Posted on 11/26/2010 10:29:30 AM PST by Strategy
The U.S. Air Force is ready to respond immediately if hostilities between the two Koreas escalate, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said Wednesday. Schwarz told reporters after North Korea's attack on Yeonpyeong Island, "The bottom line is that U.S. Forces Korea cetainly is monitoring the situation carefully."
He mentioned Osan and Gunsan in South Korea, Kaneda in Okinawa, Japan, and other U.S. Air Force bases in the Pacific to emphasize that the U.S. has plenty of firepower in the region. Schwarz added USFK Commander Gen. Walter Sharp "has operational control of Air Force assets that reside on the peninsula and can be augmented if required."
(Excerpt) Read more at english.chosun.com ...
When I read this sort of headline all I can think about is Teddy Roosevelt’s philosophy of “Speak softly, and carry a big stick”. This seems like exactly the opposite - Obama is all talk and no action, and everyone knows it.
Why? Let South Korea defend itself.
Time to let folks defend themselves. We are not mall cops for American Corporations who dump all our jobs overseas.
Chirp chirp...
Don’t know if they’d go for doing anything notice how the Commies responded to this?
China and North Korea Attack: No Criticism from Beijing
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599203301100
I can envision the dying, nutty Kim Jong Il wanting to go out with a bang. There aren’t many bangs on Earth bigger than a nuke. That would certainly get him remembered by posterity.
N. Korea: Joint exercise pushes countries to ‘brink of war’
snippet..
The U.S. joint naval exercises with South Korea, a four-day drill starting Sunday that was planned before Tuesday’s artillery strike, have sparked strong responses from China and North Korea. China’s Foreign Ministry repeated its opposition Friday, without specific reference to the drills.
“We oppose any party to conduct any military acts in our exclusive economic zone without approval,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said in a statement Friday.
“The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching closer to the brink of war due to the reckless plan of those trigger-happy elements to stage again war exercises targeted against the (North),” said the North’s official KCNA news agency. “Gone are the days when verbal warnings are served only.”
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-11-26-korea_N.htm
It is designed to re-inforce the NORK Dear Leaders image of Divine Invincibility. An easy move against the weakling Obama.
They are ancestral enemies and really, really dislike one another to this day. This is carried so far that Japanese citizens of Korean descent whose families have resided in Japan for several generations are still required to carry internal passports stating they are of Korean descent. Their movement around the country is severely restricted in many cases. They are discriminated against rather broadly and harassed. Japan does not have affirmative action.
That is a gross overestimate of NK’s ability to damage Seoul. It’s 40km+ from the DMZ to Seoul proper and VERY few artillery and missile systems have that kind of range.
Every prepared firing point for weapons of that caliber are well known and won’t last long under the weight of RoK/US counterbattery fire. Anyone who thinks NK is going have the ability to reposition it’s batteries once that starts is dead wrong.
North Korea’s “obliteration” of Seoul in the first hours of a full scale war is a urban legend that gets bigger every time it’s retold.
E
By an interesting coincidence, SK’s K9 self-propelled gun has a range of 40 KM. A significant portion of the dug-in NK stuff will reach out to 60, but it’s random fire at that range.
SK also has some interesting missile capabilities.
Thanks, I was pondering Camp Kaneda and thinking I must be getting real old.
What if they let fly with a few nukes?
And South Korean artillery is mobile, has accurate counterbattery radar, and can be near the border but not on it.
If North Korea wanted to “decimate Seoul” they’d have to put everything in a very small basket close to the DMZ, and that’s assuming that the artillery systems that North Korea has can achieve their maximum theoretical range.
Seoul faces a much greater threat from FROG and SCUD unguided ballistic missiles, IMHO.
South Korea has had years to worry about this problem, you can bet they’ve done something about it.
Not that I’m against helping our allies, but does anyone else get the feeling this could be that disaster dear leader has been waiting for to “temporarily postpone elections” or declare martial law?
They have a fairly modern air force that includes F-15’s and F-16’s. I don’t think they have any heavy bombing capabilities though.
Seems to me, it wouldn’t take much to destroy those artillery sites. Just a matter of giving the orders.
"...Kaneda in Okinawa, Japan, and other U.S. Air Force bases in the Pacific..."Wait a second -- since when is Kaneda in those other places? I mean, isn't Kaneda a lot bigger? ;')
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