# I need to express some Pitty feelings... **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 12, 2003, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-express-some-pitty-feelings/160958 "2003-03-12T22:37:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2003, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-express-some-pitty-feelings/160958/41 "2003-03-13T13:10:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Reeder \* > \*\*Remember that NK has stormed SK before. Got their butts wiped until the Chicoms decided to join the party. Granted it was a stalemate. But no nukes were needed. \*\* I have been told that [Eisenhower threatened to use nukes in the Korean War](http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:lBWEhjAAIEwC:artsandscience.concordia.ca/poli398i/pdf_word_excel/lecture25/P_398I_Student_Lect_25_Apr_10_02_Stability-Instability.doc+Truman+nuclear+Korean+War+ceasefire&hl=en&ie=UTF-8), and that is what triggered serious negotiations on a cease-fire. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2003, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-express-some-pitty-feelings/160958/42 "2003-03-13T13:30:57Z")
I doubt that South Koreans will be very concerned about nuclear fallout after the initial artillery barrage. Dead people don’t care. Amazing, this internet thing. “Hypothetical North Korean attack on South Korea” [Korean War II](http://198.65.138.161/org/news/2003/030304-korean-war01.htm) > [@](#): > > If North Korea attacked first or if its war machine wasn’t seriously damaged by a U.S. strike aimed at destroying its nuclear weapons program, in the first two or three weeks of fighting that nation could use its awesome firepower to leave more than 1 million people dead or wounded. Most would be South Korean troops and civilians, but thousands of U.S. troops stationed here would also likely die, the U.S. military estimates. > > South Korean defenses could be pulverized for several hours by as many as 500,000 artillery rounds per hour from North Korean positions just 30 miles from Seoul. North Korea’s 500 to 600 Scud missiles, many carrying chemical weapons, could pound targets across South Korea, and longer-range missiles could hit civilian and U.S. military targets as far away as Japan and possibly even America’s West Coast. > > “They certainly have the ability to deliver a devastating first blow, especially if there is no lead-in time for us,” says Joseph Bermudez, author of a detailed book called “The Armed Forces of North Korea.” “They could make a significant penetration into South Korea, no doubt about it.” [WaPo](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59152-2003Mar7.html) > [@](#): > > Davis and the soldiers here do have a pretty good idea what would happen in an all-out war. The scenario is laid out in grim detail in U.S. Operations Plan 5027, which describes a hypothetical North Korean attack. Davis sums it up coldly: > > “First, they’d gas everyone on the DMZ. Their special operations forces would attack control facilities behind the lines, while their artillery is pounding Seoul and a million people die. Then they roll across the DMZ with soldiers in chemical gear. They have huge numbers of soldiers and tanks, but with their aging vehicles, the best they could hope to do is capture Seoul and sue for peace.” > > “We know we’re just speed bumps” if North Korea invades, Davis said. “But the forces here are potent. We aren’t going to go down easily. We train with the hope that we will make it to the second day.” > > If the North did capture Seoul, most Western military analysts say, it would be a temporary victory. The air power and ground muscle of the United States and South Korea would prevail but it would take time, they predict. > > U.S. and South Korean soldiers in the Joint Security Area sleep in their uniforms with their boots on, loaded weapons nearby. They serve for 15 days at the front, train for five more days outside the DMZ and then have 96 hours off. They are encouraged to go to Seoul to unwind. [This guy thinks a NK attack would lead to nuclear war.](http://www.strategypage.com/onpoint/articles/20021231.asp) > [@](#): > > …If Kim’s hustle turns to combat, so do America’s nuclear weapons… ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2003, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-express-some-pitty-feelings/160958/43 "2003-03-13T13:42:46Z")
I have to ask - doesn’t South Korea have a military of its own? Why is everyone here assuming it even _needs_ U.S. help? After all, Seoul has a GNP several times that of the North, it has access to the best weapons in the world, and it’s been preparing for war for the past 50 years. Why _shouldn’t_ it win? ---
**Author:** ![Beagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/85f322/32.png) [@Beagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beagle)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2003, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-express-some-pitty-feelings/160958/44 "2003-03-13T14:06:38Z")
1. Sheer numbers. North Korea has over one million troops in uniform right now. By next week they could triple or quadruple that number. South Korea has about a half million man army. 2. South Korea might absorb too big of a first strike to respond well enough. Not to mention Japan. Japan might be hit with 100 or so “No Dong” (usually that would be funny) missiles. But, as I already noted (or quoted), over time North Korea (just like the first time) would probably lose the war. I’m ignoring the whole Chinese thing, I know. _Korean War II continues:_ > [@](#): > > Then U.S. and South Korean forces would use their advantages: > > • North Korea’s air force is no match for the United States’: 90 percent of North Korean combat aircraft are Soviet or Chinese designs dating to the 1950s and '60s, according to Bermudez’s book. > > • North Korea’s economic problems have left it short of fuel and spare parts. Its pilots get five to 10 hours of flying time annually; U.S. pilots get 200 hours a year. > > • Morale among North Korean troops could quickly plunge. An invasion would expose them to the realities of South Korea’s prosperity — a shock for soldiers who have been taught that South Korea is an impoverished U.S. colony. BUT > [@](#): > > • Use chemical weapons. One estimate, cited by [GlobalSecurity.org](http://GlobalSecurity.org), says North Korea could kill 38 percent of Seoul’s 12 million people by hitting the city with 50 missiles carrying nerve gas. Sort of a win, but really lose, situation. There are just too many people near the front lines. I thought there were ‘only’ 10.5 million. Oops. It’s 12 million. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2003, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-express-some-pitty-feelings/160958/45 "2003-03-13T17:43:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Cheesesteak \* > \*\*your ridiculous blind hatred of Bush \*\* Why is it ridiculous? Because you don’t feel the same way, it’s not legitimate for others to feel that way? I feared him when he was elected and I was called blind. Well, we’re in year three, and he is turning out to be the Deluxe Edition of my every expectation. And I am not “mad”, I’m disgusted. I’m scared. I’m deeply disapoointed. If I think about what is going on I could get deeply depressed. I’m frustrated as hell. As a former “Duck & Cover!” child, who, along with my entire generation, came to understand what an obscene lie it all was, I find this casual discussion of nuclear bomb dropping utterly mortifying. ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2003, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-express-some-pitty-feelings/160958/46 "2003-03-13T18:04:05Z")
What should we do instead, Stoid? NOT discuss it? I don’t find any part of Beagle’s initial response (which was the impetus for this Pit thread) to be ‘casual’ in any way. It looked to me to be a reasonable response to the OP, regardless of your position. In a thread that was just beginning to start a discussion of our nuclear strategy you go off the deep end, before anyone said anything. You implied that we were going to nuke NK “just in case” and that we’ve all “gone fucking insane”. Take a step back, take a breath fer chrissakes. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 13, 2003, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-express-some-pitty-feelings/160958/47 "2003-03-13T18:56:03Z")
**Stoid** , brinksmanship isn’t pleasant. It isn’t the best way to live or to conduct relations. It’s a Mexican standoff, but a Mexican standoff is better than being shot. Brinksmanship offers a gambler’s chance at avoiding war altogether. If Kim is sane enough to want to avoid suicide and intelligent enough to see America’s first use would certainly be its last\*, he’s not going to begin any kind of shooting war for fear of that level of reprisal. We use our big stick to prevent him from using anything at all. It’s not that this is a new concept. As you’ve alluded to, and as I’ve alluded to, MAD worked on the same concept. MAD, for all its endless SAC patrols and nuclear submarine patrols, brought the US and the USSR to the table numerous times to agree to things like the SALT and the START treaties. Both sides were scared enough to want to disarm, and both sides knew that the only path to peace is if the both disarmed. Maintaining the balance is the only way to maintain peace. \*Meaning, of course, that once we hit the first time, we won’t need to hit a second time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-need-to-express-some-pitty-feelings/160958.md?page=2)