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.