Posted on 11/23/2010 7:29:21 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
This is called, I believe, an intelligence failure.
Even if the press is guessing, somebody in the administration had damn well better know what the North is up to.
Um, the last data I saw says the S and N have parity of forces except for boots on the ground. The N has superior force multipliers (tech). In that situation, the one who strikes HARD first wins.
The alternative is to appease and eventually the nuts running North Korea will strike hard first.
US troops and Japan are already targeted. Them getting hit is a foregone conclusion IMHO. Part of why I want our troops OUT, esp with this CinC /spit. That’s not going to happen - zero is too weak to do even that - so a massive de-fang/de-cap strike is their best chance for survival.
PS Love your quip about “arcade games.” I’m a student of history, though, and the pieces are set. Real war is going to happen, be it next week or at the latest next decade. Fight now and hit hard enough first and suffer. Delay and appease and suffer more. Those are the choices. Period.
But they will make it officially their’s. They may have been controlling to some extent but Kim has been recognized as it’s leader Internationally. China will not go to war over N.Korea...they’ll just take over politically...the US, JApan< and the rest will agree to this. China has nukes so it won’t make a difference....they’ll simply assume command of N.Korea.
Japan urgently needs to change, or otherwise find a workaround to, a certain clause in their constitution. With the current occupant in the White House, Japan is on their own, along with a lot of other countries on the Pacific Rim
Obama nuke North Korea? He’s more likely to nuke Dallas (or try - probably doesn’t understand the safeties that would stop that). No joke.
The ROK is our ally only on paper. Ask people on the street in South Korea who started the Korean War in 1950, and most will say America started it.
Naturally, a surprise NK offensive would do significant damage--until about five hundred fighter bombers, hundreds of missiles, and a host of B-52's carpet bombed the now-exposed NK artillery positions with anti-personnel and bunker-buster bombs the whole length of the DMZ.
And of course the NK do not have the capacity to launch a ground assault anyway to follow up their artillery bombardment. Even their vaunted tunnels are for foot infantry only, not big enough for trucks, much less tanks.
This might be a time for tactical nukes...takeout the command center of the whackos and the war is over...I would think.
Naturally, a surprise NK offensive would do significant damage--until about five hundred fighter bombers, hundreds of cruise missiles, and a host of B-52's carpet bombed the now-exposed NK artillery positions with anti-personnel and bunker-buster bombs the whole length of the DMZ.
And of course the NK do not have the capacity to launch a ground assault anyway to follow up their artillery bombardment. Even their vaunted tunnels are for foot infantry only, not big enough for trucks, much less tanks.
You can't be serious?? North Korea? "Rational"?
It's survived because it was a client state of China. But it's survived mostly because the US Government and State Depts. were infested by Commie sympathizers back in the 50s and 60s, and because the cowardly policies of both Bubba Klintoon and George W. Bush prevented North Korea from starving, and enabled its development of nuke capabilities.
Idiots and traitors.
The North has more artillery, ballistic missiles and special forces. The South by itself doesn’t have the resources to take out all of those without risking significant economic and military damage. Why do you think they have maintained their alliance with the US if they had parity of forces??
I agree with your postscript, but it shows what has gone wrong with the whole issue. The real issue today is that the South Koreans just aren’t ready to deal with an all-out war.
China has well known of the starvation in N.Korea...so has the world. It’s pretty obvious the deaths have little meaning. To them it’s simply downgrading the population so when the time comes there is less resistance.
As one other poster stated...N.Korea simply does not have the fuel to even move much of their army without China, and China will not go to war over N.Korea.
If they do, they're probably on the wrong side anyway. They LOVE this. It's a "crisis," isn't it?
“Been that way more or less since the 1950s.”
Yes, I was stationed there in the mid 60’s. MP, I Corp. Camp Red Cloud up near the DMZ.
I appreciate your response, and I think under any other scenario other than with this jerk in the WH that would be the way to go, but I believe we have to play along for awhile to gain time until adults are back in charge in D.C.
There are too many radicals in the way of successful engagement right now.
And why exactly should they assume command??? Do you seriously think the Chinese will risk the added burden to their economy by integrating a failed state peacefully or otherwise?? North Korea has been an asset to the Chicoms since the Korean War-it has kept the US, Japan and South Korea on it’s toes. To use a crude phrase, they know North Korea enables them to get the US and their allies by their b*lls.
The Chinese government knows one fact and that is the North Koreans have never risked escalation beyond a point.
As Piytar suggested, whatever they do they'd better do it quick and decisively (and without consulting the magic you-know-who.)
And because of that N.Korea could have had nukes at any time without producing their own. It was to China's advantage allowing N.Korea to arm itself with nukes. They would simply blame Kim for whatever occurs and come out smelling like a rose...even if the truth is known otherwise.
“I don’t think there will be a fight ...rather there will be an agreement made that China take over N.Korea and N.Korea will agree...so will S.Korea...once this thing plays out.”
That is the one semi-peaceful “out,” but China doesn’t appear to be interested. For one thing, it would be a serious loss of face. That said, they could gin up a justification by just telling the Norks to “Stop That Now.” When the Norks don’t, China could hammer their leadership out of existence, annex the North, and cast themselves as the peace-makers, which they would be. That would make them THE Power in that part of the world, too.
However, the communist leadership cannot admit to mistakes (see Orwell’s 1984 for a fictional but accurate exposition of why), so they can’t even take that first step. I pray they get past that. Such a rise in stature for China would be BAD for us, but with a population stupid enough to elect obama, “bad for us” is a foregone conclusion. If China doesn’t act here, it will be “worse for us.”
What a world.
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