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[Reelya]

I don't think they will do that, because that's more of an American doctrine. The Americans do it because

1) America is geographically isolated, they can bomb you with little risk of the bombs coming back the other way.
2) They only do it to people on the other side of the world
3) and/or They only do it to people too weak to retaliate.

e.g. America will bomb the weaker nations in the middle east, asia, or latin America only. There's a reason they've only ever directly attacked Panama, Grenada, Guatemala, etc. Because those nations are very small. And if the biggest most powerful nation in the world only has the balls to bomb countries about 1% their size, then NK would need balls of fucking steel to bomb a bigger and richer nation than themselves.

Remember, it comes down to oil. NK consumes less than 0.1% of the oil that SK consumes. They'd last about a day in actual combat. They still use WWII trucks I believe.

oil bpd is 2.5 million for SK, and about 20,000 for NK. A bbl is 160 litres, and a Mig-29 would apparently need 770 litres of fuel in the first 5 minutes of flight. So, in other words, each air-minute they have a fighter up there costs around 1 bbl of fuel out of their entire national consumption of 20,000 bbl / day. If they send 10 fighters up for a 20 minute flight, that's 1% of their entire national fuel consumption for the day, whereas 1% of Sk's oil consumption could put their entire airforce of 700 planes into the air for 35 minutes.

[Sheb]

Well, except that NK already has shelled SK  from time to time.

[smjjames]

NK also has an incentive for things not to escalate too much. After all, they'd lose a full-scale war. Still, they could lob a few artillery shells to Seoul or something in a smaller tit-for-tat response.

Lose, not loose, that typo annoys me so much. Don't know why, it just does.

[Starver]

NK also has an incentive for things not to escalate too much. After all, they'd lose a full-scale war. Still, they could lob a few artillery shells to Seoul or something in a smaller tit-for-tat response.

Lose, not loose, that typo annoys me so much. Don't know why, it just does.

When we've all been bombed back to using archers, it could be a very important distinction.

[Reelya]

Well, except that NK already has shelled SK  from time to time.

The NKers basically felt like SK had started that though, because SK artillery exercises had fired into NK territorial waters. And NK chose to shell a small island, not the mainland. It was reactive, tit-for-tat. If you look at the map, there are three SK-owned islands out to the west along the NK coast, and they picked the smallest one of those as the target. So while bombing civilian targets still isn't acceptable, it's a relevant point for understanding the NK motivations and decision-making process. They picked a small place that's far away from mainland SK as their retaliation target.

This suggests that NK were keen to send a "tough" message, but they're also scared of escalation. Which is why even though they've had 65 years to drop some shells on Seoul, they never actually have done that. They don't actually have the balls to do it. The artillery is a deterrent, e.g. a bluff. But if you're bluffing you need the other guy to believe you have the balls to follow through, so when SK shells fell in NK waters, they used that as a pretext to bomb a small island in SK, to show they "mean business", which maintains the credibility of you deterrent stance.

And this is the difference between other nation's border skirmishes and American bombing campaigns. USA directly bombs your capital city as their first response to some allegation that you did something against them while other nations go "well fuck you, we bombed that tiny little island next to you, take that!" And that's because those other nations are posturing and are aware of escalation risks, while America feels secure enough that they don't give a fuck about escalation because they know you can't retaliate.

[Sheb]

1) You're moving the goalposts, I was saying that NK would answer for a strike, which you said wouldn't happen. You're somehow acting as if I said NK didn't have a shit to give about escalation.

So sure, tit-for-tat means you don't go all out, but it also mean you have to answer. If bombing a small island, killing a couple soldiers and civilians is the answer to a few shell in disputed waters that you claim as yours, what is the answer to several dozens missiles strikes on NK missile sites going to be? In that context, a few shells launched at Seoul don't seem that absurd, do they?

2) That's not the only shelling of NK that happened. They sunk a SK corvette in 2010 for exemple./

[andrea]

maybe not on Seoul, but they could hit near the city, to show they have the capability? (not sure if the geography allows to hit mostly empty areas while still proving you can reach the city)

Anyway, while they don't want escalation, for internal reasons they will have to retaliate in some way, even if it is shelling some mostly empty patch of land.
Question is, what happens next?

[Reelya]

1) I don't think that was shifting the goalposts

Your first point was that they might shell Seoul. My response was formulated only relation to the wording you chose yourself, "shell Seoul".

You then countered by bringing out an example of a border skirmish. But that's not really the same claim I was responding to.

So, when in my second post I clarify that my post was specifically referring to the capital city, there's a perfectly good justification for that, it's because I wrote my post in response to you specifically referring to the capital city.

2) Like I said, that's nothing to do with any specific statement I was actually responding to.

e.g. you said "Shell Seoul" and I said "no, they won't do that". Now, you say "but ... they shelled an island and they sunk a ship, so you're wrong". So I say, "fair enough, except we were talking about whether Seoul would be shelled, weren't we?"

[smjjames]

maybe not on Seoul, but they could hit near the city, to show they have the capability? (not sure if the geography allows to hit mostly empty areas while still proving you can reach the city)

Anyway, while they don't want escalation, for internal reasons they will have to retaliate in some way, even if it is shelling some mostly empty patch of land.
Question is, what happens next?

Shouldn't be an issue to either reduce the propellant of the artillery (if possible) or change the firing arc.

Geography would be less of an issue and more that it would be harder to find an empty patch of land that would be close enough to deliver the desired message.

[Descan]

It seems like Sheb considers "lobbing a few shells at Seoul" to be something that wouldn't result in a full-scale war (or, perhaps, Helgo things that North Korea thinks that; s'important distinction.)

Whereas Reelya thinks the opposite? As he went into the statistics of North Korea and South Korean military oil use; something that wouldn't matter if the shelling of Seoul would be only tit-for-tat response to a military shelling, instead of the start of a full-scale shooting match.

Basically: Sheb wasn't going "I predict Seoul would be shelled!" He was treating "shell Seoul" as interchangable in type (if not scope) with the Island Shelling and Convoy Shelling that they previously engaged in. So he *was* proving his point by discussing those previous shellings.

I mean, Reelya even says "[You said 'shell Seoul.'] You then countered by bringing out an example of a border skirmish. But that's not really the same claim I was responding to." Which pretty directly indicates that Reelya thinks they aren't interchangable, no?

[Reelya]

That's the thing, exactly, i don't think that shelling the enemy capital is in the same category as minor skirmishes.

And it's why I brought up the American doctrine as an example. We're so used to hearing that Americans bombed Tripoli, or they bombed Baghdad, or some such, in response to some provocation that we've decided that this is how normal posturing works. But it really isn't. America only bombs other capitals when they're certain that retaliation is completely impossible, and those incidents don't escalate, purely because the people bombed do not have a retaliatory option. So, in other words, the USA is uniquely poised such that for them "sending a message" by bombing your capital city is a valid way of making a point, without risk of escalation.

Generally, if other nations are attacking each other's capitals - that only happens when they're already committed to fighting to the death.

[Sheb]

Ok, in that sense I admit you weren't shifting goalposts, sorry for that.

But I don't see why shelling Seoul would be an all-out-war thing. I agree with you that NK doesn't want things to escalate to full-blown war, but we've established that NK shows no qualm about shelling SK ground, killing soldiers and civilians for even small slights, like holding a live-fire exercise in contested waters.

With that in mind, it doesn't make sense to expect NK not to react on a much more deathly scale in the case of the US launching a missile strike on the scale of the one that was targeted at Syria (which is what we were discussing).I'm not expecting all the fabled 10.000 guns to starts turning Seoul to rubble, but a few shells kills some dozens or hundreds? I can totally picture that. After all, NK needs to maintain deterrence, and from that logic, you need some kind of tit-for-tat response.

[Reelya]

Well, my assessment has been based on the fact that almost nobody in decades has actually bombed another nation's capital city, and when NK did bomb SK, they picked an island, and the smallest island at that out of the ones they could have shelled. In other words, even though they're both on the same mainland, the "attacking SK land" / "boats" examples seem to focus on stuff at sea. Which makes it look like NK is choosing those targets deliberately. e.g. they're worried that bombing the mainland will lead to outright war.

So, what I think is that you're really underestimating what a big thing it is to actually bomb someone else's capital city. And the only reason I can think that you might think it's not such a big deal, is that retaliatory bombing is something the USA gets away with. It's just not like that for anyone else. America does that stuff because they have an air-superiority doctrine, and by showcasing that they can unilaterally bomb or drone-attack people, even your capital city, they're asserting that dominance. NK doesn't have any doctrine like that, they have a deterrence strategy.

If Seoul and Pyongyang start shelling each other's cities, that's not just a border dispute: that's "the war is on, fuckers!"

[Sheb]

But again, tit-for-tat. The retaliation has to be proportionate to the attack you received. Again, they bombed an island as a response for an exercise in disputed water. Certainly, in case of a US missile strike on NK infrastructure, the response would be much bigger, don't you think? They wouldn't shrug it off. 

[Teneb]

But again, tit-for-tat. The retaliation has to be proportionate to the attack you received. Again, they bombed an island as a response for an exercise in disputed water. Certainly, in case of a US missile strike on NK infrastructure, the response would be much bigger, don't you think? They wouldn't shrug it off. 

Yes, but at that point it's back to full war instead of this uneasy ceasefire they have going on.

If NK is ever attacked by the US, Kim Jong-un has to show he won't be pushed around or his generals will go for a coup almost immediately.