Dog eating, pajama wearing, and communist is no way to go through life.
Albright and Clintons legacy is WWIII, they are directly responsible for this.
The Korean untermenschen are playing with fire.
They will get burned.
Posted on 12/27/2002 12:53:29 PM PST by ex-Texan
Edited on 04/13/2004 1:40:13 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
The timing does seem a bit coincidental, doesn't it? Except that I don't believe in coincidences! Wasn't N. Korea part of that Axis of Evil the President spoke about after 9/11?
Something drastic needs to happen prior to NK getting all of their ducks in a row. If too much time passes, then even if we attempt a pre-emptive strike they will have enough time to respond in the manner they are threatening.
If this thing is being "gamed" (and we know it is), then the goal is to acquire resolution without fallout (in every sense of that term). Maybe there are other routes, but it seems that only something that catches them completely off-guard will be successful in preventing them from taking a very nasty pot shot at their neighbors as they are going down.
- Yes
Are the stories true that some of these mines are nuclear?
- No
Are our troops equipped with battle field nukes? Does the North think they are?
- No, and No
How long would it take for enough air power to arrive to slow an invasion?
- Air power would not be a deciding factor in a new Korean war. Most of the combatants are within a days walking distance of each other, the entire military infrastructure has been moved underground, and the North has the most densely woven air defense network on Earth.
Can this air defense cover a column of tanks and troops against our bombers and strike fighters when it crosses the DMZ?
1- We don't know where the actual nuclear weapons are being stored, produced, or developed. Given the fact that the NKs have moved their entire military infrastructure underground, it is unreasonable to assume that they would leave their most critical defense component totally exposed at a site that appears regulary on CNN.
2 - It forces their hand. Kim has two options, certain political collapse, or retaliation.
I'm all for keeping NKs feet a roasting, but we need a better end strategy before we stir up the hornets nest.
Air power would dish out some serious punishment, but close to a million troops, a full corps of tanks, and over ten thousand artillery pieces all needing immediate suppression will overtax the air assets ability to respond. That like trying to hold back the tide with a bucket.
Aircraft need time to refuel, rearm, and get the pilots briefed on their targets. Meanwhile, the jewel of the south, Seoul, is a 40 mile walk from the border.
If it is impossible to take away their trump card in a surprise assault, then we are only left with the option of finding some way for them to compromise with us and give up their trump card. After their trump card has been so successful it is not within reason to think that they would surrender it in another agreement (as good as the last one?).
If things are as you opine, then we are essentially out of options other than buying them off (how much in taxes would we like to pay to buy off NK blackmail?)
We haven't even settled the Attack on Iraq Betting Pool yet.
Option 1: attack, and get incinerated in a few days.
Option 2: Try to bluster, and hold on to power as long as you can.
Option 2 let's you live longer.
Not responding to a foriegn attack on NK soil is not an option for Kim Jong Il. The government would lose its grip on the country within days, due to internal reasons, and the leadership knows it.
This leaves, as an option, war. The attack south is very high risk. The North Koreans know they probably can't take the entire South, but may try to blitz Seoul, occupy it, and go to the U.N. and request to negotiate. (By this point, they will likely have a few thousand US prisoners, to sweeten the deal.)
Bear in mind that as much as we'd like to see it, the U.S. won't use nuclear weapons on the North first. It would be a short term win, but it would be political suicide for us in Far Asia. Winning the war to lose the peace is not on the Bush agenda.
"Clinton Deal Gave N. Korea 100-Nuke-Per-Year Capacity"
http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2002/10/19/114657
The deal is this. After decades of near (military) parity with the South, the North is in free fall. Their factories can churn out all the spare T-55, and T-62 parts they want, but on the whole, the KPA is showing its age, and has no way to modernize. The ROKs, on the other hand, are lean, powerful, and high tech. Every year that goes by, the invasion option loses some of its menace.
Enter the bomb. It is only useful against the U.S. and Japan (Kim would be the most hated Korean in all of their history, and for all time to come, for destroying Seoul. In a culture that is obsessive about 'losing face', that is not in the cards) To deliver this bomb to us, Kim needs missiles.
Enter the ABM defense system (especially the air to air laser platform the USAF is working on, for boost phase intercept). See where this is going? Once we rob Kim of his ability to deliver, he'll be left high and dry.
The NK problem is unique, we'll just need to think outside the box to get these particular bastards.
Dog eating, pajama wearing, and communist is no way to go through life.
Albright and Clintons legacy is WWIII, they are directly responsible for this.
The Korean untermenschen are playing with fire.
They will get burned.
Yeah, OK, I see that. But there are two problems in reliance on a defense shield (three actually, but one isn't related to ABM defense): 1. The shield has to be highly effective against even one single missile -- no mistakes or "tolerances" allowed; 2. We need to hope that Kim doesn't go mad or wake up on the bad side of the bed for the few years left necessary to implement and perfect the ABM system. That's a lot of time for this situation to continue at what is in effect status quo. A lot of room for error there in dealing with a desperate madman.
The third problem is the assumption that Kim would not use a gravity bomb on Seoul. If he becomes desperate enough with the passage of time (particularly if that time is measured in years), does he really care about who in the South hates his guts? When you are an absolute tyrant you force people to "like" you. And usually the conqueror, the "unifyer", doesn't particularly care which weapons he employs to gain his goal.
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