About to go to war with N. Korea?

janklow wrote: »

you know, i recall the same thing being said about the Iraqi Army in 1991. there was a lot of talk about its size and prowess. i don't know how many more times i can point out that i never said the war would be easy, but at the same time, when you say "we've got a MILLION MAN ARMY that's spent the last 50 years doing nothing" ... i'm not sure what i am supposed to base their skills on. and the military fighting hard IS different than the nation fighting to the last man.

i think i recall the fear that the us would be drawn into a long-? war in iraq is one of the reasons we didn't go to baghdad in '91. i do recall the vp of the us saying that the '03 war in iraq would be a cakewalk and the sec of defense saying early on that the insurgency was in it's last throes. but that's another argument

well, we just disagree on the nk's conviction to fight. like i said before, the fact that the north koreans view kim jong-il as a deity and their distrust of america seems that most of that population (beyond just the uniform military) would fight hard to
prevent an american occupation. and after the civilian-warrior tactic of the insurgency in iraq, i'm pretty sure both north korean and us war planners are considering the possibility of that tactic in a korean war as well.

janklow wrote: »

there's a couple of problems here:
-North Korea didn't "win" the war. we'll get to this quote later, but you say "in war each side has a strategic goal they're trying to achieve" and that determines victory. North Korea's goal was to take control of South Korea.
-the China = France parallel doesn't work, mainly because the war post 1950 was basically SK/US/allies versus China. North Korea was not doing much of anything. now, i grant you that China and North Korea were a team, but given how people are trying to use this as "proof" of the might of the North Korean military ... no, just no. this is also not, for the record, some kind of praise for the military might of the US during the Revolutionary War.

correction, no nk didn't win the war. like i stated later in my post it was a draw. and yes nk's goal was to take south korea and they didn't succeed. but once the us and it's allies passed the 38th parallel, it no longer became a defensive war for the us/sk. it then became an offensive one. the strategic goals changed and they didn't succeed either. because neither was able to advance any further, it was a draw.

i never said that the possible chinese involvement is the only reason a war with north korea would be difficult. i said that it's part of the equation that would make it difficult. you have been making the argument that the nk military couldn't have been successful w/o chinese assistance in '53. well, the american military could not have been successful w/o french assistance during the revolutionary war. seems like an accurate parallel.

janklow wrote: »

on the other hand, you're ignoring the fact that South Korea is in a much stronger position than they were at the time of the 1953 conflict.

sk may be in a stronger military position than in '53. but i don't know if you can say they are stronger political position. there is a big generational gap in south korea about how to handle the north koreans. a lot of the younger population favors a positive relationship with nk. like i said, imo the only way war would break out is if the nk's bait the sk's to attack. in that case that may be an extremely hard political sell in sk with that young population. and a war (especially a ? one) can't be successful without the political support of that country's population.

janklow wrote: »

North Korea postures for effect and South Korea treats them like a child throwing a tantrum. but you're sitting here talking about how much weight the US and China lifted during that war AND telling me the world fears the military might of North Korea? the world respects the might of China. people are not impressed when they recall the military skills of North Korea.

if the world has no fear of the north koreans military skills than why hasn't the international community done anything to stop them besides some useless un resolutions. there have been military responses for far less reasons than some of the the things nk's have done. this whole thread started on the fact the nk supposedly sank a south korean warship killing sk soldiers and there has been absolutely no military response. the nk is nowhere near the level of the us military, no one is. but out of the almost 200 nations on the planet, north korea's military is considered one of the best in the world.

janklow wrote: »

Korea: i clearly don't agree, since the US and South Korea didn't start a war to conquer North Korea. we responded to help an ally.
Vietnam: here's what i've said before: if the goal of the war was to stop a communist TAKEOVER of South Vietnam, then that goal was met. the US stopped fighting in 1973. South Vietnam fell in 1975. if you want to make it a cut-and-dry "if strategic goals are met" answer, then the goals were met.
Persian Gulf I: well, i mean in terms of time. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq... these have been much longer wars. but we're not really arguing this, i guess.
Afghanistan/Iraq: we actually agree that these should be considered "incompletes" in terms of what the US is trying to do there. but there's also a clear difference between the wars that took place and what's going on now; Afghanistan is less clear-cut, but it's not like the insurgency in Iraq is the same thing as the Hussein government/military that was toppled.

korean: the fact that an armistice and not a peace treaty was signed is by definition a military draw. and like i stated earlier, once the us and it's allies passed the 38th parallel, they became an invading force with a different mission.
vietnam: how can you say if the goal was to stop a communist takeover then the goal was met, when to this day vietnam is a COMMUNIST nation. come on man, i get what your trying to do but as a real historian there is no way you can effectively argue that the vietnam war was in anyway a victory for the us.

janklow wrote: »

part of my point here is that we've been talking about the military prowess of the nations. forget the political and social ? -ups of the US in these conflicts for the point of comparing the US' military to NK's. if we're talking about the US setting up a transition for NK to a real government after the war, well, it might not go well. but if we're talking about the US' ability to fight NK...

i think this is where we clearly disagree about the definition of a successful war. you see war as just winning battles and toppling a government. but political leaders and military strategists understand that winning a war is a combination of military and political success. to this day every major military mind reads Sun Tzu's The Art of War. Sun Tzu believed national unity was an essential requirement to victory in war and winning battles alone is not a sign of a successful strategy. Meaning you need the political support back home and a successful post-fighting strategy in the field to be victorious at war.

janklow wrote: »

i don't believe it would be anywhere this simplistic and/or lack a give-and-take part of the equation.

i'm curious to know what you think the that give-and-take would be for the us to convince china not to respond to a us war against nk. what would the us's leverage be in that exchange?

janklow wrote: »

you can always tell when it's a topic i actually enjoy

not in the way we're talking about here. i'm talking BEFORE the 1991 conflict, when the US was stockpiling body bags in Delaware because they were CONVINCED it was going to be a bloodbath; at that time, the big discussion was the size and the prowess of the Iraqi military. now, i wouldn't say it was useless or couldn't fight at all; i wouldn't say that about North Korea either. but i WOULD say that when your selling point is "this army includes a million men" and not much else, it's telling.

so yes? the reason we didn't go to baghdad in '91 was fear of long, difficult war? and i never said the million man army was the only reason it may be a difficult mission to defeat their military. i also mentioned their strong command-and-control, the fact they have nukes, and (as i'm sure you remember) the indoctrination of their military and society. and i didn't even mention their navy, their knowledge of the terrain, or a number of other factors that would give them a strategic advantage and difficult to defeat.

janklow wrote: »

on the other hand, though, Kim's always going to present his population as 100% loyal, so in the end i don't think i'd count on the non-military population to fight to the death. remember, the indoctrination that the North Koreans get ALSO tells them how awesome NK is and how scared the rest of the world is of it. fighting an actual war that didn't go immediately well would put a hole in that.

this is of course assuming the war didn't go immediately well. and we can only go off the information we know of that society. if i were a military strategist preparing for war against nk, i would rather prepare my forces for urban, civilian warfare based own the intelligence available about that society.

janklow wrote: »

at the same time, you can argue the "defensive" nature of it being based on stopping the regime that declared war on SK. i mean, i see the argument, but you could THEN argue that once China entered the war, the strategic goals changed again, right? this is why i am going with the more consistent "coming to the defense of an ally."

i'm not disputing that the us original mission was to protect sk, but clearly the mission changed to trying to invade nk. if it hadn't then the us/sk alliance would have pushed the nk back to the 38th and stopped, but they didn't. and no the new strategic goal of invading nk didn't change after the chinese entered the war. the us just realized they wouldn't be able to accomplish that goal, so they signed a true.

janklow wrote: »

actually, i am arguing that China was basically fighting the war themselves after 1950. that's the major difference here: for all the French help, the troops on the ground were not Frenchmen prosecuting the war on behalf of the US.

by your reasoning. then CHINA achieved their strategic goal of preventing the us for advancing further into nk, so would that be considered a win for china?

janklow wrote: »

i think if NK started a war, you'd see the popular gel around the government in SK; they still have a lot of people who serve, or have served, in the military, and everyone's sunshine policy is going to get tainted when the country you're trying to be so kind to attacks you. but yes, their politics would be an issue.

i actually may agree with on this after seeing a report today about the anger and protests in sk over the sinking of their ship.

janklow wrote: »

possibly because of their ally China and China's presence on the Security Council. really, we both know China has gone to bat for NK many, many times; is it really a surprise that having such a powerful benefactor shields them WITHOUT their military being impressive?

yes it's possible. it's also possible that it could be both the chinese support AND the north koreans' military capabilities. which is what i've been arguing from the beginning.

janklow wrote: »

WHAT IS THIS BASED ON. this is the question i have been asking the entire time. don't tell me the fact that they don't lose in 1953 means their 2010 military is considered one of the best in the world; don't tell me that China shielding them proves that. can you give me a serious reason WHY their military would be so highly regarded?

world military strength rankings
1. US
2. China
3.Russia
4. India
5. UK
6. France
7. Germany
8. Brazil
9. Japan
10. Turkey
20. North Korea
http://www.globalfirepower.com/

and this is based on information that is publicly known about the nk military. of course you know nk is a closed society and the west has very little actual intelligence about their military. reason would say if this is based on actual knowledge, if it were to be inaccurate, it would because north korea has been underrated.


you can also look at the fact that nk spends as much as 31% of their GDP on military spending. by far the most of any other nation in the world.
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/04/22/nkorea.facts/index.html

janklow wrote: »

because there is a difference between the Vietnam War the US fought and the Vietnam War that was between NV and SV; ours ended in 1973 and our strategic goal was met. i'm not going to say the US lost a war in 1975 that we hadn't be fighting in for two years. if we're saying "was the whole Vietnam scene a failure for the US overall," sure. but at the same time, many people argue as if the US was fighting up until 1975 and was then beaten. we didn't want communism to take over BEFORE we were at war in Vietnam, but that doesn't mean our war there started as soon as we started disliking communism.

the us went to war in vietnam to prevent south vietnam from becoming a communist nation. south vietnam become part of a communist nation despite the war effort of the us against the vietcong. we didn't achieve the goals of that war. there's no debate about that.

janklow wrote: »

and i'll save this next part so as not to be redundant...
now, remember, the reason we're talking about these conflicts is to discuss the MILITARY prowess of the US versus that of North Korea, remember? so we should be talking about the MILITARY successes and failures of the US. 1974-1975 in Vietnam don't speak to that.

and to remind you. my original post had nothing to do with a debate about the us prowess vs the nk prowess. my main point was always that it's highly unlikely there will be another war in korea in which i said ONE of the reasons is because of the possible difficulty of fighting nk's military, and also china's influence, and also america weaken state, and also the threat of nuclear retaliation.

and i repeat again that there is difference between victory in military combat and victory in war.

and again my argument has always been that achieving victory in war would be difficult for america in a war in korea. so when comparing past wars, i'm going to show examples that support the fact the us has not been that successful at victory in war since WWII.

you can continue to debate the us military prowess vs nk miltary prowess. but unless your arguing that a us/sk alliance is more likely at this moment to conduct a successful WAR against a china/nk alliance, it's really a mute point.

janklow wrote: »

no, the reason we didn't go to Baghdad in 1991 was because allies wanted us to back down from that. so we're not going to agree on this score, at least

i'm not sure the nukes would enter into a war (given their use as bargaining chips, which you'd want to hold onto IF you think you'll survive the conflict), and i'm not sure how strong we claim their command is, at least in a military sense. they know the terrain and they're indoctrinated, these i don't dispute at all.

we're talking about a society that, as part of their indoctrination, speaks of an unrealistic ability to make the US or anyone else kowtow to their military might. if THAT doesn't materialize --and i think we should be able to agree that NK's military doesn't have that ability-- there's still going to be an element of "maybe the regime didn't tell us the absolute truth about things." it's not like every society with high levels of indoctrination has NO free-thinkers and NO ability for word to spread.

the war continued from 1950 until 1953 with the Chinese in the war; the signing of the truce wasn't immediate by any means. so why is it that when things go well, the US strategic goal IMMEDIATELY changes, but when things start to go bad, it can never again change? this seems like logic designed to support your argument. it's not reasonable to think that in 1951 military planners are thinking "forget that idea of taking North Korea and reuniting the country, it's back to the simpler strategic goal of defending South Korea?"

and by your reasoning, the second Chinese troops entered South Korean territory, their strategic goal immediately changed to "take South Korea"; otherwise, they would have stopped at the border, right? remember, Chinese forces had pushed into such South Korean territory in 1951 before the US and friends pushed them back.

let us briefly note some of the countries also above North Korea: Israel, South Korea, Italy, Indonesia, Pakistan, Taiwan, Egypt, Iran, Mexico. it's also not a given that we considering all 1-though-19 "among the best in the world."

i don't say that, because i am constantly hearing on the internet how awesome North Korea's military is. but we can only compare the forces based on the information we know; presuming them to be secretly stronger for reasons we don't know is just not a legitimate argument.

North Korea's GDP: $40 billion
#19 Mexico's GDP: $1.017 trillion

the percentage of the GDP doesn't mean that North Korea is buying the world's most awesome military with that money.

you've wanted to talk about strategic goals in war; our strategic goals in terms of our war HAD to end in 1973 when we stopped fighting the war. and in 1973, when we stopped fighting, the goals were met. we didn't want Poland taken by Germany in 1939, but it's not like we failed to save them when our military wasn't involved. again, i am not disputing that the whole Vietnam scene a failure for the US overall. but it's hard to fail at fighting a war you stopped fighting two years earlier.

perhaps we should look at this another way:

US war record post-WWII by your standards: 1-1-1
NK war record post-WWII by your standards: 0-0-0

sounds like i have more evidence of the US ability to successfully prosecute a war than i do of NK's ability to do so. this is the point! and half the time the response is "well, no one has beaten North Korea in a war since 1953." their lifetime average in war is 0-0-1 at best! and considering the strategic goals arguments, it's closer to 0-1-0.

i think i have been arguing the following things:

01. that's not necessarily the only possible outcome;
02. the North Korean military is overrated on the internet

If the military of NK is so overrated, why is SK so scared to retaliate against NK? They lost 46 sailors to a NK submarine attack, according to United Nations investigators, lol.....what the hell is SK waiting for?

Imagine if the USA lost 46 sailors from an attack by Mexico......you know damn well the USA would bomb to hell at least some of Mexico.

SINGAPORE - Members of a Chinese delegation attending the 9th Asia Security Summit earlier this month indicated Beijing officials are flustered by North Korean hijinks.

A Chinese government official at Shangri-La said he "was puzzled by his government's support for North Korea" in light of the sinking of a South Korean naval vessel, the Cheonan, by a North Korean torpedo on March 26.

"There is no open debate on the North Korean issue in China," he said. Unlike academic, media and government debates on Taiwan and relations with the U.S., there is no debate on North Korean issues due to fears of being harassed by North Korean embassy officials.

If a Chinese academic or media outlet writes something suggesting a change on Beijing's policy on Pyongyang the North Korean embassy sends someone to "your office to complain," he said.

"The North Koreans are very effective at silencing debate in China on North Korean issues." It is a form of intimidation and a successful way of controlling debate that could lead to positive changes, he said.

Other members of China's delegation to the Shangri-La expressed equal frustration over Pyongyang. China really had no time to prepare an adequate response to the crisis because North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il arrived in Beijing shortly after the sinking.

This has lead to suspicions in Beijing that North Korea planned the attack knowing Kim would be going to China to meet with officials, a Chinese delegate said.

The Beijing trip had been planned months before the incident and there was conjecture amongst some Chinese delegation members that Kim deliberately orchestrated the attack to project an image of a loyal and supportive Beijing.

There was literally no time to formulate a response to the crisis before Kim's visit, said a delegate. "Beijing lacks confidence in crisis management," he said.


http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=4658951&c=SEA&s=TOP





told ya'll ?


China ain't happy about its crackhead cousin acting out


if complaints are starting to be made in public, Beijing must be ? behind closed doors

hrap-120 wrote: »

Yeah its easy to tell the diff, the Southside were Blue and the Northside wear red....

I think most Koreans that are here in America are from South Korea, so why would they(The ones here) start attacking us if we are fighting to Help South Korea......