If they use a nuke, then I’d support a war, and probably nuclear retaliation. I would not support a preemptive invasion. For that matter, I did not support the preemptive invasion of Iraq. I don’t like the idea of launching a war because of what the other side might do at some unspecified future time. I prefer my country to wear the white hats as much as possible. Sometimes, that means we have to let the other guy throw the first punch.
I suppose there are scenarios where I’d throw the first punch, but North Korea is not at that point yet, and I don’t expect them to really go there.
I don’t disagree with any of that. What I was saying earlier was that I don’t think they would ever use a nuclear weapon because they wouldn’t last very long if they did. Even if it were a tough war, it wouldn’t be one they could expect to survive.
Not to put words in his mouth but I don’t think he was comparing the situation to be close to that of the 1950s, just noting that the war didn’t go altogether too well for us back then. Trying to compare the situation on the Korean peninsula today to Iraq in 1991 is as full of holes as Swiss cheese. There is no wide open desert flank to exploit, rather there is a relatively narrow and heavily mountainous front that is more heavily fortified that the inter-German border was in the Cold War, and the only way to attack it is by frontal assault. You should give the article both Oakminster and I linked to a read. There are more than 4,000 underground fortifications north of the border, and the estimated 20 tunnels under the DMZ. Some of the 4 that were discovered were capable of passing an entire regiment through them in an hour.
Aside from dryly noting that Seoul would get plastered by artillery fire, things would not suddenly become a turkey shoot after a day or so. North Korean positions are dug in very, very deep and digging them out won’t be a turkey shoot by any means. I’ll also note that South Korea would be doing the heavy lifting; there is only a single American division in South Korea. The US had 6 months to build up 9 divisions with heavy corps assets and mountains of supplies in the desert prior to Desert Storm. It’s not going to be a 100 hour war won with 200 or so American fatalities.
This is extremely wishful thinking; as noted it is going to be the South Korean military doing the heavy lifting, and it is highly unlikely there will be 6 months lead time with which to deploy US forces prior to hostilities which the US enjoyed in Iraq both times. Knocking out 10,000 artillery pieces in fortified, underground positions isn’t something the US Navy is capable of doing, much less in a couple of days. How are they supposed to do this anyway? The battleships are long since retired and didn’t have the range to reach the NK artillery positions around Seoul to begin with, much less while staying outside the range of counter battery fire.
On what basis do you make this enormously sweeping assumption? There was good basis to predict this during the first and especially the second time around in Iraq; the Iraqi military had a horrible record in every prior war they had fought in from the 1979-89 war with Iran, the participation in the 1973 war with Israel, and even the 1941 coup attempt against the British. By contrast the NKPA performed well in the only war it has fought, including sending the US bugging out and packing for the Pusan perimeter. There were no mass surrenders by them then and little reason to glowingly assume the biggest problem of a war being processing North Koreans deserting and surrendering en masse.
In passing off the war as not being that hard and the rebuilding of North Korea as being the harder part you’re completely ignoring the amount of rebuilding that would be needed in the South, particularly Seoul, which isn’t going to be subject to a day or two of shelling with the hammer of God sparing the city on the third day by US Navy and airpower destroying 10,000 artillery pieces and 4,000 underground fortifications in a one day turkey shoot.
I’ve no doubt that North Korea would lose such as war, but I have no illusions that it won’t come at a horrific cost in human lives and damage. And again, the heavy lifting is going to be done by the South Korean military.
Funny, I recall similar assesments of the Vietnamese back in the 1960’s.
North Korea is playing a game of Jenga with it’s own people. they take food out of the mouths of the average citizen and replace it with military objects for it’s dear leader. eventually it’s going to collapse out of sheer instability.
BBC TV is reporting that China finally come out and warned North Korea today that they will suspend aid if North Korea proceeds with more nuclear testing.
Perhaps now… at this time. However things can progress and rapidly, especially considering that Russia has shown some level of support. I think we can all agree that Russia has the capability so what makes anyone so sure that PRK could not acquire the tech and expertise in the coming years?
Discounting or even dismissing the threat entirely is not a wise decision when it comes to a nuclear threat from a country that clearly hates us.
So when there’s a credible nuclear threat, and not just saber-rattling, then we can consider taking action. Right now, there’s no credible nuclear threat.
The fact that the North Koreans are starving to death now, and the situation is not going to be improved with the US and South Korea bombing their supply lines and shooting down all of their airplanes.
I seriously doubt the commitment of the average North Korean soldier to the Glorious Leader and his cult of personality. I think it is primarily a matter of doing as you are told, or get shot or starved to death.
I am that average NK soldier. My tank has been destroyed from the air. My artillery has been wiped out by missiles and I can’t even see where they are coming from. My underground tunnels have been collapsed by bunker-buster bombs. I’m running out of food, and there seems no chance of re-supply. Every time someone tries to send a convoy to bring me food and bullets, it shows up on US satellites and a drone missile smashes the convoy to hell.
If we win, I go back to starving on my parents’ farm. We sure don’t seem close to winning. The chances are much better than I am going to die, blown apart by one of those missiles that shows up without warning and without anyone to shoot back at. I have a chance of finding one of those groups of well-fed, well-supplied, well-dressed soldiers who look like me (except taller) and speak the language I have heard when I listen to those illegal radio broadcasts that I am not supposed to hear. If I surrender to them, maybe they will send me to a POW camp. How much worse than regular life in NK could it be? And at least they might give me a square meal first.
Was it Okinawa where Japanese civilians committed suicide at the approach of American troops? I wonder if the guys running North Korea could make their people believe the same way?
Maybe if they are moving battalions into the DMZ and have fighter jets in the air headed for California. The problem I see with all the saber rattling is that people will exaggerate to suit their needs. Who the fuck is NK hurting by “testing” some missiles or lobbing them near Japan into the ocean? That’s like children playing “I’m not touching you” by holding their finger close to your face. Annoying, yes, but ultimately its to provoke you into action. If they want action, if they really want it, they will blow something up. Ok, maybe saying a nuke is the only evidence I’d accept is a bit of hyperbole. But I think we should pay zero attention to any of their missile launches unless it lands in SK or the US. Ignoring their little tantrums would be great, as it would prevent people from constantly stating we’re always at the brink of war. Its been years since NK got the bomb and would launch WW3 hasn’t it? They’ve harmed nobody with a nuke so far, and I’m willing to bet and put my life on the line as saying they won’t dare do so
I believe they want to reunify the Koreas. It would bring the Kims a lot of joy and authority and power and influence. But they know they can’t do it because first, China would crush them like ants, and then the combined might of SK and the US would erase what’s left of their country. Would you worry if Somalia made threats that they are going to destroy the US? They are feeble, even with a nuke, and under a microscope so anything they do is watched. They are essentially powerless, probably worst off with a nuke than without due to sanctions and nobody trusting them. So no, I don’t think they are bluffing in that they are pretending to want reunification, but I do believe they have zero chance of accomplishing it. Talking about it is for the benefit of their own starved people, a way of saying “Look at the mighty Kim, standing up to the US like that!”
As for rational, no, they aren’t all rational. Some of it is probably them believing their own lies. But what I do know is that they are not irrational enough to suicide their entire country. They may not care about the citizens of NK, but they have a built in power base that is kind of untouchable, and if Kim Jong Un doesn’t mess it up, he can live to a ripe old age surrounded by hookers and blow. I think they are rational in that they will not let that be threatened by going off on some suicide mission and bombing SK
I don’t believe they will do that. I believe they know that no matter how bad it gets, they are much better off in their own failed state than beneath the gun barrels of the US. A line from The Dark Knight Rises comes to mind. Speaking of Bruce, someone said “The rich don’t even go bankrupt like us [the poor]”. And its true. If NK collapses, I think Kim will try to do some kind of negotiated settlement with China, or some other rogue state, that allows him to live relatively comfortable for the rest of his life. He’s not going to be out on the streets, begging for food. He’s not going to be forced to work a 9-5 job for a tiny apartment. There are people and countries that will take him in, probably China, to keep an eye on him, and to outwardly save face that they didn’t support a bum all these decades. So no matter what happens in NK, I think Kim will not start a war because the inevitable conclusion of that is either capture and trial and execution, or dying holed up in a bunker somewhere in Pyongyang
I expect it’s pretty worrying to the people in South Korea and Japan. Wouldn’t you think so? These people aren’t suicidal, but they’re crazy and running a dictatorship that’s always about two steps away from collapsing under its own incompetence and weirdness. And no, it’s not quite like “I’m not touching you:” they are not trying to provoke those countries (or the U.S.) into invading them. That wouldn’t make sense. They are either trying to demonstrate their own strength or they are wrangling for more international aid. I don’t think we’ve talked about this much, but - as mentioned in that link I posted yesterday - North Korea came out with this statement about its “sworn enemy” two days after the UN Security Council signed off on new sanctions. I expect that’s the real issue here.
No, that doesn’t make much sense. An invasion is a terrible idea, but paying no attention to something now makes it more likely it’ll become a bigger problem later.
Yes, it’s been maybe six years. That’s a lot off my mind.
I have no moral objection to the concept of preemptive war, but the purpose should be to save lives. An attack against North Korea would probably lead to a huge number of deaths, even if they don’t use their nukes. Some progress was made with diplomacy; more would have had U.S. been wiser.
:dubious: :smack: Are South Korean deaths irrelevant? … And even North Koreans are innocent human beings.
In an Iraq thread, one Doper defended the Trillion-Dollar Blunder because we were doing a favor for the Iraqis but, when asked whether the many innocent Iraqi deaths were appreciated, replied, in effect, that only American deaths matter to Americans. If those are the debate preconditions here, I withdraw until thread is moved to BBQ Pit.
As long as North Korea’s sabre-rattling is limited to nuclear weapons, we can all breathe easily. While they apparently can build nukes, they’re really piss-poor ones, and there’s no evidence that they can deliver them meaningfully. Plus, they have a very small supply of fissile material, and so every test they run is one less piss-poor bomb they’ll be able to use offensively.
Now, on the other hand, when they start sabre-rattling without the nukes, that’s when we need to worry. They already have enough conventional artillery in place to level Seoul, if they ever become insane enough to use it. That’s the real threat they have, not their nukes.
Further, any prospect of offensive action against North Korea must face the fact that we can’t really do anything to them. Sure, we could bomb them back to the Stone Age, but really… How is that any different from where they already are? The Kims have already turned the place into a hellhole; what’s left for us to do? Beyond giving them the excuse to use the afore-mentioned artillery, of course.
Really, all there is that we can do, militarily, is to maintain our “tripwire” at the DMZ so that an act of war against the South is an act of war against us, too, and keep our own weapons targeted at their artillery placements, with more that can be quickly retargetted at any they’ve managed to hide from us, to flatten those emplacements immediately in case they do ever start firing them. Any real ultimate victory will have to come from the diplomats, the intelligence community, and the propagandists, not from the military.
So in other words you’re basing your assumption on fantasy and blind faith. The North Korean military is not starving to death now; the military was spared the effects of the famines at the expense of the civil population. Imagining that the average North Korea soldier is simply waiting for the first chance to bolt and surrender to the forces of freedom™ is fantasy, pure and simple. I trust I don’t have to actually list nations with cults of personality and soldiers who are fed indoctrination day and night who have fought teeth and bone rather than looking for the first chance to surrender. I’ll just note that among them North Korean soldier in 1950 fell into this category.
So again, your basing your rosy outlook on pure fantasy. I’ll note for our readers that you have singularly failed to address where the force to accomplish this fantasy came from, where all of these thousands of bunker-busting bombs and the planes to drop them from came from, how all of these bunkers and 10,000 artillery pieces are spotted much less destroyed after 48 hours and the fantasy of any movement being spotted by satellite and immediately drawing a drone attack. If the US has such omnipotent powers to discern underground dwellings and fortifications, why do you image we only estimate that there are 20 tunnels dug under the DMZ? The four that were discovered were closed. This one was only discovered as a result of a defector.
Yeah, a lifetime of political indoctrination couldn’t have any effect on this. You might want to look into the history of POW campsduring the Korean War and the riots, coups and hostage taking by the communist prisoners; among them the kidnapping of the US base commandant and his trial by his own prisoners.
Now, do you have any basis in reality and/or evidence that a war with North Korea will be such as walk in the park, or are you going to claim next that the North Koreans are going to emerge from all of their hidden underground fortifications to greet us with flowers? Again, I would recommend reading the article linked by both Oakminster and myslef; I can assure you the IISS isn’t a bastion of the libruhl media. Perhaps while doing so you can find some means to address the rest of the problems outlined in my first post to you and not cherry pick out one line and attempt method acting yourself as “I am that average North Korean soldier” to try to compensate for a complete lack of evidence or knowledge.
More on our experience in the Gulf War. The Iraqis surrendered in huge numbers, and they weren’t on the ragged edge of starvation like the North Koreans are.
As mentioned, consider their position after their supply lines are bombed to hell.
