Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Aqizzar]

Of course, in this day and age, you can't just napalm every village you find and expect to get away with it, but there's been a good deal of advancement in the field of turning natives against the guerrillas with humanitarian support... In the case of Korea, it would help a great deal that it's other koreans rolling in instead of foreign soldiers that speak another language.

I don't know where you've been for the last twenty years, but I could swear I heard all the same optimistic intimations about Iraq, Somalia, Kosovo, Congo, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia.  You might remember how effective humanitarian outreach and overwhelming firepower was at defusing those guerrilla wars.

All of which is missing one giant crucial point - South Korea does not want to conquer North Korea, or establish any kind of working peace or equalization with them.  They took good notes on the reunification of Germany, and they're terrified of first being on the knife edge of open war with the North, and after the inevitable victory, then having to bankroll the North's reconstruction as millions of starving refugees flee south.  It ain't gonna happen.  South Korea does not want to fight the North, but they don't want to have anything else to do with the North except maintain a cold detente and rake in foreign defense aid.  Their strategy is to build a wall of guns and wait for the DPRK to either implode of its own accord, starve to death, or become China's problem.

[RedWarrior0]

Wait a minute... A Somebody Else's Problem field around North Korea! Brilliant!

[Jackrabbit]

It makes a lot of sense too.

Plus it gives them more time to play Starcraft.

[Agdune]

Korea's also different to Vietnam/Iraq in that NK's biggest buddy, China, probably won't even be willing to provide the arms and suicidal zealots needed to efficiently carry out the constant low-level attacks that constitute Gorilla warfare. NK doesn't have a religion enticing foreigners to come and kill the invaders (ala Iraq) and China is only moderately likely to want to keep NK around as a communist state buddy, so they aren't likely going to want to send arms down like they might've perhaps done during the cold war, and especially not soldiers like the first Korean war. It's probable that the Guerrilla warfare would run out of committed participants after a year or two, or hell, hopefully even never eventuate, like the guerrilla warfare Hitler promised after the fall of the Reich (admittedly, that's a total pipe dream. The Nazis didn't have 60 years of social isolation to indoctrinate the population and the years of war had allready sapped the will to fight out of the starving and terrorized population).

The fact that most of the occupation and footwork would be done by south Koreans, who speak the same language is an extra bonus. Soldiers who can be understood and spoken to are much easier to identify with and thus, somewhat more morally troubling to kill. It's a little harder to not see them as aliens to be killed if you can hear and understand what they're saying.

(4 posts while I was typing. Aqizzar's got a good point)

[Il Palazzo]

The fact that most of the occupation and footwork would be done by south Koreans, who speak the same language is an extra bonus. Soldiers who can be understood and spoken to are much easier to identify with and thus, somewhat more morally troubling to kill. It's a little harder to not see them as aliens to be killed if you can hear and understand what they're saying.

Judging by the level of hatred and merciless slaughtering that both sides of the Vietnam War shown to each other, despite sharing a common language, I would be hard pressed to bet on Koreans acting very differently.

[Firehound]

@ air superiority: I agree that we will have air superiority, but for more reasons then NK has relics, and we is WTFPWNZ awesome. Several models of our bombers and fighters have incorporated Stealth technology such as Reduced radar cross section and radar absorbing material, that will greatly lower the effectiveness of a country that is just now entering the 1960s-70s. I am not saying that we will steamroll their AAA, but it will be a losing battle. It's hard to replace AAA capable of shooting down modern fighters.

@ Conventional Warfare: Seoul is a casualty, and I think everyone here knows that. However, dilapitated technology will probably make it difficult to shoot at the U.S.A. with a chance of success. NK has a big army, but it is poorly outfitted, and equipment can save people. There is quite a bit of difference between a vietnam soldier's kit and a modern soldier's kit. I also would expect it to turn into a NBC war once KJI realizes he is losing.

@ Foreign aid: This could get ugly quick. I doubt many people would back NK, just for the fact that NK is a snot nosed brat, and doesn't have very many good friends.

@ Guerrilla war: It'll be bloody.

[Agdune]

Judging by the level of hatred and merciless slaughtering that both sides of the Vietnam War shown to each other, despite sharing a common language, I would be hard pressed to bet on Koreans acting very differently.

Well, unless we go back in time and change things we can't really assess how much worse it might've been had they been different cultures (though I imagine it would probably have been reduced to essentially ethnic cleansing), but your point is correct, it's only a very minor effect, just a little bit of a potential limiter on how bad it *might* be for the occupiers and a bit of a long-term helper in integration. My main point still stands though, most successful guerrilla wars seem to need an outside entity to keep them fueled, otherwise they run out of steam before the occupying force does. Any hypothetical post-invasion North Korea would have substantially fewer interested antagonizing groups than Iraq/Afghanistan does nowdays and certainly less than Vietnam did during the cold war.

Probably worthless addendum: the fact that they (NK) are likely gonna be the people to initiate any kind of breaking of truces helps aswell, since the general international public might be a little more tolerant of soldier casualties during a long occupation if it wasn't perceived as... shall we say, an 'avoidable' war, like Iraq. Another extremely minor point however, since god knows, we're all getting sick of occupations and their crazy costs anyway, no matter how justified they might or might not be.

[DJ]

Didn't one of those "invisible" planes get shot down by a SAM during bombing of Serbia?

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Glorious Leader saw the SAM approaching the Invisible Plane, and in his infinite mercy he convinced the missile through omnipotent diplomacy that it should rain its fiery destruction down upon treasonous defectors from China attempting to enter the Golden Land of DPRK.

He then called up a flock of ten million platinum geese that brought the Invisible Plane safely back to one of the hangars in his Million Storey Palace. He sits in the cockpit to watch movies.

The pilots of the Invisible Plane joyously begged to join the DPRK and feast upon many cheeseburgers and lobsters daily, just like every other democratic citizen of the Golden Land.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Didn't one of those "invisible" planes get shot down by a SAM during bombing of Serbia?

They have a reduced radar cross-section, meaning they show up as a much smaller object, meaning they have to be closer to be picked up on radar, but can still be picked up on radar if they stray too close. That aside, I thought the one shot down in the balkans was hit by a lucky potshot in the general direction they guessed the bombs were coming from.

[DJ]

The story I've heard was that the missile locks on plane's own radar, which pilots turn off when they get a warning that somebody's got a lock on them. So the guy that shot down the plane fired the missile without turning the tracking on, firing it in the general direction of the plane as a dumb missile, and only turned tracking on when it was too late for the pilots to do anything about the missile lock warning. Of course, I know nothing about air combat and god knows how distorted this story got before it got to me, so it could be completely wrong.

Anyway, even completely dumb defences can be a serious hazard if they're massed enough. WW2 flak positioned so it defends important installations could bring down latest generation jets when they come to bomb, provided they're crewed at all times (and NK doesn't have a shortage of soldiers to do that).

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Anyway, even completely dumb defences can be a serious hazard if they're massed enough. WW2 flak positioned so it defends important installations could bring down latest generation jets when they come to bomb, provided they're crewed at all times (and NK doesn't have a shortage of soldiers to do that).

Except, they wouldn't know they were under attack until the bombs hit because they can't see them coming. Unless they're just supposed to fill the air in every direction with flak 24/7...

Hmmm... Actually, could flak even hit a target at the ranges and altitudes modern bombers are capable of?

[HAMMERMILL]

Anti air artillery is decidedly obsolete... remember how effective it was against aircraft during the Gulf war(s)?

[DJ]

Camouflaged flak on hills around the targets, silly. Or do you intend to napalm 50 square miles around every target you bomb? And Korean mountains are certainly a lot different from Iraqi desert.

I reckon USA would just stick to cruise missiles until NK's air defences were sufficiently thinned.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Camouflaged flak on hills around the targets, silly. Or do you intend to napalm 50 square miles around every target you bomb? And Korean mountains are certainly a lot different from Iraqi desert.

I reckon USA would just stick to cruise missiles until NK's air defences were sufficiently thinned.

Do you have any idea what modern bombers are capable of? They're not just faster/smaller versions of what we had in WWII; they have near pinpoint accuracy (with guided missiles) from absurd ranges and altitudes.