Trouble at t'mill in North Korea

[richardm]

Interesting story in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-2855300,00.html) today.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korea threatened on Tuesday to abandon the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War, and warned that it will take ``merciless retaliatory measures'' in response to any economic blockade. U.S. efforts to pressure the communist state to abandon its suspected nuclear weapons program have pushed Korea to "the crossroads of war or peace''

On Tuesday, the North said that if Washington applies sanctions or bolsters troops in the region, it ``will promptly regard it as a complete breach of the armistice agreement by the U.S. side and will immediately take strong and merciless retaliatory measures.''

Sounds a bit threatening. Yet, I remember hearing similar rhetoric from the North Koreans before. Do people think it is different this time, or more of the same?

[Mike B.]

The People's Democratic Republic of Korea :rolleyes: has been threatening war for the past 50 years. They have loudspeakers on the DMZ constantly announcing they will attack in 30 minutes, etc. There are a number of tunnels under the DMZ they have dug, 4 have been found.

I don't know if this is any different.

I do think it is funny when AUP thinks the Bush administration made the North Koreans so bellicose, in order to believe that he has to ignore the behavior of the regime for the past 50 years.

[BillyTK]

I just had to post to offer my congratulations on such an excellent thread title!

Anyway, if I were to be cynical, I'd suggest the North Korean government only make these pronouncements when they feel they're dropping below the western political radar, and they're in a "bit of a to do" since the US and Japan stopped oil shipments (http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,858721,00.html) in response to North Korea's secret nuclear weapons programme.

last time, it was just economic sanctions (http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,870603,00.html) which would be treated as an act of war; now it's sanctions and bolstering troops which is odd as it's the withdrawal of troops (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,971459,00.html) that they should be worried about.

Nuclear weapons aside, the whole North Korea situation has a certain "Mouse That Roared" comedy aspect to it...

[c0rbin]

We could bomb them with food.

[arcticpenguin]

There's a nice article on North & South Korea in the latest National Geographic (July 2003?)
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0307/feature1/index.html

[Landis]

"the mouse that roared"

While North Korea may sound like a mouse that roared, keep in mind that it has over 1 million men in arms with a 2 million man reserve unit. They have enough conventional missiles, in the event of war, that they could rain down over 1000 missiles on Seoul within 20 minutes, effectively wiping it off the face of the earth. In addition, if their army attacked in force, they could potentially overwhelm the border defenses, which may be the reason the US is moving its 50,000 man force south. (otherwise they might all be killed or captured within the first few hours).

This is not to say they will attack, but certainly N. Korea is not Iraq. The N. Korean Generals are all getting very old and most of them consider the Korean war as not over. They would like to see it finalized in their lifetime. To this mixture add a leader who doesn't seem to have "all four chairs under the table" and you have a volatile situation.

Yesterday, the defense department released some video footage of two N. Korean migs shadowing a US spy plane. They flew to within 50 feet and had their heat seeking missiles locked on. Effectively, we were within the push of a button of what could possibly lead to an escalation of all out war. (this incident occurred in March according to the news report).

Worse yet, N. Korean probably has at least one nuclear bomb and is racing to make more. They also have boasted that they have on long range missile capable of delivering said bomb to the west coast of the US. Yikes, I live in the SF bay area, maybe its time to move!

[BillyTK]

I was thinking more in terms of motivation--i.e. their economy is non-existent--but thanks for the precis of their military capability anyway! Scary...

[ceo_esq]

Originally posted by Landis
They have enough conventional missiles, in the event of war, that they could rain down over 1000 missiles on Seoul within 20 minutes, effectively wiping it off the face of the earth.
I wouldn't be surprised if that many cruise missiles, plus thousands more bombs, hit Baghdad during the recent war, but Baghdad wasn't wiped off the face of the earth. I realize that less precise Korean missiles would cause more collateral damage, but assuming they were all conventional ones, couldn't Seoul withstand 1,000 missile hits?

[Landis]

Seoul, although a modern city in many aspects, has large neighborhoods built of wooden houses and apartments which are literally attached to each other. The missiles would set off massive blazes, similar to the US bombardment of Tokyo during WW II which claimed over 100,000 lives. While the US rained hundreds of missiles on Bagdad, they were mostly precision guided. North Korea's missiles would lack any such guidance and are designed to cause the biggest amount of destruction over the largest area. This is not to suggest their missiles aren't accurate or sophisticated, after all,the export of these missiles to rogue nations around the world is one of their main sources of income. Which brings up another point, think how much money they could get for a nuke!

Sure, their economic structure has crumbled but, like a trapped animal, this just makes them more dangerous and unpredictable.

[Seismosaurus]

London took hits from 3,876 V1s, but that was over nine months. The V2 attacks dropped 1,358 missiles on London over about six months.

So a thousand warheads landing on a city isn't going to "wipe it off the map", far from it. At least not by explosive power, anyway.

But with that level of firepower concentrated into a very short time, you might very well see the fire services completely overwhelmed, resulting in a Dresden-style firestorm.

Actually, Dresden might be a good comparison. 3,900 tons of bombs were dropped on the city in one raid, destroying 24,866 of the 28,410 houses in the inner city, levelling 15 square kilometers completely, and killing anything up to 135,000 dead out of a total population of about 600,000+.

Of course, Dresden was still there afterwards. "Only" about a fifth of the total population were killed (and I'm using the high end estimates, some give numbers as "low" as 35,000).

Not that I'm saying it was no big deal or anything - however justified it may have been, it was still a horrific thing to be sure. But my point is, if you wanted to utterly destroy a city you would have to do the equivalent of several times this at least.

Hmm, if NK invaded, overwhelmed large numbers of US troops and killed tens of thousands of civilians in SK, do you think Dubya would let loose the nukes? I think he just might.

(Source for these numbers is the Wikipedia, here (http://www.wikipedia.org/))

[ceo_esq]

Originally posted by Seismosaurus
Hmm, if NK invaded, overwhelmed large numbers of US troops and killed tens of thousands of civilians in SK, do you think Dubya would let loose the nukes? I think he just might.I think he probably wouldn't incinerate a city, but I think it's entirely likely that he'd approve the use of some small tactical nukes.

[Landis]

The residents of Dresden were at least warned by air raid sirens and were able to take shelter in designated bomb shelters. The missiles that would hit Seoul would hit within 20 minutes from launch, meaning almost no one would know they were even coming. The resulting fires would set off natural gas explosions and explosions at every gas station. I've seen military analyst pretty much conclude that Seoul would be devasted.

Of course, it could come back in the future. I used to live in Japan, and I stood at ground Zero in Nagasaki. That was a city leveled by a low level atom bomb, but it did rebuild and is a beautiful, thriving city today.

Our Nuclear deterrent is probably the only reason North Korea hasn't attacked for the last 50 years. Would "W" release the nukes if the North attacked?? That's a no brainer, of course he would. He would feel it was a message from his imaginary friend that he must take this role in history.

I am just wondering how long he will hold out before he unleashes the stealth fighters to take out the Nuke Power Plant. Obviously, he can't wait until they actually produce enough plutonium to make several more nukes and, according to the news sources, this may occur within the next 3 to 6 months.

To be fair to "W", this is a frightening situation and there are no easy answers for anyone. If he deploys the stealths, it may set the whole thing off. If he doesn't deploy, they will continue to develop the nukes and then sell them to the highest bidder (perhaps even the US). Behind all of this, you have China, which wouldn't take too kindly to the US nuking its neighbor.

[Seismosaurus]

Originally posted by ceo_esq
I think he probably wouldn't incinerate a city, but I think it's entirely likely that he'd approve the use of some small tactical nukes.

I can't imagine his launching the total nuclear annhilation of North Korea... but at the same time I doubt tactical nukes would help all that much if US forces were already in the process of being overwhelmed.

Perhaps a demonstration in a sparsely population area of the North, or a small warhead on the outskirts of the capital.

Of course, things will only get really bad for us once they unleash that satellite-mounted solar death beam thing. :)

[Mike B.]

North Korea is not so much a country as an armed camp.

The entire GDP per year for the country is abou $22 billion. Of which close to thrity percent of that is spent on its military. This of course had led to massive starvation in parts of the country.

North Korea will not essentailly bluster and threaten until the US/Japan/South Korea or whoever will give them money. I guess this is how it will be for awhile.

They certainly could cause a lot of death and destruction if they wanted to.

[shuize]

If I were living in Seoul, as much as the missiles would worry me, I think I'd be even more concerned about the 10,000 or so North Korean artillery pieces within (continuous) striking distance of my city.

On a side note, I saw an interesting Japanese news clip from North Korea recently. It suggested that the starvation was even worse than earlier estimates. According to the commentator, with no pesticides and little fertilizer, the situation is only growing more desperate in the North.

When I mentioned this to a South Korean friend and asked him how long things could continue like this before the people revolted against the government, his reply was that he doubted they ever would. After all, he said, if millions starving haven't driven them to revolt, nothing will.

[Frank Newgent]

Originally posted by Seismosaurus

Perhaps a demonstration in a sparsely population area of the North, or a small warhead on the outskirts of the capital.


Oh, don't make me post this. Again.



What is to stop the US from nuking North Korea right now, before their nuclear infrastructure is complete?


1. Cheney's stock portfolio short on kim chee futures.

2. Nuclear Football mistakenly presented to New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick after an upset victory over the favored St. Louis Rams in Super Bowl XXXVI.

3. Mrs. Donald Rumsfeld's recent choice of movie rentals - Judgement at Nuremberg - at Georgetown's BLOCKBUSTER video.

4. Body of leading world religious figure rumored to have been found in the Mideast, resulting in the cancellation of Easter and Attorney General John Ashcroft's declaration: "This changes everything. Go bomb them yourself, you son-of-a-bitch!"

5. Dawning awareness of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il as an ally of the Bush Doctrine with his challenge: "Why should I let contradictions of reality diminish the expression of untruth so grounded in firm metaphysical principle?"

6. Naive amateur Neil Bush in Pyongyang carrying a Bible, a chocolate cake and a Thermos of highly enriched uranium.

7. Unnamed former president inexplicably fingersmeared top-secret recall code in lavatory stall at the dedication of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.