How would a new War in the area of North Korea look like?
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North Korea is mostly one mountain range after another, with deep narrow valleys separating the mountain chains.
Early European visitors thought the country looked like the sea in a heavy gale.
While the summers are hot and humid there, they're also short. The winters are very cold and very long, and spring and fall are the most habitable seasons. So, nationally, North Korea's geography isn't similar to Viet Nam very much.
And any land war fought there won't resemble the 50 year old Vietnamese war. Our military technology and strategies have changed radically since then, mostly beginning as a result of the failures of Viet Nam.
The causes and the nature of a war with North Korea would also be much different. The United States intruded into what was actually a civil war in Viet Nam; the country had arbitrarily been divided by the French, and in both North and South Vietnam, more citizens wanted unification than division. The country folk didn't care who ruled them as long as they were left in peace.
Korea was once unified, but that ended in the Korean War. The citizenry of both North and South Korea strongly oppose rulership by their opposing governments, and Jun Un is firmly in control of his nation. A war with North Korea would be more similar to the Japanese in Word War II than Vietnam; a war of allied nations, fought with military forces who aren't guerillas.
If such a war was to start, the winner would not be met with the acceptance of the loser, as was the case in Viet Nam. The nations are now vastly too different in too many important ways to ever make such easy unification possible.
So, I think that a war would result in something similar to the Versailles Treaty that ended WWI. There would be over-triumphant winners and very angry losers. That's a recipe for more conflict to follow, and the Korean peninsula is to large to turn into a radioactive slag heap, and too small to ever hold together artificially, from military conquest alone.
No one knows Korea like Koreans. They share the same language, writing, culture and history, and Korea has been run over by one conqueror after another throughout its long and ancient history.
They're like the Poles- they have fought everybody at one time or another. And they alone will quit fighting when they're damned good and ready to quit. Until then, no one else will ever make them quit, win or lose. Anything else is nothing but a resentful, temporary truce at best.
I haven't seen Vietnam, but I have seen a good bit of South Korea(1957-1958) . I can assure you the terrain does not look like that video and the winter weather can be brutal and deadly.
My Father was at 'Frozen Chosin' He was lucky to just lose two fingers and a toe to frostbite.
This time, if there must be a 'this time', we have the South Korean army to do our heavy lifting on the ground...a massive Gulf War 1 airstrike crippling the North while the South attacks would work..unless the Chinese took a hand. Then all bets are off.
The Chinese lost almost 1,000,000 men in the Korean war, including Mao's son. They have a blood investment.
I would favor a quick decapitation strike...take out the nukes and the leadership. But China would have to sign off.
This time, if there must be a 'this time', we have the South Korean army to do our heavy lifting on the ground...a massive Gulf War 1 airstrike crippling the North while the South attacks would work..unless the Chinese took a hand. Then all bets are off.
The Chinese lost almost 1,000,000 men in the Korean war, including Mao's son. They have a blood investment.
I would favor a quick decapitation strike...take out the nukes and the leadership. But China would have to sign off.
EXACTLY.
Last I checked Trump has China buying coal and natural gas from us and not the norks...
So that said... if I were the petulant fat kid, I'd be going around asking if I can eat this, instead of rattling sabers.
And an opportunity for some to reap a healthy profit. Of course, we could incinerate North Korea a hundred times over. But it wouldn't play out that way. Bad press. And no healthy profit in a quickly won war. We haven't fought a war for the right reasons and with the right attitude since about 1945.
This time, if there must be a 'this time', we have the South Korean army to do our heavy lifting on the ground...a massive Gulf War 1 airstrike crippling the North while the South attacks would work..unless the Chinese took a hand. Then all bets are off.
The Chinese lost almost 1,000,000 men in the Korean war, including Mao's son. They have a blood investment.
I would favor a quick decapitation strike...take out the nukes and the leadership. But China would have to sign off.
The object of any war is to stop aggression by force. We have forgotten that in our most recent wars.
I don't know if a decapitation strike would work, but that would be about the only way to stop the hostilities.
But, from history, it's quite possible the war won't ever be fought. North Korea has always been ruled by a former military man; the the Kim family only came to rule because Baby Kim's daddy and grand-daddy were both much more adept at ruling their military first and the rest of the nation secondly.
The other Kims did it by keeping their generals happy and on their side, along with enough barracks full of their best soldiers to make a coup a very risky thing to contemplate for some ambitious young officer.
Baby Kim didn't grow up in his nation, so he has no field experience with the common folk, and no military experience at all.
He rules his military by terror, and sooner or later, there's always some soldier who comes along and isn't terrified. That's the guy who makes the coup.
I fully expect Baby Kim will be assassinated (or slaughtered) long before his career is half as long as his ancestors' were. He's too fat to flee, and to dangerous to his own to survive for long. And he needs to win many more hearts and minds than he has now to linger.
The object of any war is to stop aggression by force. We have forgotten that in our most recent wars.
I don't know if a decapitation strike would work, but that would be about the only way to stop the hostilities.
But, from history, it's quite possible the war won't ever be fought. North Korea has always been ruled by a former military man; the the Kim family only came to rule because Baby Kim's daddy and grand-daddy were both much more adept at ruling their military first and the rest of the nation secondly.
The other Kims did it by keeping their generals happy and on their side, along with enough barracks full of their best soldiers to make a coup a very risky thing to contemplate for some ambitious young officer.
Baby Kim didn't grow up in his nation, so he has no field experience with the common folk, and no military experience at all.
He rules his military by terror, and sooner or later, there's always some soldier who comes along and isn't terrified. That's the guy who makes the coup.
I fully expect Baby Kim will be assassinated (or slaughtered) long before his career is half as long as his ancestors' were. He's too fat to flee, and to dangerous to his own to survive for long. And he needs to win many more hearts and minds than he has now to linger.
Agreed.
Like you said: Kim's "dead man walking". It's NOT "if" but "when" he's taken out.
I was just one year from being drafted to that hell hole. I fully know what it looked like and had a couple friends who lost their older brothers to it.
War is horrible in any flavor, but we do not fight ground wars the same as 40 years ago.
The problem with another Korean war is the location of Soul being less than 20 miles from the the 38th Parallel. NK would inflict as much damage to the civilian populous as quickly as possible. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people would die.
A war on the peninsula would look nothing like it did 70 years ago, nor like Viet Nam. It would be far worse, far quicker.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Packard fan
Agreed.
Like you said: Kim's "dead man walking". It's NOT "if" but "when" he's taken out.
China should have taken his father out 30 years ago. Korea would most likely be unified, but one thing for sure is the lunatic Jong Un wouldn't be the problem he is now. Priceless
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