Your reaction if we went to war with North Korea?

Ieyke

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North Korea would comedically screwed.
That's about as far as that though would really go for a while.

The US military outclasses REAL militaries by a completely ludicrous margin. Compared to North Korea's military that runs on hopes and propaganda.... LOL
 

Korolev

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Jul 4, 2008
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I would be optimistic.

There won't be a revolution in North Korea - the State has too much of a hold on its people. Society is so atomized, so broken down that no one trusts anyone, and no one will dare form a revolutionary movement because no one can talk to anyone in order to get one going. The only people who could turn things around for North Korea have NOTHING to gain and EVERYTHING to lose by doing so - their own people hate them so much, that any attempt to slacken the hold of the people will cause them to revolt, so they wisely (for them) will never loosen the screws.

If the North Koreans could have ever overthrown their regime, they would have done it around the time they started dying en-mass from starvation. North Korea is a grim reminder that with enough will and enough force, a state can ALWAYS oppress its people, indefinitely, forever.

We could wait for a couple more decades and hope that whoever replaces Kim Jong Un will be nice enough to open up North Korea (and subsequently lose all power and maybe his or her life), or we can hope that a military strike will topple it. If you knew exactly how awful life was in North Korea, you'd want it to end tomorrow. It's literally like 1984 come to life - the only thing missing is the televisions that watch you, and that's only missing because they lack the resources to develop it.

North Korea, if invaded, would not turn into Iraq. It's an isolated nation that terrorists can't infiltrate, unlike Iraq. And no terrorist would want to go there anyway. It doesn't have any ethnic tensions - the South Koreans are the same. The North Korean citizens have no love for their own nation -they keep trying to escape after all. They are relatively well-educated (the one thing North Korea has managed to be somewhat capable of doing, but even that is falling apart) and would probably integrate into South Korea.

It's not Iraq. It's an entirely different situation to Iraq and Afghanistan. It wouldn't play out the same at all.

Having said that, I am aware of the dangers of invading the North - they have nukes. Primitive nukes, but nukes none-the-less. They have a ton of artillery pointed directly at Seoul, which is quite close to the border. Without a doubt, they could kill a LOT of South Koreans. It would be the very last thing they'd ever get to do, because they would quickly find themselves non-existent after the act, but it is something they could do. Also, reintegrating an entire nation of starved, terrified and oppressed people who have no working knowledge of 21st century life into South Korea might very well bankrupt that nation entirely.

But when you at the horror of North Korea, I would say it's worth it. North Korea is the second worst government I've ever read about - the only one which is worse was the Khmer Rouge, and not by much. They make mothers drown their own babies in buckets because they THINK the father is Chinese! Did you read what I just said? They MAKE MOTHERS DROWN THEIR BABIES. They sentence three generations of a family to prison camp for the crime of ONE PERSON! They selectively starve entire regions based on some perceived lack of loyalty! They'll kill you if a smudge of dirt gets onto a portrait of their "dear" leader! It's like Orwell's 1984 - it REALLY is. It's that book come to life!
 

Korolev

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Jul 4, 2008
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North Korea wouldn't turn into Iraq:

1) North Koreans, as a whole, don't hate the West, whereas a sizeable chunk of people in Middle Eastern Nations do (For reasons that some would say are understandable). They keep trying to escape to the West. Their people don't buy the anti-american propaganda. In Iraq, while many didn't believe Saddam, a lot of them DID hate the US because of Palestine and US troops on Saudi Soil and cultural/religious differences (many Muslims saw the US as an explicitly "Crusader" army - the North Koreans wouldn't have that problem, because they have no religion)

2) Iraq became unstable partly because of Sunni-Shia tensions, something North Korea doesn't have. What the US didn't realize was that while most Iraqis hated Saddam, quite a few actually did - a fairly sizeable chunk of the population counted on him to keep their ethnic "enemies" down. North Korea doesn't have such tensions and wouldn't develop them. Less than 1% of the population genuinely loves Kim, and they would be quickly lynched the minute the North Korean government lost power.

3) Another reason Iraq became unstable is due to Terrorist infiltration from neighboring nations. That would not happen in North Korea, for obvious geographical regions. And what terrorist would blow themselves up for a pudgy fat-arse with a bad-haircut?

Not all post-invasion countries turn into Iraq. Japan at the end of WWII didn't turn into Iraq - they adapted to Westernization VERY well, and gladly, and they had more reason to hate the US than North Korea. If the North Korean government was toppled by the West via military force, I fully expect them to follow the pathway of Japan or South Korea. It's not Iraq. It doesn't have the same problems.
 

Thaluikhain

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Ieyke said:
North Korea would comedically screwed.
That's about as far as that though would really go for a while.

The US military outclasses REAL militaries by a completely ludicrous margin. Compared to North Korea's military that runs on hopes and propaganda.... LOL
The US and its allies also outclassed the Vietcong by a rather large margin, at least as military forces.
 

ecoho

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thaluikhain said:
ecoho said:
ok first i was talking conventional war due to as you pointed out using nukes just screws everyone.

Now the iraq and Afganistan ocupations are a very bad example as we have no intreset in actually concuring them. If we did then this is how it would happen;
step 1: target every warter source in a 10 mile radious of a major enemy stronghold/area.
step 2: contamenate and distroy said water source.
step 3: maintain a blockade around said area with shoot on sight orders.
step 4: wait 3 weeks.
step 5: repeat as needed till population surenders or is no longer an issue.
It would work very well in killing lots of innocent people, and making the populace of that, and other, nations hate you. It's not a good way of holding a nation.

I used Iraq and Afghanistan as examples, even if the US didn't want to conquer them, because the problems are similar. The US didn't want them destroyed, they wanted the countries as intact as possible, and running along relatively smoothly.

ecoho said:
for the others it would simply be a mater of taking out their tech and ability to wage war. In fact i think the only people who would have any chance of resisting and pretty much make us say screw it would be the UK.
That's how the US would defeat an enemy, sure. But to conquer it, that requires you to have troops in the streets, at risk from anyone with any sort of firearm who might happen to hate them.

(Out of interest, why the UK, as opposed to other industrialised nations with modern militaries?)
you assume of course that we need everyone alive to conquer a nation you don't most people will stop fighting when they see that the response to resistance is death of the town or people who help them. see in this situation civilian casualties don't matter in which case you don't need to so much hold the ground the same way all you need to do is control basic human needs, quite easy when you don't care for the populace's survival.

as to why the UK this is two fold;
1. their navy while smaller then the US is VERY good and well suited to protecting their nation.
2. they have the easiest nation to defend as landing troops would be hell at the best of times let alone with hardened resistance. then take into account that they have held out against Arial campaigns before and are quite good at it.

the other nations of the world are quite lacking in ways to deal with our air/navel superiority and as such lose any conventional ground war. now there are many other nations one would not attack due to lack of tactical and resource significance. From the top of my head id say we would leave; Australia, the Netherlands, most of Africa, and south America alone.(in this situation taking Mexico would be ideal so that our southern border would shrink significantly.)

I just want to clarify again this is from a tactical point of view and not my actual thoughts on what we should do.
 

Magmarock

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I feel the only reason why war hasn't broken out is because North Korea doesn't have any resources such as oil that the US needs. But someone needs to kick North Korea's ass.
 

Siege_TF

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1; Hmm, odd for a non-Republican president...
2; Hmph, at least we (Canadians) aren't getting involved. I thought when the yanks went to war we brought the beer (except Iraq).
3; Heh, little bastards finally got too big for their boots.

In all cases though I'd also ask myself why they didn't just send in a team of SEALS to pick off all the Nobz; the whole country's a more delicate house of cards than China, and that's saying something.
 

Thaluikhain

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ecoho said:
you assume of course that we need everyone alive to conquer a nation you don't most people will stop fighting when they see that the response to resistance is death of the town or people who help them. see in this situation civilian casualties don't matter in which case you don't need to so much hold the ground the same way all you need to do is control basic human needs, quite easy when you don't care for the populace's survival.
You don't need everyone, but merely killing lots of people doesn't hold a nation. Resistance to the Japanese and Germans in WW2 was fierce, for example, despite their atrocities. Collective punishment has its limitations, Israelis kill a lot more Palestinians than Palestinians kill Israelis, but Palestinian attacks don't stop because of it.

Sure, most people might be cowed, but there will always be some people, especially if they think you are going to kill them anyway.
 

Ieyke

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thaluikhain said:
Ieyke said:
North Korea would comedically screwed.
That's about as far as that though would really go for a while.

The US military outclasses REAL militaries by a completely ludicrous margin. Compared to North Korea's military that runs on hopes and propaganda.... LOL
The US and its allies also outclassed the Vietcong by a rather large margin, at least as military forces.
Irrelevant. With North Korea all we have to do is completely and hilariously cripple their military into being unable to do anything, which would be a complete cakewalk.
Vietnam was a mess of defending a country through jungle warfare against other parts of the same country. No one actually needs to GO to North Korea to beat them into complete uselessness.
 

wildstars

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Paradox SuXcess said:
How do you tell millions of people that have been deeply loyal to their high leaders, that they, Un and Ill, weren't the greatest leaders and a God to them in some cases.
We did it with/to Japan after World War II.

That said, I can't think of any positive outcome with invading North Korea in any situation. Any invasion into North Korea would almost assuredly put our forces against Chinese forces. And that would be ugly. There was a treaty signed between China and North Korea after the Korean War that basically obligated China to come to North Korea's defense in the case of an invasion. I don't know it that treaty is still in effect, and I'm too lazy to google it.

North Korea is going to collapse, its only a matter of time. I'm pretty sure I'll live to see it.

Even in the best case scenario (where china does nothing and and we force N.Korea to officially surrender), Hundreds of our soldiers still die, more are crippled, and we are stuck paying for rehabilitating another nation.
 

spartan231490

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In all three cases, my reaction is the same, as it would be any time two nuclear powers went to war. Fear and weariness for the death and destruction that would result.
 

ecoho

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thaluikhain said:
ecoho said:
you assume of course that we need everyone alive to conquer a nation you don't most people will stop fighting when they see that the response to resistance is death of the town or people who help them. see in this situation civilian casualties don't matter in which case you don't need to so much hold the ground the same way all you need to do is control basic human needs, quite easy when you don't care for the populace's survival.
You don't need everyone, but merely killing lots of people doesn't hold a nation. Resistance to the Japanese and Germans in WW2 was fierce, for example, despite their atrocities. Collective punishment has its limitations, Israelis kill a lot more Palestinians than Palestinians kill Israelis, but Palestinian attacks don't stop because of it.

Sure, most people might be cowed, but there will always be some people, especially if they think you are going to kill them anyway.
the problem with that is the Germans and Japanese tried to hold cities and what im saying is you don't do that you control the cities basic needs. think more how you would deal with an infestation of bugs, you take out their food and water sources and you have very little effective resistance as you control their next meal and/or drink.

as for the Israelites they kill more due to the fact that the Palestinians are more numerous and very outclassed in tech.
 

wildstars

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thaluikhain said:
Ieyke said:
North Korea would comedically screwed.
That's about as far as that though would really go for a while.

The US military outclasses REAL militaries by a completely ludicrous margin. Compared to North Korea's military that runs on hopes and propaganda.... LOL
The US and its allies also outclassed the Vietcong by a rather large margin, at least as military forces.
At that time the US military was focused and trained to fight a conflict in Northern Europe. This training was applicable to fighting in Korea. It wasn't remotely applicable to fighting in Vietnam.

My dad was a Korean War vet, and he had a lot of respect for the fighting spirit of the N. Korean armed forces. He compared it to the Japanese in WW2. I don't know if its still the same, but I don't think I'd be so cavalier with somebody elses life to 'LOL' about it. Our soldiers die in even the most one-sided of armed conflicts. More than twenty US soldiers died in the invasion of Panama in 1989, with another 300-plus wounded. I can't think of a more recent one-sided military invasion in U.S. History.
 

loa

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That would be terrifying depending on how china reacts and what the reason for the sudden declaration of war might be.
I don't really want a global nuclear war in my lifetime.
North korea would probably be as "hopelessly outmatched" as iraq was a "clean war".
 

Jaegerbombastic

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Squilookle said:
Need I remind you that Korea is right on China's freaking doorstep? How can any nation engaged in the proverbial superpower tadger measuring contest possibly let all it's rivals set off so many fireworks just across the pond? China may not give a damn about Korea. They may have no interest whatsoever in it's fate or even WANT to intervene in what could only be a messy confrontation. But they would HAVE to- because if a military giant like China doesn't intervene, it would look like a massive red carpet of inaction inviting anyone to flex their bloated military muscles right outside the front door to anyone who looks out and actually cares about that sort of thing.

I mean really, you think the US would just stand by and roll with it if Russia started racing it's arms in Cuba? Again?
This isn't the 1950s anymore, this is the 2010s. When China intervened in the Korean War, there was nothing economically tethering them to the West. Now there is.

The fact of the matter is that in regards to geopolitics, money talks and bullshit walks. You're right that China isn't going to just sit back and let the possibility of North Korea being taken over happen, but that doesn't mean they're going to react with military force. Doing so means a risk of losing all their economic gains from trading with the West, losing the goodwill diplomacy they've been trying to cultivate and going back to becoming a pariah state, and nuclear war. What do they get in return? An backwards hellhole that essentially freeloads off them. As I've mentioned, China will turn to using soft power to end the war as quickly as possible and score geopolitical brownie points.

And funny you should mention Russia using Cuba as a military beachhead into the Americas. After the missile, Cuba still remained an important stopping point for the Soviet navy, and helped provide funding to the Cuban military who was especially keen on sending advisors to any conflicts in Africa and the Americas (we even had a couple situations of firefights between US and Cuban soldiers during the Grenada Invasion). There were rumors that Russia was going to do this again as a tit-for-tat move against NATO expanding into Eastern Europe and especially the Baltics, but as of now its only been rumors. Considering the Ruble is only worth 2 cents right now, that probably isn't gonna happen in the foreseeable future.
 

Thaluikhain

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Jaegerbombastic said:
The fact of the matter is that in regards to geopolitics, money talks and bullshit walks. You're right that China isn't going to just sit back and let the possibility of North Korea being taken over happen, but that doesn't mean they're going to react with military force. Doing so means a risk of losing all their economic gains from trading with the West, losing the goodwill diplomacy they've been trying to cultivate and going back to becoming a pariah state, and nuclear war. What do they get in return? An backwards hellhole that essentially freeloads off them. As I've mentioned, China will turn to using soft power to end the war as quickly as possible and score geopolitical brownie points.
Almost certainly yes. However, by the same token, the US doesn't want that to happen either, so it doesn't want to risk provoking China by doing anything in NK that could lead to that sort of thing happening a few steps down the line. Easier for both sides to sit quietly.
 

DataSnake

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1st scenario: we basically just declared war on China. I'm hopping on the first plane to a country neither side cares about, maybe Australia.
2nd scenario: we don't really have the time or money for an occupation, so I'd be pissed at our "leaders" in Washington over that, but it's not a pants-shitter like scenario 1.
3rd scenario: with that much backup, the war would probably be over by the time I heard about it.
 

ObserverStatus

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A war with North Korea? That would be pretty cool, we could like, kill Kim Jong Un, bring democracy, and then Obama could give a televised speech where he says "I am Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States, and slayer of your God. I demand that you be in awe." Biden: "Yes! The streets now flow with the blood of the..." Ahem, nevermind.

Considering how North Korea has enough heavy artillery pointed at Seoul to level it in a matter of hours, restarting the war would be an extraordinarily bad idea. Defeating them wouldn't be the real challenge, the challenge would be defeating them before South Korea is completely devastated. So with that said my reaction to a war with North Korea would be a face palm.