They're not at peace. There is also sporadic fighting between the two sides, much of the fighting with casualties. It just doesn't get reported in the West unless dozens die.Quote:
Originally Posted by ']['ear
They're not at peace. There is also sporadic fighting between the two sides, much of the fighting with casualties. It just doesn't get reported in the West unless dozens die.Quote:
Originally Posted by ']['ear
It's true that neither side has any interest in escalating to open warfare, though. It just depends how the Norks act in response to whatever sanctions or wrist slapping SK and the international community decide to apply. Apparently, they have threatened 'all out war' which is likely tough-guy posturing, but it's a situation that has the potential to escalate.
North Korea isn't going to push the South (and the US) too far, because they don't want war as much as anyone. They might conceivably engage in more low-level provocations.
Sinking a warship is not a low level provocation. In fact, why they did it and what they thought they had to gain by it is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting and important questions of this affair. One theory, which makes sense to me, is that this is actually some kind of external manifestation of some sort of internal power struggle going on in the Nork hierarchy which probably has something to do with who is to replace Kim Jong Ill.
If that is the case, then we cannot assume that parts of the North Korean state, especially the military, will act in coordination with other parts, and we therefore can't assume it will act in accordance with some kind of coherent strategy. This is the kind of situation that could easily escalate to the point where the US/South decide they need to act to declaw the Nork military before it does serious damage to the civilian population. In which case the question becomes "how quickly and suddenly can the USAF destroy the artillery targeting Seoul, and what weapons will they have to use".
I don't think this is likely, just presenting a plausible worse case scenario.
No, I think you're right. I mean, you have to put yourself in the shoes of the submarine commander. Either he panicked for some reason and fired-off a torpedo, or he was given some kind of order from somewhere in the fragmenting military hierarchy to do this. It's just too random for Kim Jong Il to say, "You know what we need? To sink a destroyer."
I like this Nork vs Souk terminology BTW.
There is also doing so in a manner that doesn't get China royally pissed off at us...Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Me too. But "Noko" and "Soko" might be better (thinking back to my college soccer days, playing "Nodak" and "Sodak")Quote:
Originally Posted by Dreadnaught
Two Cents:Quote:
Originally Posted by Illusions
China just doesn't want to have to deal with a gazillion refugees if the Nork regime collapses. Otherwise I have to think they regard the whole country as a major pain in the ass these days.
In the scenario of open war, if the Norks have one of their fizzle nukes on any kind of delivery system, regardless of what happens to the artillery and so forth along the demiliterized zone, my money is on a Japanese city getting nailed. Maybe Tokyo? Not sure what big city is nearest to Nork off the top of my head. But they HATE the Japanese, Japan is a USA partner in every way, and the US has pledged to defend Japan. That's all the reason they need to lash out in a shooting war.
South Korea is to freeze trade with the North.
And the North has threatened to start shooting.
Now can we play global thermo-nuclear war?
And the US military has been instructed to prepare for South Korea's defence. Fun stuff ahead!
Considering that we more or less control the South Korean military, it would make sense that we'd have to be the ones to prepare for war. :noob:
Oh, please. Of course the US is being careful, but no one is interested in a shooting war. And given the size disparities, the US is hardly going to be doing the lion's share of the fighting in a potential renewal of hostilities. SK has more than 20-fold more active troops than the US does in the country, not to mention twice as many reserve troops as the US has anywhere. The US would be relied on more for air and naval support to knock out NK artillery and interdict ports rather than get into a ground war.
Shooting war's already started. At least for some SK sailors who got torpedoed without warning.... :(Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
Uhm, no. It's not even clear that the attack was ordered by Kim Jong-Il rather than retroactively sanctioned. A single attack does not a war create, unless the prevailing conditions make a war likely. Do you think that whatever may or may not have happened in the Gulf of Tonkin would have led to further escalation if they weren't searching for an excuse anyways?
SK has deliberately played this down and been very deliberate in their investigation. I'm betting the SK government was hoping that it wasn't an NK attack for the simple reason that they can't start a war over this even if they have justification. In parallel, I'm betting the Chinese are chewing out NK in quiet over what they must see as a colossally stupid and destabilizing move.
Let's be honest; there's not much we can do about NK without invading, and that would be an incredibly huge and costly mess. Even a retaliatory strike would go over badly.
AFAIK nothing actually happened. Certainly nothing even remotely justifying our intervention.... :(Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
Agreed on all accounts.Quote:
SK has deliberately played this down and been very deliberate in their investigation. I'm betting the SK government was hoping that it wasn't an NK attack for the simple reason that they can't start a war over this even if they have justification. In parallel, I'm betting the Chinese are chewing out NK in quiet over what they must see as a colossally stupid and destabilizing move.
We could do the shock and awe bomb them to the stone age thing but that wouldn't lead anywhere that would make anyone happy. What a fucking mess. NK is the geopolitical version of that stupid oil leak. Its fucking everthing up and there's nothing anyone apparently can do about it.Quote:
Let's be honest; there's not much we can do about NK without invading, and that would be an incredibly huge and costly mess. Even a retaliatory strike would go over badly.
I don't think you understand just how many artillery pieces NK has, and how entrenched/hidden their forces are. NK hasn't a chance in an offensive war, but they could kill potentially hundreds of thousands of South Korean civilians using long-range artillery and the like. It takes a lot of time to knock out that many well-protected artillery emplacements, and the damage in the meantime would be severe.Quote:
Originally Posted by EyeKhan
I've seen a CSIS article arguing that we should just effectively close their sub bases by threatening to torpedo anything that wasn't penned up, and bomb the base it came from. I'm highly skeptical this would be effective and would not escalate. Short of China putting credible pressure on NK, nothing is going to be effective.
I understand. We could do it but it would not lead anywhere that would make anyone happy.Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
Do you have any evidence or fact-chain theory to support your statement?Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
Even if you are correct, why do you think NK troops would do anything at all? They are basically starving. Why should they fight a war when the alternative is democracy, not starving and also (major point) not getting killed by a US missile?Quote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
I predict NK's military to completely disintegrate within the first 3 hours of any US-led offensive operation.
May as well happen with NK. The chances of them screwing up the launch of their half-functioning half-dozen nukes is pretty high.
But pretty incredible that they've gotten themselves into this mess. And that they will still probably get away with it.
Which part? That there's not much we can do without a war, or that it would be a big mess? The former is pretty straightforward - sanctions are obviously useless (as with the nuclear issue, they don't matter too much, and China's likely to ignore them anyways), they're already diplomatically isolated, and there's not much more punishment one can give such a craphole without a military strike. It is reasonable to assume that a significant and open retaliation would lead to open warfare given N. Korea's track record of brinkmanship. The only question is whether it would be a mess. Well, the war game I linked to seems to think that it would be a colossal headache, even if the Chinese didn't get involved.Quote:
Originally Posted by agamemnus
Uhm, you think people will always gladly choose democracy over fighting the US?! The NK military may have outdated weapons systems, but they're still a pretty potent force, and pretty much the only functioning institution in the country (other than the Worker's Party of Korea). North Koreans are subjected to ridiculous brainwashing - even refugees who leave the country because conditions there are intolerable still think Americans are out to get them. I find your scenario highly unlikely - a rapid victory against brainwashed communists who have substandard weapons hasn't worked in the past, any more than a rapid victory against Islamic nutjobs has.Quote:
Even if you are correct, why do you think NK troops would do anything at all? They are basically starving. Why should they fight a war when the alternative is democracy, not starving and also (major point) not getting killed by a US missile?
I predict NK's military to completely disintegrate within the first 3 hours of any US-led offensive operation.
For that matter, the US can't 'lead' an offensive against NK. We have about 60k troops spread between SK and Japan, but that's barely enough to make a dent (and we hardly have any to spare from anywhere else). North Korea has over five million troops. Any war is likely to be led by South Korean troops, with US air/naval/logistical support. We're also talking about heavy casualties. Even if NK nukes don't get off the ground (which I agree is a pretty likely scenario), they've still got a pretty devastating ability to kill large numbers of South Korean civilians in the early stages of the war.
Kim Jong-Il should be forced to apologize and beg the SK & the west's forgiveness. Its up to SK since they would be the ones who would lose the thousands of civilians and get their city shot up, but if they wanted to make it a shooting war the United States has an obligation to wipe the shit stain that is NK off the face of the map.Quote:
Uhm, no. It's not even clear that the attack was ordered by Kim Jong-Il rather than retroactively sanctioned.
Even if it destroys the South's economy and kills hundreds of thousands? That would show Kim.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lewkowski
Maybe we can spend a trillion dollars destroying North Korea like we did destroying Saddam's Iraq. Wouldn't that be great becasue we're made of fucking money and what else are we going to mortgage our souls on afterall? Certainly not on the infrastructure of our own national civilization because we're working on starving that beast so we can go back to pre-1939 America when men were men and bootstraps were long. Conservatives and their fucking beautiful priorities. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Boy if we'd only taken care of North Korea back in the '50s instead of going into armistice ad nauseum. And with that, boy if we'd only just taken China's threat seriously when we approached their border. Blah blah blah blah fukin' blah. What a fuckin' mess this all is. There just doesn't seem to be any good options. Maybe we should just go on and "reward" them with some direct talks? Rumor has it they rEALLy want that. What could be worse about doing that than what we're doing now?
Saw this on the front page here:
SourceQuote:
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea has announced it will sever all ties with South Korea, the country's official KCNA news agency said on Tuesday, citing a spokesman for the North's national reunification committee.
Pyongyang also said its troops were bracing for war as tensions spiked on the divided peninsula over the sinking of a South Korean warship in late March.
If this were a movie or a game, I'd like to see the war. But those are real people over there. Damn it. :mad:
This'll be war if they're not careful. And it's the kind of war where we have not much to gain but a lot to lose: even the Nork military could be neutered without overly heavy civilian casualties in the south... then what?
Who wants the job of trying to turn the North into a semi-functional state, let alone one ready to be unified with the south? Anyone? No?
Hopefully they'll be careful, then.
Hey, did the US and Japan ever get that "ballistic missile defense form Aegis equipped ships" thing working? It might come in handy.
In theory, yes. The US has deployed AEGIS-equipped destroyers to the Sea of Japan in the past, and Japan has another 3 or 4 AEGIS-equipped ships. Recent tests with the SM-3 have worked decently, though it'll be great when they get Block II missiles to dramatically decrease the number of platforms needed for good coverage. Additionally, both Japan and SK have lower-tier Patriot batteries on their mainlands, though I'm unsure if either has upgraded to PAC-3 from PAC-2. To my knowledge, no ROK ship has the AEGIS ABM capability (there are two destroyers that have the combat system, though, so maybe they are upgradable with the appropriate missiles?). I know that ROK is looking to buy Israel's fancy theater ABM radar system (Green Pine), though I think it won't be delivered for another year or two. Use of the full Arrow system would require US Congressional approval, though. In theory, though, the Green Pine radar could be interfaced with US/Japanese AEGIS ships to provide decent cover for at least part of the mainland, potentially all of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Of course, this is largely only useful against large ballistic missiles. Smaller rockets and artillery can't really be stopped by these systems. Even if they ended up getting a functional version of something like the David's Sling/Magic Wand or Iron Dome (or even a C-RAM for point defense), the incremental cost per intercept combined with deployment costs for decent coverage is hideously expensive for all but the most dangerous warheads. They'd do better to harden important sites and work up a good counterforce plan.
It's possible, yeah. Tensions mounting among the troops because their friends are dying and they're not able to do anything about it, sparking larger events and snowballing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Glint
Not really.Quote:
Hey, did the US and Japan ever get that "ballistic missile defense form Aegis equipped ships" thing working? It might come in handy.
I'm thinking more of a scenario where nukes are fired at Japanese (Japan: "Fuck off! Why is it always us?") cities. I think it'd be difficult to stop the South getting it in the face in the event of war. Also, some of the longer ranged NK missiles can hit theeasternwestern US, but they don't work too well.