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Korea going hot?
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The consensus is that a torpedo sunk that Korean Corvette. So what's the odds of the Cold War over there going hot?
__________________ Into terror!, Into valour! Charge ahead! No! Never turn Yes, it's into the fire we fly And the devil will burn! - Scarlett Pimpernell
I don't think so. The final turnover from American command authority in-theatre to the South Koreans is, IIRC, scheduled for 2012, and the latter have been making dentente noises for, IIRC, the last decade or so. Unless the 'Dear Leader' has less than two years to live and figure's he's got nothing left to lose, this just isn't a good time to push things, from their perspective.
If things do go hot, a lot will depend on actual status of the North Korean nuclear weapons and rocketry programs. If we're lucky, one or the other of them will turn out to be as hollow and mismanaged as that empty shell of a 'hotel' in Pyongyang. Without a nuclear arsenal to even the odds, South Korea will turn the North Koreans into a splat mark in a 'hot' war even without American help, which would be offered. If the North does have working nuclear weaponry, though, they'll use them, and that'll be even uglier than an occupation. =========== =============================================== "V, did you do something foolish?" "Yes, and it was glorious." 
The real problem for South Korea, and it's been that way since the Korean war ended is that Seoul (both the capital and largest city) is within artilery range of the border and the North Koean artiliery is WELL dug in - artifical caves. I don't believe that you could completely eliminate them, even with something crazy, like ground burst nukes.
While the North Koean army is very large (especially for a country that size) and, reputedly, fanatical, their tech level and command and control are not considered to be very good, which means that in a full scale war, I'd give the victory to South Korea, even though South Korea would lose it's capital city while doing so. South Korea knows this, which is why it really doesn't want a war. I just really hope that the North Korean leadership hasn't been listening to its own propoganda and knows that it wouldn't win. Even if it does have WWII tech nuclear weapons, it would have a hard time delievering something that large and it would not be a war winner. The detente noises from South Korea aren't really that important. South Korea does want peace with the North, but has very few illusions about the esteemed tosspot and his regime - especially when they launch an attack like this coupled with the usual NK attitude (look at the KCNA (Korean Central News Agency) website sometime). The current goverment in power is led by the party with the more hardline attitude towards the north. I don't think a hot war is that likely, for reasons given above. If it does, North Korea is the side that will start it. North Korea has threatened war if further sanctions are applied, but this is fairly common for NK (IIRC, they have threatened war over a lack of tourists). I THINK it's bluster, but the government in NK is such a black box, that nobody has much idea what's going inside. Jinx999 Wrote:The real problem for South Korea, and it's been that way since the Korean war ended is that Seoul (both the capital and largest city) is within artilery range of the border and the North Koean artiliery is WELL dug in - artifical caves. I don't believe that you could completely eliminate them, even with something crazy, like ground burst nukes.This is where the South Koreans would have our help. I've seen footage of Tomahawk cruise missiles going through openings no larger than a bedroom window to nail their targets. Their artillery placements wouldn't stand a chance, and they know this. Which is probably why their doing sneaky back-stabbing little attacks like this. Thing is, though, people are going to remember stunts like this. And the day that North Korea falls, there's gonna be some very angry people looking for whoever was responsible - they're gonna come with rope and wood for a hangman's gallows.
I suspect most people won't remember stunts like this. After all, both sides have been taking occasional pot-shots at each other ever since the war ended, and yet here people are acting like this time it's something new and unusual. ;-)
Four dozen sailors died this time. In our modern culture (that gets upset when two or three soldiers die in the same week in Afghanistan), that's a huge body count, and thus is newsworthy...
-- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
And the Norks are, of course, swearing up and down that it wasn't them, that the South is faking it all, and that if there's any move to sanction or attack them in response their reply will be "overwhelming"...
Methinks they doth protest too much. -- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode. blackaeronaut Wrote:This is where the South Koreans would have our help. I've seen footage of Tomahawk cruise missiles going through openings no larger than a bedroom window to nail their targets. Their artillery placements wouldn't stand a chance, and they know this. Which is probably why their doing sneaky back-stabbing little attacks like this.You don't have enough missiles. Seriously, there is more artillery pointed at Soeul then you could hope to destroy. Not to mention moving enough ships into the area to have even a dent on the emplacements would probably trigger a war before you got them all in position. Any move made against North Korea and Soeul is a smoking crater. End of story. It's jingoistic bullshit like this which can inflame a situation even more. America has powerful guns, but they aren't Superman. -------------------- Epsilon
Also, the impressive footage never shows that the missile was aimed at another window three houses down, and that the target was never within 20 miles of where the missile hit.
 Anybody remember the war on Serbia? All those really expensive missiles kept blowing up scrap metal decoys and generally accomplishing nothing until the Evil Empire decided to stop going after the Serbian military and make terror attacks on civilian targets instead...
Look, I may be out here somewhere in the vicinity of Korea, but it's not like anyone tells me exactly how many guns are pointed at Seoul at any given moment in time. Bestow upon thy humble self a break.
khagler, get your facts straight. Nowhere do I see anything about Tomahawk TLAMs or faulty targeting systems. NATO owed up to mistargeting a whole slew of air strikes. The simple, sad, cold, hard truth is that a targeting system cares very little about the contents of its target. It only ensures that the ordnance gets to where where it was instructed to deliver it. blackaeronaut Wrote:Look, I may be out here somewhere in the vicinity of Korea, but it's not like anyone tells me exactly how many guns are pointed at Seoul at any given moment in time. Bestow upon thy humble self a break.Approx 5000-10,000 depending on estimates. And if you're going to talk about these things you should do some research on them before suggesting we just missile them into submission. There is a reason we haven't alreayd done that, after all. --------------- Epsilon
There's always us not wanting to start the war either.
What I, not knowing what to ask google to get suitable answers, wonder is would it actually take blowing up each individual piece of artillery to stop them, or is there any sort of centralized control that can disable more than one at a time? Though there's even limits on how much that would help. -Morgan.
At a guess, NK doesn't have the technology for a central controlling computer.
Which could be buried, becasuse it doesn't need a firing port.
Yeah, I didn't really expect that.
Still, it might be a bit more... clusterized?... than "requires an individual at every single one to push the button". Or it might not be, I don't know. -Morgan.
The really scary thing about North Korea is, IMHO, is how little we know about its internal decision making process.
We don't know anything what the rulers think, assume, know, plan or believe. We don't know what intelligence they base their decisions on or what they actually believe about either the state of their country or the outside world. We barely know who the decision makers are. We don't how much there is actually directly controled by Kim jong Il.
I would assume that the commanders at each artillery placement have orders for such things like "In Case US Pigs Attack And We Can't Send Orders." You know, the MAD Protocol. That seems to be right up Kim Jong Il's alley.
Jinx, we actually know more than what we let on. After all, one of the higher-ups from their government did defect to us some years ago. And fairly recently someone was sent to attempt to kill that defector. What I do know about NK is that their system is relatively low-tech, but built on proven tech and a lot of methodology. If we were to try and strike at them, I believe we can assume that their military would split up like a group of terrorist cells operating independently-yet-cooperatively of each other. And if a surrender order was issued, I don't think that would stop them all, even if said order came from Kim Jong Il's mouth to their ears. It is possible, I think, to minimize the impact they will be able to have against South Korea, but we would have to devote our efforts to that and that alone for the openeing movements. In the end, I believe their goals are simply to make taking them as difficult as possible. I know; Duh. Also, they know that we're not nihilistic enough to face them with the same choices we gave the Japanese at the end of WWII. Supposedly, we're too warm and fuzzy for that anymore. Really, I'd be inclined to leave them alone, except that torpedoing a warship without just cause is too much for me to personally stomach. Stop and think about it. It's the same thing as running up to somebody and stabbing them in the back and leaving them to death. Pot shots may have been traded before, but this was the worst and most flagrant offense ever. Remember who is a sailor here. They were not of my country, but they were sailors as well. I am not going to forget what the North Koreans did, nor will I come to easily forgive it.
Oh, I agree that the North Korean army is probably pretty good and well disciplined.
The question is whether it is a pretty good modern army or a pretty good 1950's army. And whether it's soldiers have strong internal discipline or brittle discipline imposed from outside. A modern army with internal discipline would form extremely dangerous and well motivated cells if their country was invaded. A brittle 50's army would not be flexable enough and wouldn't be able to maintain discipline without external leadership. Except nobody really wants to pay the price to find out - so it'll hopefully remain a mystery. Allowing a foreign enemy to murder your people is unacceptable - but the cost of war would be too high, except as a last resort. I will not forget or forgive either, but the North Korean goverment already had so much innocent blood on its hands that this didn't add much.
IMNSHO: Kim Jong-Il wants a war. But he doesn't want to be seen as starting one. Because he knows, now, that the US will come down like the Wrath of God on him if he does. So he's trying to provoke the South into doing something -he- can claim as provocation.
Either that, or somebody got itchy trigger fingers (or just butterfingers) and he's now in full CYA mode. "We didn't do it, you can't prove it, you're all liars!". -- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
Basically North Korea is holding South Korea hostage.
Basically the amount of firepower they can pour into Soeul would be about equivalent of the Tokyo Firebombing, an event that killed far more people than either actual nuclear explosion. Even then it's not so much the artillery you need to worry about. North Korea has access to actual WMDs. They have used poison gas on their own people, and may well have biological agents. They have nuclear materials and while they may not have actual nukes they may well have dirty bomb shells. The best chance, basically the only chance, for dealing with North Korea would be to get China on side. China is playing fast and loose with North Korea. They very much do not want the US to take it, because that would put a US friendly nation right on their border and they do not want that if at all possible. They also want to prevent the inevitable refuge crisis. If you could convince China that having North Korea around is too much of a risk for the brinksmanship they allow them to play, you might be able to resolve things more. As it stands, without a major shift in geopolitics the situation in NK is basically going to get worse and worse. Wait and see, and accept the occasional bloody nose, might be the best and only strategy we have to play at the moment. ---------------- Epsilon
Yeah, pretty much.
I personally doubt that Kim Jong Il wants a war - but I'm assuming that he knows what the balance of forces are and that he's rational - and only acts the loon because he wants SK and the US to step carefully and he confuses fear with respect. Even if he doesn't though, he could easily mistep and start things off. For a start, he has threatened war over sanctions, and sanctions have just been imposed by SK. A major problem with North Korea seems to be that they just don't seem to understand the rest of the world. I occansionally read the Korean Central News Agency, the official North Korean foreign news service. As propoganda, it's laughable, clearly written by people who just don't occupy the same mental headspace as the rest of the world. The thought that they might actually believe what they're saying isn't funny at all.
Actually, I think you're misreading China on this matter.
Think of it this way: your country has been improving by leaps and bounds lately - economically, militarily, politically... and you got a hold-over from the Cold War sitting on your shoulder, plotting and scheming the take-over of not only their own geopolitical area, but that of your neighboring, glaring-at-you-but-not-inclined-to-do-anything, archipelago-nation. They already have primitive WMDs, and are working on even bigger ones. Full-blown nukes are very high on their list of things to do. You are China. You got a pretty good thing going right now, and these nutjobs are threatening to blow it for you. Worst of all they are your next-door neighbors, and are also next-door neighbors with Russia, who will also get pissed off on general principal. How would you, as China, really feel about N. Korea? I would be on the phone just about every day, telling them to knock it off. This has actually happened several times and China has made it a point that everyone knows this. Really, the most China will probably do if it came down to it is kindly ask that no ordnance or assets wind up on their side of the border. If that occurs, they'll probably demand restitution, which they'll probably get. We may not exactly be allies (we're still pretty peeved that they had spies trying to steal US military tech)... however, we are trade-partners. And, as a general rule, you try not to piss with your trading partners too much. That's also part of the reason why we're dealing with N. Korea with something more of a wait-and-see attitude. However, I'm pretty sure that if they ever launched missiles at S. Korea or Japan (especially Japan) that China is simply going to throw their hands up in frustration and say, "By all means, take care of this. Just mind the fence!" Just as a side-note, I don't really have much against China, in case you haven't noticed. I can even sympathize a bit with them for wanting a top-notch phased array radar - because with that comes the ability to mount an effective ballistic missile defense system. Now, they aren't really worried about the US nuking them these days - that would destroy our own economy as our businesses do quite a bit of trade with China. They're somewhat more concerned with the more unstable powers that either A) already have a nuclear arsenal (Pakistan, India), or are working towards obtaining them (Iran, N. Korea). Why would they have to worry about the Middle East if you are China? Simple. They have Muslims, too. And the Chinese Government doesn't have a very good track record with minorities.
Okay, N.Korea just broke off diplomatic relations to S. Korea...
In the old days, breaking off relations would be the next step to war. You would have to ask whether the NK government, not to mention the "Dear Leader", is rational enough, you have to consider the following history: The second korean war 1966-1976 which happens to include the USS Pueblo and the ax murders of 1976. Kidnapping of S.Korean and Japanese nations to train spies Blowing up of a South Korean airline sometime back. God knows what else. None of us here wants a shooting war to start. At least not start it. I got friends who are due to rotate over there in July. You also have to realize at least 2 post WWII conflicts we had been involved in (Gulf War I and Korean War) started because because the other side thought we aren't going to do anything in response to actions they had taken and were too proud (and stupid) to back down when they were wrong about it. Hopefully, this will blow over. BA, I heard they raised the alert status over there. True? __________________ Into terror!, Into valour! Charge ahead! No! Never turn Yes, it's into the fire we fly And the devil will burn! - Scarlett Pimpernell 
If it is, he may not be able to respond. "Loose lips sink ships." and all.
''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.'' -- James Nicoll
Technically, the DPRK and South Korea have never stopped being at war. In fact, only North Korea even signed (along with the US and China) the armistice agreement in 1953 - the South Korean government of the time refused.
That being said, I'd say it's pretty unlikely there will be any organised attempt to restart the conflict, since absolutely no side stands to gain from it. Seoul will become a smoking crater, the North will eventually be overrun (and the South doesn't really want them, given the economic drag they'd put on the country, especially after the devastation of another conflict), China will lose its nominally friendly border, and the US does not have the money or manpower to get involved in another massive conflict. Kim Jong Il likes throwing out provocations and shifting stances, but both he and his father were pretty good at knowing when to push and when to (insincerely) back down.
Oh, we're always watching for something. We have little faith in the 'Dear Leader's' mental capacities so there's always at least a DDG up in their neighborhood. However, I am not at liberty to discus our exact whereabouts.
Don't worry, we're keeping an eye on things up here. It's part of why we still have bases in Japan, after all. Really, if it does come down to a shooting match between us and the N. Koreans, I'm not too worried about US Sailors getting pounded hard. I'm more worried about these ass-hats firing missiles into Tokyo and artillery into Seoul. |
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