Posted on 08/09/2018 10:00:34 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In a secret underground base, Command Post Tango, the combined headquarters of the U.S.-South Korean command, is abuzz with activity. North Korean artillery has pummeled sites around Seoul, leaving thousands of South Korean and American civilians and service members dead. A toxic combination of North Korean provocations and U.S. escalation has prompted the North to launch a last-ditch effort to seize the whole peninsula.
As the generals fill an auditorium-sized sand-table battlefield showing the disposition of friendly forces and the extent of likely follow-up attacks, hundreds of thousands of South Koreans are displaced in and around Seoul, seeking shelter and safety. Reports of North Korean insurgent strikes are streaming in as computer screens flash with alerts of cyberattacks on Seoul’s infrastructure, taking water and power off the grid and paralyzing attempts to help the civilian population.
This is a fictional scenario, but an all-too-possible one. As a U.S. Army intelligence officer in South Korea, I helped prepare for various war scenarios by testing assumptions and refining war plans in several theaterwide exercises.
Put fears of full-blown nuclear war aside for a moment. We’ve never been closer to a conventional North Korean attack on South Korea, and I can attest that the U.S. military knows how devastating the consequences would be. We can expect a massive humanitarian crisis, enormous loss of life, and economic disaster. There’s almost no doubt that the North would lose — but in going down Pyongyang could take much of the Korean Peninsula with it.
Pyongyang goes all in
What could provoke North Korea to start such a conflict? Kim Jong Un may eventually believe that he has no choice, given his country’s chronic humanitarian crisis, with an estimated 41 percent of the population undernourished, and additional sanctions threatening to bring back the famines of the 1990s....
(Excerpt) Read more at foreignpolicy.com ...
Well, consider the source. Foreign Policy is the neoconartist’s bullhorn of choice, and has blatted out pompous nonsense for decades now. I had a subscription back in the 1980s. I should have spent the money on beer and TexMex food.
The author is a member, which kind of mystifies me as I don’t remember seeing many junior officers/junior executives at meetings. Maybe the Indian descent is the key? I’m not sure.
“We’ve never been closer to a conventional North Korean attack on South Korea”
Seems like an odd comment so close to 25 JUN, the 68th anniversary of the sneak attack that kicked off Korean War. This guy was an intel officer?!?
(rolls eyes)
No fuel for their antiquated tanks and aircraft that can’t fly for lack of spares, fuel and trained pilots.
And this was when I was on the DMZ back in 76-77.
Could the PDRK make a horrible mess and kill people?
Yes.
Would they ‘win’ I doubt it very much.
So why is this being put out ? Disinformation?
A former intel officer who belongs to the Council on Foreign Relations, not some guy who works at a hardware store or manages a McDonalds. A lot of my big bosses back then were CFR members but they were flag officers or SES.
‘As the generals fill an auditorium-sized sand-table battlefield ...’
Sand table?
Makes me sad to think they are stuck in the 20th Century.
God bless you both for serving. I bet there were times [entire decades] when you thought the US voters were going to throw it all away, all of the sacrifice.
But God carried us through to this moment.
A miracle.
FRegards ....
Sounds like he was there for the tree trimming incident, whereas the assassination of President Park Chung Hee happened when I was getting short the first time.
The author left out the part where America furnishes strait jackets for everyone in North Korea.
Love cheeseburgers. I was thinking more of the onion rings. The guy could burp himself to death.
The author is not being entirely honest. The North, relative to the South, lacks eyes, accuracy, mobility (speed), concealment and many other abilities needed for survivability and wouldn’t have a chance to take anything substantial. It would be a monstrous amount of loose fire, not hitting much, which would be shut down rather quickly, priorities silenced first.
I would look at the calendar and silently say, "Stay on up for a couple more months..."
Was there when the Challenger blew up.
Was in AF at Osan and it was a fairly short bus ride to "The Hump"...
Yeah, all eeevil America's fault...
Yeah, like fatboy Li'l Kim really cares about his peasants.
CFR- aren’t they no borders one worlders who think that when they take over they will be the elite in charge?
TDC in 83. 2nd Av.
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