U.S., S Korea militaries gird for N Korean provocation

"The U.S. has 28,500 troops in S.Korea and another 50,000 in Japan"

I guess we won't have to pull troops out of thin air, then, right, adaydream?

Sarge, Do you think that you'd get 78,500 troops on the march toward North Korea? I think you need to think about it. You've got a lot of support personnel there that won't be grabbing guns.

It'll take a lot of time to get those and more troops into action.

How many US troops do you think you'll have against the millions of NK Army personnel? Remember over a million troops, in their country and their kind of war.

Remember our last jungle war?

Pound your chest a little more, but you better consider what we'd be facing. You better get that draft re-instated. < :-)

I don't think China would allow North Korea to behave so stupidly (try to attack South Korea, Japan etc..) I have a feeling the Chinese government would much rather keep good relations with the the USA ($$$$$) etc..than with the black sink hole a.k.a. North Korea.

Come on adaydream. Half the North Korean army will either 1) defect, or 2) run away scared sh*tless. The other half, will either get killed or surrender very quickly. This is not the North Korean army of the 1950's. This is a starving and under equipped army.

They're armed with obsolete weapons, undertrained and nowehere ready to go up against America. I'm sure deep down American generals are hoping that NK makes a move to justify what they all want anyways, to wipe them out.

You are also forgetting one simple rule of war. Whomever controls the skies controls the war. US airpower will totally obliterate any advance by North Korean forces.

I personally would just airburst a few low yield tactical Nuclear devices over any advancing NK troops and end it right there. But that's just me!!

Pure rethoric like in the Mother of all battles that Saddam promised, and did not last a minute.

"the level was raised from 3 to 2" ?

"A Russian Foreign Ministry official said Moscow did not want to see Pyongyang further isolated" duh!? force them to stop acting stupid then.

If the North-Korean army is invading the south they will soon understand that what said their government about their neighbours wasn't true and will soon give up.

I wonder what will happen,...if north korea fire 6 nuclear missile war head at the same time, 3 to seoul, and 3 to tokyo. will there be total ecology collapse in these region ?

Agreed. The China today is not the China of the 50's. If N.Korea goes to war, they go on their own.

But lets also face facts. Any war with NK will result in immediate devastation all across Korea. Though I think N.Korea will fold quickly after Japan, the US and others engage them. I believe that the initial hours of the war will wreck Korea for a generation or more.

Talk the same shit every day..shut the hell up and go to war..redeem and proof your bloody self in nuclear holocaust.... yours truly ..grimm

Standing troop numbers are no indication of the troop numbers required to conduct combat operations. You cannot expect some old clerk who has trouble seeing his feet to be able to go out and hump 120lbs of equipment.

NKorean soldiers are tooooo hungry to fight. I guess most of soldiers would run away from NKorea if war was restarted.

errr..they won't run away...they just press some button to let the nuclear warhead fly..lol

It isn't the nuke you need to worry about. It is the tens of thousands of conventional weapons that could be set off in seconds. Most of that aimed t Seoul and other S Korean cities. That is the main deterrent to taking these guys out. There is nothing the S Korean or American forces could do to stop those first few mins of destruction.

A nuke in a sub waiting off the peninsula is enough to make an idiot think twice about starting anything but then again these NKs are some really special kinds of idiots it seems. Living in a past and never trying to catch up to the present. These Generals in NK wouldn't want to find out for real how redundant they have become. I think this is just continued bravado from a chihuahua of a nation.

Yeah, the debate isn't about who will win, the debate is about if the cost of winning is worth it. And right now it isn't worth it, especially for Korea, Japan, China, and Russia.

adaydream: How many US troops do you think you'll have against the millions of NK Army personnel?

American military power frightens you and your comments are based on a fantasy world where we always lose because it makes you feel safer.

what ppl need to remember is that there are many americans in south korea not just soilders but thier families as well. we need to pray for peace bc as long as soilder are in S. Korea thier families will be with them.

None of you are counting the South Korean army, which is a fine fighting force.

It's not just US v. NK.

Don't worry guys, won't be a war. You know Obama will fold. He caved with Iran not long ago, and will cave to NK as well. Short of actually invading South Korea, nothing NK do will be worth fighting over. Probably send Hillary to apologize for being American like he did himself recently in the Middle East.

SuperLib, maybe I speak from a little military experience. < :-)

Well all of your experience seems to be pointing to some kind of hand-to-hand combat situation involving 7 million North Koreans and 78,000 US troops.

Yes, the ROK soldiers are tough. Ask any US soldier who has spent time training with them in South Korea. Almost every male in SK over the age of 22 have a military service record and know how to shoot a gun. If you have to mobilize all military-trained men and send them to the border (same for NK), there will be a long stand-off for sure... not sure if war will ensue.

The NK soldiers are also very tough. If you've seen both SK & NK soldiers facing each other at the JSA you will instantly notice that NK soldiers stare right at the SK soldiers who wear big ass sunglasses. Apparently, SK soldiers can't win a staring contest against the commies. I'm not sure if that's true, but the SK soldiers stand with a fierce modified-Tae Kwon Do Stance.

However, let's talk about this. China & Russia, having been the newest kids on the economic block, will they risk their new found success to protect a decrepit old murdering regime? What will they do to the US & its allies if they do anything to provocate NK (it could be as simple as a SK/US soldier's shadow crossing the JSA. It's happened)? Will they side with NK or side with world opinion?

adaydream said...remember our last jungle war??

I assume you are refering to Vietnam?? Firstly, if you had any military experience, knowledge, you would know that the USA won every major battle in Vietnam. And if US troops were aloud to cross into North Vietnam, go into Cambodia, etc etc...they would have crushed the Vietcong just like the Iraqi army was crushed.

And North Korea is no Vietnam, terrain wise.

The North Korean soldiers will turn tail and run for their lives when they see a battlelon of Abrams battle tanks rolling in on their position and low flying A-10 Warthogs picking off NK tanks like ducks in a shooting gallery.

And with regards to NK supposedly little Nuclear Arsenal. I'm sure US inteligence knows where each one is and they will be taken out by Stealth bombers before they are even fueled, if they really do exist.

Cheers!

Someone mentioned the Japanese army going into Korea. Funny, but it's not going to happen. The last time the Japanese army went into Korea with weapons, they nearly castrated a nation of unwilling participants. The US and SK will do fine by themselves... well the Brits are always aching for a fight.

Korea is primarily mountainous in terrain. Whoever takes "Hamburger Hill" will take the battle. But there are many mountains and many battles...

SuperLib, North Korea takes any kind of military action against one of their neighbors and we'll be there lickity split right? North Korea does anything and we'll have 100,000s of troops right there, right?

We have troops all over, but mostly in the middle east. Most of our military equipment is in the middle east. Our equipment has been wearing out rapidly from use and sand. And it's deployed all over the place.

Do we just pick up and leave Iraq and Afghanistan? Do we leave our offensive against the Taliban in Pakistan? Do we pull all our supply-lines up and immediately re-direct them to North Korea? Where are the troops coming from? We can barely fulfill our current military billets, where are we getting all the new troops?

Explain your plans for getting all the men, equipment and logistics to our new war and maintain the military operations we are already engaged in.

We going to re-instate the draft to get these troops? Or do you think our enlistments will increase from 11% to 17% to get the troops needed?

I'm just being realistic. < :-)

SuperLib wants to decry my opinion, then he needs to be able to explain where I'm wrong. < :-)

LAZERFISH, since you're so wise, tell me where I'm wrong. Can you tell me that what I posted is incorrect? Where? Or do you think that the US is prepared to take on a new enemy? < :-)

Had a friend in the Australian Army who got shafted to go to Korea to work with the (scaled-down) UN presence there vis-a-vis what would happen if S hit the F. He told me that the North Koreans would most likely take out Seoul with massed artillery and then spill over the DMZ. Apparently, in response to this the US/South Korean plan was to make the roads inoperable (using concrete barriers) in the hope that North Korean armour would get bottle-necked. The next phase of the plane was unleashing US airpower on these armoured columns. Based on personal experience, I can tell you that the results of such a strategy would be catastrophic to any armoured force.

With regard to the logistics behind all this, I would assume that Japan would again become America's biggest unsinkable aircraft carrier in North East Asia.

With regard to troop requirements, drafting people into the army is not an answer. You take your average kid off the street and give him a minimum of training, and the net result is a lot of dead kids. While in generations gone past the simplicity of war made it quite feasible to draft en-masse and create a huge army, these days the complexity of weapons systems does not make a wholesale draft feasible.

Just a quick comment on the US armed forces and their ability to win any conflict on the Korean Peninsular.

Firstly, I think it is innaccurate to think of the US/South Korea going this alone. If things deteriorate in the region, the US will be bagged up by the usual suspects. Furthermore, any breach of the Korean War ceasefire would probably drag in a number of other countries.

Secondly, prior to the current situations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US armed forces were structured in such a manner as to defeat the armed forces of enemies. Indeed, it could be argued that the US won the war in Iraq (against the Iraqi armed forces), however, it has subsequently lost the peace (being ill-equipped to fit a low-intensity war in which it is very difficult to work out who the enemy actually is (shades of Vietnam). The US was also very slow in going after the hearts and minds of the civilian population (prefering to bomb　them instead). Considering this, in a straight out fight between the forces of the US/South Korea/X versus North Korea, I would put my money on the US/Coalition simply because cutting up enemy armour is something that the US has been practicing for the last 40 years.

adaydream...You are making silly statements like reinstating the draft. Never happen. You are speaking as if the USA will go it alone against NK. You fail to realize that the NK forces are probably demoralized, under fed, under trained, and ill equiped to go up against a well fed, well trained, heavily armed adversary. I'm sure most NK soldiers wives and family are eating bread made from sawdust...You really think when push comes to shove these soldiers will give their lives for Kim???

The US could win this battle easily with airpower and little ground fighting.

The Iraqi army, especially the Medina Division, was much much better equiped, way better trained than the NK forces and after about three weeks of non stop aerial bombing they surrendered by the thousands.

I agree with you that US troops are spread out thin, but again, if it comes to war it would surely be a joint task force.

Cheers!

The US could win this battle easily with airpower and little ground fighting.

Airpower only goes so far. Despite all the changes in the waging of warefare, at the end of the day battles are still won by putting in infantry (and those idiots in tanks) in order to close with the enemy and kill them. This requires both courage and sacrifice. The big question is, however, does the US have sufficient stocks of these qualities at the current time.

In a slugfest between the US/SK forces and NK, quality over quantity is going to win out. A US/Coalition force would have significant air superiority in addition to seasoned combat troops that are far better equipped, trained, and (let's just say it) fed to take on North Korea's aging, underfed, underpaid, under-armed 1-million-man army.

The unfortunate reality is that if a full-blown shooting war were to actually break out, it's pretty much a forgone conclusion that what we know as Seoul today would immediately cease to be. Which is why Pyongyang has been working so hard for this nuclear option. THIS is what's been keeping previous and current US, Korean, and Japanese leadership on the fence about forcing Kim to behave in a civilized manner, not any particular political affiliation.

It's all well and fine to theorize about a possible conflict between the US and NK, and it certainly makes us feel good to puff our chests and brag about the military might of our own respective countries, but the reality at the end of the day is that hundreds of thousands of South Koreans would have to die almost instantly to prove anyone right and no leader deserving of the title would willing make a decision that would effectively throw those lives away – a fact of which Kim is acutely aware. Hence the continuing impasse.

Is a cold fact that NK cant win a conventional war against SK soldiers supported with enough USA air power, if C and R dont lift a finger for save their annoying buffer. But the cost in millions of civilian koreans lives from both sides is to big. If NK attack the SK, a short and limited counter-strike that make clear that they dont stand a chance in a conventional war is more than enough to force them back to the negotiations with out risk escalating to use of WMDs. Talk about regime change and they are more likely to use the WMDs, thats the reality.

SuperLib wants to decry my opinion, then he needs to be able to explain where I'm wrong.

Here ya go:

http://www.japantoday.com/category/world/view/army-chief-says-us-able-to-fight-n-korea-if-necessary

SuperLib, I still say...

SuperLib wants to decry my opinion, then he needs to be able to explain where I'm wrong. < :-)

You explain where I'm wrong. Not some other article. < :-)

I had mentioned the US, SK & maybe UK going at NK alone, but what I was trying to do was make a point that Japan would not be in an offensive mode.

During the K-War (1950-1953), there were almost 20 countries on the allied side doing everything from combat to troop support. It's idiotic to assume only 1 or 2 countries would attempt to support SK in a new Korean War effort since UN involvement is a certainty.

If you know ancient Korean history, Turkey will be in there for sure (ancient allies). Japan will support. Canada, USA, EU and many Asian nations will also be a part.

On the NK side... Al Qaeda, original Klingons from the 60s, Jabba the Hutt, the Devil, Beelzabub, Cylons, Dracula & friends, the Joker, Hannibal Lecter, the Fang, Goldfinger, Jeong-Il's left hand, Jeong-Il's haircut, Teletubbies... wow, now I'm not so sure who has more friends? China & Russia will support for old time's sake maybe.

You explain where I'm wrong. Not some other article.

You say we can't handle a fight. The article says we can. I'm sorry but I'm not really able to break it down more than that. Somehow you're just going to have to find a way to wrap your brain around that complex concept.

jackseoul, you forgot the Stormtroopers from Star Wars. Those guys are cool looking if not totally useless with a laser blaster. Maybe Darth Vader will be there to interrogate POWs.

bushlover,

jackseoul, you forgot the Stormtroopers from Star Wars. Those guys are cool looking if not totally useless with a laser blaster. Maybe Darth Vader will be there to interrogate POWs.

Yeah, in the rear! Jeong-Il always like them in the rear.