[Swamp_Thing]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7696261/

Throw another logg in the fire!
It was not a nuke capable missile, but still... Launching them into the Sea of Japan tends to make the japanese and south koreans a tad nervous.
Why didn´t Bush got rid of that madman instead? He would have got much less flak from international community, and probably much more support! So why didn´t he?
Oh yeah... no oil! I forgot that little detail...

[aldo_14]

Let's be honest, though; short of turning the place to glass, the US would have not real chance of sucesfully invading N.Korea.  Even if they got enough troops to defeat the NK army, and miraculously avoided flattening the country doing so, they'd still have a reconstruction job that makes Iraq look like a lego set........

[Rictor]

They don't have to invade, they could in theory do an airstrike on the offending reactor(s) and call it a day. But that would of course invite a reprisal against Seoul and the US troops stationed in the DMZ bla bla bla.

The US would win, no doubt about it, but with huge losses to their own military (I heard some Clinton politico say that 100k was their best estimate) not to mention the civilian casualties, which would of course be much greater. Regardless of my opinion of NK, I actually get quite a bit of perverse pleasure watching the US trash around and throw a hissy fit, but knowing full well they can't do a damn thing about it.

[Swamp_Thing]

Originally posted by aldo_14
Let's be honest, though; short of turning the place to glass, the US would have not real chance of sucesfully invading N.Korea.  Even if they got enough troops to defeat the NK army, and miraculously avoided flattening the country doing so, they'd still have a reconstruction job that makes Iraq look like a lego set........

Perceptions of what it could be like are always over-estimated. Not many people thought defeating Saddam´s army in 91 would be as easy as it turned out to be. Saddam bolstered his forces with words, but not with deeds. Everybody thought he had a million men army, thousands of tanks, etc etc. And what did we find? That half of those tanks were made of cardboard.
North Korea is the same. After decades of isolation, it is virtually impossible for them to support a modern army. North Korea´s strenght lies in its numbers of infantry, not much else. I´m sure with the latest technological advancements, the US Air Force would be able to knock NK´s air force out of the sky in a week. And after that, they own the entire conflict.
The problem here is political, not military. The US has little to gain from such an intervention. They know China would vetoe any UN resolution. And they are scared of a nuclear reprisal, that i believe would never happen. The koreans are fanatics, but they are not stupid. They know very well that for every nuke they drop they get 20 in return. Only a raving lunatic would do it, and if Kim hasn´t done yet, chances are he will never do it.

Then there´s the issue of wether they really do have nukes. I suspect they want us to believe they have, but really don´t have. A nuke program costs billions, wich NK doesn´t have. It needs scientists, wich they lack, and it needs resources, that they can´t get. If they had nukes, you can bet they would have made a nuclear test for the world to see. But they haven´t.

[Bobboau]

"..every nuke they drop they get 20 in return.."
you forgot a zero or two, remember, we've had this huge stokpile a long ****ing time, if we get a 'nuke nation for free' card we arn't going to wast it on a measaly 20 nukes.

NK is a lot thornier than Iraq, and if we did anything we'd get masses of protests around the world again, and we arn't going to go through that again for a few years, if we piss too many people off enough they might start shooting at us, that's prety much the end of it. now if we can get a bunch of nations to say "ok, go get 'em" we probly would, you know how Americans love war and all.

[Swamp_Thing]

If you had gone after NK in the first place, you wouldn´t have gotten 1/10 of the criticism you got for Iraq.

[Bobboau]

we should have gone after them first, I agree. unfortunately Bush had talked himself into a corner by the time it became obvius.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Swamp_Thing


Perceptions of what it could be like are always over-estimated. Not many people thought defeating Saddam´s army in 91 would be as easy as it turned out to be. Saddam bolstered his forces with words, but not with deeds. Everybody thought he had a million men army, thousands of tanks, etc etc. And what did we find? That half of those tanks were made of cardboard.
North Korea is the same. After decades of isolation, it is virtually impossible for them to support a modern army. North Korea´s strenght lies in its numbers of infantry, not much else. I´m sure with the latest technological advancements, the US Air Force would be able to knock NK´s air force out of the sky in a week. And after that, they own the entire conflict.
The problem here is political, not military. The US has little to gain from such an intervention. They know China would vetoe any UN resolution. And they are scared of a nuclear reprisal, that i believe would never happen. The koreans are fanatics, but they are not stupid. They know very well that for every nuke they drop they get 20 in return. Only a raving lunatic would do it, and if Kim hasn´t done yet, chances are he will never do it.

Then there´s the issue of wether they really do have nukes. I suspect they want us to believe they have, but really don´t have. A nuke program costs billions, wich NK doesn´t have. It needs scientists, wich they lack, and it needs resources, that they can´t get. If they had nukes, you can bet they would have made a nuclear test for the world to see. But they haven´t.

You're not talking a conventional conflict dominated by airpower; ever since Vietnam, these types of conflict have been turned into guerilla wars intended to sap the enemies strength - just look at the problems the Soviets had in Afghanistan despite complete air domination (and a distinct lack of care about civvie casualties).  Vietnam itself, of course, is an example of that - the Viet Cong / NVA moved into guerilla war after suffering at the hands of US airpower.  AFAIK, the North Korean climate is sufficiently temperate & mountainous  to offer that same sort of cover (arguably unlike the drier areas of Iraq).

At the moment, the US is stretched even with 150,000 or so deployed to Iraq, and (?)a few thousand more in Afghanistan... a war against NK would be against a fully indoctrinated military of 6 million  plus; even assuming desertion, you'd still need a ****load of troops (well over a million?), especially if the civillian populace get involved.  

And the further problem comes if you want to impose regime change; quite simply, you can't save a populace by killing it - IMO part of the political unwillingness is down to the acceptance that to beat the North Korean army would entail massive and ultimately self-defeating civillian casualities.

It's maybe also worth noting that the 91 Gulf War involved heavy bombing of Baghdad - 100,000+ were killed IIRC.  The US, etc, also promised not to enter Iraq, and informed Saddam that use of chemical/biological weapons would be countered by nuclear weapons.  In short, it was a very different war than one that could be afforded for regime change.... and UN sanctions meant the 'latest' Gulf war would take place against a near dismantled Iraq military.

In a total war, I think the US would win - they can simply flatten the country from the air.  But that sort of war can't be legally justified unless NK itself attacks one of their neighbours.  And the 'regime change' type war would be militarily infeasible without massive coallteral damage IMO.  As far as I'm concerned, that is why there is no political will.

And, of course, lets not ignore China........

[Swamp_Thing]

You are forgeting Bosnia. A perfect example of an air campaign, with little ground envolvment of troops, that achieved a regime change.
To change the regime in NK, it has to come from within, not from without. I honestly believe that as soon as hostilities begin, you would see large chunks of the NK army rising against the govt. After decades of hunger and mass murder (to a level that puts Iraq to shame), there aren´t many true supporters of the regime. It´s a fear ruled regime.
If, like Servia and Milosevicz, the NK air capability is knocked out, you can perform surgical strikes at all the military targets, and bring it to it´s knees without a single foot soldier setting foot inside NK. And after the NK govt´s repression tool is eliminated (the army, the police forces), the north koreans would take the job in their own hands.
The servians had the best anti-air defense in Europe, the iraqis had the 3rd largest army in the world, and the most defended city on Earth. And both fell in matter of days, using a good air campaign. It can be done. The only "what if" is the NK´s nuclear capability, and even that can be countered.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
You are forgeting Bosnia. A perfect example of an air campaign, with little ground envolvment of troops, that achieved a regime change.
To change the regime in NK, it has to come from within, not from without. I honestly believe that as soon as hostilities begin, you would see large chunks of the NK army rising against the govt. After decades of hunger and mass murder (to a level that puts Iraq to shame), there aren´t many true supporters of the regime. It´s a fear ruled regime.
If, like Servia and Milosevicz, the NK air capability is knocked out, you can perform surgical strikes at all the military targets, and bring it to it´s knees without a single foot soldier setting foot inside NK. And after the NK govt´s repression tool is eliminated (the army, the police forces), the north koreans would take the job in their own hands.
The servians had the best anti-air defense in Europe, the iraqis had the 3rd largest army in the world, and the most defended city on Earth. And both fell in matter of days, using a good air campaign. It can be done. The only "what if" is the NK´s nuclear capability, and even that can be countered.

Bosnia didn't involve a regime change (technically, that was Yugoslavia, which later become Serbia & Montenegro); the regime change was caused by a popular uprising.  All the Kosovan air-campaign involved and achieved was installing a peace-keeping province in Kosovo.  The Yugoslav army never fought a conventional war and never had to; it's notable that estimated ground casualties from the air campaign (in terms of armour) were probably far higher than in actuality, owing to a combination of high altitude bombing (as the US did not wish to have any casualites) and use of decoys for Yugoslav tanks et al.

Neither did Iraq fall; Iraq was never in any danger of falling, as President Bush (snr) had already promised not to enter Iraqi territory as a condition of being allowed to use Saudi Arabia as a base.

Neither of these wars,  as such,  saw a situation which forced the enemy to fight intense ground or guerilla style combat.  The Yugoslav air campaign didn't see any ground campaign atall....and it also lasted 2 months, not days.  And Milosevic was not ousted until a year (plus) after that.

Remember that North Korea has been a stalinist totalitarian dictatorship for over 50 years - the population there have been fully indoctrinated by the ruling ideology, to an extent that means the Chinese are relatively 'free'.  Even travel outside the country is banned; it's not a situation where any dissenting viewpoint is allowed in to inspire the masses to rise against the rulership; in fact it's more likely that 'provocational' military action would strengthen the leadership, given the emphasis on casting the US as a brutal, antagonistic enemy to the Korean people.

If you look at Iraq, for example - how many people actually rose in rebellion when the invasion began?  None.  And these people had a hell of a lot more freedom of information than your average North Korean.

[NGTM-1R]

On the other hand, the Iraqis weren't starving either.

North Korea is going to collapse of its own accord sooner rather then later. Militarily they barely even rate consideration: they can put an impressive number of troops in the field, but these are poorly equipped and even more poorly trained. They are poorly paid. Poorly fed. Indoctrination or not, they are incapable of effective guerilla action. They can barely sustain themselves in garrison; prolonged time in the field is beyond their capablities.

North Korea's nuclear capablity is not impressive. They have never actually detonated a weapon. Considering the current state of their military, whether they actually have the capablity to deliever a warhead to Seoul, let alone Japan or Guam (the only US territory within the theoritical range of their missiles) without a few weeks to prepare is questionable. They like to show off those Nodong-1 and Nodong-2 missiles, but how many of them actually work? Probably not many. Those that do are almost certainly not kept fitted with nuclear warheads considering the level of paranoia the regime has about its own citizens. They would need at least a few hours to get the warheads out of storage, fit them to a missile, and launch them. Whether they'd have any missiles left by that point is questionable.

Even assuming the Nodongs launch with nuclear warheads attached, it's questionable they'd actually reach their target. South Korea has long been interested in missile defense, for obvious reasons, and the Nodong series lies within the "theater ballistic missile" realm: a realm that the Patriot missile can intercept. After the Gulf War upgrades were made to the Patriots so that they would offer a better showing in this role, and South Korea has a lot of Patriot batteries. So does Japan, and the JSDF's navy has a number of Aegis-equipped destroyers as well. Aegis could always intercept TBM missiles; they tested that in the '80s. Upgrades to the SM-2 missile after the Gulf War increased its capablities in this role. The SM-2-ER Block IV was specifically developed for the purpose of intercepting a ballistic target. Japan eagerly bought about a hundred of those.

The real danger lies not in their nuclear capablity, but in their much less publicized but much more extensive chemical arsenal. This is not a serious threat militarily; the US and South Korean armies have trained for a generation and more to operate effectively on a battlefield saturated by chemical weapons. The problem is that they could potentionally kill most of the civilian population of South Korea, and maybe even a sizeable chunk of Japan's civilian population to boot, with those weapons. Their delivery systems are much less complicated, much more reliable, and much more numerous. The North Koreans have thousands of FROG-series rockets, cheap and reliable in function if not accuracy, and hundreds of older, lesser ballistic missiles that were made to carry chemical warheads.

[Rictor]

Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
You are forgeting Bosnia. A perfect example of an air campaign, with little ground envolvment of troops, that achieved a regime change.
To change the regime in NK, it has to come from within, not from without. I honestly believe that as soon as hostilities begin, you would see large chunks of the NK army rising against the govt. After decades of hunger and mass murder (to a level that puts Iraq to shame), there aren´t many true supporters of the regime. It´s a fear ruled regime.
If, like Servia and Milosevicz, the NK air capability is knocked out, you can perform surgical strikes at all the military targets, and bring it to it´s knees without a single foot soldier setting foot inside NK. And after the NK govt´s repression tool is eliminated (the army, the police forces), the north koreans would take the job in their own hands.
The servians had the best anti-air defense in Europe, the iraqis had the 3rd largest army in the world, and the most defended city on Earth. And both fell in matter of days, using a good air campaign. It can be done. The only "what if" is the NK´s nuclear capability, and even that can be countered.

OK, here's the thing:

Bosnia is a former Yugoslav republic, where a war was waged between Bosnian Serbs (Christian Orthodox), Bosnians (Muslims) and Croats (Catholic) for control of territory. The war went on from about 1991 to roughly 1995. It ended with the pseudo partition of Bosnia into Bosnia and Herzegovina (primarily Bosnian muslim) and Republika Srpska (an autonomous territory made up of Bosnian Serbs). Both are ruled by international powers, currently headed by Paddy Ashdown, which dictate most of the policies without much consultation with the local authorities.

Kosovo is an automonous zone (or something like that. Legally, it's a bit less than a republic) within Yugoslavia (now called Serbia and Montenegro) where a guerilla war was waged by Albanian separatists (KLA) against Serb military and police forces, going on in some way or another throughout most of the 90s, but becoming serious around 1998. In 1999, NATO bombed Serbia for 78 days. Rather than weaken Millosevic, it strengthened him (when under attack, you always stick by your country and whoever happens to be ruling it). He was overthrown in 2001, more than a year after the end of the bombing, in a civil uprising (with the "help" of various foreign NGO, notably George Soros, as well as the support of the German and American government). After establishing Kosovo as a NATO protectorate, the KLA was given more or less free reign, and has since succeded in kicking out most of the non-Albanians (Serbs, gypsies and the like). Most likely, the power-that=be will declare it fully independent in the near future, and Kosovo will possibly link up with Albania.

Bombing didn't achieve ****. Well, that's not entirely true. It managed to justify ther invasion and occupation of a sovereign nation, strengthen the existing authorities, kill a couple thousand civilians (Serb as well as Albanian) and create a mass exodus of both Serbs (into the interior of Serbia) and Albanians (into Macedonia). Oh and, of course, it justified the existance of NATO a decade after the purpose for it's existance collapsed. The "regime change" was much closer to the current series of colour-revolutions (Ukraine, Georgia etc) then it was to Iraq or Afghanistan, in fact it was the test-bed for the current form of "regime change" and the basic structure has since been exported to several ex-Soviet republics.

To compare North Korea to Kosovo is absurd. If Serbia had 1/10th of the military that NK does, there would have been no bombing and no occupation. Think back to every place attacked by the US (as well as various Western powers) since Vietnam. All of them, down to the last, have been more or less defenceless. The policy is: never attack someone who can fight back.

ahem

/derail

[Bobboau]

actualy I beleve NK and serbia had (have?) the same... style  of defences, lots of natural barriers, massive under ground tunnel systems, there is a reason why we bombed from high altitude. the two main diferences between them being 1) North Korea has nukes, oh and a generaly larger military as well and 2) we don't think they'd ever turn on there leader.

[Nuclear1]

1) Like said before, do they actually work? We won't necessarily have to worry about NK's nukes if they can't do anything to harm anybody.

2) While I see your point, revolution is all-too likely. It's an oppressive government that has done little to ease the suffering of its civilians, using their money instead to build up a large military and a nuclear program. It's just a pattern of history: when people live under such conditions, they'll want a change. No matter how much they support Kim Jong-Il, they'll want a regime change as well; look at France's revolution and see how they replaced one revolutionary form of government with another when they began to starve.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by ngtm1r
On the other hand, the Iraqis weren't starving either.

Arguably, they were; UN sanctions.  I'd imagine the regimes in charge at both countries would blame the economic / food problems on the US, anyways.  It's arguable that, in N.Korea this would be more persuasive due to the personality cult they developed around the 'glorious leader' (of course, I recognise it's impossible to judge how pervasive that cult is, given the lack of free press to gauge opposition, and the oppression of those who do, would).

North Korea is going to collapse of its own accord sooner rather then later. Militarily they barely even rate consideration: they can put an impressive number of troops in the field, but these are poorly equipped and even more poorly trained. They are poorly paid. Poorly fed. Indoctrination or not, they are incapable of effective guerilla action. They can barely sustain themselves in garrison; prolonged time in the field is beyond their capablities.

North Korea's nuclear capablity is not impressive. They have never actually detonated a weapon. Considering the current state of their military, whether they actually have the capablity to deliever a warhead to Seoul, let alone Japan or Guam (the only US territory within the theoritical range of their missiles) without a few weeks to prepare is questionable. They like to show off those Nodong-1 and Nodong-2 missiles, but how many of them actually work? Probably not many. Those that do are almost certainly not kept fitted with nuclear warheads considering the level of paranoia the regime has about its own citizens. They would need at least a few hours to get the warheads out of storage, fit them to a missile, and launch them. Whether they'd have any missiles left by that point is questionable.

Even assuming the Nodongs launch with nuclear warheads attached, it's questionable they'd actually reach their target. South Korea has long been interested in missile defense, for obvious reasons, and the Nodong series lies within the "theater ballistic missile" realm: a realm that the Patriot missile can intercept. After the Gulf War upgrades were made to the Patriots so that they would offer a better showing in this role, and South Korea has a lot of Patriot batteries. So does Japan, and the JSDF's navy has a number of Aegis-equipped destroyers as well. Aegis could always intercept TBM missiles; they tested that in the '80s. Upgrades to the SM-2 missile after the Gulf War increased its capablities in this role. The SM-2-ER Block IV was specifically developed for the purpose of intercepting a ballistic target. Japan eagerly bought about a hundred of those.

The real danger lies not in their nuclear capablity, but in their much less publicized but much more extensive chemical arsenal. This is not a serious threat militarily; the US and South Korean armies have trained for a generation and more to operate effectively on a battlefield saturated by chemical weapons. The problem is that they could potentionally kill most of the civilian population of South Korea, and maybe even a sizeable chunk of Japan's civilian population to boot, with those weapons. Their delivery systems are much less complicated, much more reliable, and much more numerous. The North Koreans have thousands of FROG-series rockets, cheap and reliable in function if not accuracy, and hundreds of older, lesser ballistic missiles that were made to carry chemical warheads.

All the (US) wargame simulations have  predicted (in an NK invasion started war) that the North Koreans could be repulsed prior to reaching Seoul, then defeated, but only at the cost of massive casualties.  that's my point; I'm not saying the US couldn't win a war, but that to do so would effectively destroy the purpose of that war - i.e. a war of regime change that more or less destroys a country is not one that is politically viable.

What I mean by militarily infeasible, is that it's impossible (IMO) to determine a military strategy that would result in a politically acceptable victory.  I think the US knows this, and hence would not attack North Korea unless provoked (and properly provoked, i.e. by an NK attack, not by some made-up provocation).

Whilst the entire NK military might not be technically adept, I believe that the sheer numbers would be enough for damaging human wave style attacks; and that there would be a sufficient number of hard core, dedicated fanatacists to run a damaging guerilla campaign post-war.

I don't know if the higher-up commanders are sufficiently indoctrinated or loyal to use NBC weapons; but at the same time, you can't plan a war based on the assumption the enemy will not use their most powerful weapons.  That's another reason why I don't believe a military option is feasible.

Finally, I don't think the US has enough spare troops, or had enough, to fight a war and occupy the country (even before the Iraq war), given the difficulties in post war Iraq (which had a smaller military).

[Kie99]

Would it be infeasible to just hold an extremely large Bomb (Not large enough to affect South Korea) over North Korea's capital and say "Surrender immediately or we will obliterate you."?

[n00by]

And risk enormous civilian casualties? Well...good luck telling them it was "collateral damage" afterwards....

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by kietotheworld
Would it be infeasible to just hold an extremely large Bomb (Not large enough to affect South Korea) over North Korea's capital and say "Surrender immediately or we will obliterate you."?

Ask China for permission.........

[Turnsky]

aaannd the saber-rattling continues

it's the cold war all over again, people.

[MatthewPapa]

Originally posted by Bobboau
"..every nuke they drop they get 20 in return.."
you forgot a zero or two, remember, we've had this huge stokpile a long ****ing time, if we get a 'nuke nation for free' card we arn't going to wast it on a measaly 20 nukes.

LMAO and agreed. The USA would send them back to the stone-age due to so many nukes raining down on them. And also you have to remember, the USA is the only country to date that has actually used a nuke weapon on another country, this might well be a psychological deterrent as well.

In total war (especially a with a wartime draft and allies assisting) the US would be quite capable of defeating NK in a military confrontation due to its vast technological and industrial superiority. Yes the NK troops would be tough but that would be no match for a well trained completely modern army. You have to remember that troop #'s are becoming less and less decisive in deciding the outcome of modern wars.