Posted on 09/14/2017 3:50:06 PM PDT by Widget Jr
In the following report Roger Cavazos considers two bounded cases of an artillery attack on Seoul. The question is pertinent since it bears on whether there is conventional stability on the Korean Peninsula. If there is a conventional military stability, that is neither South Korea nor North Korea have the military capacity to successfully invade, then both parties have an interest in cutting the Gordian knot of present relations. Legal frameworks such as a Korea Japan Nuclear Weapon Free Zone are far cheaper, less resource intensive yet still confrontational enough to relieve some pressure of an antagonistic relationship. The conclusion is that there is a conventional military stability which allows for the time and effort to seek alternative resolutions such as a Korea Japan Nuclear Weapon Free Zone which allows the DPRK to trade an almost no cost legal framework for a tangible security guarantee. Roger Cavazos consults on Northeast Asia security. He is recently retired from a 22 year career in the United States Army with assignments at tactical, operational, and strategic levels.
The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Nautilus Institute. Readers should note that Nautilus seeks a diversity of views and opinions on significant topics in order to identify common ground.
(Excerpt) Read more at nautilus.org ...
I find it the flip side of the projection we expect from SJWs.
Reasonable people project their own reasonableness onto irrationals and, therefore, never can quite figure out why they can’t ever really figure out irrationals.
Both of my times there we “joked” that we were there to prevent the South from going North.
The author has never been party to negotiations with the DPRK and understands nothing of what are and would be minimum demands of the DPRk for such a treaty. Some that the DPRK has and would insist on are non-starters. The sixty plus years of negotiations with the DPRK can attest to that.
Negotiating theories and “security analysis” theories are fine. Reality sometimes not fit assumed contexts when these theories are sometimes proposed.
The South Korea-U.S.-Japan situation vis-a-vis North Korea is one of those areas when proposed theories do not match realities.
Too dated as many things have transpired changing the capabilities entirely.
The report is not about negotiating with a country as untrustworthy as North Korea.
The report is about what the author thinks would happen if North Korea launched a full scale attack on the South.
Yes. I worked with ROKA Captains and Majors who had been in Vietnam with us, a little-known part of the Vietnam war. They wanted to re-unify their country, just as we would if half our relatives were behind an iron wall. When a junior salutes a senior in the Korean military they say “Tongil!” which means reunification.
Sorry for my reaction. I should have read the entire report.
On what MIGHT happen, we can say this much about it.
Actual events can easily vary from the predictions of the best plans - as many of our own WWI operations learned. Small details - differences - can wind up making big differences in immediate outcomes.
Victory eventually comes from the depth of the ability to adjust, adapt and change plans, and the depth of the ability to supply and support the changes. FLEXIBILITY.
Had I authored that paper, that is what I would have reminded everyone, and that is why South Korea and the U.S. would prevail - in a head to head war - over the dictators in North Korea.
One point in the report bothers me, and I hope it bothers South Korea’s military and intelligence services even more.
“Chinese make up almost seventy percent of foreigners in Seoul and its northern environs which means KPA might also kill six-hundred Chinese diplomats, multi-national corporation leaders, and ranking cadre children who are students in Seoul.”
It is suicidal to presume none of those Chinese nationals are there working for Chinese national intelligence agencies. It is also suicidal to presume that none of that activity is producing intelligence that is getting back to Pyongyang. As far as casualties in that demographic sector, that should not be anywhere on the list of concerns to South Korea or the U.S.
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