South Korea, U.S. troops to hold massive live-fire drills near border with North Korea

To be quickly followed by NK missile launches and tirades against the US and SK.

They are actually allowed to hold military drills anywhere in SK territory but the great folks at NK object.

The circle continues.

The U.S.-South Korean firing exercises, called “the combined annihilation firepower drills,” would be the biggest of their kind. The drills have been held 11 times since they began in 1977, according to the South Korean Defense Ministry.

Earlier this year, the South Korean and U.S. militaries conducted their biggest field exercises in five years. The U.S. also sent the nuclear-powered USS Nimitz aircraft carrier and nuclear-capable bombers for joint exercises with South Korea.

Combined with the fact that the US purposively overbombed the North during the Korean war (Curtis Lemay admitted　they 　had 　committed　crimes　against　humanity) and yet people still wonder why the North feels compelled to develop its weapons program.

I think you all should move to North Korea and give live reporting on how great life is there

Remember this next week when North Korea launches a ballistic missile over Japan.

K.J. should be very happy, he need some news from the south to boost his propagandas!

There is a reason that the North is so desperate to develop a missile-based deterrent.

It's entire conventional force is a Potemkin Village of show to cover up dire inadequacies. If you thought the Russians were hiding inadequacies, just wait till you do a deep dive on the DPRK "Army".

It has no naval component to speak of and it's subs are quite noisy.

Its Air component still uses Chinese copies of the Mig 17. It's newest combat jets are the Mig 29 and have not been upgraded. Its pilots get 20 hours of flight time a year, MAYBE.

Its tanks are outdated and worn out. Their guns are not up to snuff against new composite armor.

And the soldiers.....

Well, they are only slightly less malnourished than the general population and they spend a significant part of the year farming, not training.

None of the service branches have anything like the precision munitions that the West has. Their equipment is as likely to kill them as it is its targets. The command structure is completely bereft of tactical talent.

Far from the invasion force that threatened to overrun the South between the 60s and the late 80s, I personally do not think that the North could defend itself, much less launch an invasion of the South and they know it.

So, they are going to rely on missiles to keep the West from "at bay".

I have read reports that the harvest last fall was not very good, that Kim retook control of food distribution and that the shut down of trade with China have all combined to cause famine, internal displacement, starvation and death at a scale we have not seen in a while - certainly not since the famine of 94-95.

I no longer fear a Northern attack for the purpose of overrunning the South. That is no longer an option on the table. I fear instead that internal chaos becomes so bad that Kim either threatens missile attacks to get food or just actually attacks to unite the domestic population.

North Korea has been rather quiet since the G7 summit.

They seem to be rather busy starving at the moment....

Just me but what I think the US should be practicing annually is rapidly reinforcing South Korea with ground and air forces drawn from the US. It should be similar to the big annual REFORGER (REturn of FORces to GERmany) exercises held during the Cold War where the US practiced rapidly reinforcing NATO to stop a Soviet invasion. It might even be worthwhile for the US to build up another "Maritime Pre-positioned Group", eight or ten merchant ships loaded with enough equipment to support a US Army division in combat for a month. There are MAritime Pre-positioned groups in Guam and Diego Garcia, I think Charleston too,. Standing up another and mooring it in Japanese waters perhaps at Maizuru where the JMSDF has an existing base and exercising it in conjunction with flying forces in from the US would be maybe a better use of resources.

Yes thankyou Gwielow but they don't need your help.

Apparently they do as people that sling around racist terms in public undoubtedly have more nefarious plans in secret.

South Korea got a lots of internal problems,such as pressure if women to be beautiful in their society,you say how do that threatened a nation,when the perdue of beauty alienate women,is society,I know this Korean woman,she do meet their standards of beauty,but she meet mines ,she may inadvertently seduce me

Yes thankyou Gwielow but they don't need your help.

The open source analyses of a resumption of hostilities in Korean that I have read suggest the US will have to bring in something on the order of 250,000 troops or more to defeat DPRK.

DT, a couple of questions,

I was under the impression that the Marines in Okinawa were the designated reinforcements. Would the PPE be mostly heavy armor?

Can you correct my misunderstanding if I am and/or tell what benefits would flow from your suggestion?

I always learn a lot from your posts and thank you in advance.

The North really just wants to be left alone, seventy odd years on from the Cold War era, and have sanctions lifted so they can feed their people.

But of course that's a pipe dream so it's back to weapon development.

The North really just wants to be left alone,

Yeah, not so much. It's not that they don't want to invade the South so much that they cannot.

Nor can they export illegal minerals/seafood/ etc. Nor can they commit insurance fraud anymore. All of their scams are restricted. So they develop weapons to sell and to threaten with.