Posted on 11/23/2010 7:29:21 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Deliberate or Accidental, a New Korean War Would be Devastating
The soaring modern glass towers of downtown Seoul are magnificent -- and to a North Korean artillery officer squinting through his sights from just 32 miles away, a delicious set of targets. The glistening South Korean capital is a city of glass, almost literally in the shadow of some 500 long-range heavy artillery guns from which North Korea can fire half a million artillery shells an hour, for several hours.
A war on the Korean peninsula could explode almost without warning, senior U.S. military officers say. North Korea's immediate, if suicidal, intent in such a conflict: to demolish Seoul in a blizzard of glass shards and cause tens of thousands of casualties, before U.S. and South Korea forces could react.
That is why millions of people living in Seoul regularly practice scrambling into bomb shelters in subway stations -- and why any disruption in "normal'' relations with the reclusive and unpredictable regime to the north quickly gets the world's attention: a surprise attack from the North, whether deliberate or a miscalculation, would be bloody and costly, and likely would trigger all-out war.
Within hours of North Korea's apparently unprovoked artillery attack on South Korean territory and the South's retaliatory artillery barrage, U.S. officials, diplomats and policy analysts were assuring each other that this was only a "provocation'' by the North. The Obama administration took a rhetorical firm but low-key line on Tuesday, with Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell saying that the North Korean attack was "not, frankly, out of pattern for the North lately."
(Excerpt) Read more at politicsdaily.com ...
There's such a thing as a "proportional response," and unless it is exacted, expect more unprovoked abuse from NK.
What do YOU suggest? How many more chapters from the Neville Chamberlain Handbook of Appeasement should be read before acting??
They believe Obama will do nothing....
17 shells a minute per gun for several hours without serious problems of overheating? Color me skeptical.
What a load of crap. They can fight it now and win, or wait until North Korea has enough nukes to take out all of South Korea.
Good article. Worth a read. I believe that the military in place have some good battle plans.
The question, of course, is whether the military would respond even to a bombardment of Seoul without first getting permission from on high.
And Obama would predictably take a month or two to make up his mind. Between golf or pickup basketball games.
They probably shouldn't tolerate any, but you just know they would require the help of the United States military if they want to respond with force. Do they have enough might to handle it on their own? What other countries would assist in a fight against North Korea (and ultimately, China)?
I don’t see the motive for the Norks to start something big, or the value to them. Unless they are re-supplied and reinforced from China, they’re going to run out of people, food, or ammo fairly quickly.
Does China want to help them out like that?
Seems to me they’re just barking to get the Obama white house to cave in on something.
One of the things they train you in risk management is to ask, “We do “A”. Then what. They do B or C. Then what. We do D and E...then what do they do?”
And so on and so on.
When you get past “We need to kick their ass” the resulting “what then” equations do not end up with any good results.
If people think we should bomb them back to the stoneage, go through the exercise.
There are no good results for us. Period.
We do not have the will or the way. And if you read any military strategy, you know when you go to war with neither the will or the way, you lose.
Ask the Israelis. If this follows suit, soon the rest of the world will issue a stern warning to South Korea regarding unnecessary provocations.
Prepare for war if you want peace. But if you look weak, you will have war.
Hey, Obama! Show them your Peace Prize!
Assumes no SK counter-battery capability. I wonder how a MOAB would do?
And Obama would predictably take a month or two to make up his mind. Between golf or pickup basketball games. ..................................... Naah, he’d be going on vacation some where or going on a world tour. When he returned he’d say it was all because of Bush’s policies.
Obama sometimes appears incoherent in meetings.....not a good sign.
Obama sometimes appears incoherent in meetings.....not a good sign.
“They believe Obama will do nothing....”
well they already see him as a weakling. It is very hard to fix this problem (a South Korean military response will be very costly) once there is this perception.
The idea is to have a strong military and a strong president so that nobody would try to start up with anyone in the first place.
As having been busy little beavers producing Hyundai cars, as well as owner of Hyundai Steel - the world's 2nd largest steel producer in the world - I'd hope South Korea took sufficient measures and "might" to knock NK on their *ss all by themselves.
I'm tired of the US military and taxpayer fighting and financing the world's battles. If it were up to me, the 35,000 or so American troops standing as sentries for SK would have pulled out decades ago.
He'll also need to nuzzle several ice cream cones at dozens of ice cream parlors around the country before deciding.
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