August 21, 2017

Nuclear enthusiasm posters from North Korea.



More at "With Color and Fury, Anti-American Posters Appear in North Korea" (NYT).
“What is typical in these posters is the image of an undaunted, fierce North Korea that is not fazed by the moves by the United States or the United Nations,” Koen de Ceuster, an expert on North Korea at Leiden University in the Netherlands, told Reuters.

“It reinforces the images of the strides North Korea made in missile capability,” he said, “and how North Korea is undaunted by any challenges to its sovereignty.”

49 comments:

Bay Area Guy said...

Ahh, North Korea - the bastion of the Communist world. What a rotten system, and a rotten place.

Rob said...

I know about Korean explosives. I've had the kim chi.

rhhardin said...

The North Koreans have great newsbabes.

The look-up-her-dress leggy Fox format is so yesterday.

Fernandinande said...

The missiles symbolize horses because Koreans have the smallest horses in the world.

Laslo Spatula said...

Interesting color scheme. The sea-green of the earth and the blue atmosphere in the upper half make it seem almost tranquil.

The blue color of the Korean lettering at the bottom -- as opposed to a bold red or orange -- gives it the feel of the advertising for some home cleaning product.

North Korea: now with three-times the stain-fighting power as before.

I am Laslo.

David Begley said...

Five egregious things wrong with this poster.

Ann Althouse said...

"Five egregious things wrong with this poster."

1. It's a beautiful poster about killing everyone.

2. It comes right out and expresses what all countries with nuclear weapons are really thinking.

3. The writing is completely illegible. One can only imagine what it says, which actually isn't that hard.

4. You can't tell whether they're getting Alaska.

5. Not quite threatening enough. Seems almost fun, like a 4th of July celebration.

Larry J said...

As a general rule, when someone says he wants to kill you, it's a good idea to take him seriously. As with most things, when it comes to nuclear weapons, it's better to give than to receive.

Gahrie said...

North Korea is still at war with the United States, even if we pretend that we aren't at war with North Korea.

tcrosse said...

A fair response to the rising tide of White Supremacist Nationalism which is engulfing the nation.

Dave D said...

Interesting that they seem to think that ONLY the US would get wiped out in an attack. M(utually) A(ssured) D(estruction) seems to not be in their thinking as a likely result.

Humperdink said...

I suspect the poster creator has succumbed by now from unnatural causes. The missiles appear to be launched from the somewhere in the Antarctic. North Korea is just out there in left field in a docile state.

J. Farmer said...

As I have said in previous threads, North Korea's nuclear threats against the USA are largely for domestic consumption. Now would be a great time to tell the South Koreans that they are now a rich, industrialized nation, and it's time they take full responsibility for providing for their own defense. No US national interests are served by policing the border between the North and the South. But of course, even as I am writing this, I can already hear the cliché counterarguments ("appeasement," "capitulation," "emboldening the enemy," "credibility"). Of course we have to believe that we face constant, existential threats around the globe in order to justify our bloated, lumbering, largely unnecessary military apparatus.

rehajm said...

Fine examples of the TV Batman motif or the Stan Lee school.

Kevin said...

Five egregious things wrong with this poster.

6. USA entirely blown up but missiles still inbound. Why waste a second strike?
7. Shows more ICBM's launching than NorKo currently has.
8. Shows missiles coming from Southwest rather than a polar Northwest trajectory.
9. Missiles not coming from pink NorKo on map, but somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere.
10. No inbound missiles to NorKo from US silos, bombers or submarines.

Bonus: All of Korea pink, insinuating the South was involved in the attack.

Rusty said...

JF
Go back and read what I have already written on the subject.
Believe me. We know N.Korea poses no real threat to the US. No one is making that arguement.
The threat is to the balance of power in the area.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

Appear? If every day since 1950 is just now appearing. Remember when Trump wanted to start a nuclear war with North Korea? It seems like just....last week.

Kevin said...

Fine examples of the TV Batman motif or the Stan Lee school.

We need The Hulk rising from the US and punching the missiles out of the sky! SMASH!

buwaya said...

Rusty is right.
And the nukes (and the constantly threatening/aggressive conventional stance) aren't for domestic consumption. They are to keep the NK economic model viable. The regime exists by extorting "aid" from its neighbors, especially South Korea.

Ann Althouse said...

"Interesting that they seem to think that ONLY the US would get wiped out in an attack. M(utually) A(ssured) D(estruction) seems to not be in their thinking as a likely result."

I disagree. I think their expression is completely consistent with the idea that they want to be perceived as participants in a MADD standoff so no one will ever attack them.

mockturtle said...

Freudian alert: Kim clearly suffers from penis envy.

CWJ said...

What has not been mentioned thus far that I noticed immediately is that the Noth Koreans portray themselves not as North Korea, but as Noth and South together as one country. Perhaps the most important message in the poster. Everything else follows from this geographical conceit.

Balfegor said...

3. The writing is completely illegible. One can only imagine what it says, which actually isn't that hard.

Wot? it clearly says "The Entirety of the US Mainland" "Is Within our Firing Area!"

Rusty said...

Ann.
I think even his generals are too smart for that. They know they'ed get exactly one chance to launch. It isn't a vacuum. There are plenty of missiles pointed their way too.
No. I think this is N Korea's effort to gain parity with the big players in the area.
"Now they have to take us seriously." kind of thing.

Balfegor said...

Also, while we're critiquing this poster, I don't care for the font choice for 미본토전역이 at the top -- the paintbrush-y effect doesn't match well with the polish of the rest of the presentation. Actually, the typography in general is not great. Why is the top off centre? They could just have done so much more with this . . . the image is solid, but the typography lacks impact.

Fernandinande said...

Laslo Spatula said...
Interesting color scheme.


For some weird reason I thought at first that the blue represented water, and that the Norcs were fantasizing about blowing up some f-jords in Finland.

FullMoon said...
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Ray - SoCal said...

NK is not a threat yet to the US mainland...

The tech transfer of rocket motors, either Ukraine or Russia, is changing that.

But what if by ship? Any harbor city is at risk.

Ray - SoCal said...

Leaflets have been replaced by memory sticks or dvd's with Korean soap operas. Smuggled in have been very popular.

David Begley said...

Thank you Barack, Hillary, JFK, Susan Rice and Ben Rhodes for this. We are also grateful for your GREAT work in the Middle East and Iran.

Kevin said...

Maybe some old fashioned leaflet dropping countering what NK govt tells their citizens would be beneficial.

That was during wartime. You can't fly over some country's airspace and drop leaflets without their permission.

The best we have is Voice of America: "David Jackson, former director of Voice of America, noted: "The North Korean government doesn't jam us, but they try to keep people from listening through intimidation or worse. But people figure out ways to listen despite the odds. They're very resourceful."

I'm not sure how well "it's very bright here at night and our stores are full of food" translates over the radio.

You can see why Kim keeps a tight control on his country's internet access.

Trumpit said...

I live on the California coast near a naval base. I predict that I will die if it comes to a nuclear war with North Korea. That will be the total eclipse of everything.

My suggestion is for the U.S. military to leave North-East Asia. Japan & So. Korea are rich countries and can afford to defend themselves at this point. I would give them all the weapons, including nuclear missiles, that they want. I'd turn over to them all our military bases.

I don't like nuclear weapons or nuclear proliferation. However, No. Korea and Japan are established stable democracies, and they must be able to defend themselves against a belligerent, threatening nuclear-armed country run by a 33-year-old dictator.

For what reason should the U.S. fight a second war, a nuclear war, on the Korean peninsula? It's time to hightail it out of there. He'll soon be able to destroy the mainland U.S. just as his colorful propaganda posters promise - by the push of a button.

FullMoon said...
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RichardJohnson said...

FullMoon:
Maybe some old fashioned leaflet dropping countering what NK govt tells their citizens would be beneficial.
Pictures of South Korean supermarkets full of food, average people with lights on at night. Simple stuff to make NK citizens question their(apparent) beliefs and make them envious and dissatisfied.


From what I have read, I get the impression that the NK populace is pretty well aware of SK's prosperity. After all, SK has had high economic growth for decades. From the World Bank : GDP per capita growth (annual %) for SK has averaged 6% a year since 1970. Word gets around-even in the Hermit Kingdom. Over the years there have been plenty of DVDs smuggled from China which indicate prosperity in SK- and China. From what I have read, NK border guards much prefer cash money to ideological purity, which is why the DVD traffic continues.

I recall reading that in the Soviet Union there was some newsreel about the US which was supposed to show the horrid condition of the oppressed poor or the injustice of the US or something. That the oppressed poor in the US were pretty well-dressed - it may have been just the shoes- caught the attention of Soviet viewers.

RichardJohnson said...

Bing Search: leaflet dropping on North Korea.

Todd said...

RichardJohnson said...

I recall reading that in the Soviet Union there was some newsreel about the US which was supposed to show the horrid condition of the oppressed poor or the injustice of the US or something. That the oppressed poor in the US were pretty well-dressed - it may have been just the shoes- caught the attention of Soviet viewers.

8/21/17, 10:53 AM


I recall reading/seeing the same thing. The story I remember was that the USSR would show old news reel footage of the race riots in America to demonstrate how much in turmoil the country was, where as the take-away for the viewers was "look, even the rioters have new shoes!"

Kevin said...

Permission? We don't need no stinkin' permission. Drop the leaflets, what are they gonna do, bomb us?

They have planes to shoot down our planes, and violation of their airspace would be an act of war.

They've already shot down a commercial airliner. How high and at what speed is your leaflet-dropping plane planning to fly?

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...


"I disagree. I think their expression is completely consistent with the idea that they want to be perceived as participants in a MADD standoff so no one will ever attack them"

Exactly right. Which, post Joe-1, is the whole rationale for having nuclear weapons. Unless you're some apocalyptic Muzzie shit.

buwaya said...

"They've already shot down a commercial airliner. How high and at what speed is your leaflet-dropping plane planning to fly?"

There were several private South Korean groups using balloons to do leaflet dropping over NK -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/25/south-korea-balloons_n_6046252.html

This has been going on for at least two decades now.

Kevin said...

There were several private South Korean groups using balloons to do leaflet dropping over NK

Yes, the NORKs don't like it, but like radio waves, they can't shoot down every unmanned balloon.

The US, however, has no idea where those balloons are going, where they will land, or whether they'll even land in Korea. A severely limited program is the price for not flying a plane over NK airspace.

D.E. Cloutier said...

Art of the Deal 2017:

Think outside the box.

Koreans are tough.

Perhaps the U.S. should make a deal with North Korea to turn North Korea's large military into an American Foreign Legion, taking over Iran and Afghanistan. In addition to solving three problems (North Korea, Iran, and Afghanistan), the move would put a crazy American ally on the borders of China and Russia. That should keep everybody busy for awhile.

buwaya said...

"Perhaps the U.S. should make a deal with North Korea to turn North Korea's large military into an American Foreign Legion, taking over Iran and Afghanistan."

This is a very interesting idea, but most unlikely. If you wanted the Chinese to cross the border and solve the North Korea problem, this would be a very good way to set that off.

Dave D said...

"I disagree. I think their expression is completely consistent with the idea that they want to be perceived as participants in a MADD standoff so no one will ever attack them. "

This is a propaganda poster, no? The poster CLEARLY shows only US territory being vaporized. It is designed to facilitate the (totally wrong) "we can wipe you out" faction of the NORK mind, IMO. It's proverbial "dick swinging" to the international (USA) bully. Designed TOTALLY to strengthen perception of dear leader among his minions.

buwaya said...

"The poster CLEARLY shows only US territory being vaporized."

North Korean propaganda has almost always shown the US as the main enemy, and the South Koreans as merely their victims of pawns. This poster is not diverging from that line.

FullMoon said...
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Breezy said...

This is not a "Questionable Artwork Cafe"?

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

NoKo new dada art after seeing how terrified, humbled, and docile Trump made Turnbull [not] in those leaked transcripts and NoKo sees how Turnbull and Merkel echo the EU Reflection Paper on Globalisation and how the Asian Pacific economies simply wholesale ignore U.S. almighty “transactional” international rent collecting techniques, so NoKo here goes new-dada-saying, “we have your transactional rent collection payments right here, 'killer.'”

NoKo Bayesian advised that the short-lived cultural revolution of the U.S. in international transactional rent collection is done, kaput, and over after the last-great-white-hope trade protectionist Bannon got booted (NYT happy now only with their in-house hopes of turning Trump to globalism, that is, with NYT as the U.S.'s international 4th estate global conscience), and after those minor, inconvenient, and petty little domestic interruptions in negligible Virginia, globalist Gary Cohn can get some real work done starting now, steering globalist game wheels.

So this KoKo new art is fitting as a globally understood dada-tease.

I'm with Michael K on Trump's loss of anchor and conscience in Bannon. So many anchors. So little time to redeem ...

Daniel Jackson said...

Larry J said...
As a general rule, when someone says he wants to kill you, it's a good idea to take him seriously. As with most things, when it comes to nuclear weapons, it's better to give than to receive.

This is exceedingly good advice, which deserves immediate undertaking. I mean, it is entirely possible that the dude has seen "The Mouse That Roared," and truly believes that he will get the Payola he needs to run his racket some more no matter what. Or, he means what he says and will fire away at will just to stick his finger up our collective noses.

Not worth the gamble and certainly not worth the type 2 error

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