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[Aqizzar]

Am I the only American here who has taken US history courses in high school and college and has learned basically jack shit about the Korean war? Everything I ever learned about the 50s had to do with the development of suburbia, of car and consumer culture, rise of the US as a superpower but without ever mentioning Korea. As for wars we jump straight to Bay of Pigs.

I did actually, but it wasn't in a History class per se, it was in a class about the United Nations and post-WWII conflicts.  I honestly don't know a whole lot about why the war started, but I do know the most import thing besides that.  It was the first time the United Nations actually passed a Joint Force peacekeeping resolution, obligating it's member nations to contribute some amount of military force or support to resolving the conflict in some way.

Such an action requires a majority vote by the Security Council, and can be unilaterally vetoed by any of the Permanent members.  For the uninitiated, the Permanent Security Council members are the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, and Russia.  You may be wondering, why didn't China or Russia veto allowing the US and UK and everyone to pile into Korea and fuck up their Soviet-backing plans?  Well, the Chinese representation in the UN was still the group appointed by the Nationalist government, in one of its last acts before fleeing to Taiwan from the Communists.  America pulled a bunch of tricks up to and including locking the doors to meetings to keep the Communist China UN delegation from getting into the building to unseat their Nationalist counterparts, who were only too happy to vote how America wanted.  Russia, for its part, was boycotting the whole UN as a protest to Lend Lease and the Marshal Plan, that was stymieing their push on Greece et al, and so cast no vote in the Force Resolution.

It was a lesson Russia learned well obviously.  The UN's blanket allowance for countries to aid South Korea against the North, Chinese and Russian backing included, effectively created the Cold War, and forced the rise of Proxy Wars as an outlet of Western and Soviet force-maneuvering.  It was also the last time the Security Council would pass such a resolution for forty years (hundreds of tries, all killed by Permanent vetoes), until the Gulf War, the only other time the UN has officially sanctioned proactive military force.

Everything else I know about the Korean War comes from watching the entire run of M*A*S*H a couple times, but that's not a terribly reliable source of hard historical information.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

If it were that easy for an occupying power to shut down a guerrilla war, wouldn't it happen all the time, instead of virtually never?  You might want to put down your Jane's Awesome Weapons book and look for the commonalities in occupied territories, and why occupational wars just don't win.  Sure, big air power bitchslap that blows up all the tanks, whatever.  How many times are we going to have to watch this play out again, before it's understood that the opening attack is not the whole war.

I can't tell if you're just ignoring 99% of the content of my posts or just not reading for comprehension.

The entire paradigm the US military has been following throughout the Cold War was that of dominating a conventional army. As a result, they do that incredibly well. This has been at the expense of developing means to effectively occupy territory filled with hostile civilians and small, poorly trained and equipped, irregular militias. Because, quite simply, the ability to wipe out an entire tank column with one bomb doesn't mean shit when your only resistance is a bunch of untrained kids with old AK-47s hiding in the middle of a slum. Now, those kids aren't going to be able to stop you from setting up a fortified encampment in the middle of the city, but they can take potshots at any soldiers you send out through the streets, which you need to do to root them out in the first place. They're going to make things unpleasant for you, sure, and present a barrier to pacifying the region, while being almost impossible to uproot completely (after all, you can kill them all you want, but it's not like an untrained kid given a cheap gun and told to shoot at the tanks is very hard to replace) but they can't do more than scratch even the most vulnerable parts of the operation. The only way to stop them is to dry up their well of recruits, or capture/kill the only competent leaders they have so that they end up increasingly irrelevant.

NK has a conventional army, which would be the main barrier to an invasion by SK (whether or not they would want to invade is irrelevant to that fact), and the main threat to SK (aside from NK's theoretical nukes). In fact, I dare assume that it's almost exactly the army the US military was designed to counter, given that it would be old chinese equipment based on even older soviet equipment. So it, on its own, wouldn't stand a chance in hell against the modern US arsenal. Now, actually invading would be more problematic, but it would still mostly amount to mopping up the broken, scattered remnants of the NK army by the SK army. Now, some would probably have the good sense/luck to be hidden away in the ass end of nowhere, not presenting an immediate problem to the task of occupying population centers, which could conceivably end up as guerrillas. Unless they're actively recruiting from the populace, they would dry up after a while (because, counter to the romantic notion of an untouchable superman that slaughters the better equipped soldiers in droves before fading into nothing to strike again elsewhere, guerrillas die. In droves. Tactically, guerrilla warfare is nothing but using heavy cover of one kind or another to ambush a small number of enemy soldiers, before running away in that heavy cover, or ambushing supply lines before running away again. Still plenty of opportunity to die in all that), without a government backing them.

Guerrilla wars only "win" when the country is in ruins and the occupying force has decided that it's not worth the operating cost to keep up a military occupation. Or, alternatively, when it's a militia backed by a foreign power against a two-bit dictator who lacks the manpower to stand against it. Neither of which apply to SK occupying NK. (Fuck whether or not it wants to. I'm talking about the strategic viability of doing so, not the political (although, if the situation were to explode not occupying it wouldn't be politically viable, especially not after NK fell apart. The alternative is china swooping in, which would be worse for everyone but china))

[Phmcw]

There is no proof that America's army would perform "extremely well" against a conventional army.
If the wars in Irak and Afghanistan have taught us something, it's that your army lack of discipline, is not fitted with the right equipment (patrols in hummer? Really?), and have unreliable intelligence.
I don't have reliable source on north Korea so I won't make any guess.

[Agdune]

The wars in 'Irak' and Afghanistan didn't show us anything about a lack of discipline or equipment. The actual war part was over almost as soon as it began, as every piece of organised opposition was ripped apart by the total air superiority and good co-ordination between the military arms. The guerrilla war that has followed is a different matter. Any invasion would have difficulties yes, but mainly for the reasons Aqizzar stated, not because western armies are lacking in discipline or equipment.

I can't tell if you're just ignoring 99% of the content of my posts or just not reading for comprehension.

Heh, I'm pretty sure no-one read my posts, judging how people asked the exact question I'd addressed just a few posts later. Like it was never there!

[Phmcw]

Abu graib, the video leaked and quite a few other occurrence should give you a hint concerning discipline.
The general Mc Chrystal wish to disagree with you on the matter of the equipment and troops.
And destroying Iraki army was easy, but it's not a proof of efficiency.
Outdated equipment, utterly incompetent general, low morals troops,... Iraki army wasn't much of a threat.
However i came at great cost and with quite a few incident concerning friendly fire, or civilian casualties. 
 
Edit: All this to say that I'm not sure that invasion of north Korea will be that simple.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

It would be like going to the bank and saying "Bitch, I'm not going to pay my mortgage anymore until you stop helping out my worst enemy Sam".

And then they take away your house and Sam keeps on being a happy guy.

China wouldn't 'retaliate', though. They would just stop being nice to the US by giving them loans and things.

\

I never said it was a good plan, just the only one I could think of. Although, when both you and your bank have a world destroying arsenal of nuclear warheads, things are slightly different.

[Il Palazzo]

It would be like going to the bank and saying "Bitch, I'm not going to pay my mortgage anymore until you stop helping out my worst enemy Sam".

And then they take away your house and Sam keeps on being a happy guy.

China wouldn't 'retaliate', though. They would just stop being nice to the US by giving them loans and things.

\

I never said it was a good plan, just the only one I could think of. Although, when both you and your bank have a world destroying arsenal of nuclear warheads, things are slightly different.

The point is, there's no need for armed response.
US refuses to pay back their debt to China. China sells their part of American obligations to some other investors cheaply. US government become a high risk investment. Value of their bonds and securities falls. They have now trouble covering their deficit, must cut spendings, raise taxes or print money(total debt is 50% of GDP). The value of a dollar falls. The remaining lenders lose even more on their investments, try to sell them out. Rinse and repeat as the economy spirals down into deepest depression ever. China wins.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The point is, there's no need for armed response.
US refuses to pay back their debt to China. China sells their part of American obligations to some other investors cheaply. US government become a high risk investment. Value of their bonds and securities falls. They have now trouble covering their deficit, must cut spendings, raise taxes or print money(total debt is 50% of GDP). The value of a dollar falls. The remaining lenders lose even more on their investments, try to sell them out. Rinse and repeat as the economy spirals down into deepest depression ever. China wins.

China's main trade partner in deepest depression ever. No longer trades with China due to causing said depression. China spirals into a deep depression as well. Both of the world's superpowers nullified, wars quickly break out across the globe. Eventual nuclear exchange begins. Homo sapiens goes extinct. Earth unfit to support multicellular life for several thousand years.

[Jreengus]

Yes, because without America or China every other country with nukes will assume that only they, America and China have nukes and that they are free to nuke anyone without fear?

[LeoLeonardoIII]

The point is, there's no need for armed response.
US refuses to pay back their debt to China. China sells their part of American obligations to some other investors cheaply. US government become a high risk investment. Value of their bonds and securities falls. They have now trouble covering their deficit, must cut spendings, raise taxes or print money(total debt is 50% of GDP). The value of a dollar falls. The remaining lenders lose even more on their investments, try to sell them out. Rinse and repeat as the economy spirals down into deepest depression ever. China wins.

China's main trade partner in deepest depression ever. No longer trades with China due to causing said depression. China spirals into a deep depression as well. Both of the world's superpowers nullified, wars quickly break out across the globe. Eventual nuclear exchange begins. Homo sapiens goes extinct. Earth unfit to support multicellular life for several thousand years.

You assume that China is dependent on the success of the US. In his example, China just steps back and stops dealing with the US voluntarily, selling our debt. I'm not sure it follows that a failing US must drag everyone else down.

[Strife26]

There is no proof that America's army would perform "extremely well" against a conventional army.
If the wars in Irak and Afghanistan have taught us something, it's that your army lack of discipline, is not fitted with the right equipment (patrols in hummer? Really?), and have unreliable intelligence.
I don't have reliable source on north Korea so I won't make any guess.

If you believe that, you're an idiot. I'm sorry, but that's all there is. Fact: The American Army completely outclasses ANY conventional army.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yes, because without America or China every other country with nukes will assume that only they, America and China have nukes and that they are free to nuke anyone without fear?

No, but a world ending nuclear war could be started by one madman with a launch code, and the world destablizing events that would be caused by the mutual colapse of China and the U.S.A. would make that more likely to happen.

And China does need the U.S., at least for now. They sell to us far more than anyone else, and without that income their massive country would quickly fall apart.

[smjjames]

Also, spell the country name right, its Iraq, not Irak. Yes it's pronounced Irak, but that's not how its spelled.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

There is no proof that America's army would perform "extremely well" against a conventional army.
If the wars in Irak and Afghanistan have taught us something, it's that your army lack of discipline, is not fitted with the right equipment (patrols in hummer? Really?), and have unreliable intelligence.
I don't have reliable source on north Korea so I won't make any guess.

If you believe that, you're an idiot. I'm sorry, but that's all there is. Fact: The American Army completely outclasses ANY conventional army.

We have so many Heavies and Demomen.

[Strife26]

Yes, because without America or China every other country with nukes will assume that only they, America and China have nukes and that they are free to nuke anyone without fear?

No, but a world ending nuclear war could be started by one madman with a launch code, and the world destablizing events that would be caused by the mutual colapse of China and the U.S.A. would make that more likely to happen.

One could make a strong argument for nuclear war via escalation.
Without super-powers, local wars break out (Iran vs SA or Israel; Pakistan vs India)
Those wars escalate and/or one side is about to lose
Some starts popping off nukes
Game over man, game over.