North Korea sinks South Korean navy ship

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They look like Nazis with bazookas?!

lol .. the US exports alot of military aid to the South, the arms industry love conflicts. Whatever the case, a war with North Korea would be a long, dragged out one. If the North Koreans invaded the South first, how would anyone know where to bomb them in the South, It would be like Vietnam with nukes, all out warfare. The US presence in the Korean Peninsula isn't that strong.. sure we have military bases, naval support, bombs ... but by no means, I couldn't see this kind of war ending in a quick and decisive victory. It would be pro-longed with millions of deaths. Peace is the way to achieve ultimate victory.

Here's a dated video of the North Korean military
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryxr0778pH8[/youtube]

Why not? We bomb the crap out of them, specifically at strategic military infrastructure points, and kill their leaders to leave them in disarray. A prolonged occupation, as in Iraq, would not be intended. Defeating almost any enemy militarily is a very short and simple affair for the US. After the military victory is won, we would turn them over to the South.


An actual conflict between conventional forces would end quickly, and I would be surprised if a society dominated for over a generation by extremely dominant central control was able to spawn a decentralized guerrilla resistance. Peace is not always an option.

Well lets back up here, are you guys suggesting we should go to war now with North Korea over the torpedo incident or just in the rhetorical situation where they attack the South?

I am not saying that the North didn't buy weapons, the problem is that the North doesn't have an economy and thus can't buy a lot.

If North Korea ever used nukes, then they would die. I don't know how the world would react, but likely with overwhelming retaliation.

Air support, subs, ships, tanks, and all of that are useless if they are just moderately out of date. The reason being that with a lot of weapons, one hit is sufficient to be deadly, so if you can shoot better, dodge better, shoot from further away, then you've won.

South Korea's GDP could buy probably buy it the war. I mean, North Korea having a stock of weapons is ok, but... South Korea will likely be able to last longer so long as it doesn't get KO'ed in the first few rounds.

I am not saying that South Korea will not be very hurt, but.... the question is winning, and South Korea has a lot more going for it than the North.

All I'm saying.. is if the North Koreans invaded South Korea first, how would the US nuke the North Koreans in South Korea ?? Obviously I doubt the North Koreans would invade all in one point, but spread out all along the coasts and invade all at once, and at different time period lengths. The bankers would also capitalize off this, and expect a pro-longed war to achieve more debt... like with every war we've ever been in. The North Korean's are just too advanced to just say it'll be over just like that, it may take years to. You won't get pockets of resistance in North Korea, but you'll get the entire nation to resist because that's all they've ever known. They have enough of an edge that it will cause alot of deaths, to the North and South. The only way this can be solved is Diplomatically, and perhaps by infiltration. Other than that.. the war would be catastrophic.

I think that if the US gets involved, and no nukes are involved, victory would be pretty decisive as major conventional forces can easily be found and destroyed.

The North Koreans will be difficult and there will be a lot of resistance, but, I think that if the goal was actual integration of the two Koreas, then this wouldn't be as much of a problem as with occupation. Most people will not fight, and they may hate themselves for lacking the will to do so, but that's how people work. The people who do will become more and more marginalized over time and over deaths.

This might have to potential to become another Vietnam.

They already have attacked the South. If the South decided to retaliate, I would fully support US military involvement on their behalf.

In the rhetorical situation where they actually try to invade the South (as they did in the Korean War) then there is no question in my mind.

Not likely; the situation here would be extremely mismatched conventional forces rather than powerful conventional forces fighting against a guerrilla enemy. I don't think conditions in North Korea are right to lead to guerrilla warfare, and if we can avoid a guerrilla conflict we pretty much win any war by default.

There's more important domestic issues that the US has to worry about rather less starting a third war front (as if the other two aren't enough drains on resources to frack over our domestic issues).

Don't know if you guys got the correct lessons in history or not but the way the USSR lost wasn't simply just a poor execution of communism but was also an economic strangle created not only by strategic economic embargoes and through proxy wars that baited the USSR to directly engage while the other side merely paid off people to continue the agitation. Through focusing too much money and resources on those war fronts, the USSR failed on keeping their domestic issues in order and you get such lovely events like Chernobyl. The US is now experiencing a similar problem with outside economic forces straining the domestic economy and resource draining wars that distract from more important domestic issues like the oil spill or the entire failure of the corrupt lobby and campaign finance system.

Because all that super-expensive technology allowed the US to completely conquer Afghanistan AND Iraq, Somalia, Vietnam and a hundred other places? The very reason that America is failing to complete campaigns is BECAUSE they are fighting against people who HAVE to rely on the poor bloody infantry. Its the same problem that the Russians had.. a vastly superior technology base with complete air superiority and they STILL couldn't defeat the PBI. Throughout military history people who rely on superior technology have lost battles and wars against people relying on low-tech gear and a LOT of cannonfodder. The British in the Sudan and Afghanistan were "superior" in technology and firepower and took a lot of batterings in the field from poorly-equipped tribesman. The Italians invaded Ethiopia with what they believed to be a technologically superior force with superior air-power and STILL took a kicking from poorly equipped infantry. The Wermacht deployed some of the most advanced materiel a generation before everyone else and STILL got spanked by a LOT of infantry and mass-produced farm equipment. (The T-34 had inspired design, but was still minimal on the advanced technology. The Sherman tank was a blazing death-trap but it still beat the Tiger despite all the bells and whistles.The Panther eventually came with night-vision and still got beaten.) The first battle for Korea saw a technologically superior allied force steamrollered by infantry. (and in fairness saw motivated and small infantry formations beat off numerically superior forces several times.) Even the oft-paraded example of a successful "air war", Serbia, is more of a myth than anything else. (KFOR or Kosovo Force, which effectively peace-keeps, is a GROUND-based force.)

Tanks (no matter how modern) can still fall foul of determined infantry in a built-up area. Effectively invisible stealth-bombers cannot hold ground. Cruise missiles and remote drones cannot enter tunnel complexes. A carrier battle-group can't guard vital infrastructure. It is foolish and hubris to underestimate the capabilities of ground-pounders, and insane to assume that so many millions of fanatically indoctrinated footsoldiers would be "irrelevant" in open conflict. Its also rather insulting to all of those footsoldiers who have died doing things no amount of posh computers can do.

We *DID* conquer Afghanistan and Iraq. You're conflating holding an area and conquering it. America's problem is holding land, which is a much more difficult question than any question of conventional forces, as it isn't a matter of infantry or any other clearcut military force for that matter.

The question being asked is more about conventional warfare as well, given how the person is saying "front on", as an unconventional war, is by definition not front on anyway.

Even further, technological superiority means more and more as time goes on and as technologies become more powerful.

I see a lot of assertions of facts, but I don't see where you are proving this will be the deciding factor. It still seems clear to me that a strategy relying heavily on pounding North Korean troops to death from afar would be very successful and would tend to thin their numbers to a great extent, particularly if this is used to cut supply lines and other similar things. Ground troops are weak if they have to be afraid of standing in the open, if they are grossly undersupplied, and so on and so forth. This isn't to say "South Korea will never need any ground forces", but rather the number of ground forces South Korea has will not likely have to be anywhere similar to the number that North Korea has in order to hold ground and win the conflict.


Ok, but the issue is that

Ok? So determined infantry can hold up tanks. Good for them. Bombers cannot hold ground? Not exactly, their task is to destroy major build-ups of troops and to stop supplies from being sent. Tunnel complexes cannot be entered by drones. True, but tunnels cannot reasonably hold that many soldiers, and bunkers can be busted.

Is it hubris to underestimate the capabilities of so many armed men? Well, that'd be assuming your argument. Is it insane to believe that troops don't matter when one side has tactical superiority? Well, no, tactical superiority is worth a *lot*, and it is better to have tactical superiority over a big army any day. Even further, an open conflict wouldn't be the kind of conflict fought. They might try guerrilla tactics, and developed nations will use push-button tactics. Do I think this is insulting? No, because an argument, if it is correct, isn't an insult, and if it is wrong, is an error. That being said, infantry is probably technically replaceable by advanced enough computers of some sort(probably requiring technology unavailable today). The real issue is just cost.

We conquered Afghanistan and Iraq in a couple weeks apiece. Iraq had a very large, capable military, and they were much more experienced in warfare than the North Koreans are (Saddam had spent a decade fighting the Ayatollah, and then he fought us in the Gulf War). We decimated Iraq's military essentially as soon as we showed up. If our goal is to win a war, there is no doubt about whether we can or not. America has as much military strength as (perhaps even more than) the rest of the world put together. Any one nation, especially one like North Korea, would simply collapse before the advance of American forces. Now, if we wanted to remain and occupy North Korea, that is a different story. Occupations are harder than wars, as we have seen over the past 8 years in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, I think once N. Korea has been soundly defeated militarily, and their command structure has been destroyed, the South Koreans can finish the task of reunification.

Winning a war is easy. Securing a peace is not.

ruveyn

Yea, no thanks to that. Waiting the North out is a lot of more preferable to an aggressive war against them. The ship has sailed on stopping them from getting nuclear weapons and any conflict against them would be risking a nuclear confrontation. While I think we're obligated to defend the South if need be, 46 sailors aren't worth going to war over. It wouldn't be as simple as bombing the crap out of them and marching into Pyongyang. Logistically speaking, I don't think we're even capable of it with the two wars going on already and there is no political capital. They wouldn't just sit there while we build up an invasion force either.

Kim won't last much longer and the regime would collapse if we could ever get China to enforce tough sanctions. They're not much an existential threat I think if left alone.