1)The North Koreans have a reputation for building major facilities VERY deep underground, and beneath hard rock. 2)Don't know the details of the NK program. It was believed, for some years, that a nuclear program had to be large and concentrated, for technical reasons. The Iraqis are reputed to have found a way to break up production into small pieces. Don't know if this applies to the NK program, but, if it does, it implies no equivalent to "Osirak" to be attacked. 3)Something has happened which seems to have escaped the notice of a lot of the world. Up until recently, the safety of South Korea was very important to American policy. Not the most important goal, but high on the list. Given the logical basis for the present American international policy - i.e. that the world faces a real, pressing, and near term threat of use of WMD by any one of several countries and groups - the safety of SK has been bumped down and notch on the list of priorities. The thought can be expressed in different ways, but, more or less, this means that stopping the NK nuclear program can turn out to be MORE important than protecting SK. Or, incurring a greatly heightened risk of damage to SK. This is because it appears that the conclusion has been reached that if NK gets working nuclear weapons, it will export them. IOW, the threat posed is not "merely" that NK, a famously whacky, mentally unstable regime, will get nuclear weapons, but that, having them, it will sell them to people like Osama bin Laden, and regimes like that in Syria, right now, and Iraq, under Saddam. The rest of the calculation is that this risk, in turn, is completely unacceptable since such people, acquiring nukes, are believed ready to use them. And, so, the position of SK changes, in American calculations. Add into this the way SK has acted towards the whole issue of North Korea, and the clear position that a large part of SK people and politicians have adopted, that unification might be nice, but they don't want the monetary bill, right now, and I think it's clear that the opinion of SK in Washington has never been lower. What SK wants may matter less, these days, to America than at any time since the Korean War. Look at the Chinese army now stationed near the NK border in this light. The possibility that Washington and Beijing have come to an agreement that, if NK can't be stopped diplomatically, soon, Washington is ready to countenance a Chinese move into NK is real.

sorry to start this thread up again but Silkman is right, the NK's dig...and they dig DEEP..even if we know all of the storage and processing facilities are, which is unlikely..the ojnly why to dig them out with current technology is to use nukes ourselves, not to mention the probable NK response. Basically Seoul and the 2nd Inf division are hostages to our good behavior, or at least restraint. That is why the planned movement of the 2nd inf dividion to new bases South of Seoul scares both the north and the South Koreans. It makes sense..the 2ID is much better suited to mobile warfare. However as the Koreans see it, by moving out of Arty range of the North it makes preemptive strikes by the US more likely.

Well it appears we have a situation of MAD between the North Koreans, the Japs and the South Koreans. NTM Los Angeles or at the vary least Honolulu's proximity to the North Korean ICBM. Of course, while I would assume that we could nuke North Korea with minimal chance of them getting a shot off at us, they could possibly strike out at South Korea with their artillery capability, which would be just as detrimental to Seoul as a nuclear bomb. So basically in any engagement between the US and NK, Seoul is F*CKED. Therefore the $64,000 question, is Kim Jong Il MAD? Personally I don't think so, however should their ever be an internal collapse of the Stalinist system within NK, then one could ask, would Mr. Jong Il take the entire ship down with him by starting a war? My answer to this would be maybe. Still I am FAR more concerned with nukes in the hands of suicidal Muslims in Pakistan and potentially Iran, because THEY WILL USE IT sooner or later they are MAD.

What you have said is true but to look at the US troop withdrawl this way..:the US lanches limited strikes against NK nuclear facilities...unable to directly respond against the US ((they don;t have a production ICBM yet)) the NK;s shell and gas Seoul kissing thousands in response..US turns NK into a glow in the dark parking lot. Now that might sould a little far-fetched but concidering how parinoid little Kimmy is, it probably has crosse his mind. Right now the only thing holding htat country together is the food and fuel that he is blackmailing from SK and the US..should those supplies be cut off..who knows what will happen.

China provides some support too. NK is a bad situation all around, the US is just hoping they can wait it out, that the place will fall apart.

quite right guys, but if the place falls apart, is that necessarily a good thing?

NorK Arty. There is a lot of it, but it is in fixed positions, which means it can be destroyed or neutralized. No shoot and scoot for mountains. The other thing is that all the experts seem to think that the Roc's will just sit and wait while the Norks rain down arty shells. That is why the experts are idiots. The Soks will jump in their hyundas, or what ever, and go south to vist grandpa, who survived the first phase of the Korean War and knows better then to live within range of a communist artillery battery. Within 24 hours there will only by diplomats left within Soul. That is ok, the only thing better then dead diplomats is dead politicians. Now lets look at fixed positons and rockets and gun tubes hidden deep under ground. The morons ask, "How does one destroy a 122mm how protected by 30 meters of rock and reinforced concrete?" The Brighter types answer; "Why bother" The guns cannot shoot out thru the reinforced concrete any more then we can shoot in. So you just seal the hole and there is no more problem. Military history is full of examples of fixed positions being neutralized. Here is another one waiting to be made. Look at the army campaign in the PI in '45. Nobody went down in the caves to do hand to hand with the Japs. We sealed the caves and just let them die. This approach will work even better against the Norks. And now onto the SDI. The liberal media has choose vaporization as their criteria for a kill on an ICBM warhead. That way they can claim it is a failure. If you look at SDI fron a military POV (which makes sense, considering it is a weapons system) you will find that Anti-Missile Systems have been 100% effective to date. That is because the Media doesn't recognise a mission kill as a kill. When it comes to the Norks and their ICBM's they are "all hat and no cattle" as we say in Texas. Liquid fueled ICBM's that can be destroyed on thir pads are not a creditable threat to the USA. It can take hours to fuel them and days to get ready. So even if the Norks have nukes, they still don't have a reliable delivery sytem. Even someone as bug fuk crazy as Kim won't start a nuclear war on the off chance that everything will go just as planned. The only real danger is if the State Department conviences the DPRK that the US will not respond. Considering how well they did at talking Iraq into attacking Kuwait, this is a very real possibility. 919

The NorKs have hundreds of long range arty pointed at Seoul. How do you propose burying it in a timely manner? That arty could kill tens of thousands before people could get in the bunkers. And the economic damage would be staggering. So don't expect South Korea to go along with any plans to fight the North. They like the Status Quo too much.

Evidence? BTW, I think it is thousands, not hundreds. A few things the scare mongers are overlooking. First, the hostages ( South Koreans living within arty range). IIRC for the D-30 122 how that is about 22 Km, and for the D-20 about 23.6 Km's. So it won't take long for a single vehicle to get out of range. It is not much of a military challengs, but quite a political one. My favorite arguement is that Korea WILL BE united at some point in the future. Will it cost less to do it then? A lot of Experts predicted that the reunification of East and West Germany would be ruinous to Germany, Europe and NATO. So much for 'experts'. The same idiots are making the same claims for Korea, with the same chance of being correct this time. So it is just a matter of finding a SouK Politician with balls. The supression of artillery positions is not very difficult as a militry exercise. And a few abandon City drills to work out the kinks on getting millions of People in their cars and going the right way will help with both internal politics and negoiations. The people are going to leave as soon as the first shell lands. That is a fact. So why not take it into consideration and use it? It used to crack me up to go thru the various plans to defend Europe during the 70's and see that only a few mentioned the problems that would be caused by 40 million germans jumping in the mercedes and heading West would cause. I asked once about that and was sent for coffee. You want details? Time fused cluster munitions on the exit tunnels of the pop-out arty tubes. Then you seal the exit holes with 2,000 lb JDAM's. The Air force will have to clobber the Norks AD zones, but considering that the Norks are using gear from the 60's and 50's. that should not be a problem. With known ranges to work with it is simple to extablish which arty needs to be buried first and then make a list and go down it. Flyboys are good with lists. And while the Stealth bombers are working over the AD, the Himars and MLRS guys can be laying delayed fused munitions outside the tunnels coming out of the mountains. And for the really juicy targets there are Tomahawks with CBU set on a delay also. The idea is to keep the arty in it's hole by killing it when it comes out. Keep in mind that these are conscripts and if given a chance to live, they will take it. Saddam had gobs of arty, it is a staple for Stalinist armies. See how use there was of it. Mots Iraqi arty got off 1 or 2 shots before being destroyed. And they were not stuck in fixed positions. No this is the classic case of having nothing to fear but fear itself. What would be optimal would be to start the attack at the end of one of the evacuation drills. 919

why do i get an impression that those who tend to advocate 'quick, surprise strike' are people distant from the Korean peninsula???