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maybe/depends

only if it's <insert country/organization here>

[Lagslayer]

I'm curious how y'all would answer. Let's assume that the U.S. decides to invade North Korea to dismantle their government. Would you support this? Why did you answer the way you did? What if it was another country/organization invading?

[Levi]

U.S. invading usually means carpet-bombing the country into dust.  I don't think that would be good for North Koreans.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

North Koreans are being critically starved to death, constantly brainwashed, and regularly sent to death camps with three generations of their families. There is no possible way any action we could take against North Korea would make life worse there.

[Sheb]

Also would be a mess and would cause the death of millions of North and South Koreans. And piss off China to no end.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

North Korea is a paper tiger. They look threatening, but they can barely keep themselves together without outside pressure trying to destroy them. Any war would lead to North Korea folding very quickly, certainly not something that would lead to millions of deaths.

I don't think China would actually much oppose such a move these days. From what is known to us, the PRC is starting to regard North Korea like a spoiled half-cousin who is far more trouble than they are worth.

[zombie urist]

I don't think China would actually much oppose such a move these days. From what is known to us, the PRC is starting to regard North Korea like a spoiled half-cousin who is far more trouble than they are worth.

China doesn't want the US anywhere near its borders. Even though N.Korea is causing a lot of trouble, China still has some control over them.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

What control? N. Korea is run by what is essentially a group of lunatic personality cultists. You can't really ever control that, only mitigate the crazy.

China would benefit from this. S. Korea takes control of N. Korea's land and makes more productive use of it to trade with China, and they don't have to deal with N. Korea's mentally unstable leadership anymore. Not to mention their relationship with N. Korea makes them look bad, and if there is anything the PRC hates it is looking bad. For all of China's faults, and there are a lot of them, life there is not even remotely as bad as the horrors of North Korea.

[Flying Dice]

I don't support the US doing it. For one, we don't need another war. Our last two wars were also supposed to be easy rollovers, and look how that worked out for us. I'm not necessarily saying that NK would be a quagmire, but it could be, and we have no real reason to invade them. It isn't as if we actually start wars because of humanitarian concerns. A multinational UN intervention with the support of the Chinese might be feasible, though.

[Pnx]

They have more soldiers than any other nation in the world, and they've been preparing for this war for ~60 years now. They may only have about cold war era technology (though there's evidence they may have been buying more up to date military tech from Russia and China), and be a pretty small country, but they still have a ridiculous amount of soldiers, tanks, aircraft, and warships in comparison to the size of the nation. I could honestly believe the the US could win the war fairly easily, but I also think it would be the single ugliest war since WWII, and the ugliest war we're likely to see this century.

[zombie urist]

What control? N. Korea is run by what is essentially a group of lunatic personality cultists. You can't really ever control that, only mitigate the crazy.
China would benefit from this. S. Korea takes control of N. Korea's land and makes more productive use of it to trade with China, and they don't have to deal with N. Korea's mentally unstable leadership anymore. Not to mention their relationship with N. Korea makes them look bad, and if there is anything the PRC hates it is looking bad. For all of China's faults, and there are a lot of them, life there is not even remotely as bad as the horrors of North Korea.

Still, I think China would rather have a country with an incompetent military at its borders than S. Korea/USA. 

[MetalSlimeHunt]

They have more soldiers than any other nation in the world, and they've been preparing for this war for ~60 years now.

They have the most soldiers if you count the 7/8ths of them that are in reserve. If you don't the US, China, and India all have more soldiers. Sheer numbers do not win wars. If you lack the supplies to keep a fighting force going it will collapse and rout. North Korea barely has the supplies to keep their forces going when not fighting.

They may only have about cold war era technology (though there's evidence they may have been buying more up to date military tech from Russia and China), and be a pretty small country, but they still have a ridiculous amount of soldiers, tanks, aircraft, and warships in comparison to the size of the nation.

Purchasing up to date equipment requires money. North Korea is dirt poor as far as nations go. Soldiers need food, war machines need fuel, and they both need ammunition. North Korea won't be able to keep that up if even lightly pressured, as we saw in the 90's when famine struck and never really ended even now, 20 years later.

It isn't as if we actually start wars because of humanitarian concerns.

There's a first time for everything.

A multinational UN intervention with the support of the Chinese might be feasible, though.

Chinese support is one thing, the UN is quite another. The UN's critical uselessness is not conductive to much of anything.

[LordSlowpoke]

They have more soldiers than any other nation in the world, and they've been preparing for this war for ~60 years now.

They have the most soldiers if you count the 7/8ths of them that are in reserve. If you don't the US, China, and India all have more soldiers. Sheer numbers do not win wars. If you lack the supplies to keep a fighting force going it will collapse and rout. North Korea barely has the supplies to keep their forces going when not fighting.

They may only have about cold war era technology (though there's evidence they may have been buying more up to date military tech from Russia and China), and be a pretty small country, but they still have a ridiculous amount of soldiers, tanks, aircraft, and warships in comparison to the size of the nation.

Purchasing up to date equipment requires money. North Korea is dirt poor as far as nations go. Soldiers need food, war machines need fuel, and they both need ammunition. North Korea won't be able to keep that up if even lightly pressured, as we saw in the 90's when famine struck and never really ended even now, 20 years later.

It isn't as if we actually start wars because of humanitarian concerns.

There's a first time for everything.

A multinational UN intervention with the support of the Chinese might be feasible, though.

Chinese support is one thing, the UN is quite another. The UN's critical uselessness is not conductive to much of anything.

Tell me, how exactly do you want to garner Chinese support for invading a country that serves as a more or less annoying yet useful buffer against South Korea, Japan and other countries aligned with the USA without resorting to the UN?

And for an unrelated question, how do you convince people you're not invading said country only for the coal? Somewhat silly, I am aware, but it can be converted into oil and all...

[lordcooper]

Voted no because I don't like it when people kill each other.  Living people make far better conversationalists.

[alway]

What control? N. Korea is run by what is essentially a group of lunatic personality cultists. You can't really ever control that, only mitigate the crazy.

China would benefit from this. S. Korea takes control of N. Korea's land and makes more productive use of it to trade with China, and they don't have to deal with N. Korea's mentally unstable leadership anymore. Not to mention their relationship with N. Korea makes them look bad, and if there is anything the PRC hates it is looking bad. For all of China's faults, and there are a lot of them, life there is not even remotely as bad as the horrors of North Korea.

First of all, to call them 'crazy' underestimates them greatly. They know exactly what they are doing, and thus far it has worked out quite well for them.
Furthermore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-North_Korean_Mutual_Aid_and_Cooperation_Friendship_Treaty
If NK is brought down by a third party, World War 3 will have begun.

Aside from that, there have been recent changes in NK which suggest it may be aiming for reforms akin to China's. The new Kim has only just come into full control of the country, what with the upper level military shake-ups of the past couple weeks. We now know he is married, which is itself a departure from his father's style, in which his family was entirely out of the public eye; his sister wasn't seen for the first time until his father's funeral. The new Kim is thought to have spent several years of his education outside of NK, and is a fan of western material, especially Disney. Any reforms which come won't be fast, of course, as rapid reforms in a country so isolated would almost certainly end up with him deposed by the military, but they may in fact come.

[kaijyuu]

Directly taking down dictators with military might has worked so very well in the past.


You wanna take down north korea, you support whatever revolutionaries are inside. The CIA has tons of experience in meddling in such affairs.