North Korea: Land of Miracles

[Free Northman]

Speaking on behalf of the rest of the people over here... we'd appreciate this NOT happening. :cheers:

FN, I appreciate your earlier point about the humanitarian situation in NK. Lots of people are malnourished and possibly dying. That situation is not going to improve when they are malnourished and forcibly conscripted into the Democratic People's Republic of Koreans Being Shot At By Much More Numerous And Better Armed Multinational Force Pissed Off And Wanting As Swift And Decisive End As Possible Army. The situation is terrible, but there's no real path forward other than waiting for the regime to collapse and hoping/nudging it towards sooner, rather than later.

See, this is where I tend to disagree. I think a Lee Harvey Oswald scenario is just the "nudge" that is required to bring the entire regime to the brink of collapse.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

FN,

Did NK collapse when Kim Il Sung died, when Kim Jong Il died, so why would killing Kim Jong Un bring down NK now?

[TerraPrime]

North Korea threatens not just South Korea or Japan, but also China and Mongolia and Russia. They are not likely to attack China but if the regime goes rogue then it's any body's guess.

They also don't need to hit Seoul directly to hurt South Korea. There are plenty of other cities to hit along the border. The death toll and damage to infrastructure may not be as high but it still won't be pretty.

[Lightning Lord]

See, this is where I tend to disagree. I think a Lee Harvey Oswald scenario is just the "nudge" that is required to bring the entire regime to the brink of collapse.

I don't doubt that the combined force of USA, SK, and Japan could collapse the power structure of North Korea. I just think that the result of that collapse would be worse than you're allowing for - both for the people of NK and for those of toppling forces (mostly South Koreans and those unlucky US soldiers stationed here).

I also don't think China just sits by while the US topples regimes of its neighbor. I honestly don't know what they would do, but I suspect it would not be "nothing."

[TerraPrime]

Last time the U.S. tried anything in Korea we ended up with the Korean War once the forces crossed the Yalu river. Just saying.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

TP,

Read The Coldest War by David Halberstam. There were Chinese troops in Korea long before the Allies approached the Yalu.

[TerraPrime]

TP,

Read The Coldest War by David Halberstam. There were Chinese troops in Korea long before the Allies approached the Yalu.

Of course there were. The Chinese communists were excellent guerrila fighters so it would have been surprising if they had not penetrated the area. Similarly, I expect to find some Chinese military in the NK right now. China has invested a lot to keep the little tinpot dictatorship running, and it'd be highly unlikely that they did not have a tab on the NK military.

But the crossing of the Yalu was what marked the declaration of war and the formalized beginning. If there had not been the push to the border, the communists may have have been happy to just support from behind the scene.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

TP

Are you saying that had the Allies stopped after taking Pyongyang the Chinese would not have engaged Allied forces?

[TerraPrime]

TP

Are you saying that had the Allies stopped after taking Pyongyang the Chinese would not have engaged Allied forces?

There is a good chance they wouldn't have done it officially, from what I gathered. The risk was in having an Allied Force on the border, and the objective was to build a larger communist bloc. If the first part were eliminated, they could achieve the second without a formal declaration. Look at Vietnam. In Vietnam, China was happy to supply arms and people for the Vietnamese communists, without delcaring war on the U.S., no?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

TP,

I see your point but Vietnam is not Korea.

[KAH]

TP,

I see your point but Vietnam is not Korea.

More to the point, Vietnam was more of a Soviet ally than it was a Chinese one, even before the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. There were, for instance, lingering border questions waiting to be resolved when South Vietnam was safely bagged... baggage which the Soviets did not bring to the table.

Not to say that China would have wanted the US on it's Vietnamese border anymore than it wanted it on it's Korean border, but still.

[Werthead]

What would even be the point of launching missile strikes on North Korea, now or in the future, for no other reason than "because we can"?

Settle down, lol.

Right now, there is no reason. In the future, if North Korea looks like it's going to attack the South, certainly there is a reason: allowing North Korea to start a war on their terms is idiotic, because the only way North Korea can achieve any kind of widespread damage is by being allowed a first strike. If they're hit hard enough first, their ability to retaliate in any meaningful way is extremely doubtful.

The problem is that this would only ever fly if there was 100% certainty that NK was about to attack, and given NK's love of sabre-rattling and making empty threats for months on end, that may be quite difficult to prove.

Hawaii and Alaska would be fine unless someone seriously screwed up. Japan as well.

Japan is certainly in danger; some of NK's missile tests have overflown the country. Japan is also closer to South Korea than people think: the proposed South Korea-Japanese road tunnel would be about 80 miles long. Certainly all of Japan is well within North Korea's missile range.

I think a Lee Harvey Oswald scenario is just the "nudge" that is required to bring the entire regime to the brink of collapse.

I think it'd be more likely to bring chaos to the country. The Kim regime under the previous incumbent and his father was untouchable, but the current one is being heavily and openly criticised. The hardliners may well decide he's too useless and remove him openly. Even if that doesn't happen, if he's killed, one of his brothers (he has two, I believe, including the idiot who tried to smuggle himself into Japan so he could visit Disneyland) would just take over.

Are you saying that had the Allies stopped after taking Pyongyang the Chinese would not have engaged Allied forces?

I think this is almost certain. The Chinese really freaked out about MacArthur marching north to the border. They didn't want a direct border with a US-'controlled' South Korea. It should be remembered that this was just a year after the revolution in China and Mao was trying to show himself as a strong and resolute leader, justifying a military response.

Now, I'm not too sure. I think there's probably a sliding scale of outcomes in both Beijing and Washington that all have, "Better that letting the current lunatics remain in charge," on them: the USA may tolerate a more directly Chinese-controlled/influenced North Korea if it can feed itself and become a prosperous trade partner. They wouldn't like it, and SK would certainly hate it, but it's better than what we have now. Similarly, China may tolerate a reunified Korea modelled on the South if it can feed itself and become etc. In fact, the Chinese may be looking at what happened to Germany's economy after it absorbed the east and see an opportunity for South Korea, a major trade rival (as well as partner) in the area to almost impoverish itself for a generation to come. The cost of unifying the Korean peninsular under Seoul's rule could be utterly ruinous to the South Korean economy.

[Horza]

Wow.

(usual disclaimers apply, but still, wow)

Jang Song-thaek was the no. 2 man inside the structure, and had implicitly been tasked by Kim Sr. to help steward Jong-un in power. Was he a Claudius to our basketball-loving Hamlet, or failed Claudius to a Caligula of 38N?

SCMP story here

In a briefing to a parliamentary committee, South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) said Jang Song-thaek had been removed as vice chairman of the North’s top military body, the National Defence Commission, an opposition lawmaker told reporters.

[...]

In an emergency briefing with MPs, the NIS said Jang was “recently ousted from his position and two of his close confidantes – Ri Yong-ha and Jang Soo-kil – were publicly executed in mid November”, legislator Jung Cheong-rae told reporters.

In the past Korean intelligence has leaked really crazy and verifably false stories to the press but you'd think they wouldn't be briefing MPs unless they had something of weight.

[slim da reaper]

Right now, there is no reason. In the future, if North Korea looks like it's going to attack the South, certainly there is a reason: allowing North Korea to start a war on their terms is idiotic, because the only way North Korea can achieve any kind of widespread damage is by being allowed a first strike. If they're hit hard enough first, their ability to retaliate in any meaningful way is extremely doubtful.

The problem is that this would only ever fly if there was 100% certainty that NK was about to attack, and given NK's love of sabre-rattling and making empty threats for months on end, that may be quite difficult to prove.

Who the f are the US? Yes a land economically advanced but ideologically the people have won those freedoms they aren't given to them by any government. Sabre rattling goes for both governments. governments are pawns to powers, the super rich have been stealing wealth for a long time now. Attacking NK means WW3. The whole of the world is watching, people may despise NK but they're a convenient strawman to the US, no-one wants WW3 as even the super rich have no protection from nuclear weapons.

[Lightning Lord]

Who the f are the US? Yes a land economically advanced but ideologically the people have won those freedoms they aren't given to them by any government. Sabre rattling goes for both governments. governments are pawns to powers, the super rich have been stealing wealth for a long time now. Attacking NK means WW3. The whole of the world is watching, people may despise NK but they're a convenient strawman to the US, no-one wants WW3 as even the super rich have no protection from nuclear weapons.

Wait... huh? This is an impressively random collection of thoughts.

[Horza]

eh, looks like standard USian geopolitical commentary of the 'I watched a Bill Hicks DVD once' school

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

IW,

Are you suggesting the US would attack NK, for fun?

[Werthead]

Attacking NK means WW3

It really doesn't. Russia and even China are not going to come riding to North Korea's rescue if North Korea did something so monumentally stupid that military action resulted. China might start really getting antsy if there was an invasion and US forces ended up on its border (as in the Korean War), but at the most I think China would send its own 'peacekeepers' into NK to stop it being conquered completely. There is danger there, certainly, but not an inevitable nuclear war.

[Clueless Northman]

More to the point, Vietnam was more of a Soviet ally than it was a Chinese one, even before the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.

To be fair, and as insane as it looks, the Khmers Rouges attacked first. Possibly some kind of pre-emptive strike aiming at emptying the border area on the Vietnamese side, but still. Of course, with hindsight, it looks just as foolish as Paraguay's decision to go against the Triple Alliance, and more hopeless and less justifiable than Georgia's assault on South Ossetia.

but at the most I think China would send its own 'peacekeepers' into NK to stop it being conquered completely. There is danger there, certainly, but not an inevitable nuclear war.

Any chance China might decide to get rid of the current leadership and turn NK into a mere puppet-state - by force and massive military invasion if necessary -, if North Korea really begins a messy confrontation in the peninsula - rather than face a NK defeat and US troops close to Yalu again? Not sure "the West" would oppose such a move, considering the situation.

[Ixodes]

A very large part of North Korea's army in 1950 were veterans from fighting against the Japanese in Manchuria. Mao and Kim Il Sung were brothers in arms against the Japanese occupation. Mao was not going to let Kim Il Sung's regime be destroyed and Chinese intervention happened once the US abandoned containment and went for regime change. The government in S Korea at the time of the war was chocked full of those that collaborated with the Japanese occupation, something not lost on Mao. The current South Korean leadership comes from a different background. Beijing and Pyongyang are no longer so close and those that fought together are dying off.