwise, the whole situation is a hopeless stalemate...which is actually the most stable for everyone. The US military could probably even pull completely out of the region tomorrow to friendlier territory such as Australia or even Guam and not much would change.

'So, was there much of a point in this article besides reiterating things that are already known, and have been known for a long time now?'

- Oh, I'm so fucking sorry this didn't rock your world.

I honestly think military exercises and presence may have more of a bearing than we think, Lumm. Gunboat diplomacy has worked throughout the ages, whether it's a Roman Legion or a British steamboat, or a US carrier. It's not the physical presence of the power, but the ability to project itself which carries such diplomatic weight, IMO.

I'm using this thread as a catch-all for what happened in North Korea, so apologies in advance.

Were the North Koreans claiming that the island they fired on belonged to them? I still haven't heard a reported reason as to why they started shooting, just that it happened.

The South has a military detachment on the island and were holding an exercise. Apparently that is all that was needed to provoke the North.

Oh, I'm so fucking sorry this didn't rock your world.
It was a straight up serious question - did I miss something in the article? A simple "no" would have sufficed I think...

Apologies if this isn't informative enough for Jensae, but here's an interesting article, a la the recent leaks, on China thinking Koreas should unify under Seoul:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11871641

That particular leaked document was something long speculated, namely that while the old guard in the Chinese political establishment think of the Kim dictatorship as their retarded ally, the newer generation of leaders have much stronger feelings towards Seoul, which they see as a mutually beneficial friendship. I'm hoping this spells the eventual end of one of the worst theocracies of personality in history.