Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan • Hacker News Board

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#61

Post by smacktoward » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 7:08 PM UTC

ilamont wrote: post #26

local breakthroughs on the major routes towards Seoul—their first operational objective. Playing devil's advocate: How do we know Seoul is the operational objective? It seems obvious (capital city located near the border) but what if DPRK went for something not so obvious? i.e. "Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected" (classic Sun/Mao approach) Also, what if Pyongyang tries to draw in a…

> Playing devil's advocate: How do we know Seoul is the operational objective? It seems obvious (capital city located near the border) but what if DPRK went for something not so obvious?

There just isn't that much else in the border zone that would make for an attractive target. East of Seoul is Gangwon province, which is relatively mountainous and sparsely populated. Mountains are hard for an army to move through, especially an army with tanks, and the sparse population (around 1.5 million people, compared to 10 million in Seoul itself and 15 million more elsewhere in the capital region) means that there aren't a lot of targets of high economic value there.

About the only military value of a move towards Gangwon instead of Seoul would be strategic surprise -- an attempt to shock the allied forces by appearing from a direction where they aren't expected, the way the Germans shocked the French and British in 1940 by driving into France through the (generally considered impassable to tanks) Ardennes Forest instead of via the open plains of Belgium (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sedan_(1940)). But that kind of surprise would be much harder to pull off in an age of high-resolution satellite reconnaissance and instant electronic communication, and it would mean forgoing the hammer blow on South Korean morale that the loss or destruction of Seoul would cause. So it would be quixotic at best.

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#62

Post by panglott » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 7:10 PM UTC

charles-salvia wrote: post #41

panglott wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Allowing the regime to continue to exist" is a backwards way of looking at things that serves to legitimate invasions. The US is a superpower, but that doesn't mean that other nation-states exist because we deign to suffer their existence—that's a very colonialist way of looking at the world. Invading the north (or provoking it with special operations) would be a positive action for which the US would be responsible…

That's a subjective value call. It depends on how many North Koreans are being brutalized/dying right now. We don't have that number, but it's likely that tens of thousands of the hundreds of thousands of political prisoners will die of starvation or execution within a few years. So unspeakable carnage is already the default state, and we already have a situation here that is comparable to Khmer Rouge or Stalinist Ru…

I don't want to minimize the North Korean regime, but you're talking about some of the world's largest armies engaged in a total war to the death in an area half the size of California with twice the population. You're talking about rocket artillery bombardment of a city of 30 million people, major tank warfare in population centers, and a serious risk of the use of nuclear weapons. This is warfare at a scale we haven't seen in generations.

"Allowing it to exist" is a negative action (in that we don't have to do anything for it to happen), whereas invading North Korea is a positive action. Framing "allowing it to exist" as a positive action makes it seem like a choice between two positive actions, which makes invasion seem more palatable. I'm sure there's a trolley problem about this, but people tend to view the ethics of positive actions more seriously than negative actions.

Oh, here: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/doing-allowing/

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#63

Post by pdelbarba » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

AcerbicZero wrote: post #58

A reasonable, if somewhat short, overview of the topic, although a bit generous when discussing the air power situation over Korea. Smashing older Russian SAM sites is almost an American pastime at this point, and I have serious doubts the KPAF would put up anything beyond token resistance in the air. The author also skims over the massive leaps in lethality on the modern battlefield. It's difficult to stress this en…

It's in many ways similar to the first Iraq War in the sense that all the old eastern-bloc equipment is specifically what the following generation of US equipment was precisely designed to destroy with great speed. The US was worried about Russian tanks rolling across Europe in greater numbers than their anti tank missiles could handle so they developed the A-10 and various other systems to stem the flow and support such operations (anti-radiation missiles, etc). 40 years later, the US still comes up against those systems with some regularity.

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#64

Post by ilamont » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #39

ilamont wrote: post #26

local breakthroughs on the major routes towards Seoul—their first operational objective. Playing devil's advocate: How do we know Seoul is the operational objective? It seems obvious (capital city located near the border) but what if DPRK went for something not so obvious? i.e. "Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected" (classic Sun/Mao approach) Also, what if Pyongyang tries to draw in a…

>Playing devil's advocate: How do we know Seoul is the operational objective? It seems obvious (capital city located near the border) but what if DPRK went for something not so obvious? Such as what? Taking control of Seoul under the element of surprise is the only conceivable endgame for a DPRK invasion. Anything else would end in a protracted fight where US air superiority would absolutely demolish them. >In the 19…

It was this incident:

http://www.newsweek.com/reds-rocks-178000

Other accounts did mention the agent was surprised that farmers would have a telephone.

He also did not or could not hide his North Korean accent, as the article states.

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#65

Post by lettergram » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

WillyOnWheels wrote: post #42

pdelbarba wrote: post #2

It's an interesting read if you're into the nuts and bolts of modern warfare. The key assumption is that the DPRK actually has any ambition of attacking the ROK though. They'll scream and carry on until they get their sanctions lifted and, in their minds, come out of the whole thing a nuclear power. Now those running tomorrow's senate briefing on the other hand... Edit: it's also worth noting that they're playing a s…

I don't think DPRK really wants to nuke anyone. They just look at countries in the last 30 years and look at their options: Libya: Gave up their WMDs, Libya government gone. Ukraine: Gave up their nukes, Russia invaded (I admit this is a bit contrived) Iraq: Didn't have nukes, Iraqi government gone. Pakistan: Has nukes, is incredibly unstable, still there!

You can also look at places like South African. Where the government gave up nukes, transitioned to a different government, and everything was fine (internationally)

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#66

Post by charles-salvia » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 7:12 PM UTC

AcerbicZero wrote: post #58

A reasonable, if somewhat short, overview of the topic, although a bit generous when discussing the air power situation over Korea. Smashing older Russian SAM sites is almost an American pastime at this point, and I have serious doubts the KPAF would put up anything beyond token resistance in the air. The author also skims over the massive leaps in lethality on the modern battlefield. It's difficult to stress this en…

Obviously the DRPK stands no chance of tactical victory in any sense. But they have a very good chance of just saying "fuck it", and causing arbitrary damage and mass civilian casualties on the order of dozens of September 11 attacks. It's basically the nation-state scale equivalent of the fact that a single lone shooter can hurt a lot of people before the police take him out.

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#67

Post by dingaling » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 7:12 PM UTC

omurphy27 wrote: post #45

Animats wrote: post #15

The key thing here is the geography. Seoul is only 20 miles from the border with North Korea. It's within artillery range, and North Korea has the necessary artillery. If there's a war, Seoul gets clobbered in the first minutes. Few countries have their capital that close to a hostile border. Syria does. Look where Damascus is.

I used to think that North Korea could easily flatten Seoul, but it turns out that this really isn't the case. The majority of NK's artillery is not long range and can't threaten the densest parts of Seoul; while those that are long range will be immediately targeted and destroyed once they begin firing. Then there are serious questions regarding the quality of NK's equipment and their troops, plus the fact that arti…

'Flattening Seoul' is a strawman. Prior to the recent articles on the topic I don't remember anyone actually claiming that the entire metropolitan area could be reduced to rubble, nor that it was necessary or that North Korea would even desire it.

However it's a useful deflection from the fact that since the USA retired its enhanced-radiation weapons ( 'neutron bombs' ) in the 1990s, there is no prompt-strike way to negate several thousand hardened artillery emplacements linked by tunnels. Not without either hitting each individual emplacement or by using mass-effect weapons that in turn threaten Seoul.

Given that, I think it's likely that the USA-SK war-plan is to decapitate the North Korean command structure so quickly that the artillery doesn't even receive the order to fire.

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#68

Post by AlexeyBrin » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 7:15 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #38

charles-salvia wrote: post #14

The assessment predicts: "Tens or hundreds of thousands could become casualties" ... in the event of an all-out DRPK/(US+ROK) conflict. One factor to consider here is what happens if no conflict occurs? In that case, there are ... still likely tens of thousands of civilian deaths happening as the status quo in North Korean labor camps[1]. Allowing the regime to continue to exist also has a major cost in human lives.…

This almost always goes unsaid so thanks for saying it. The general conditions of North Korean population is staggeringly bad. Eating grass and bark soup [1], iterant cannibalism [2] etc... When you consider the Prison situation without sounding glib, it's near holocaust levels of horrors [3]. [1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2010/07/starving-nort... [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/201…

> but if the moral argument for entering WW-II for the purpose of liberating those in the concentration camps

Hugh? Sorry, but who told you that someone entered the WW2 to liberate someone from the concentration camps ? Liberating the camps was a consequence of the end of the war not the reason any country entered in the conflict.

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#69

Post by WillyOnWheels » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 7:15 PM UTC

This reporter, who grew up in Korea but doesn't read Korean, and was given honorary citizenship by a city in South Korea, writes that ordinary South Korean citizens think the military threat of North Korea is really a North Korea versus United States thing, and not really a conflict between North Korea and South Korea.

South Koreans are more focused on what sort of government will be in power after elections on May 9th, after the craziness of the most recent government.

https://www.thenation.com/article/in-south-korea-war-hysteri...

Re: Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan

#70

Post by timthelion » Tue, Apr 25, 2017, 7:15 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #51

panglott wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Allowing the regime to continue to exist" is a backwards way of looking at things that serves to legitimate invasions. The US is a superpower, but that doesn't mean that other nation-states exist because we deign to suffer their existence—that's a very colonialist way of looking at the world. Invading the north (or provoking it with special operations) would be a positive action for which the US would be responsible…

>The US is a superpower, but that doesn't mean that other nation-states exist because we deign to suffer their existence—that's a very colonialist way of looking at the world. This is a question of international consensus, not US will. Under the definition of sovereignty agreed upon by the international community, DPRK has forfeited its' right to sovereignty by repeated human rights abuses, WMD development, and aggre…

It is Trump making the decision now, not the international community. I'll also remind you, that the only country in the entire world that has extensively used WMDs is the US. The US has used Nukes (WWII), and is also responsible for the most extensive use of chemical weapons of any county (Vietnam). NK has never used a WMD.