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

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

#101

Post by JumpCrisscross »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #80
AlexeyBrin wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

To be clear - I'm not making the point that the US entered WW-II predominantly for the humanitarian reason of liberating the camps. In fact we didn't know much about them when we entered in 1941. Rather, one of the strongest used moral cases for WWII (post facto) was the liberation. We have even stronger evidence of this same moral case in Korea, than we did in WWII, so if we're consistent then there is a good case t…

Waging foreign policy based on morality over tangible interests has a poor track record. Korea isn't Germany. We could count on West Germany bouncing back on its people and industry. North Korea would involve cultural engineering on a scale and at a depth without precedent. Cost estimates regularly wander into trillions of dollars, and that's just for the first few years.

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

#102

Post by tiatia »

dba7dba wrote: post #89
tiatia wrote: post #85

North Korea, like the Sow jet Union, has fought a war that the US can not imagine. They fought a war in which they lost 10% of the population. If the US would lose 32 Million in a war maybe the US would lose the taste for war too. Not going to judge their outdated equipment. But they will fight. This a not Arabic troops from tribal societies who will run as soon as they are given the chance. In fact, North Korea CAN…

North Korea DID lose the war in 1950, in a way. After Incheon Landing, the North Korean army never really recovered. The majority of fighting power for north side was from Chinese army. The reason UN Forces got pushed back and couldn't advance was because of the human wave attacks from Chinese army.

Well, so it did definitely NOT lose. The same reason why it won't lose the next war. A Chinese/Russian brokered Regime change is still a possibility. But Kim is not an idiot. He had his brother killed just to eliminate one of the options for a regime change.

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

#103

Post by panglott »

JeremyBanks wrote: post #82
panglott wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 have…

Are you trying to argue that there is a moral difference between action and inaction, or just a political difference? It's certainly something that historic philosophers have spent a lot of time discussing, but that doesn't mean their moral confusion needs to be taken seriously.

Any use of power against other people is necessarily both a moral and a political question. I wouldn't take someone seriously who ~hasn't~ thought hard about the moral question involved.

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

#104

Post by petre »

dmix wrote: post #75
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…

Indeed, all of those tanks will be pretty useless against an array of modern anti tank, see javelins https://youtu.be/wrhybKEzb-0 The primary concern is the use of artillery and multi barrel rocket launchers devastating any ROK ground forces. Russia demonstrated their long distance lethality in Ukraine. I'm also curious at the quality of DPRKs SAMs. The new S400 ones definitely pose a problem even for modern American…

Serbian S-125s were pretty effective against F117s during the war in Yugoslavia. They targeted the planes using long range radar.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_F-117A_shootdown

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

#105

Post by dflock »

tcoppi wrote: post #81
Theodores wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the key thing is history. The UK developed the nuclear bomb with no help from the USA. As a consequence the UK was not part of the Marshall Plan and as well as enduring a 'rebuild from nothing' there was also the phenomenal cost of Windscale and all of the rest of the infrastructure, a cost borne without the industrial base the USA had - ruins vs. vast and intact. The Manhattan Project was a similar cost to t…

The UK received quite a lot of Marshall Plan money. Nearly $3.2b of it, in fact.

Yes, but blew most of it trying - and failing - to prop up the pound as the world's reserve currency.

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

#106

Post by sqeaky »

panglott wrote: post #34
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.…

"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…

What does it matter who is responsible if many 100s of thousands of lives can be saved. Blame is just a social construct, death is a bit more permanent. NK is killing thousands in labor camps and will continue to do so. This is all without consider what happens if they get a nuke on missile into civilized cities.

Blame doesn't matter if stops a nuke in downtown Seoul or other Major city.

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

#107

Post by petre »

fspeech wrote: post #7
pm90 wrote: post #4

This is a pretty reasoned article. One thing I have never understood: why can't China and the US join forces and militarily overrun DPRK? I know they fought each other in the Korean war, but the world has changed so drastically since then. From what I've read so far, DPRK is a source of dangerous instability for everyone involved. Wouldn't having a more stable regime on the Korean peninsula serve the interests of all…

Will US withdraw troops from a unified Korea or will troops be stationed on the Chinese border?

The Russians withdrew from Central and Eastern Europe (save for Transnistria) yet US troops are still present in Germany and now in Europe (literally invited by the Baltic states, Poland and Romania), not to mention Japan, South Korea and Guam which is basically US territory. I highly doubt that the US would withdraw from a supposedly Unified Korea.

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

#108

Post by AndrewKemendo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #101
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear - I'm not making the point that the US entered WW-II predominantly for the humanitarian reason of liberating the camps. In fact we didn't know much about them when we entered in 1941. Rather, one of the strongest used moral cases for WWII (post facto) was the liberation. We have even stronger evidence of this same moral case in Korea, than we did in WWII, so if we're consistent then there is a good case t…

Waging foreign policy based on morality over tangible interests has a poor track record. Korea isn't Germany. We could count on West Germany bouncing back on its people and industry. North Korea would involve cultural engineering on a scale and at a depth without precedent. Cost estimates regularly wander into trillions of dollars, and that's just for the first few years.

Oh, god help us if it actually escalates to that point. I'm more than intimately aware of the ramifications, as I was an intelligence officer in the pacific and heavily involved in NK issues.

It's probably the biggest can of worms out there right now quite frankly.

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

#109

Post by vkou »

antimatter wrote: post #50
0xfeba wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the major reasons no one does anything about it, ignoring the buffer China enjoys from the US (via proxy), is the humanitarian crisis from the entire NK population after the war is over. Who is going to help them? China? SK?

> Who is going to help them? China? SK? Most likely? The US taxpayers.

Doubtful. If Iraq is any indication, US reconstruction money is as likely to be stolen by the contractors, as it is not.

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

#110

Post by arwhatever »

vkou wrote: post #6
pm90 wrote: post #4

This is a pretty reasoned article. One thing I have never understood: why can't China and the US join forces and militarily overrun DPRK? I know they fought each other in the Korean war, but the world has changed so drastically since then. From what I've read so far, DPRK is a source of dangerous instability for everyone involved. Wouldn't having a more stable regime on the Korean peninsula serve the interests of all…

DPRK is a buffer state for China. The United States lost its mind when communism established a foothold in Cuba. Russia did likewise when Ukraine began aligning towards NATO. China would prefer to have a stable regime in DPRK - but it would also prefer to not have US military bases on the other side of the Yalu river. The last time that happened, the two countries went to war. Also, arguably, the DPRK regime is extre…

Should some of the stunts they have pulled during that time be considered when defining "stable?"
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