War in Korea is close

[in2deep]

interesting breakdown. This has high chance of going down IMO.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50114000/gif/_50114613_military_balance_464.gif

[CubanMustGo]

Don't forget the 6 million strong NK reserves.

The NKers have pathetic equipment, they're not well-trained, and their supplies are low, but having that many ppl near the border (and having artillery that can easily reach Seoul) means a lot of pain for South Korea if they let it fly.

The one thing your chart omits is nukes, and that madman in charge in Pyongyang is idiotic enough to let them fly if things aren't going his way.

[Wild Cobra]

interesting breakdown. This has high chance of going down IMO.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50114000/gif/_50114613_military_balance_464.gif
Might be an interesting imbalance at first glance, but does North Korea have any modern USA made equipment?

[Wild Cobra]

Don't forget the 6 million strong NK reserves.

The NKers have pathetic equipment, they're not well-trained, and their supplies are low, but having that many ppl near the border (and having artillery that can easily reach Seoul) means a lot of pain for South Korea if they let it fly.

The one thing your chart omits is nukes, and that madman in charge in Pyongyang is idiotic enough to let them fly if things aren't going his way.
I don't know this as fact, but I think S. Korea has a few USA made nukes up their sleeve.

[CosmicCowboy]

That NK artillery may not be as effective as you might think. The US has countermeasure technology that computer analyzes the source of the incoming round and counterfires. They may get 2 rounds off per cannon before they get zapped.

[4>0rings]

I think I can speak for S. Korea when I say...

http://images.cheezburger.com/completestore/2010/4/6/129150329846212959.jpg

[Wild Cobra]

That NK artillery may not be as effective as you might think. The US has countermeasure technology that computer analyzes the source of the incoming round and counterfires. They may get 2 rounds off per cannon before they get zapped.
Yep, sighted on the first, and a round is on it's way as the second one get off... If the NK's are lucky!

[ChumpDumper]

Yep, sighted on the first, and a round is on it's way as the second one get off... If the NK's are lucky!Why didn't they use that when the island was shelled?

[LnGrrrR]

Why didn't they use that when the island was shelled?

I can't speak to the truthfulness of CC/WC's comment, but they might not want to have retaliated right away due to the chances of it sparking off a full-fledged war.

[lefty]

What about the Antarctica war with Aliens?

[ChuckD]

Don't forget the 6 million strong NK reserves.

The NKers have pathetic equipment, they're not well-trained, and their supplies are low, but having that many ppl near the border (and having artillery that can easily reach Seoul) means a lot of pain for South Korea if they let it fly.

The one thing your chart omits is nukes, and that madman in charge in Pyongyang is idiotic enough to let them fly if things aren't going his way.

NK is China's dog: all bark no bite. It's DISASTER for China, financially, if NK attacks, therefore, they won't.

[MannyIsGod]

CC is right that the United States has possessed artillery countermeasures that allow us to pinpoint artillery fairly quickly and respond with counter battery fire very quickly as well.

That doesn't mean the North Koreans wouldn't still have the ability to absolutely reduce Seoul to rubble and inflict a large amount of casualties upon the South. They would not be able to do it forever but that doesn't mean it wouldn't leave one hell of a mark.

Think about all those movies where the same scene plays out where you have a Mexican standoff. One guy with a gun to anothers head, but with 10 guns pointed at his head. Sure, the 10 guns will take good care of the gunman, but that doesn't mean the person with the gun to their head is any less dead at the end of the situation.

That is pretty much the situation you have in Korea.

[Cane]

It won't happen simply for the fact that the NK "leadership" knows it would lose all of its remaining power and all that comes with it: the Swedish hookers, Uzbekistani caviar, millions of dollars worth of Mercedes, endless bottles of Hennessy, etc. The NK leadership may seem stupid, which they probably are in many ways, but they know that full-scale war only spells doom for them. On the other hand the last thing SK and the Western world needs is another war across the globe so I don't see a real preemptive strike happening either even though NK is on track to having potentially capable WMD ICBM tech whereas Iraq had lots of oil.

The most that the NK leadership will do is just rattle their saber until finally their situation collapses through revolution or hopefully a peaceful and quick surrender. They're too busy living the good life to share it, bunch of Scrooges.

[LaMarcus Bryant]

Reducing the population of the area close to the border of that Penninsula would be great if it weren't for so many great high quality products that US citizens enjoy from South Korea.

BTW, war is not close.

[Nbadan]

Wouldn't this be tragic if all this was a result of a few machismo N. Korean grunts and not some big conspiracy by Lil Kim's son to go to war with the South? ...saber-raddeling...

[Wild Cobra]

War in Korea is close
They are technically still at war. Never been a peace treaty, just a long standing cease fire that gets violated a few times each decade.

[Nbadan]

Here is how you will know if, or when, Korea is ever really going to war....the money will leave the Peninsula...

[4>0rings]

NK is China's dog: all bark no bite. It's DISASTER for China, financially, if NK attacks, therefore, they won't.
In the wikileaks cables, it was stated that China really doesn't know how to deal with NK and it doesn't have the pull the US thinks they do with NK.

[ChuckD]

In the wikileaks cables, it was stated that China really doesn't know how to deal with NK and it doesn't have the pull the US thinks they do with NK.

Considering they're feeding the entire NK, including the party elites, I'd say that was some leverage. If they cut off all aid, military and food, NK would collapse like an flawed souffle. Rolling a few million infantry right up to the Yalu would have the Kim family needing a change of undies.

[Wild Cobra]

Considering they're feeding the entire NK, including the party elites, I'd say that was some leverage. If they cut off all aid, military and food, NK would collapse like an flawed souffle. Rolling a few million infantry right up to the Yalu would have the Kim family needing a change of undies.
I'm pretty sure the population of NK is treated as slaves already. Only the military structure has a healthy supply of food, and they can simply make the peasants work harder. It's pretty bad there for the people.

[TheSullyMonster]

Rolling a few million infantry right up to the Yalu

That would take some serious logistics.:lol

[spursncowboys]

Considering they're feeding the entire NK, including the party elites, I'd say that was some leverage. If they cut off all aid, military and food, NK would collapse like an flawed souffle. Rolling a few million infantry right up to the Yalu would have the Kim family needing a change of undies.

Do you have actual data to back your claim up? While your at it, why don't you look and see how much we give.

[cheguevara]

In the wikileaks cables, it was stated that China really doesn't know how to deal with NK and it doesn't have the pull the US thinks they do with NK.

this makes the most sense.

SK and US politicians blaming china for north korea is just a political ploy. NK is led by a psycho. that is obvious. China doesn't know and doesn't want to deal with it.

[Wild Cobra]

Why is a Mexican so concerned with American politics anyway?
Because the job market is failing them too. Not as much money to send to the extended family in Mexico.

[ChuckD]

Do you have actual data to back your claim up? While your at it, why don't you look and see how much we give.

I think at one point we were giving some, for the duration of some behavior on NK's part that probably lasted about 10 minutes. That would have been 4-5 years ago.

China is and has been the primary provider of food to NK since the fall of the USSR, at least. NK produces so little food that their ARMY would starve without China.

[BlackSwordsMan]

That's all right. These things gotta happen every five years or so, ten years. Helps to get rid of the bad blood.

[Nbadan]

I'm pretty sure the population of NK is treated as slaves already. Only the military structure has a healthy supply of food, and they can simply make the peasants work harder. It's pretty bad there for the people.

How do you know that? You have friends in North Korea? We made the same mistake in thinking that a majority of the population in Iraq feared Saddam and while Saddam was a murderous dictator, his strength made a majority of Iraqi feel safe..

[Nbadan]

From the most dangerous man in Korea:


On March 26, the South Korean ASW frigate Cheonan was sunk off the west coast of the Korean Peninsula. The working assumption, supported by the findings of an international commission put together by South Korea, is that a North Korean minisub was responsible.

Lee decided to respond in a manner suitable to South Korea's new stature, as the president of an aggrieved world power, not the controlling authority of the southern half of a divided nation.

He spoke before the Asian Security Summit and exhorted responsible, joint efforts on security; he solicited and received the explicit support of the United States; with US support he succeeded in having the issue taken up by the United Nations.

He did not coordinate with China or give any solicitude to the six-party talks.

North Korea may have miscalculated in assuming that the United States would respond to an outrage like the Cheonan by resuming its engagement with Pyongyang.

But South Korea and the United States seriously miscalculated if they assumed that China would be eager enough to burnish its responsible stakeholder credentials in the West by joining the public condemnation of North Korea.

The most significant event in North Asian relations in 2010 was probably China's refusal to support any meaningful sanction of Pyongyang over the Cheonan issue at the United Nations.

It was the first overt indication that China would resist a re-ordering of Korean peninsula affairs by South Korea and the US without Chinese participation.

It was also a clear signal that China had decided that the intangible psychic benefits of shoehorning itself into America's definition of what a "responsible stakeholder" should be in Korean affairs carried negligible practical advantages and, indeed, brought with it serious strategic liabilities.

In the face of Chinese and Russian resistance, the UN process yielded a meaningless president's letter instead of a Security Council resolution.

United States President Barack Obama tried to put a good face on things and score some political points against China by accusing it of "willful blindness" and conducting a series of high-profile joint naval exercises around the Korean coast.

The Chinese, for their part, displayed a complete unwillingness to back down, excoriating the US for actions that China deemed provocative and "heightened tensions on the peninsula".

Just in case somebody hadn't received the message, China's President Hu Jintao received a visit from Kim Jung-il in Changchun in August, signaling to the world that China stood behind the Kim dynasty and the approaching succession of Kim Jung-eun.

Asia Times (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/LL23Dg01.html)

[nkdlunch]

Why is a Mexican so concerned with American politics anyway?

:lmao

[TDMVPDPOY]

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/north-korea-can-build-one-nuke-a-year-says-form-us-defence-chief/story-e6frf7lo-1225977962630


FORMER US defence chief William Perry said North Korea was capable of producing one nuclear bomb a year and that Washington should consider high-level talks to defuse tension

the question is whose selling them the uranium and whose building them them the reactors?? i dont think NTH KOREA has the technology to build reactors unless under the help and guidance of china/russia/iran...