Posted on 12/21/2010 9:22:33 AM PST by jhpigott
12/20/10
As the Korean peninsula enters what U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates calls "a difficult and potentially dangerous time," the long-dormant Korean conflict is rumbling back into the public consciousness. Government officials from the U.S., South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and other states throughout the region are planning for the worst-case scenario: renewed war, perhaps nuclear, and a massive exodus from South Korea. If tensions continue to escalate, hundreds of thousands of foreign civilians living in South Korea will flee, sparking one the biggest mass-evacuations since the British and French pulled 338,000 troops out of Dunkirk in 1940.
(snip)
If North Korea launches another artillery strike against South Korea--or simply hurls itself at the 38th parallel--the resulting confrontation could trigger one of the largest population movements in human history. According to one account, 140,000 U.S. government noncombatants and American citizens would look to the U.S. government for a way out. And that's just the Americans. Hundreds of thousands of South Korean citizens and other foreign nationals would be clamoring for any way off of the wintery, dangerous peninsula.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
ping
hey gates, why don’t you send a couple battalions of queers over there to take care of things ?
How many more people can they fit into Daegu?
There were some limited travel restrictions right after the Nov 23 attack imposed by the Japanese and Philipino governments.
Unlike in some other conflict zones, a mass evacuation of the ROK could actually trigger a conflict that might otherwise be prevented. This is primarily due to the proximity of Seoul to the DMZ.
The North’s military does not have the ability to invade and hold significant portions of ROK territory like they did back during the Korean War. What they do have the ability to do (and arguably what has kept the ROK from retaliating with any meaningful force to previous DPRK provocations) is pound the snot out of Seoul with its conventional artillery and SRBMs from behing the DMZ. This is their biggest deterrent against ROK/US military action.
If the North were to detect a mass evacuation of Seoul (or so the thinking goes) they would launch a massive artillery strike on Seoul and perhaps even push across the DMZ and make some limited land grabs (Seoul lies only 35 miles south of the DMZ) under a “use it or lose it” rationale.
Yes it is. Though it’s really mass evacuation of Seoul (population 10million+), not the whole country. It’s Seoul that’s vulnerable & will be attacked.
Okay, I understand the rationale now, thanks for explaining it. I sure wouldn’t want to be one of the human shields that are waiting for it to start raining artillery and rockets.
Yep, it’s Seoul that would be the primary concern. Irrespective, to say it would be a logistical nightmare is an understatement.
Hard to think about when you have family or friends there.
But understandable. I think the NK-watchers believe that the impending post-Kim era will not come quietly. And while it's not entirely clear what form the unrest will take, it's a better than even bet that there will be a military component, possibly or probably directed toward the South.
So, by necessity, they're starting to look seriously at the contingencies, which are unpleasant.
Note that there's a complementary military component to this.
A mass of refugees moving south, is mostly a problem if the defending military is either being driven back onto them, or if supplies and reinforcements are trying to move northward through the refugees.
To avoid that problem, I think the military plan would have to rely heavily on stopping the NK invasion early, and on keeping supply lines short and relatively forward.
It means establishing air dominance (which should happen quickly), and also making sure that enough artillery and other defensive preparations survive the initial bombardment to effectively disrupt and destroy the waves of invading NK infantry.
It works otherwise too: to be successful, an NK invasion would have to rely on speed, because it's almost certain that they will not be able to maintain their supply lines. They know that eventually they'll have to try to live off the land as they move south, and they want to forestall that for as long as they can. So it's doubly important slow them down or stop them, because they'll quickly starve.
Finally, it's imperative to establish and maintain naval superiority along the coasts, in order to keep open the crucial seaborne resupply lines and ports. Keeping control of the coasts and ports means that, even if the NK breaks through in the middle, they'll end up with long, exposed flanks, which can eventually be cut.
Note that none of this really applies, if the North Koreans' intent is simply to stage a götterdämmerung scenario. In that case, I think they'd just go for causing maximum destruction, without any real intent to follow up with invasion and occupation.
I'd think that a better comparison would be the German population of East Prussia in 1945. Civilians running in terror rather than an evacuation of military troops.
The Divine One and his apostles by their weakness are creating this pending disaster. The North Koreans may feel that the time for attack will never be better. There is a distinct possibility that this administration would abjectly surrender-though call it by another name.
Time will tell.
It’s an interconnected world - your friends and family members are in my prayers...
You are a few cards short of a full deck.
“So, by necessity, they’re starting to look seriously at the contingencies, which are unpleasant.”
Not just unpleasant, but unfathomable to this generation. We would be looking at an evacuation and destruction of a major/modern metropolitan area that hasn’t been seen since WWII.
Let’s hope it doesn’t get that far . . .
Except in this analogy, if you try to leave the barrier island enmasse, you may hasten the arrival of said hurricane.
As one geopolitical wonk has put it - “North Korea is the land of lousy options”.
Five days prior on July 27th and while only 17yrs old he was at the Hadong Ambush.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadong_Ambush
On his birthday he wrote this to his mother (I have the letter here, copying):
"Dear Mom and Dad,
I finally got around to writing you a letter. I would have wrote sooner but I didn't have a chance. I have been very busy for the past month. And there was no place to mail the letter. I have been in Korea for the past month but I am OK.
Our unit was hit pretty bad and there are only about 400 of us left.
It goes on from there. It was the first knowledge that my grandparents had of him being there, thinking he was still in Okinawa.
This is not nearly as bad as the losses the 24th Infantry Div suffered in the first 3 months of that war...being the first one's there. That entire division had only 184 surviving members after 3 months.
We cannot waste that sacrifice.
LOL! If the NEO’s wait until the artillery shelling starts, then it’s not an evacuation - it’s a mass panic scramble of the survivors. And NORK special forces will be between them and the Southern ports, waiting to inflict more mayhem death and panic
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