But of course, the minute NK starts using them is the minute the dynasty ends. Doesn’t matter how much damage they inflict initially. At that point they’re toast, and ought perfectly well to know it.
Depending on who you ask - never.
It’s only recently the US adopted a pre-emptive first strike philosophy for Iraq, and, as it happens, the reasoning that led up to that first strike was later found to be faulty, whether it was the threat of an imminent attack or the presence of WMDs. So our modern dalliance with first pre-emptive strikes is 0 for 1 so far.
You can never be 100% certain. And especially in the case of North Korea, there’s a long history of hot air and not a lot of overt action.
Worse, if we employ pre-emption, other countries can do the same thing and still claim the moral and legal high ground with a straight face.
Also, as mentioned above, they have, at most, one shot to attack. And that will almost certainly fail. As much as everybody claims ‘insanity’ of the Kims, North Korea hasn’t actually come close to launching an attack on the South at any point over the last 5 decades. They know it’s suicide.
NK already used their artillery to shell an island under South Korean control, killing a few south koreans in the process a few years ago. Worldwide response? Basically nothing.
So evidently there is some acceptable limit to just how many artillery shells can be fired before we ACTUALLY respond in any way whatsoever.
This is the problem - not that they’ll do something suicidally terminal, but that they do something incredibly provocative - a punch to the nose - then run behind their fence and ask “Whattaya gonna do bout that?!”
They shelled an island and nothing happened except loud talk and UN resolutions. They sank a SK navy ship unprovoked. We did nothing. If they lob 500 shells into SK and then stop, what will we do? What if the shells only cause 100 or 200 deaths? 50 deaths?
Like I said last post, they are masters of the provocative action. They know exactly how to push the limits, and they are not batshit crazy, they are doing it for internal political reasons not to hurt the outside. They want to keep things risky enough that everyone in the country does what the leader says, but not so provocative that the SK/USA takes out the North.
I wonder how many MLRSes South Korea has?
From IISS (International Institute of Strategic Studies):
Just to note, South Korea’s domestic defense industry is extremely well developed; they aren’t so much armed by the West as they arm themselves nowadays. There is almost nothing in terms of major military hardware that they don’t make themselves. They make their own modern MBT, the K1A1, the K-9 SP howitzer, K200 IFV, the Type 214 submarine, their own destroyers, Aegis missile destroyers, domestically produced 40% and assembled 25% of their F-15Ks, and is currently developing an advanced domestic multirole fighter, the KF-X.
The size of a military isn’t really that important in the 21st century, in my amateur opinion. What matters is how well trained, how motivated and how technologically advanced the militaries are.
The US had about 100-200k soldiers in the Iraq wars, Iraq had about 1.5 million. Yet we destroyed their conventional military forces within days in 1991 and did it in weeks in 2003. Granted there was a long lasting insurgency, but the official military was destroyed extremely fast despite Iraq having almost 10x more soldiers.
South Korea is more technologically advanced. Plus if you want to talk about population, their population is 2x that of the North. Granted their active duty and reserve military is about 1/3 of the north, but they are better trained and have better equipment.
The North wouldn’t win a war. The real risk of the North is them using WMD, them using artillery against civilian populations, their commando forces going overseas for terrorism/kidnappings and if the North is conquered, holdouts who are loyal to the Kim family creating a long lasting insurgency.
But their official military wouldn’t last long. The Iraqi military had better technology and training than the North Koreans from what I know of them. And if Iraq fell so fast, so would NK.
We did a Great Debates thread on this back in January. With crunchy cites and all! The Cavazos article on the North Korean artillery’s threat to Seoul is certainly worth a read.
My understanding is they do it because they want to be noticed. They are worried that the US and China will start thinking of them as just a province of China, and not as an independent nation who has to be addressed directly by the international community. North Korea has an economy half the size of El Salvador just as a comparison to their level of importance in global economic events. If not for their human rights abuses and their constant threats, they’d be totally ignored globally.
Also they do it because that is about all they have as far as the ability to get things from the international community. They have no real economic model that lets them trade with neighbors. Their sponsor the USSR is gone. So they have to resort to blackmail by constantly threatening South Korea to get food aid, fuel aid, financial aid, etc.
Great AntiBob:
They haven’t attacked the South Korean mainland, but they did attack some off-shore islands and they torpedoed a South Korean ship. In most countries, those would be considered casus belli.
Depends on the country, as is obviously the case here.
They did torpedo the ship but denied all involvement. I’ll actually chalk that one up to incompetence (both in getting caught and in getting in the situation in the first place).
As for the island, they at least had an excuse (a bad one) with the US and SK conducting military exercises nearby along with disputed territorial waters and all the usual nonsense.
Similar border skirmishes happen all over the globe without being considered preludes to war.
Does sending a commando tema in to try an assasinate the South Korean president count?. ALthough it was 45 years ago so might not meet the last 5 decades time period I guess.
North Korea borders China. What do you think we’d do if somebody nuked a Canadian city?
This is, in fact, completely false.
When they shelled the island, South Korea fired back.
The North Koreans supposedly fired 108 shells, although the timeline says 170. The South Koreans responded by firing 80 shells, targetting North Korean barracks and command structures. The North Koreans of course, claimed they suffered no casualties.
As far as the sinking of the ship, it did take quite a while to determine the exact cause of the sinking, and both China and Russia disagreed with the determination that the North Koreans were responsible.
In IR terms? Say “tsk” “tsk”.
Depends, do I get to pick?
What I think gets lost in this discussion is not the military might of either side - I think most will agree the South would be better equipped - but the strength of will between the two.
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.
“Will”?
“Will” is the last excuse of the incompetent. Sure, we don’t have the weapons, or the doctrine, or the leadership, or the training, or the logistical capabilities, but at least we have “will”!
Plus apparently the Southen solider has inferior will despite fighting for his home, his family, to avoid being sold into slavery and being ruled by a guy who looks like the 5th grader he used to tease.
I would imagine at least a few batteries since each MLRS can cover so much area…it’s the perfect environment for them.