So, the US would lose & let North Korea have the whole peninsula?
Assuming that the US withdraws and Loki brings the Chitauri to assist in the conquest of the South, I think a massive system of labor camps will be necessary. The North will suddenly be governing a huge number of people who did not grow up under a system of juche and Kim-worship, and who know firsthand how much better off the world outside NK really is. Mass incarceration and the threat of violence against family members will be necessary to pacify this population.
Under any other presidency this would be implausible, but given that Trump doesn’t or didn’t seem keen on upholding NATO’s defense obligations, and his constant false complaints about Japan and South Korea unfairly benefiting from US defense, it is certainly reasonable to believe that his stance on defending US allies such as Japan or South Korea will be weaker than that of any other previous modern US president.
We currently have about 28,500 troops stationed in Korea. I’ve heard guys who’d served there call themselves a “speed bump.” Still, do you really think Trump would just ignore their death or capture? Do you think he could?
You’re pretty invested in fighting the hypothetical. Which is not the point of the OP.
How about Kim starts saber rattling and Trump goes to SK and says “make it worth our wile to defend you. Or else we won’t bother.” SK balks, not keen on being trapped between two blackmailers with opposing demands while China starts salivating. Trump starts withdrawing our forces. Kim has the foresight to contain his boner until after the last significant US unit is out.
Sure it’s implausible. The whole OP scenario is implausible. But that’s not the point of the thread. We’ve debated alien invasions and zombie apocalypses before. Things many orders of magnitude less likely than Kim taking SK.
I spent a lot of time at one of the large South Korean manufacturing facilities in the late 80s, about 65 miles from the border. Many employees wore reversible jackets with camo on the inside. Contingency plans were in place to disassemble and bury or sabotage production equipment. The place was prepared to offer resistance to an invasion and plans were practiced frequently.
Don’t know if this effort is maintained 25 years later but, even accepting the OP scenario, I doubt the NK would have an easy time tapping into the resources of the south.
“If” the unthinkable happened, U.S. forces would probably end up in another Pusan perimeter situation in a very short time and anyone left by then would be evacuated. The casualty toll would be minimal due to contemporary intel, comms, transportation and defensive measures. We would just basically be kicked out.
Well, first they’d have to thank the alien space bats for their invaluable assistance…
I disagree. I think the main reason they haven’t been invaded is that nobody (not US, not South Korea, and not even China) wants to deal with caring for a bunch of starving, ignorant, brain-washed North Koreans.
As for the OP, I suspect massive human rights abuses would be the norm, and I doubt that many in the formerly-North-Korean military would have the knowledge to use much of the advanced weaponry they captured. Ditto the South Korean manufacturing. I suspect a lot of that would just grind to a halt and start collecting dust, unless the Northerns let the Southerns just keep doing their capitalism thing while skimming some heavy taxes for United Korea. Even then, I suspect you’d see embargoes and trade restrictions with United Korea so exports and imports would probably dry up pretty quickly.
The UN armies fell back to the Pusan Perimeter in a quite costly delaying action. The US Army ground component was only one division, the 24th Infantry Division, which was facing only two of the (smaller) North Korean divisions out of around 10 of them, but suffered heavily, its commanding general captured by the North Koreans. The rest were being delayed by ROKA units until the front almost reached ‘the Perimeter’ at which time other US Army divisions began to arrive. Now the sole partial US Division in Korea is even smaller compared to the ROKA. If the ROKA were to collapse the US forces would highly likely be surrounded and destroyed, analogous to what happened to the 2nd Infantry Division (nominally same one still there now) in the retreat from North Korea in November 1950. ROKA units around it gave way, it was overwhelmed itself by Chinese attacks, and was partially destroyed with much of one of its three regiments captured, but was rebuilt under the same name.
There’s no assurance whatsoever the US forces in Korea would escape heavy casualties even by past standards, even if the joint US-ROK defense was highly successful let alone if it disastrously failed. And they’d certainly sustain what are now considered ‘heavy’ casualties in context of recent wars where several 1,000 US military deaths over more than a decade were considered heavy losses. Any loss of life in war is tragic, but there would be no chance of avoiding the level of casualties which causes national horror and soul searching nowadays, which is much less than it used to be. Which is one big reason the US forces are there, for the knowledge of all parties that a US President’s hands would be essentially tied once those forces started suffering casualties and were in jeopardy of being lost altogether: all out support of the ROK would be the only choice.
But the topic does ask what the North Koreans would do if they could conquer South Korea. Seems to me in a sense like the much more likely scenario that South Korea eventually ‘inherits’ North Korea. Just plain hard to imagine, the gap between the two societies having grown so wide.
Back to the 1950 war, at that time the North Koreans had non-negligible support in the South. In fact as the Korean Peoples Army suffered horrific casualties against superior UN firepower and numbers (the UN forces defending the Pusan Perimeter eventually outnumbered the KPA by around 2:1, but the NK’s continued on the offensive) a significant proportion of it came to be composed of South Koreans, some of whom freely volunteered though others were pressured into it or outright impressed into service. That situation would be totally different now.
That is basically what what I was trying to say without going into all the historical details. Bottom line is we (meaning U.S. military commanders) are not going to sacrifice our people in losing cause. Even when we do, as HAS happened from time to time, we now have truly effective ISR, Combat Rescue, and countermeasure technology to minimize casualties.
We are not going to fight for the privilege of driving a Hyundai.
ISTM you’ve completely misunderstood Corry El’s very good post.
The thing Corry El said was “totally different now” is that essentially zero SK citizens will gladly switch sides and fight for the NKs. As they did in quantity in the 1950s. In that he’s certainly correct.
The existence of US forces in Korea now guarantees the US will massively retaliate if our forces suffer significant casualties. Not the opposite. We will go all in because the loss of 5K or 10K people almost instantly will be such a shock that outrage will fill the US. Outrage demanding avenging action.
Rather than the creeping desire to avoid creeping casualties which motivates our civilians today in this “war that’s not really a war unless you’re over there” we’ve had this last 15ish years.
Whether the US ought to set up “trip-wire” forces is a separate discussion. We have them today and they will operate as designed if tripped over tomorrow. The design being both military (lose quickly but bloodily) and political (generate massive outrage and public support for regime-changing counterattacks.)
Just to add to LSLGuy’s response, you misread my post. If the US doesn’t want to ‘fight for the privilege of driving a Hyundai’, the US ground forces particularly have to be withdrawn before an NK attack. If there’s an attack, they will be fighting and suffering casualties, fighting to avoid annihilation if the US-ROK defense doesn’t go well. And the only choice then will be to sacrifice those forces or go all out to support them, IOW the only politically viable choice will be to go all out and support them, no matter what comments any US leader makes now.
And I think if actually interested in this you should get into ‘the historical details’ a bit more. The US had no ground forces in Korean June 25 1950, but had several divisions in Japan. It sent the 24th Infantry Division to Korea by around the first week in July. That unit narrowly averted total destruction, and no way it would have unless several additional US divisions hadn’t been arriving by the end of July to help establish the Pusan Perimeter. If you believe ‘modern weapons and comms’ etc would drastically change this you’re mistaken. If the existing US-ROK force is totally defeated as in late June through mid July 1950, the US component of it will be destroyed if there isn’t an effective follow on of US forces (including more air power etc). The force there now won’t just be able to say ‘see ya’ and leave once a war starts.
That said, I don’t think it likely the US-ROK, the bulk of it ROKA, force would be defeated by the KPA. Or it might be pushed back somewhat, at tremendous loss to South Korea, but not defeated July 1950 style, maybe more like the ebb and flow of the UN v the Chinese/NK force in Nov 1950-July 1951. The combined KPA/CPV force pushed the UN one back pretty long distances and well into South Korea a couple of times, but its logistical weakness when on the move (particularly in the face of UN air superiority) and huge losses to superior UN firepower always made the pendulum swing back and the UN force again able to advance, where it was finally decided politically to just hold a defensible line near the 38th parallel, basically the current DMZ, rather than exploit the KPA/CPV exhaustion to push back significantly into NK again.
But the thread question suggests complete US-ROK defeat as a what if, and it’s not impossible.
It’s tempting to think the North Korean government might not really want to conquer the South; South Korea and the US serve as a perpetual enemy in an Orwellian “War is Peace” way. The only problem with this is that the North Korean leaders appear to truly believe in their own batshit insane propaganda. So what does Pyongyang do after a successful reunification? Probably give a magnificent speech about how the south has been liberated, and then start killing on a scale not seen since the days of Pol Pot in Cambodia.
If OTH, China enters the war then the calculus changes somewhat.
Yeah. That’s the *real *problem with NK/SK. We really, really need to keep the US & China out of direct combat.
Which means either a secret US/PRC agreement to let the two Koreas duke it out to whatever outcome while both US & China just watch.
Or we need to prevent NK from attacking in the first place. Or SK attacking for that matter, but that’s pretty implausible. And US/PRC need to do that by whatever means fair or foul. Ideally in concert because the risk of misunderstanding is too high if they’re both pushing and shoving in secret at inadvertent cross purposes even as they share the same goal.
The former “stand and watch” agreement is very unlikely, so the latter preventative action is the only game in town. So that’s the one we play. Probably lacking the secret concert I suggest is necessary for long-term safety while playing.
True, but now as opposed to 60 yrs ago there’d be a plausible question ‘on which side?’. At least for an activist Chinese policy to undermine not help the NK’s, though an actual Chinese military attack on the NK rear is much less likely*. OTOH as far as direct Chinese intervention on the NK side IMO the precedent of 1950 would probably still apply: only if the US led force entered far into North Korea. Remember the Chinese were, in their opinion at the time as clear as they could be about that in October 1950, after the US led force crushed the KPA in South Korea and advanced against only remnants into North Korea. But the US/UN did not get the message.
*the NK regime is famously paranoid, still it’s notable that at times over recent decades a significant proportion of the KPA has been near the Chinese border organized for defense there, not just to try to catch NK citizens.
You make it sound like you are assuming this theoretical “attack” would be a surprise, or something close to it.
Actually, the “anger” is a concept in Korean culture, called han. From Wikipedia:
If NK wants to succeed it sure better be.
One of the concerns about their semi-regular alerts leading up to fulminating frothing attack PR is that eventually one of them won’t turn back at the border so to speak.
IOW, one of these days when they start crying “Wolf!” they’ll mean it. Here’s hoping that when that day comes we’re still watching with a suspicious eye. Not a complacent one.