Rosemary: If/when NK invades SK - what, if any, is the U.S. role?

I'm not sure but I suspect Bush and Rumsfeld won't sit on their ass doing nothing, that's a certainty.

If I were running things - I would just flatten their power base before any invasion becomes possible. Of course, that's why I'm not in the Big Chair...

Jeez, do I have to tell you again what happens to those people who look into the crystal ball?

P.S. Scorsese is our greatest living director. That he hasn't won an Oscar is ridiculous.

And not one of those crappy, honorary ones either, please!

I would be really pissed if NK invaded SK and no one did shizzyat about it considering my father was a Korean War vet. Grrr.

Andrea, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

The South Koreans are more than capable of whipping out that famous "can of whoop-ass" on their northern brethren these days.

I was going to make a joke about how we haven't learned anything from M*A*S*H* until I read your comment, Casey.

The North Koreans have about 2 million men ready to roll across the border. The American and South Korean forces cannot match that. What on Earth are you talking about? The NK have the ability to roll in to Seoul any time they have the nerve to do it. It would be a good deal easier than Saddam Hussein rolling into Kuwait, in fact.

Of course, the results of such a move might potentially be disastrous from them. But where do you get this notion that the SK are in any way ready for 2 million men to pour over the DMZ in their direction?

Um, wise man say:
"Training, talent, and hi-tech trump numbers every time." Not to mention that the South can shoot back.

You really blew it this time, Dean. Heh.

NK hasn't been in a shooting war in 50 years, while the South has developed and maintained some of the best ground forces in that part of the globe. The North is a corrupt kleptocracy without the slightest vestige of talent available.

The "Three T's" I mentioned above are enough of an edge by themselves. Add to that the requirement that a modern mechanized army must have logistical support and it's painfully obvious that the North can't cut it. They can't support the civilians, much less the military. Hell, you've spent enough time on your blog talking about how the regime is starving their own people; a country that incompetant will end up killing more of their own soldiers than will the South. And I'd like to hear how the "2 million man 'steamroller'" (is Jesse Jackson involved?) can do much rolling while suffering from malnutrition? Unless maybe they've been told there's a square meal for every man that makes it past the DMZ. Heh.

Actually, Dean, you are mirroring the uninformed position of those who resisted going against Iraq back in '91. Remember all the "fourth largest army in the world, battle-hardened, Republian Guards, oh my!, etc., etc.?" And to be truthful the Iraqi army did have some battle experience, which is always useful. It didn't do them much good. :)

Oh, yes, about the "rolling": on what? You have been paying attention to what PGMs can do these days, haven't you? The North tries to come south on the roads, they get chewed up. Of course, they could try the light infantry option. Two million infantry with what they can carry on their backs against automatic weapons, modern atillery and air support. It'll make World War 1 look nearly antiseptic.

P.S. You really should remove the friendly fire incident as one of the "worst" of the year. Yes, it was a terrible mistake, but it has happened in every war ever fought. And (using my own crystal ball) it will happen in every war ever to be fought. Perhaps replacing it with (say) the revival of organized anti-Semitism in Europe, or the riots in Nigeria over the Miss Universe pagent?

Casey,

You want us to replace something that you feel has happened in every war ever fought and will happen in every war fought. With anti-semitism, something that has always existed in Europe and will continue to exist in Europe for a long, long time...

Irony not just for breakfast anymore...

Well, I don't know that I'm mirroring anything but what I've heard in the news, which is that the South Koreans are worried as hell about this, and that they're outnumbered.

So tell me, if you're that confident it would be a rout, why do we bother with the 30,000 men we have there right now? Why not just pull most of them out if we need them, confident that the South Koreans can handle it with a minimum of involvement with us?

I'm genuinely curious. I don't know enough about the situation over there. Obviously the news doesn't always get these things right. Indeed that's almost certainly a gross understatement.

Although, by the way, Rose has you. Taking something that's happened countless wars (I don't know about "all" though. Do you think there was much "friendly fire" in the days of the phalanx?) and replacing it with something that's been going on for as long as there's been an identifiable "Europe" isn't much of a tradeoff.

It is sad that there's been a notable increase in it, and a notable increase in politicians brushing it off over there, or worse, apologizing for it. But that's been going on for a few years now.

In any case, I stand by the friendly fire incident as one of the worst events for both countries in 2002. For 2002, for America and Canada, it was a high number of casualties, and a complete and utter waste. We owe the Canadians every apology. "These things happen" wouldn't wash if I accidentally ran over your brother, would it?

It's pretty obvious why we have a division in South Korea. They are a concrete guarantee to all parties that if there is a war in Korea the US *will* be involved.

The size of our forces there are rather small compared to the South Korean military.

The real reason the South is afraid of a NK invasion is that there is noplace to fight where there isn't already a large civilian population. Even if the NK army is chewed up, (which is very likely, the SK army appears to be much superior in every way but numbers of infantry) SK civilian populations *will* be caught up in the fighting. There's no way around it. Seoul is within artillery range of NK.

Yes, it's pretty safe to say that there have been "friendly fire" incidents for at least as long as there have been missile weapons.

"Friendly fire", "blue on blue", "own goals" have been a part of war for as long as there has been war. People who have the idea that it happens more often nowadays just prove their ignorance of history. Current incidents are pretty rare- what stands out compared to previous wars is that nowadays we have a remarkable (this is a new thing) ability to actually figure out for sure what happened.

The only thing that's truly increasing is our knowledge of and control over where our bombs and shells *go*, so we can identify friendly fire incidents after the fact. It may seem like we have more proven friendly fire incidents, but the overall number of occurances is way down (along with other things like civilian casualties).

I was going to stay on my sabbatical for a little longer, but I just can't resist military-history type stuff, so I'll break the rule just for this topic for now. :)

After my last post, I found out that NK did have a very healthy amount of artillery targeted on Seoul, as Greg Yantz pointed out. This is not good.

Greg has also accurately pointed out why we have troops in Korea: they're hostages. The idea is that if NK starts a major war, US troops get killed, and it's easier to get citizens behind defending SK. Same thing for troops in Germany. The sad thing is that we really don't need to post troops in places like Japan, Korea and Germany these days. The Cold War is over and those countries are more than capable of defending themselves. Ok, so SK has a fair challange in front of it.

To go back to the original thread: if asked, I would not use the word "rout". I admit I referred to "can of whoop-ass" with my tounge in my cheek. :) I prefer "decisively defeated" over "rout".

Some numbers: I encountered a UPI story that contained current levels: http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030108-123651-8589r which lists NK at 1 million men in uniform compared to 700,000 for the South. But let's use your original number of 2 million.

Miltary historian Trevor Dupuy has done extensive work on quantifying wargaming, and has come closer than anyone else in succeeding. One of his findings is that there are factors besides just counting heads. For example, (all else being equal) a defender "counts" for nearly twice as much as an attacker. In other words, 2,000 defenders are (roughly) equal to 4,000 attackers. A good real-world example is the American Civil War: this is one of the reasons that it took the North so long to win, even though they outnumbered the South 2-to-1. From Dupuy's work, that makes them about even.

Same thing with Korea. Given 2,000,000-to-700,000, the effective comparison should be 2 million to 1.4 million. Not quite so overwhelming, yes? Add to this the qualitative difference considering that NK has had no warfighting experience since 1952, and SK was involved with the Vietnam war (and has had continual experience with modern US training methods), and the match is at least even.

Then (to paraphrase Austin Bay on www.strategypage.com) we have to consider the "brittle" nature of the NK armed forces. They have grown up under a brutally repressive regime and are reputedly starving. This is not how you get a good soldier. They are highly likely to break apart when they encounter professional resistance. I admit this isn't guarenteed; just very probable.

Add to all this the near certainty that NK would encounter at least US air support of SK and it's looking pretty bleak for the North...

But (again) as Greg has pointed out, Seoul is in the way. I'm sure the South is thinking of the collateral damage they'll suffer in the face of a Northern attack. Which addresses your question of "what about all those articles?", I think. [grin]

To sum up: Yes, there are good reasons for the South to be concerned. No, the ultimate outcome won't be in doubt.

Rosemary: while I admit that we can't in principle verify that friendly-fire has happened in every war, I will stand by the revised statement virtually every war. Certainly there are certain conditions that would inhibit or exacerbate incidents for a given period.

Terming it my "belief" doesn't invalidate the historical fact that keeping track of who's where, and on what side, has been a problem since organized warfare has existed. (Yes, Dean, even with the phalanx [grin]) In fact the difficulty of telling friend from foe is the root of a wide variety of deceptions since Biblical times.

However, that isn't really why I replied. I was going to admit that you had a point, until something occured to me:

A soldier, much like a police officer or firefighter, is member of a profession which is by its very nature dangerous. They can reasonably expect the chance - which may vary according to circumstance - of being injured or killed during the normal conduct of their duties. Expect it.

Is it reasonable for someone in (say) Europe to have the same expectation just for following Judaism? Yes, there used to be pogroms in Europe. Are we to consider them normal for Jews? What's next, burning witches alive?

Dean, you mention the "high number of casualties"; four Canadian soldiers were killed. Just four. Yes, I'm sorry it happened, and I feel for their families, but it was literally the fortunes of war. Calling this a tragedy just cheapens the use of the word in the same way that many people have overused the term "war crime", to the point where a journalist can - with a straight face - put the words "Israel" and "war crime" in the same sentance after soldiers knock down some houses.

But I do strongly agree that we owe the surviving family members more than apology. Since the sequence of events was was (in this case) terribly clear, I think it only fair that those people get the same benefits that the family of an American soldier would get. It's the least we can do.