North Korea there will be blood?

North Korea Likely To Launch 'A Relatively Small Attack That Won't Leave Many People Dead'Expect a Tactical Strike From North Korea

The most probable outcome of all these tensions is a low-level "tactical" strike from North Korea.

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But don't worry, it'll be "a relatively small attack that won’t leave many people dead," Sue Mi Terry, a Columbia University professor who served as a senior analyst on North Korea at the CIA from 2001 to 2008, told Wired's Spencer Ackermann.

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Analysts in the military, political, and intelligence fields have all pretty much said the same thing: Kim Jong-Un has painted himself into a corner, and the only way out is a gunfight.

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If the North directly attacked the South, The US would have a tacit approval to do at least something initially...since our troops would be dying. Our military is quite capable of reducing their ability to wage war within a matter of two weeks. Its what would be done after that that would be negotiated globally.

If so, it sounds to me like the Generals advised the young leader to be tough so that he would make a fool of himself and his country and so that they could then initiate a coup and get rid of him.

To what end?Eliminating that single central "leader" would open the game board up to all power factors vying to seize power on their own. Chaos. For what?Leaving that "single central leader" in place, but being the one to wield the actual power "behind the throne" would make more sense.Of course, I have no actual knowledge nor expertise in this area. What a sane government would do in a game of brinkmanship is one thing. What an insane government would do ... .I don't think we civilians really know what we are dealing with here. We can only hope that our governments do know.

I've got a very similar opinion.We shouldn't forget that the Young Leader is worshipped by a very large percentage of the North Korean population as a God. Eliminating him could result in total chaos . On the other side eliminating him could open the door to more openness and for the population to start realising that the young Leader was just human.It seems as if there's really only one country which could potentially pull the rug from under the feet of the Young Leader in one foul swoop and it it would be China. One wonders what the interest of China is in keeping the North Korean Government in place or alternatively getting rid of it.In the case of North Korea attacking South Korea, the US would be automatically involved. This will further weaken the American economy. Is it in the economic interest of China to have a further weakened American economy; with all those US dollars they keep in reserve?One can only hope that relatively sane governments (not all of them!) know more about it than we do.Benjamin Disraeli: -Nations have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Only permanent interests-

But what about the nuclear factor? They are threatening a nuclear strike. Wouldn't we respond by giving Asia a night-light? Should we respond in that manner? (ie, moral considerations) Shouldn't we respond in that manner? (ie, the effective response needed to end the situation)It took us some time to reduce the size of a warhead to be deliverable by ICBM. Also, we started out with only one Little Boy and two Fat Men. After Trinity, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, we had shot our wad, so to speak. After that, we basically bluffed our way to the Japanese surrender. So after having demonstrated their basic ability with nuclear weapons, how far have they actually gotten with a deliverable system?How much of their own homework do they need to have done to get there? Back around 1980, give or take a half decade, the PBS show Nova hired an upper-division chemistry student to design a nuclear weapon. Using sources that were freely available, he came up with a design that was evaluated as being 50% probable to successfully work.Our professional analysts would know better than we what their capabilities would be. But if you're a street thug telling that street cop that you have a firearm in your pocket and you move to draw it to use against him, then that street cop is justified to defend himself. So if North Korea, as an international thug, says that he's attacking with a nuclear weapon, then he has to be taken seriously and dealt with accordingly.Tom Lehrer, Who's Next? (c. 1964)

quote:

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First we got the bomb, and that was good,
'Cause we love peace and motherhood.
Then Russia got the bomb, but that's okay,
'Cause the balance of power's maintained that way.
Who's next?

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France got the bomb, but don't you grieve,
'Cause they're on our side (I believe).
China got the bomb, but have no fears,
They can't wipe us out for at least five years.
Who's next?

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Then Indonesia claimed that they
Were gonna get one any day.
South Africa wants two, that's right:
One for the black and one for the white.
Who's next?

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Egypt's gonna get one too,
Just to use on you know who.
So Israel's getting tense.
Wants one in self defense.
"The Lord's our shepherd," says the psalm,
But just in case, we better get a bomb.
Who's next?

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Luxembourg is next to go,
And (who knows?) maybe Monaco.
We'll try to stay serene and calm
When Alabama gets the bomb.
Who's next?
Who's next?
Who's next?
Who's next?

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I remember the fall of the Soviet Union. The Cold War was over! I also remember a lecture by my classical Greek professor. During the Peloponnesian War, all sides engaged in massive building up of weaponry and the training of soldiers. Then when that war ended, you suddenly had all kinds of surplus weapons that could be had for really cheap and all kinds of experienced mercenaries out for hire. What followed was a rash of bush wars in which every minor principality or whatever suddenly could afford to wage war against his neighbors. Chaos. So when the Soviet Union fell and "peace broke out", I muttered "Oh fuck. Here it comes."As long as the wielders of nuclear weapons have a stake in the outcome of the game, as long as they have something to lose by using their nuclear capabilities, there can be some hope of keeping the world safe. But throw in a lunatic with nothing to lose and all bets are off.I'd say that they're bluffing. But then what do I know?

Chess.We Occidentals (Westerners, opposite of "Oriental") tend to think strategically in terms of chess. Though in the Corbomite Maneuver Kirk suggests poker instead.I believe that Orientals would think more in terms of The Art of War. We tend to think in terms of positioning, strength of positions, trading pieces, while they think in other terms (I am not myself schooled in the Art of War).The North Korean situation seems straight-forward enough. The Chinese long-term strategy is the real question. What role does North Korea play in that strategy? What role does our response play? It is a far more subtle game than chess could ever possibly imagine. Good quote. Very good quote. But what happens when a nation loses sight of its "permanent interests"?I forget the context now, but Tom Lehrer compared a then-current-mid-1960's situation with a Christian Scientist with appendicitis.

I don't think that the current Chinese government could afford to do that. The middle class in China is getting too big and too powerful. They've got the most to loose. Keeping some dictator in a small foreign country going, at a huge financial cost and security risk to themselves, wouldn't be too acceptable to them. But, who knows? Anything is possible.

Here is a good report defining the situation in NK.

quote:

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In particular, the percentage of North Korean forces deployed within 100km of the DMZ has significantly increased during the past two decades. Currently, North Korea deploys approximately 65% of its military units, and up to 80% of its estimated aggregate firepower, within 100km of the DMZ. This inventory includes approximately 700,000 troops, 8,000 artillery systems and 2,000 tanks.

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If each one of those artillery systems fires once/minute that is 80,000 shells into Seoul in 10 minutes. How do you stop that?edit; Of course, 10 minutes is about all the time that they would have.Edited by Prototypical, : No reason given.

one minor quibble
the term is "fell swoop"or as I like to say "swell foop"

Hello Omnivorous, Me too.I have a few friends from Korea with family there and their anxiety is palpable. Those people live under the shadow of enormous amounts of ordinance aimed straight at them.Never mind a Nuclear attack, the North has more than enough conventional munitions to get the job done in Seoul if the balloon goes up.I only hope this cools down and "Un" realizes the futility of his current course.Edited by 1.61803, : error

I have done work for a Korean hi-tech company that is located close to the DMZ. Visited them once. The engineers I talked to never seem to be bothered by any events in North Korea. If the South Koreans are worried, we should be too.

Hi Coyote, Apparently not. As we know the European leaders at the time and the US were all hoping the raging maniac known as Hitler was bluffing. Then when he invaded Czechoslovakia everyones sphincer tone went up several notches. We know the rest of the story.So North Korea gets away with some of the most atrocious human rights violations known to man, they starve their people to the point of cannabalism. NK continues efforts to develop a nuclear weapon with long range capabilties, and they constantly threaten the stabilty of the region. Why? Because they can.

Depending on what the target was of N. Korea's strike, I think we'd have to ask the cold war question of whether we can actually protect South Korea by nuking N. Korea. Obviously if they obliterate South Korea, that question comes off the table.What I don't see however, is any outcome of this activity that is good for North Korea.

What could we do? Oh yeah? So fighting ended in Afghanistan and Iraq in two weeks and after that it was just a matter of international negotiation. Good to know.