I'm far from a military strategist, however from a geopolitical point of view, I am still curious about some facets of this issue:
First, I don't see North Korea as a particularly big issue militarily (other than the havoc that their ground troops could cause initially in the south). They are an impoverished nation with no resources, led by a psycho. Surely their senior military officials know that if the US (or any other first-world country for that matter) were to become involved, not only is it a war that they could not win, but it would be one that would likely be lost in a few weeks after the central government were decapitated, and their command and control capability effectively demolished. They have nuke capability, but it is crude at best, and delivery systems antiquated, unreliable, and few in number. After a few weeks they would be reduced to large numbers of troops without any effective commanders, communication, mission, or direction. And since their MO, unlike ours, is not to train troops to think and act independently of command, they should devolve into essentially rabble.
The first argument that I always hear is that China would be forced to intervene........to this I would argue that a hell of a lot has changed politically in China since 1952, and Chinese may be communists, but they are far from stupid........they are aware that it would be a far better situation for them to have a democratic, productive, unified Korea south of the Yalu River, than a tinpot dictator that they are constantly having to prop up both economically and militarily, and who embarrasses them on an ongoing basis, on the world stage by pulling stunts that they have to defend. A Korea that has (in its present southern manifestation) never shown any aggressive tendencies toward anyone. I'm not convinced that China (as in the past) places ideology above their obvious desire to become a world economic power, which would vanish in a heartbeat were they to involve themselves in an armed confrontation with their biggest customers, who could easily tell them to start eating those T-bills that they own when they run out of rice, because, we ain't gonna redeem them........
DAT mentioned that the combined intelligence capabilities should be ale to provide insight into any potential threat that might be coming from the north.........however, all of that intelligence seemed to miss the fact that somehow they managed to torpedo a SK Frigate.......makes one wonder........
I'm certainly not minimizing the risk of great loss of life, and destruction in such a conflict,,,,,it just seems to me that the Norks are frequently used as a "bogeyman" to gin up political termoil, far in excess of their actual capabilities. It seems almost as though they are being used as a pawn by both sides in an effort to gain political or economic advantage.
I think that the likely outcome (of this singular event) will be that at some point in the not too distant future, one of the Norks coastal patrol submarines may end up "missing - presumed lost", and the situation will continue as it always has.......
doc
