North Korea

[chaos]

Originally Posted by Roddo

Those who ignore the past are destined to repeat it. What can they do? The same thing the vietnamese did, the Afghani's did to the russians, the iraqi's are doing and the Chechnyan's are doing. The days of being a superpower and countries just rolling over for you are over.
Anyone who is a history buff and studied american military history has read how the americans didn't fight fair against the british, and thats how we won. These other countries have done the same thing, and now wars are even harder to win, theres no uniforms, no way to tell who wants you to die or go home. The days of clearly defined terms of winning and losing are over, and this hurts the big bad ass countries the most.

Didn't fight fair? Sure we did, we just didn't recognize the same rules that the British did.

Anyway, it's not the terms that have changed, it's the goals. We have enormous military strength and we can't use it, because our goal is no longer to destroy a country or their army. The goals have changed to be far more nuanced, in support of globalization and changing political climates throughout the world, and aren't served by old school military objectives. The problem is that we are still a superpower, and we can make countries just roll over for us, but we don't want to. We want to affect change and support friendly governments rather than just dismantle current governments. You can't do that by carpet bombing, so we move to strategic bombing. Humanitarian deployments, police actions, etc.

We're changing the way we implement foreign policy with our military, but don't think that's because we can't subjugate these countries. Sure we can. It's been a while since we've been motivated to do something like that.

[Eomer]

Originally Posted by Astrocreep

I guess they could dig a bunch of tunnels and wait for the chinese to send them a care package, uh then what? we will bomb them from the sky, destroy their infrastructure, we wont have to invade . their leader will be dead or out of commission due to lack of communication. these people are not far from starvation as it is now. everything they have now is due to welfare from other countries. if we cut that supply of aid off they will die in the millions. just let them know they can get food, shelter and a better life if they drop their pointy sticks and surrender. why people still apply ww2/vietnam strategies in todays time always baffles me. we spend so much on an air force for a reason.

Seoul would get completely destroyed, millions would probably die in an Korean conflict. The US would unquestionably win the war, but at what cost and for what goals?

[Zarcath]

North Korea is fucking up

NKorea vows nuke attack if provoked by US - Yahoo! News

[ChewieTobbacca]

The issue with North Korea is that they're an opponent unlike what you would traditionally think. Korea first of all is a mountainous country, so this isn't great tank ground. Meaning that infantry, artillery and airpower/mobility will be a factor, much like it was in 1950-1953. And without armor, the casualties will undoubtedly be much higher.

Also, the fact that North Korea is a brutal country that probably wont have any qualms about executing prisoners and using chemical/biological weapons (which they do have) is another issue.

Many of its citizens have been indoctrianted that the US is the root of all evil and certainly its military will have a lot of fanatics involved. Obviously, the situation now is a bit different from before in that back in 1950, North Korea wasn't as demonic a nation and wasn't cut off from the rest of the world, so cutting off the head might work, but it also might spur their country into more guerrilla warfare.

The ROK and the US conducts tons of joint exercises on the threat of a NK invasion, and the results are almost always the same - without rapid air support and reinforcements from our troops in Japan and elsewhere in the world, the invasion will be brutal

[Zarcath]

The problem is we pussied out, and continue to, in dealing with them. Even if they don't make good on their threats or we shoot down their missle and "what now bitch" them, we're not solving any problems. Taking out Kim Jong Il won't solve anything either, who's going to take his place? another whack job? Even if you could find a president to lead them that wasn't a fuckhead, why would a country full of fuckheads listen to that guy?

We need to break the North Koreans. Wipe half of them out and re-integrate the rest back into South Korea. The longer we put this off, the more it'll become a festering wound.

[Roddo]

Originally Posted by chaos

Didn't fight fair? Sure we did, we just didn't recognize the same rules that the British did.

Anyway, it's not the terms that have changed, it's the goals. We have enormous military strength and we can't use it, because our goal is no longer to destroy a country or their army. The goals have changed to be far more nuanced, in support of globalization and changing political climates throughout the world, and aren't served by old school military objectives. The problem is that we are still a superpower, and we can make countries just roll over for us, but we don't want to. We want to affect change and support friendly governments rather than just dismantle current governments. You can't do that by carpet bombing, so we move to strategic bombing. Humanitarian deployments, police actions, etc.

We're changing the way we implement foreign policy with our military, but don't think that's because we can't subjugate these countries. Sure we can. It's been a while since we've been motivated to do something like that.

I didn't mean that the US cheated against the Brits, after all if your not in it to win don't fight. I'm just saying that wars have become more and more guerilla affairs, and guerilla fights tend to level the playing field more to the home team that knows the terrain, has the most to lose and can't go home. Wars like that tend to be low morale for the invading force, which combined with the terroristic nature of the fighting makes a long war a losing endeavour.

[Yutnopash]

We need to break the North Koreans. Wipe half of them out and re-integrate the rest back into South Korea. The longer we put this off, the more it'll become a festering wound.

Or we could try the whole Korean Pop method again...I mean SNSD did just release a new video...they're even wearing uniforms.

[Araxen]

I keep hoping for the day the super girl group phenomenon comes to the US. It'll be harder for us to pull off since our women over here don't look like 12 year olds when in reality they are 18+.

[Astrocreep]

that video put me in a good mood. sounds an awful lot like Nastygirl by Vanity 6

[Araxen]

South to Boost Surgical Strike Capability Against North

The South Korean military plans to speed up efforts to deploy ground, air and naval weapons systems for use in strikes against key facilities in North Korea in the event of war, the Ministry of National Defense said Friday.

[SalaciousTunare]

Originally Posted by Eomer

Seoul would get completely destroyed, millions would probably die in an Korean conflict. The US would unquestionably win the war, but at what cost and for what goals?

To remove one of the worlds worst leaders since Stalin? It's something like 300,000 North Koreans die every year in their re-education work camps. The North Korean government actually has quotas of people to round up on false charges in order to have profitable manufacturing. This is basically slavery and genocide on the scale of Stalin/Hitler, only it's drawn out over years and they're yellow people the rest of the world doesn't care about.

I'm not advocating a preemptive attack on North Korea, but Kim Jon Ill routinely threatens nuclear war and he means it.

The nuke is basically all to fear about North Korea. Any real war, not conflict or liberation, would happen exactly like Astrocreep said. Complete and total destruction of what little infrastructure they have by USA's air and space superiority. That would be followed by naval blockade and heavy trade embargo pressure. These people would starve within a few weeks and would likely surrender to a crew from CNN.

Keep in mind that Vietnam and Korea, were both wars by proxy with Russia. Russia had so much trouble with Afghanistan for the same reason that America did with Vietnam. The CIA supplied the Mujahideen in Afghanistan with arms and training to fight the Soviets, and likewise the Soviets supplied the VietCong. This is basically the reason we never went nuclear with the USSR, because we were fighting proxy wars with them all along that never went hot. Coincidentally Osama Bin Laden was a member of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. After the Soviet Afghan war he returned to Saudi Arabia a hero of jihad. Around the time of the first Gulf War, Bin Laden met with Sultan, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and told him not to depend on non-Muslim troops and offered to help defend Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden's offer wasn't taken and after the American offer to help was accepted he publicly denounced Saudi Arabia's dependence on the US military. So the whole Al'Qaeda thing was a response to infidels in his homeland and the fact he was butt hurt.

Make no mistake though, if North Korea nuked something, the gloves would come off, and peace keeping liberation would no longer be on the menu.

[Eomer]

This is basically slavery and genocide on the scale of Stalin/Hitler, only it's drawn out over years and they're yellow people the rest of the world doesn't care about.

I forgot that the rest of the world intervened with Stalin and stopped his heinous crimes against his people... oh wait. So long as North Korea is doing that shit to it's own citizens and along with only the occasional reporter who may or may not have crossed in to it's territory, I can't see how you can make the logical argument that the calculus of war/invasion makes any fucking sense.

The amount of manpower and money it would take to get rid of the regime in North Korea by force to free maybe 25 million people could probably take a dozen destitute shithole African countries with 10 times the people straight in to the early 20th century. So why don't we do that instead?

[Suineg]

Originally Posted by Eomer

I forgot that the rest of the world intervened with Stalin and stopped his heinous crimes against his people... oh wait. So long as North Korea is doing that shit to it's own citizens and along with only the occasional reporter who may or may not have crossed in to it's territory, I can't see how you can make the logical argument that the calculus of war/invasion makes any fucking sense.

The amount of manpower and money it would take to get rid of the regime in North Korea by force to free maybe 25 million people could probably take a dozen destitute shithole African countries with 10 times the people straight in to the early 20th century. So why don't we do that instead?

Let me get this right.

You are saying he's only doing it to his own people so it's cool.

You then go on to say that the war would be too expensive to save only 20+ million people so we shouldn't do anything?

I am not chomping at the bit to invade N. Korea but if we 'have to' I think everyone could agree that it's 'justified'.

[Astrocreep]

the North Korean government only exists to this day becuase its being propped up by welfare from china and other countries. they produce no assets and they use their "nukes" as leverage for more welfare. cut them off from the world and thats ballgame. destroy their outgoing roads and cut their power and you wont have to worry about some kind of vanguard destroying seoul. just look for the starving masses rushing the border in search of food. they wont want to fight because they dont have an ideology, just a megalomaniac for a leader

[Eomer]

Originally Posted by Suineg

Let me get this right.

You are saying he's only doing it to his own people so it's cool.

You then go on to say that the war would be too expensive to save only 20+ million people so we shouldn't do anything?

I am not chomping at the bit to invade N. Korea but if we 'have to' I think everyone could agree that it's 'justified'.

I didn't say it's cool. I said if you want to make a humanitarian impact, there's hundreds of millions of people you could help much more easily without having to bomb them first, and you'd see a better return on your dollar.

Don't try to feed me some bullshit that we need to start arguably one of the largest armed conflicts in the last 40 years as a humanitarian mission. Give me a fucking break.