Some of the comments in this thread remind me of some people I know who don't know the difference between the US Civil War, WWI, or WWII, and why they all happened. And they have no idea why the US military is the way it is today. And these are fully functioning, American born and raised adults, mind you.

delathi:

War with North Korea would be an obliteration of the North, they can't fight or sustain a war, BUT, they do have 10,000 artillery peices aimed at Seoul. So the war goes something like this:

Day 1 : Seoul gets obliterated by massive artillery barrage.
Day 1.5 : North Korean artillery wiped out by South Korean and U.S. counterfire
Day 2 - End of war : Rest of North Korea gets obliterated by U.S. and South Korean air forces/missiles/army

So, yeah, we'd thoroughly kick their asses, but it sacrifices Seoul and the few million people living there to do it. If the South Koreans didn't have their capitol a mile from the farking border, this might be a lot easier.

The problem is that there are a few other countries in the local area that also have opinions on the matter, and those don't always line up with the US goals. Some of them, like China, are kind of a big deal.

Guntram Shatterhand: Doesn't North Korea still get its food from the US? How hard would it be to lace all of that with something?

Too late, we already cut it off for firing the rocket, hence the tensions are rising.

Aye Carumba: Too late, we already cut it off for firing the rocket, hence the tensions are rising.

ok, but if I end up getting nuked I'm coming back and haunting you.

and not in the cute scooby-doo way, it'll be full on The Ring type haunting.

/first one, not the sequel

we shouldn't give a flying f*ck about what happens on the Korean peninsula.
south korea is a big boy. japan is a big boy. let them handle their own local assholes.

minuslars: Some of the comments in this thread remind me of some people I know who don't know the difference between the US Civil War, WWI, or WWII, and why they all happened. And they have no idea why the US military is the way it is today. And these are fully functioning, American born and raised adults, mind you.

At work recently I had to resort to Google for "proof" to a 50 something, college-educated co-worker that Abraham Lincoln was not the 2nd President of the United States, so I know where you're coming from.

Well gee, Mr. Secretary of Defense, if it's that dire why are you leaving the the Pentagon so often to fly to California? Are we only close to war on weekdays or something? I'd bet dollars to donuts that you'd want to be in the pentagon as soon as possible if that inch line is crossed. California isn't exactly close and the president is going to want to see you as soon as possible. You better hope that round of golf just started so you have 4 hours or so.

way south: lennavan: Why exactly are we on the brink of war with a country 6000 miles away that does not have any capability of striking the United States let alone invading us?

Because there are other nations on the planet besides America, and some of them are allies that we depend on for trade.

Why is it again we're in charge of protecting all of the other nations on the planet? And what trade items are we terrified of losing here?

lennavan: way south: lennavan: Why exactly are we on the brink of war with a country 6000 miles away that does not have any capability of striking the United States let alone invading us?

Because there are other nations on the planet besides America, and some of them are allies that we depend on for trade.

Why is it again we're in charge of protecting all of the other nations on the planet? And what trade items are we terrified of losing here?

Those that have the ability have the responsibility. It's a notion that is kind of at the heart of our nation.

I really do not think that they would stand much of a chance against a "war with the West". I mean sure, they will probably be able to lob a few missiles into/toward Seoul...but I am going to guess that a lot of the missiles that they display in the huge parades that they hold are nothing more than dummy missiles.

More than that I would say 90%+ of the loyalty of their military is 100% coerced. In the 1991 Gulf war it was shown that the only military resistance loyal to the Saddam was the "elite Republican Guard." The much larger regular army could not surrender fast enough.

It would be the same with N.K only I would be surprised if as much as 1% of their military was actually willing to fight.

It is one thing to get someone in uniform in ranks to shout appropriate slogans and profess undying love for the Dear Leader when the only alternative is starvation in a concentration camp for you and your family. It is quite another when the shooting starts, the command structure is broken, and it is either desertion or immediate death.

However, S.K. would take a lot of damage before it was over and that is what everyone wants to avoid.

From the force and the union shops the war economy is making new jobs but the people that benefit most are breaking bread with their benevolent host who never stole from the rich to give to the poor all they ever gave to them was a war and a foreign enemy to deplore

I_C_Weener: Benjamin Franklin was the 2d president. What a moron.

It's John Adams dipshi..............Oh, you were making a joke. Carry on then.

even if NK has 10k worth of guns/missiles setup to hit SK.

1. If i remember reading somewhere most of Soul is out of reach of them.
2. A good many of them don't work anymore.
3. I would guess that 80-90% of them already have a US/SK missile/gun with preprogramed data to take it out in bout 5 mins of stuff starting.

Mugato
...t's also my opinion that they're very loud because they're very impotent. Like Rush Limbaugh.

At first I thought that was a good comparison, but North Korea is not full of food.

The people of North Korea have suffered for generations under the Kims. Some days I almost welcome them starting some shiat just so that their despotism can be ground out once and for all. But the cost in terms of blood and treasure on all sides would be very large and, of course, China's reactions would have to be measured carefully here as well.

Not one comment mentioning that the Norks are now a nuclear state. If a shooting war starts and NK's back is to the wall, I'm thinking there's a good chance that the nutballs running the country will elect to go out in a nuclear exchange, assuming they can find a way to deliver a nuke to a target.

jjorsett: Not one comment mentioning that the Norks are now a nuclear state. If a shooting war starts and NK's back is to the wall, I'm thinking there's a good chance that the nutballs running the country will elect to go out in a nuclear exchange, assuming they can find a way to deliver a nuke to a target.

I think it be more of they would set nuclear bombs around the country and that if they knew the end was near they would just hit the button and set them all off. More like if We can't have this country no one can have it.

jumac: 1. If i remember reading somewhere most of Soul is out of reach of them.

Depends on what scale the map is, but an inch is about right.

NIXON YOU DOLT!!!!!: Those that have the ability have the responsibility. It's a notion that is kind of at the heart of our nation.

I'm guessing you're still high from 4/20. Or you don't live in the United States. Had I taken your comment seriously, I would have laughed really farking hard.

vygramul: It's worked better this way than it has being isolationist. We got dragged into two world wars trying to largely mind our own business. None since.

I don't even know what you are saying. None of the wars after the World War existed or were actual wars? Vietnam was awesome and super good we didn't just mind our own business? Invading Iraq/Afghanistan and all of the deaths were totally worth it and it is good we did that on our own, against the UN vote?

Or are you actually arguing "none of the wars after World War II were named World War?" Because that's true. We did not name any of them that.

Or what the hell are you saying?

vygramul: jumac: jjorsett: Not one comment mentioning that the Norks are now a nuclear state. If a shooting war starts and NK's back is to the wall, I'm thinking there's a good chance that the nutballs running the country will elect to go out in a nuclear exchange, assuming they can find a way to deliver a nuke to a target.

I think it be more of they would set nuclear bombs around the country and that if they knew the end was near they would just hit the button and set them all off. More like if We can't have this country no one can have it.

They're nowhere near even THAT level of capability yet.

I know that and you know that as well as most of the world. But do the nuts running NK know that.

I would say the best they could do would be a bunch of dirty bombs instead of real nuclear bombs.

vygramul: relcec: we shouldn't give a flying f*ck about what happens on the Korean peninsula.
south korea is a big boy. japan is a big boy. let them handle their own local assholes.

The last time we let the Japanese handle things on the Korean Peninsula, we ended up losing a fleet at Pearl Harbor.

let's just not embargo them for acting white people next time.

vygramul: lennavan: vygramul: It's worked better this way than it has being isolationist. We got dragged into two world wars trying to largely mind our own business. None since.

I don't even know what you are saying. None of the wars after the World War existed or were actual wars? Vietnam was awesome and super good we didn't just mind our own business? Invading Iraq/Afghanistan and all of the deaths were totally worth it and it is good we did that on our own, against the UN vote?

Or are you actually arguing "none of the wars after World War II were named World War?" Because that's true. We did not name any of them that.

Or what the hell are you saying?

So you're saying that Vietnam and WWII were exactly the same, so no quantitative or qualitative difference exists between the two?

Oh, okay so your argument is "there have been no wars EXACTLY LIKE WWII IN ALL WAYS THINKABLE" since WWII. I agree. Hey, we agreed!

Endive Wombat: I honestly do not really know much about the military strength of Best Korea...

But, I suspect in the grand scheme of things, they have the equivalent of a handful of m80s and a few sticks of dynamite by comparison to the fire power of So.

If we're playing analogies, they have a truckload of M-80s and one or two questionable-quality rocket launchers.

Seoul is in bombardment range of enough artillery to turn it into rubble. The artillery is shiatty and old and easily taken out but there is so MUCH of it that even if they were just launching rocks (instead of explosive shells) they would STILL be enough to smash the city. The Norkish hordes also have around 9-10 MILLION people they can mobilize (according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies) to charge south and fight with whatever they have, usually WWII-era weapons. Make no mistake that they would die like flies, but the battle for Stalingrad was won with similar disregard for human life. Finally the Norks have Nukes. Probably only 1 or 2, probably great big "Fat Man" size bombs and probably with no reliable delivery system, but you can't afford to forget them.

Now, with enough thermobaric weapons and disregard for civilian casualties you could probably win the conventional battle in the first week or so without resorting to WMDs, but Seoul would be pounded into rubble and its population of 11 million would probably suffer a staggering number of deaths. Then the tide would turn and Best Korea would fall and the guerilla war cleanup would happen and life would go on, but that first terrible week would be terrible.

Flip side is they'd have no staying power, their 8 million+ reserve guard are equipped like peasants and can barely feed themselves when that's all they're doing, I don't think they have the capacity to maintain supply lines for their 1 million+ active force, and their artillery that is so focused on Seoul isn't necessarily going to have any other targets it can reach before allied air superiority slowly erases it all. War would really hurt for South Korea, it would END Best Korea.

Which, I suppose, is the whole point.

Anyways, last I checked we already ARE at war with Best Korea, we just have an armistice. And while the current leadership of NK is delightfully crazy, they are not interested in ceasing to be, for the most part.

vygramul: lennavan: way south: lennavan: Why exactly are we on the brink of war with a country 6000 miles away that does not have any capability of striking the United States let alone invading us?

Because there are other nations on the planet besides America, and some of them are allies that we depend on for trade.

Why is it again we're in charge of protecting all of the other nations on the planet? And what trade items are we terrified of losing here?

It's worked better this way than it has being isolationist. We got dragged into two world wars trying to largely mind our own business. None since.

that's absolute horse shiat.
FDR did everything he could to get this nation into ww2.
he declared half the Atlantic ocean would be patrolled for uboats and escorted British convoys to greenland. he had our destroyers fighting German submarines in the middle of the god damn Atlantic ocean. in case you are unaware, this is tantamount to a declaration of war.
FDR completely embargoed the Japanese and froze every assert in the U.S. in order to get them to start a war on us. they Japanese action in asia were utterly indistinguishable from the way France and England had been treating subjugated nations across the globe for hundreds of years. The reason FDR embargoed Japan when they took over the french colony of Indochina (think about that. the french were already subjugating the Vietnamese, but when the French transferred Indochina control tot he Japanese that's when FDR suddenly had a problem with imperialism!) was because he wanted to get us into world war 2 and the American public wanted no part of it.

I'm not saying world war 2 was the worst war, but it was absolutely a war of choice. and the choice was made by FDR. the American public wanted none of it and FDR in fact campaigned on absolutely keeping us out of it. Once he was reelected he did everything he could to get us into it.

"...and the question was how we should maneuver them [the Japanese] into ... firing the first shot without allowing too much danger to ourselves. It was a difficult proposition."

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1897543?uid=3739920&uid=2&uid= 4& uid=3739256&sid=56069205693

vygramul: relcec: vygramul: relcec: we shouldn't give a flying f*ck about what happens on the Korean peninsula.
south korea is a big boy. japan is a big boy. let them handle their own local assholes.

The last time we let the Japanese handle things on the Korean Peninsula, we ended up losing a fleet at Pearl Harbor.

let's just not embargo them for acting white people next time.

We are obligated to sell stuff to people?

I know you are pretty f*cking stupid, but who said that dipshiat?
I said lets not embargo the Japanese for being so uppity that they were acting exactly like the french, the british. when we do that, this means we want to start a war.

the french and the british that were, btw, crushing literally a few hundred million lesser peoples around the world under their jackboots while we were offering them lend lease for state of the art military equipment, and all the oil they could burn, on great terms.

lennavan: I'm guessing you're still high from 4/20. Or you don't live in the United States. Had I taken your comment seriously, I would have laughed really farking hard.

Lemme reprhase....it's a notion that was at the heart of our nation 200-some odd years ago.

goddamn, I am so sick of sabre rattling!

north korea is a pathetic shiathole with zero chance of developing a working nuclear weapon. give it a farkin' break.

and let me add a BTW.
the British extracted so much wealth from Bengal at the point of a rifle over the centuries that they managed to turn literally one of the richest and most productive regions in the entire world into a destitute and impoverished region that experiences massive famines to this day. RISE AND DECLINE OF THE
ECONOMY OF BENGAL

it wasn't impressive that the British stripped a region so bare. they did that everywhere in India. what was impressive was how wealthy Bengal was before the British started colonizing the place, how efficient their methods of wealth extraction were, and how permanent the results of British depredation proved to be.

The famine [of 1770] occurred due to the British East India Company's policies in Bengal.
As a trading body, the first remit of the company was to maximise its profits and with taxation rights, the profits to be obtained from Bengal came from land tax as well as trade tariffs. As lands came under company control, the land tax was typically raised fivefold what it had been - from 10% to up to 50% of the value of the agricultural produce.[8] In the first years of the rule of the British East India Company, the total land tax income was doubled and most of this revenue flowed out of the country.[9] As the famine approached its height in April 1770, the Company announced that the land tax for the following year was to be increased by a further 10%.

The Bengal famine of 1943 (Bengali: পঞ্চাশের মন্বন্তর) struck the Bengal province of pre-partition India. Estimates are that between 7 and 10 million people died of starvation, malnutrition and disease, out of Bengal's 60.3 million population, half of them dying from disease after food became available in December 1943[1] As in previous Bengal famines,[2] the highest mortality was not in previously very poor groups, but among artisans and small traders whose income vanished when people spent all they had on food and did not employ cobblers, carpenters, etc.[3]

Bangladesh famine of 1974
The Bangladesh famine of 1974 refers to a period of mass starvation beginning in March 1974 and ending in about December of the same year.


and another BTW.
we didn't just refuse to sell the Japanese stuff while selling the same stuff they wanted to white people who acted just as maliciously as the Japanese, we seized literally every asset the Japanese had that we could get our hands on.

TheBigJerk: Then the tide would turn and Best Korea would fall and the guerilla war cleanup would happen and life would go on, but that first terrible week would be terrible.

I hate to say it, but Americans haven't really figured out how to do guerilla war cleanups yet. You're 0 for 4 so far. There's always a first time and all, but maybe you should flesh out the "underpants gnomes' step two" a little more.

lennavan: way south: lennavan: Why exactly are we on the brink of war with a country 6000 miles away that does not have any capability of striking the United States let alone invading us?

Because there are other nations on the planet besides America, and some of them are allies that we depend on for trade.

Why is it again we're in charge of protecting all of the other nations on the planet? And what trade items are we terrified of losing here?

Because we sell protection and weapons as one of our main exports and we buy electronics, ships, cars, and other things from pacific rim nations. We also score political points for other negotiations.
That's why when a president starts a war (R or D) I usually give them a pass early on. The reason behind it is always sold as "our enemy hates freedoms", but its more often because our new found opponent made an enemy with someone we want to be friends with.
Free Kuwait, win the Saudi King's favor, He gets on the phone and twists arms at OPEC, we get cheap gas for a decade, and so on...

The Norks don't have to attack us directly to earn a bomber party. If they keep taunting Japan and S.Korea then they might as well have poked the president in the ass.