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Subject: What are the real chances of Korean War II?
patriotscheme    5/23/2003 12:05:02 AM
Seeing that the U.S. is deeply entrenched with the reconstruction of Iraq and there also is a presidential election looming (meaning no more wars until post-election time), does anyone really think that U.S. policy will continue to follow the Bush Doctrine (assuming he is re-elected) and conduct regime-change in North Korea? Can/will the U.S. be able to pull off such an armed conflict with so many forces tied down elsewhere, Seoul held hostage by artillery, and world opinion so tainted with anti-Americanism?
 
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greytraveller    RE:What are the real chances of Korean War II?   5/23/2003 8:07:32 AM
Your political assessment is probably correct. Certainly the US does not want to enter into combat in Korea because, considering the huge numbers of combatants that would be involved, the casualties would be enormous. Also Seoul would be heavily damaged by N Korean artillery. Yet the final choice for war probably rests with North Korea. If they proceed with their avowed intent of building and exporting nuclear weapons then matters will come to a crises sooner rather that later. The hope is that the North Korean regime will either implode on its own. Or the Chinese will take matters into their own hands and orchestrate a coup to remove Kim Jong-Il.
 
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Thomas    RE:What are the real chances of Korean War II?   5/23/2003 8:20:22 AM
Agree with both. If NOK was really inclined towards terrorism on a big scale, they would have shelled ROK a long time ago. They are broke, hungry and desperate. A little help will go a long way, and the commies can't postpone the inevitable much longer any way.
 
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Final Historian    RE:What are the real chances of Korean War II?   5/23/2003 5:05:18 PM
I think that the US is waiting for the straw hut that is NK to fall apart under a stiff wind. The North is falling apart. There is no food, no clean water, no power, nothing. It is a dying country, dying of a cancer called communism. It was never benign, but now it is becoming more and more malignant. There are several questions that have to be asked: 1) Will the leaders in the North realize their days are numbered when the time comes? Or are they eternal optimists like Saddam was? 2) Will they try and attack the South when/if they do realize their days are numbered? 3) Will they actually be able to attack the south when they do decide? As in, will things be too far gone for them to mount much of an attack? Will the army obey orders to attack? 4) If the North does attack, how bad will it get? How many will die, and what infrastructure damage will there be? 5) What would happen if the US/ROK launched a pre-emptive attack? Would there be less damage, less deaths? 6) Would it be a better gamble to attack the North, rather than risk them attacking the South, and leveling Seoul in the process? These aren't easy questions to answer, and I have no doubt they are keeping many people from sleeping at night.
 
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FourF    RE:What are the real chances of Korean War II?   5/23/2003 6:01:09 PM
I read one assessment that said NK has about 10,000 artilliary pieces above the DMZ. No matter how swift a preemptive attack was, they would be able to get off several rounds per gun. Since the areas just south of the DMZ are so heavily populated, gunners need not even aim at anything. Just point and click as the saying goes, and they'll kill tens or hundreds of thousands of civilians. 4F
 
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American Kafir    RE:What are the real chances of Korean War II?   5/23/2003 7:03:23 PM
I hope the chances are high, but that's more of my general opinion that the United States should be at war with somebody at all times.
 
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greytraveller    RE:What are the real chances of Korean War II?   5/24/2003 2:55:10 PM
Refering to some of those questions posed by Final Historian. 1) Will the leaders in the North realize their days are numbered when the time comes? Or are they eternal optimists like Saddam was? Probably eternal optimists. Compared to Kim Jong-Il and company Saddam and the Iraqi Baathists were hardened realists. 2) Will they try and attack the South when/if they do realize their days are numbered? Probably. Taking possession of Soeul and the surrounding industrilized area would be an aconomic boom for NK. Of course they could not hold it for long, but ?? 3) Will they actually be able to attack the south when they do decide? As in, will things be too far gone for them to mount much of an attack? Will the army obey orders to attack? Probably not. A sustained, concerted attack is much harder than defense in depth in already existing fortifications. Let me posit a question # 7. Would the North Koreans explode a nuclear weapon in an isolted area above ground as a ploy to extort massive aid from the US and other countries??
 
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Final Historian    RE:What are the real chances of Korean War II?   5/24/2003 5:33:30 PM
Hmm, that is a good question. I suspect that if they tried to blackmail the US we wouldn't budge. It really depends on what the NorKs would do when we don't cave in. If we think they will attack the South, figuring their days are numbered, I suspect we would attack first. If they would just whine, but do nothing overt, we will ignore them or perhaps hold more negotiations to try and wring concessions out of them. I personally think that NK is incapable of anything besides shelling the South at this point, so I would advocate waiting if at all possible, hoping that things break down in the country to the point where the NK government has no control over the military.
 
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Thomas    RE:What are the real chances of Korean War II?   5/26/2003 6:08:29 AM
I agree with Final Historian. There seem to be to many unknowns. The problem is that a broken-back economy may continue for a very long time.
 
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Phoenix Rising    RE:What are the real chances of Korean War II?   5/26/2003 8:18:37 AM
I tend to agree with FH about the US strategy being waiting for DPRK to collapse under its own weight, which may not be much longer and may well be before the 2004 elections (I'd put it somewhere between the '04 and '08 elections, though). However, the bottom line is that the US has a *huge* incentive for preventing DPRK from declaring itself a nuclear power or from progressing any further than they already have in either research or production of nuclear weapons, to say nothing of exports, and that may override all other concerns. Obviously, no one wants to fight a war on the enemy's terrain on the enemy's schedule, but sometimes we aren't given a whole lot of options. SP recently pointed out that the Navy isn't ready for anything and won't be for at least another six months; the carriers and sailors need serious time in port. We might be able to push and get more use out of them, but at a severe cost to readiness for a long time and possibly severe losses due to something that has taken infinitely more American soldiers out of combat than enemy fire: reenlistment refusals. We'd also almost certainly need the 10th Mountain to fight a major conflict in Korea and they have a lot of assets still pinned down in Afghanistan. There is another side to this, too, though; it's a common American perception that the South is completely helpless against the North without American help, and that simply isn't the case, as I'm sure many on this board are aware. If the North *did* try something drastic and 10,000 or so Southern civilians died at the hands of a Northern artillery barrage, the 37,000 American troops there might well be the least of their worries. In addition, as has been mentioned on the Surface Forces board recently, Japan is not exactly sitting placidly while all these events are building in their neighborhood, and their fleet could potentially provide a lot of extra oomph to make up for the exhaustion of the USN. They don't have carriers, but they have everything else and Japan itself is an unsinkable aircraft carrier in its own right. The bottom line is that with a little good diplomacy and a perception of need on the part of the South and Japan, as well as a guarantee of noninvolvement by China, it could be very possible to fight and win a second Korean war. However, Japan, China, and ROK all know the same thing we do: DPRK is on the verge of total civil and economic collapse. They aren't likely to approve of any preemptive action against DPRK *unless* they see hard evidence that failing to do so would mean severe consequences for their own security; e.g., North Korea would otherwise gain the ability to go down in a blaze of glory much more destructive than a barrage of artillery shells. --Phoenix Rising
 
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greytraveller    RE:What are the real chances of Korean War II?   5/26/2003 8:25:04 AM
Thomas Exactly. And a US embargo against NK would mean very little if other countries (China, Russia) supplied aid to NK. As an example I would point to Iraq. The Baath regime there Could have survived indefinately. So all of this raises another question (# 8) Could the US manufacture a coup d'etat inside North Korea to bring about the (relatively) blodless fall of that regime?? That would be a long shot. Perhaps the Chinese could pull off a North Korean coup. But that is probably only wishfull thinking.
 
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