Ignoring your evident ignorance of military affairs and your unwillingness to think seriously about them (The British Navy coming to shop? Come on, the MoD is having its budget cut and the RN is very well lucky to keep what it has. The RN is not in the market to buy, not after allocations for the JSF and the new carrier).

While a nice idea, your plan is flawed: unlike the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin, and indeed its sphere of influence, authority is not distributed in North Korea. Kim Jong Il appears to be the only person with any power to coerce in the country, which is to say, he is the only person with control over the security forces. Thus, there can be no question of "splits within the leadership" that such humanitarian actions would produce because that leadership is completely unitary.

There is the question then of, what happens next? So what if the people of the DPRK actually get a decent meal for the first time in ages? They very well can't revolt; Kim's security forces have all the guns. The only way they can really win is if some parts of the security forces defect to the other side. The only way that would happen is if they got a better deal from the opposition than Kim, which just doesn't seem likely: better to remain at the top of a small mountain than possibly getting caught in an avalanche while ascending Everest.

So, beyond the usual garbage, a nice pie in the sky idea. Though workable if the security forces are disloyal, which appears doubtful.

You can tell who is not a US taxpayer.

Let's send them all our garbage. They can recycle the paper, metal and plastic and make a few dollars. For the rest, we'll help them build a methane plant for energy.

This will serve two purposes: it will keep America beautiful; and, it will teach the N. Koreans the benefits of capitalism.

I continue to wonder how it is possible for the writers (Perry and Carter) to actually believe some of the things they've said.

If only we would put our extra Naval and Air forces in the region... then we could "make its (North Korea's) defeat swifter and less costly in lives". Are you kidding me? Has anyone been watching Iraq? Afghanistan anyone? Just where do these forces come from? C'mon, make the article complete and discuss how we'd be greeted as liberators.

When I read opinions such as these, I used to believe that they were exercises in flexing our muscle... sometimes appropriate, sometimes not. Nowadays, when I see this sort of simplistic, unrealistic strategy complete with doomsday scenario and clearly incomplete analysis, I feel that these are indications of weakness. In a world where so many of our tools of influence have become ineffective, I suppose this is what we are left with.

For those who are reading this and work in the world of business I ask you... could you successfully promote a strategy in your business without seriously considering the impacts on your finances, employees, customers and partners? Could you survive without a clear understanding of your company's objectives and a clear understanding of how your tactics will enable you to meet them? The answer is no. I wish our government had the same contraints on policy decisions.

It is obvious that U.S. Imperialism has reached the peak of its impasse after its misadventure in Iraq. It botched the war on terror, got stuck up in the quagmire of Iraq, after three years of huffing and bluffing against Iran is ready to sit down with it for negotiations. Talk of preemptive strike against North Korea only gives the impotent monster a temporary feeling of superiority. Only hope that an 80 year old dictator south of us dies and given an opportunity to history to demonstrate how out of touch with 21st century this imperialsi mindset has been

Well, yes. It's true that modern warfare is mainly a search for justifications to pour vast amounts of taxpayer funds into open-ended secret weapons programs with no oversight. Think Halliburton. We really have no idea how our money is being spent [except that Dick Cheney has made $90 million from his Hallubrton stock options since the Iraq occupation started].

If war-profiteering is legal, and indeed, encouraged, what is there to stop any country from rushing into every encounter and engagement possible? Especially if the soldiers dying are all from the working class? What do our ruling elites care about that?

He has a point you know?

Nice, but naive. Keep trying.