thermonuclear war...
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 ...
Answer the question.
In 2005 Seoul had requested regaining wartime control of its armed forces. US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his South Korean counterpart Yoon Kwang-ung discussed the wartime operational command at the 32nd Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) held in Seoul in October 2005. Defense Minister Yoon said “The issue of wartime command transfer will become one of the main issues to be discussed at SCM.” The defense chiefs discussed transferring wartime command of the nation’s troops back to Seoul during the annual security consultations. Wartime operational control was part of a much broader discussion of command relationships. Seoul regained the right to control its armed forces in peacetime in 1994. Wartime command was originally transferred to the US-led United Nations Command in 1950.
Final negotiations to set a date for this transition were agreed to in 2007, with a ROK military OPCON transition from CFC to the ROK JFC date set for 17 April 2012. To achieve realignment of responsibilities in the transition of wartime OPCON in 2012, the ROK and U.S. militaries completed a transition road map — the Strategic Transition Plan (STP) — signed in 2007, identifying requirements and milestones for the next five years. Prior to the ROK assuming wartime operational control of its own forces in 2012, U.S. and ROK planners will develop new terms of reference, crisis action standard operating procedures, wartime command and control procedures, and operational plans through formal alliance consultative processes, such as the bi-monthly Security Policy Initiative and the annual Security Consultative and Military Committee Meetings.
Meeting at the G-20 economic summit in Toronto om 26 June 2010, President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak agreed to delay the current April 17, 2012, date to December 2015. The postponement of the so-called OPCON plan “reflects the current security condition on the Korean peninsula and will strengthen the alliance of the two nations,” Lee was quoted by South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency in a joint press conference with Obama after the summit.
Bull. We have just enough forces on the DMZ to yell BANG and die. That's their job. Give warning & try to hold the line until they die in place. Hopefully that gives us enough time to get off the dime and push back. Of course as has already been correctly noted, currently it depends on which Obama wakes up that morning....
Have been thinking about this NORK artillery within range of Seoul...wonder what kind of counter-battery capability the South Koreans have...obviously they are aware of this threat.
The Republic of Korea Ministry of National Defense (MND) and the US Forces Korea (USKF) signed the LPP in March 2002, under which the USFK would reduce the number of its bases from 41 to 23 and return to South Korea roughly 50 percent of the land it was then using, equivalent to some 135 million square meters, by 2011. This included the complete closure of 24 US facilities or compounds within ROK facilities and 4 partial returns of US facilities. It also included 12 new land grants required between 2002 and 2011 to handle the planned movement of US forces.
In April 2002 South Korea agreed to contribute about $463 million to US Forces Korea (USFK) for upkeep for the year. During the Security Consultative Meeting (SCM) in Washington in mid-November 2001, Korea agreed to increase its budget for USFK by 10.4 percent for the year 2002, from $444 million to $490 million. Due to an increase in the proportion of Korea’s payment denominated in won (the South Korean national currency), the actual contribution by Korea was reduced to $463 million. The Korean payments for South Korean nationals hired by USFK accounted for almost half of Korea’s share.
These nitwits do not have a nuke or they would have used it already.
I didn’t say I believe what he said just that I don’t think he said what the press reported.
I’ve pretty much always thought that being in Korea would suck since you aren’t more than a speed bump. Kinda like being assigned to the Fulda Gap if they weren’t going to use tactical nukes.
This is a good time to judge Obama’s character. The North Koreans should see how far they can push the situation before the US and the South actually do something. The North has to figure the South will back down whenever the North wants it to and therefore they can be confident that they control the situation.
Hmmm...who was Germany's largest trading partner when they kicked off against the French in WWII?
France.
Who was Japan's largest trading partner before Pearl Harbor?
The United States.
Might not want to make too many assumptions along those lines. Rational men don't start wars.
“SHALL WE PLAY A GAME?”
Yep!...N.Korea bows to China. China won't go to war over N.Korea...they'll take over first with the blessings of the International Community. I still say covert operations will take N.Korea Kim-bo and his governing thugs down when China sees itself backed against the wall....this may be the time. But there will not be a war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Korea_Air_Force
Correct.
Zer0 is nowise inclined to “strike” his commie bretheren. The Norks could invade the South and commit bloody murder all over the place and he’d rationalize it away.
I’ve said it before and I even heard Krauthammer say it the other day: a sensibly re-militarized Japan is the best counter to Nork and Chicom aggression.
With Obama in charge, our erstwhile Asian allies have no real protection. They have the money to strengthen their armed forrces-—let them do it.
It seems to me that eventually Japan will become involved. Japan right now is the sleeping warrior. It has much history to make up. Hopefully Hiroshima and Nagasaki memories are not a discord with us today. Very strange how time changes as to friends and enemies.
I guarantee that the commies in China and N.Korea crap their drawers at the thought of a revived, crack Japanese army (with a modern navy and air force as well) just a few hundred miles away.
thermonuclear war...
1) the US Chamber of Commerce
2) Wasilla, AK
3) FOX News
before he attacks his fellow travelers in North Korea, a worker's paradise devoid of evil predatory corporations that enslave the masses.
Heck, he will probably send them $900M of US taxpayer dollars like he sent to Hamas in Gaza.
The 1 kt fizzle the Norks set off is a far cry from a 1 kt neutron bomb, though. A neutron bomb is a very small, very radiation-permeable thermonuclear (2-stage, radiation implosion, Teller-Ulam configuration, H-bomb) device. It produces an intense emission of very high-energy neutrons you can't get from a pure fission bomb.
It's a very sophisticated, 3rd or 4th generation device. The only way the Norks have one of those is if the Chinese gave them one, and AFAIK it isn't even clear that the Chinese have one to give.
The primary value of a neutron bomb is to kill tank crews (neutrons go through armor like a hot knife through butter) without incinerating nearby civilian infrastructure.
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