# North Korean Military Strength **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 20, 2013, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459 "2013-03-20T16:22:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2013, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/61 "2013-03-21T22:09:29Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > War isn’t a Hollywood movie where the good guys win because they are good, or believe in god, or are free people, or fighting for their homeland, or have the more pure motivation. Soldiers fighting for evil, incompetent dictatorial kleptomaniacs have carved out the largest empires in history. It certainly didn’t keep Europe from falling to Nazi Germany. It was in the USSR, another evil, incompetent kleptomaniacal dictatorship that Germany found itself stopped and defeated. > > Any of these several writers who honestly imagines a future Korean war will be decided by a mass awakening of the soldiers of the Korean People’s Army upon discovering microwaves, toaster ovens and iPods as they advance in the shelled out ruins of Seoul is simply delusional. No, nations win because of how technologically advanced they are. Will is largely irrelevant, but on the issue of will the south has more motivation to win than soldiers in the north because the south are fighting for a decent life, the lives in the North are terrible anyway. Even if the North had more will to fight and win, they have terrible technology and training. As far as to how Northern soldiers would react, I don’t see what makes you an expert. If northern soldiers start finding out that the world is nothing like they’ve been told, and if they start to see how their suffering is due to bad leadership it is going to affect morale. What happens if people start dropping leaflets on how the Kim family spent a million dollars a year on alcohol during the famine of the 90s? Or how international nations donated food and medical aid to North Korea, but the regime resold it on the international market to buy luxury goods for the ruling class? That is going to affect morale. With Nazi Germany or Stalin’s Russia, most people didn’t know about the crimes being committed until after the war. What happens when people find out during the war (which with far more advanced communications technology than what we had in the 1940s, is very likely to happen)? ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/62 "2013-03-22T00:36:00Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > No, nations win because of how technologically advanced they are. I don’t even know how to begin to respond to such a complete misreading of history. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/63 "2013-03-22T01:00:52Z")
Re upthread about pre-emptive nuclear strike. For some time I have held this unhappy feeling that it will be Israel, which will have difficulty, to put it mildly, of absorbing a nuclear strike. Then, as mentioned upthread, the judgement of calumny will fall on the defenders. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/64 "2013-03-22T01:13:15Z")
Why are we pretending that the Americans are not going to immediately intervene on the side of South Korea? If South Korea suffers any kind of real incursion, we’re going to be on it like a shot. Remember that we’re winding down in Afghanistan and need a new hobby. NK would be well to remember that, too. The trouble with them is the new boy feels the need to look the badass, but doesn’t have the experience to get his provocations correctly calibrated. But don’t all monarchies fall the same way? You get to a certain dynastic point where the divorce from reality becomes complete… but then the alimony comes due. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/65 "2013-03-22T01:26:54Z")
The CIA maintains an excellent reference it calls its “World FactBook”. It contains geography, polititics, poplation, economy, maritime, military. etc. Here is what it has to say about the DPRK: [https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/kn.html](https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/kn.html) Click the little x’s to view additional categories. You might want to bookmark the Factbook - it is a killer reference. And be sure to look at it BEFORE deciding to do the expat thing in some place you have never seen. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/66 "2013-03-22T01:31:55Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > I don’t even know how to begin to respond to such a complete misreading of history. By thanking profusely the people who set education budgets? (but maybe he’s home-schooled, But then he would’ve said something about “the nation which more properly worshiped Jesus”.) ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/67 "2013-03-22T01:36:51Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > No, nations win because of how technologically advanced they are… Like US v “Viet-Nam”? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/68 "2013-03-22T01:41:45Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > Like US v “Viet-Nam”? I wasn’t talking about an insurgency in a conquered nation, I was talking about battles with official militaries, and if recent history is any guide when a backwards military faces an advanced military the military can be brought down quick (which is not to say that occupying the nation is easy). You guys are jerks. I’m going to take my amateur opinions and start giving them away for free to other people now. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/69 "2013-03-22T01:44:23Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > I don’t even know how to begin to respond to such a complete misreading of history. Please do. Nothing is more enjoyable than a person who takes the time to lecture me. I’ll get my reading glasses and highlighter. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/70 "2013-03-22T01:44:47Z")
> [@usedtobe](#): > > Like US v “Viet-Nam”? Why the scare quotes? ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/71 "2013-03-22T02:02:27Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Please do. Nothing is more enjoyable than a person who takes the time to lecture me. I’ll get my reading glasses and highlighter. Don’t forget it took the US 100 hours to turn the 4th largest army in the world to the 2nd largest army in Iraq. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/72 "2013-03-22T02:13:51Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > You’re changing the goalposts AND ignoring my points. Congratulations, it’s the internet so you win! No, not really. You never got the point in the first place. If anything, you’re shifting the goalposts here. My point was that people defending their homeland don’t have a problem with “will”. Your examples are primarily of invaders losing their will to continue a protracted war or (in the case of France) losing the ability to actually win a war. The ‘invadees’ in your example (again with the exception of France) - the Confederacy, Iraq, even Pennsylvania, had no problem with the “will” to continue fighting and showed it. I get your point. Invaders sometimes lose the will to fight. There are plenty of examples - England in the Revolution, America in Iraq, America in Canada (War of 1812), Napoleon in Russia, Alexander on his way through India, etc. But people defending their homeland rarely sue for peace if they have a shot at winning. They either outright lose the war or continue fighting. So I still have no clue what that has to do with South Korean “will” in a North Korean first strike scenario. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/73 "2013-03-22T02:34:17Z")
> [@TSBG](#): > > You’re changing the goalposts AND ignoring my points. Congratulations, it’s the internet so you win! I agree. Someone here has changed the goalposts AND ignored the others’ points. Here’s your chance to respond. With very little information on the true state of the PRK, it’s reasonable to assume that like many other countries ruled by crazy authoritarian governments, the average joe is not going to rise up to demand an end to the war. If the people of the RRK are unable to shake their government now, the one which is slowly starving them to death, it will not be able to do much different in the event of a shooting war. So, the question is if the “will” of South Korea will disintegrate. Nether of you have argued that, unlike France in WWII, it would be the leaders who would “lack” the necessary will. As others have pointed out, the analogy with France is particularly bad as France was getting her ass kicked and was facing a immediate defeat. This is not the posed scenario, nor it is a likely or even a conceivable one. I fail to see any argument on how the situation France faced in 1940 has any relevance to a war between the Koreans, especially as you are arguing about a long-term struggle and this was a quick conflict. Countries have decided that they are tired of wars and have stopped. The British could have sent another army to the American colonies. The US could have continued forever in the rice paddies of Vietnam. But other times countries have fought on. The question is which historical analogy is pertinent. The best analogy so far has been Japan and America in WWII in that it’s directly questioning the will of the stronger side which was attacked by the weaker country and that the Japanese leaders believed that the soft Americans would roll over in the face of dedicated soldiers, ones who were ordered to fight to the death and who would have faced severe punishments for defecting. As pointed out above, this didn’t go particularly well. This point has not been addressed, and any charges of people ignoring your points must be held until this is adequately answered. The analogy of the Civil wars fails on a number of accounts. The first is that the South was fighting for independence, which North Korea already has. Had the North decided they were done, all it would have taken if for them to agree to let the South go, and could have done so without any threat of the South invading the North. This is similar to the situation which Britain found itself in 1781 or the US in Iraq or Vietnam. Wash our hands and go, and entirely different position than if enemy troops were on our soil. If the PRK invades then it would them which would be in the position to want to pack up and go home, which the ROK would very likely not simply let them reset the clock. Yes, in the Civil war, Lee has managed to invade the North, for a brief couple of months, but their goal was not to conquer but to cause enough pain so that the North would lose it’s will and let them go. The next reason the analogy isn’t applicable is that the South’s ability to continue the war on a meaningful basis was much greater that what the PRK posses. Your idea of a slug-fest doesn’t work because it can’t be a long-term fight. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/74 "2013-03-22T04:38:19Z")
Folks, it’s not the PRK. It’s the DPRK. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/75 "2013-03-22T04:44:00Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > … > The best analogy so far has been Japan and America in WWII in that it’s directly questioning the will of the stronger side which was attacked by the weaker country and that the Japanese leaders believed that the soft Americans would roll over in the face of dedicated soldiers, ones who were ordered to fight to the death and who would have faced severe punishments for defecting. As pointed out above, this didn’t go particularly well. > … This is perhaps the most interesting point. The most fierce fighters, actually, come from the most motivated armies. Other than defending your homeland (i.e. Russians in 1814 and 1941, Iraqi insurgents) the most motivated armies are the ones that truly believe. The Americans fought tenaciously and even suicidally despite the Japanese belief they were too “soft”. Why? Because deep down the Americans believed their propaganda, especially because it was essentially correct, that they were fighting a menace that had to be stopped. “Soft” Americans fought viciously mainly, I believe, because they knew when it was all wrapped up in a few years, they could go back to their soft lifestyle. They had something to look forward to. Having said that, the most motivated army in the world can’t win against better tech, better logistics, and better tactics. Another point that has to be mentioned - NK artillery, as mentioned earlier, is I think heavily dug in and fortified, to minimize the damage in retaliatory shelling or air strikes. That means it’s not particularly mobile. There were a number of battles in WWII (and WWI) where the problem became that an army’s advance was stopped when it ran into the artillery’s target zone. All that NK artillery is good for what? 30 miles at the outside max? Then the NK army has no air protection and no artillery backup, except some amount of mobile pieces that are vulnerable the moment they start to move up in the open. So what’s the game plan? You can’t move up a decent amount of artillery, you can’t provide air support, … ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/76 "2013-03-22T05:15:48Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > No, nations win because of how technologically advanced they are. You clearly have no idea how wars work. Being more technologically advanced is no guarantee of victory; take a look at Vietnam if you need an example. Or Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. They had substantial material advantages and technological advantages once Iran could no longer maintain the US made equipment inherited from the Shah, but Iraq could only manage a stalemate in that one. The UN came perilously close to being defeated by the North Koreans in the actual Korean War, being reduced to controlling an area around Pusan despite total control of the skies and the seas. > [@](#): > > Will is largely irrelevant, but on the issue of will the south has more motivation to win than soldiers in the north because the south are fighting for a decent life, the lives in the North are terrible anyway. Even if the North had more will to fight and win, they have terrible technology and training. Utter bullshit. Will to fight, or morale, élan, fighting spirit, esprit de corps or whatever you choose to call it is anything but largely irrelevant. The morale may no longer be to the material as three to one as per Napoleon’s dictum, but it is still a decisive factor. Where it is not enough is when it is relied upon to compensate for gross material, doctrinal, logistical or other deficiencies as **Alessan** noted. Again, you are making the mistake of assuming the North must have a weaker will because they are the “bad guys” fighting for a dictator. Not only was Nazi Germany in possession of one of the most highly motivated armies in modern times if not all of history, among the most determined and motivated of their troops were the elite SS Panzer divisions. > [@](#): > > As far as to how Northern soldiers would react, I don’t see what makes you an expert. If northern soldiers start finding out that the world is nothing like they’ve been told, and if they start to see how their suffering is due to bad leadership it is going to affect morale. What happens if people start dropping leaflets on how the Kim family spent a million dollars a year on alcohol during the famine of the 90s? Or how international nations donated food and medical aid to North Korea, but the regime resold it on the international market to buy luxury goods for the ruling class? That is going to affect morale. Historical knowledge is what makes me an expert on this, or at least not prone to flights of fancy. A mass awakening of soldiers to the decadence of the capitalist exploiters of the working class isn’t going to happen in an army and society ruled over by paranoia and fear. > [@](#): > > With Nazi Germany or Stalin’s Russia, most people didn’t know about the crimes being committed until after the war. What happens when people find out during the war (which with far more advanced communications technology than what we had in the 1940s, is very likely to happen)? Wow. Now this just really takes the cake. Do you really think the German people were unaware of what was happening to the Jews, Roma, Slavs, homosexuals, etc, etc, etc? That the peoples of the USSR were unaware of the Gulags, the orchestrated campaigns of starvation in the Ukraine aimed at the Kulaks? They made no attempt to hide these things; they were proudly presented by the respective propaganda organs. [Kristallnacht](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht) was hardly a secret, nor was the reduction of Jews to non-citizens and deportation to concentration camps. The ash from the burning of bodies at extermination camps could hardly been concealed. Far more to the point however, Germans and Soviets knew full well what kind of dictatorial governments they were fighting for or under, and it didn’t prevent them from being effective combat troops. The atrocities being comitted by both sides in the fighting between Russia and the Chechens, or the Serbs, Bosnians, and Croats were widely reported to all concerned sides using modern communications technology and none of them ran screaming to thier leaders to end the war for they were comitting such wicked acts. That’s what happens when people find out about atrocities being committed even by thier own side during war. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/77 "2013-03-22T05:23:20Z")
> [@Rick](#): > > Don’t forget it took the US 100 hours to turn the 4th largest army in the world to the 2nd largest army in Iraq. Don’t forget that the North Koreans nearly drove the US into the sea in 1950, or that it was the Korean War that introduced the phrase “[bug out](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bug_out)” to the American idiom to describe a disorganized rout in the face of the enemy. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/78 "2013-03-22T05:38:08Z")
> [@chargerrich](#): > > I for one believe the PRK would possess much MUCH more fighting spirit and will to win than the ROK. For that reason and that reason alone, I believe the PRK would win any war with the ROK assuming no involvement from allies. I have my doubts about the morale of the Korean People’s Army vis a vis the ROK Army, but they have nothing to do with dictatorship versus freer society. I think you are grossly underestimating the degree of technological disparity between the two armies. South Korea is manufacturing its own modern generation military hardware; as noted in the IISS article I linked, bolding mine: > [@](#): > > Around one-half of North Korea’s major weapons were designed in the **1960s; the other half are even older**. I recall a discussion with a long departed troll named **Commissar** who would tout the superiority of communism who tried to defend the North Korean submarine fleet when I pointed out that they were the Romeo class of 1950s Soviet design. His defense was that some had been manufactured in the 1980s. That their submarine fleet of 2010 consisted of boats designed in the 1950s but that some were only 30 years old built to a 60 year old design is hardly something to take pride in. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/79 "2013-03-22T06:13:05Z")
> [@TokyoBayer](#): > > With very little information on the true state of the PRK, it’s reasonable to assume that like many other countries ruled by crazy authoritarian governments, the average joe is not going to rise up to demand an end to the war. If the people of the RRK are unable to shake their government now, the one which is slowly starving them to death, it will not be able to do much different in the event of a shooting war. the PRK can’t light the streets at night. Their people are at starvation levels. They simply don’t have the supplies to advance a war. The previous conflict was supported from outside their country and that support is not there today. Otherwise they would have the resources to feed their people and light their streets. It’s that simple. A tank with no fuel is a war monument. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2013, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459/80 "2013-03-22T06:31:37Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Don’t forget that the North Koreans nearly drove the US into the sea in 1950, or that it was the Korean War that introduced the phrase “[bug out](http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/bug_out)” to the American idiom to describe a disorganized rout in the face of the enemy. And the DPRK are still using some of that equipment today. Taking your thought just a bit further Japan kicked the US out and captured Wake island at the start of WWII. Are you worried they could do that again today? No? Why not? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-military-strength/653459.md?page=5)