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Any assumptions about NK have to include the sanity, or lack of, of Dear Leader, and rest of the gang....it is debatable...Also, if, as appears likely, NK has one nuke, they could use it on the US troops at5 the DMZ, or lob it into Seoul.....alternative theory...if, IF PRC wants to move on Taiwan, what better time than when the US in engaged in Iraq?...so, how much, if any influence does the PRC have on NK?...Go figure..

Interesting question.

I think China COULD HAVE tons of influence on NK in SOME contexts, situations.

But

1) The context would have to be suited to it.

2) The Chinese would have to feel sufficiently motivated to exert sufficient pressure of the likely successful sort.

3) NK's megalamaniacal leaders would have to have synchronous flashes of sanity sufficient to yield to such pressure.

It would be interesting to see what China would do if millions of starving etc. NK's started flooding that border regardless of being mowed down.

China hasn't been too thrilled at the refugees that have filtered across already.

But that's a far cry from giving NK trouble on the world stage.

That's a lot of ducks to have in a row.

I think you make an astute observation here. The Chinese know that they can't take us on alone, and that we'd block any advance towards Taiwan. But...

If we're tied up with Iraq on the one hand and NK on the other, we might not be able to deal with China being a little agressive. If they did it without much bloodshed (because the Taiwanese knew we couldn't help them out) then we might not make much of a fuss - or at least that might be what they're thinking.

Any assumptions about NK have to include the sanity, or lack of, of Dear Leader, and rest of the gang....it is debatable...Also, if, as appears likely, NK has one nuke, they could use it on the US troops at5 the DMZ, or lob it into Seoul.....alternative theory...if, IF PRC wants to move on Taiwan, what better time than when the US in engaged in Iraq?...so, how much, if any influence does the PRC have on NK?...Go figure..

The thing I need to know is this: we'll be using four battlegroups to take down the Iraqis. How many carrier groups does that leave in the Pacific?

After Pearl Harbor, we were down to the Yorktown and the Enterprise battlegroups. The Saratoga took a torpedo near Hawaii and had to go into drydock for a while for repairs (you could do that with the old carriers: they were basically cruisers with a metal plate on top...). Needless to say, Yamamato and Nagumo went apesh*t for six months until checked at Midway.

The question is, with most of our front line guys handling Iraq, how many carriers would we have to handle a Korean contingency and give us time to get the 25th Division and the ThirdMarDiv to Pusan?

Be Seeing You,

Chris