Can’t we just send in a sarcastic, borderline alcoholic surgeon who makes pithy observances about life to solve this for us?
You never know, because “That Guy” is crazy as a shit house mouse. Bat shit crazy. The US and Japan would align against NK, China could well align with NK. Russia might be the wild card, depending on which side better serves their interests. Maybe. If the North Koreans start attacking and nuking, the smart thing to do is to drop all the Cold War nonsense and form a united front against them. but countries aren’t very smart sometimes.
lol
I’m so ronery, so ronery 
Do we have the manpower if the balloon goes up? They’d probably federalize remaining Guard and Reserve units. I wonder if they’ll tap into IRR.
Well, it wouldn’t be only us. Here is a ranking of likely players if there was a war and it does not account for nuclear weapons. Only conventional forces. I’ll leave it to you to decide who may be on what side, likelihood to throwdown and have at it and so on. The main point though is that the US would not be going it alone. At the very least the South Koreans, one would think, would be in there fighting too (not sure how restricted via treaty obligations Japan remains in actually getting into a fight).
- United States
- China
- Russia
- Japan
- South Korea
- North Korea
SOURCE: http://www.globalfirepower.com/
Whoops…sorry, meant to add:
The US may not need to commit many troops beyond what is already there opting instead to leave it to the South Koreans to take that role.
The US can still provide fearsome air and naval support even with our other commitments (and likely the South Korean air force is no slouch). The US can control the skies, make deep strikes on infrastructure and supply lines easily via stealth bombers and stealth “fighters” (misnomer) and more conventional aircraft once AA is largely gone. Hell, while we do not have very many the F-22 Raptor looks like it could single-handedly own the entire NK air force (that plane’s performance in war games to date has been nothing short of stunning and that is against other Americans in otherwise top line fighter jets and even having the odds purposely stacked in favor of those “fighting” the Raptors).
Of course if China came in on the side of NK in a serious way then not sure what could be done. Chinese manpower is overwhelming. In a serious war the Chinese may see it as an opportunity to take the whole peninsula. Bad news if that happens.
If North Korea invaded the South, Seoul would be lost, along with a huge number (millions) of civilians in the initial assault, the panicked retreat, and later starvation and disease. Seoul is the center of the country, economically, politically, logistically, culturally. Don’t underestimate what its loss would be. Because of this, the US will let South Korea take the lead on any military action on the peninsula.
Koreans will not tolerate Japanese military anywhere on the peninsula. There would be violent protests against them. I think Korean sentiment would prefer subjection to the North rather than Japanese boots on the ground. Japanese support would have to be limited to an air campaign and naval picketing. I suspect Japan would prefer that as well.
Once the initial assault was over, as others have said, North Korea logistics would not be able to sustain an attack. They would probably have trouble even holding territory, as I suspect there would be a lot of civilian resistance. The North Koreans do not have enough munitions to both kill every civilian in an occupied Seoul and be able to defend themselves from military attack.
The North Korean command structure would be quickly decapitated–either through death or by cut communications. I do not expect the North Korean army is one that encourages creative thinking by its middle-level commanders. Their army will quickly become incohesive.
It might be acceptable to allow China to occupy the North as a part of the Korean unification process. Annexation is not an option, nor is a “trade” with respect to Taiwan. In any event, the US will have to get China’s explicit or tacit permission to send US troops into the North. I think the more likely possibility is that only South Korean troops enter the North, with the US providing logistical support from south and not going north themselves on the ground. This would satisfy China’s strategic sensibilities (no US-China “front”), provide diplomatic cover for the US (its the Koreans do the invasion, we’re simply helping our ally), and let the Koreans do the unifying themselves (an outlet for the growing Korean nationalism).
Makes sense but would China really be ok with a unified Korea that was essentially South Korean control of the peninsula?
SK is our ally, not China’s.
I would think though that in the end it would behoove China for SK to control the peninsula IF the Chinese look down the road a bit and forget a knee-jerk worry over a US ally controlling the peninsula.
SK has shown in regard to the NKs that they really, really do not want armed conflict and have opposed the US in greater sanctions in the past. If SK ruled the peninsula I doubt they’d be any more keen to antagonize China. More importantly for China is a unified Korea would probably be a huge economic boon to both countries. Once close and deep trade relations develop SK and China would probably be pretty buddy-buddy with neither wanting to upset the apple cart. The new Korea would only just be a US ally to serve notice to China (in case they forget) not to get too greedy.
But in terms of trade, SK has a lot more potential than NK does from China’s perspective. I think that a unified Korea and a thawing of relations between China and that new entity might be would be FAR more profitable to China in the short, medium and long terms.
It would certainly beat periodically having a bunch of North Korean’s charging their borders scrounging for tree bark and fresh grass to eat.
-XT
Is it possible that they took advantage of a small earthquake that seismicly resembled an underground nuke test, or has that been definitely ruled out? When the story first broke, I kind of hand-waved it away because it sounded like another one of Lil’ Kim’s BS threats, but it sounds like they actually have a nuke now.
They’ve tested nukes in the past, so I don’t think it’s implausible. We know they have processed nuclear materials, and really that’s the hardest part of making a bomb. The rest is engineering, and it’s pretty well documented how to build at least a single stage nuclear weapon. I don’t even think a two stage weapon would be beyond their capabilities, honestly.
-XT
I just made that same case in the other NK thread going on here. 
I am not sure but I am reasonably certain the seismologists can discern an underground nuke from a normal earthquake pretty easily.
Well, given that it’s me, you may not want to admit that. 
I haven’t seen your response in the other thread yet, though I think I posted to it. I’ll check it out though.
-XT
Whoops!
It is in the post just above yours. :smack:
I get so confused…
How well embedded is this North Korean artillery? Because it strikes me this is exactly the type of conflict the US Military was designed for (and obviously it is precisley the conflict that the ROK Military was designed for). Hasn’t the whole point been to develop technologically superior ways of eliminating larger, lower tech mechanized forces? Even going back to the cold war, wasn’t Soviet reliance on artillery built in, and countered with airborne weapons?
Most of the weight in an artillery shell is inert steel. The actual explosive charge is surprisingly small.
122mm howitzer: shell weight= 21.76 kg, warhead= 3.675 kg
Possible Scenario:
Step 1: NK lights up its arty, and starts hitting Seoul.
Step 2: Cruise missiles from the US, plus SK stationed counter battery, starts slapping down every NK arty site. US and SK airpower launching from SK, Japan (Misawa AFB, Okinawa, bombers from Kansas) begin hitting everything in sight as well. US Naval bomarbment hits. US boomer subs in the area, along with our guided missile cruisers start dropping bomblets everywhere. Some of this triggers immediately (I am sure that we have some subs off shore already), some will take up to 24 hours (not sure how long it would take SAC to have bombers over NK).
Step 3: NK tries to invade, and all of those lovely landmines that have been put in place over the past few decades get tested. I doubt much would get through intact, however. Those fields of death were put in place specifically to stop a NK invasion. Any attempt to invade by sea would be sunk.
Result: Seoul is trashed beyond belief, the level of destruction dependent only on how quickly counter battery operations can commence. NK is pounded into dust as well, but functionally ceases to exist (think Afghanistan style bombing). China and the US determine who will occupy to rebuild, and whether the reunification starts now, or after we have spent a few trillion rebuilding both nations.
Oh - and we would finally get the Pueblo back.
My understanding is that a lot of the fixed artillery is in a series of hardened concrete fortifications…sort of like a fucked up lunatics concept of the Maginot line on steroids. They also have air craft launching capabilities and staging and logistics (underground rail roads and such) out of these same fortifications.
I have no idea how they would stand up to US air attacks (they also have a huge number of air defenses, but no idea how modern or capable they are in today’s terms). They would probably be a royal bitch to dig out and would make an attempt at a preemptive strike difficult. However, once the NK’s emerge to go on the offensive they’d be toast.
-XT
Here’s the 150mm ammo: 152 mm howitzer-gun M1937 (ML-20) - Wikipedia
Start here: Korean People's Army Ground Force - Wikipedia