Since I live in the traitorous South Korea, I am following this situation closely. Generally, Koreans here don't give a shit, because they have heard it all before. However, this is as tense as it has ever been. Some of them are starting to worry, and the local papers are dragging up stuff like the possibility of the military commandeering private cars. The military guys are not ignoring this at all, their opinion is that something will happen they just don't know when. An interesting complication is the Chinese troop movements on the NK border. No one really knows what this means, but the idea of a Chinese-led regime change is starting to sound appealing. They install a puppet that they can control and the status quo remains. Culturally speaking, this nonsense furthers the Koream inferiority complex. No other place tolerates this kind of bullshit from a country not named Murica. They are sick of it, and no government policy enjoys popularity regarding NK. The sunshine policy of the former president now seems like a waste of money, since they closed the industrial plant. From a humanitarian standpoint, this is a continuing nightmare. The US is preparing for a failed state in NK, and threatening the US with nuclear war, in a post-Iraq, Chavez-less, world probably sealed this regime's fate. Focus: North Korea. Do you have any information? Are you preparing for combat or do you think it will fizzle out?
Bomb em all. Spoilered for size and awesomeness. Spoiler I sure hope nothing comes of this, some of my veteran friends are already talking about reenlisting.
What kind of focus is that, downdirty? Are we preparing for combat? The only thing were preparing is a bag a popcorn, hoping that North Korea pushes this thing a little too far. Its not going to go nuclear, at least not from the US. Worst-case scenario is sending a few fuel-air bombs and tomahawk cruise missiles at Pyongyang. Arguably, Sino-American relations are probably better now then they have been in a while. Its done nothing but help diplomatic relations.
From what I have seen, North Korea has near- Radio Shack technology. CNN: colossal assholes that they are are treating their so-called mobile missile system like DefCon. Their missles have NO guidence system and NO tail fins! Yet they're going to wipe out Guam by randomly firing these things at the Pacific Ocean? They are treating this shit like America has no defence system at all, a country with a military capacity that's as large as the next 13 most powerful military forces combined. North Korea is NO threat to the United States. NONE. Now being next door to this is a different story. That North/South border is regularly the most tense place on earth and all it may take is one shot fired for the killing to begin. The North could have anywhere from two to four times the amount of troops that south have at the border right now.
Give me some shock and awe, fuck North Korea. The high ranking leadership deserve what comes to them and the regular people who are forced to live there deserve running water and electricity. Hell lets go crazy, food would be good to.
Well it seems like they have the technology to make shit happen: Edit-Crown pretty much beat me to it. Motherfuck.
N. Korea doesn't have anything that can reach mainland U.S. We're moving missle defense systems into the region to swat whatever bullshit they send up out of the sky (which we already proved that we could do when we blasted to satellite re-entering the atmosphere a few years back). Frankly, let China deal with them. We'll protect our allies and our interests, but we've been doing the whole regime change thing for a while now. We've got a lot of puppets and not enough hands. Let someone else take this one.
This is not an evil country. It's an evil family. A family that has convinced their slave population that they are is a cosmic battle for their God against the evil imperialists that surround them, an evil so powerful that if you were to touch literature from the outside world, your hands would rot off. Nothing goes in, nothing goes out and only one prospers from it. It's sick beyond belief.
Well SHIT!! In Danger Boy's pic, I just realized they're using the same computer mouse that I'm currently using. Seriously gotta upgrade this stuff....
Exactly. The biggest threat from the NK perspective isnt an American nuclear retaliation. Theres no way the US will be willing to vaporize the majority of a 23 million strong population (99.99% of which are basically innocent) and allow fallout to drift into China, SK, Japan, etc, and the NK brass knows it. The biggest threat is American force projection, basically the ability to put a massive amount of boots and bombs on the ground anywhere in the world in a relatively short period of time. Sure NK might get lucky and take out Guam, but are they willing to contend with: -22 Navy Cruisers and 60 Destroyers -10 Aircraft carriers -Largest Air Force -Second largest active ground force -And hey, if it came to nuclear- Nuclear submarines that can operate for over 10 years without the need to refuel. 20 of which are Ohio-class and have a payload level of 24 Trident SLBM missiles that each hold up to 8 MIRV (multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle) nuclear warheads with a 5000 mile range. Meaning, a single sub in the Gulf of Mexico can wipe out all of North Korea, smalls parts each of China, Mongolia, and Russia with one launch. Enjoy your freedom boners.
Speaking with a buddy of mine who has been teaching English in S. Korea for a couple of years, that is essentially how much of the South views the North. They don't hate the country, but they hate the government because they haven't been able to connect with their families to the North in over half a century now. The regime being crazy is nothing new to them. From what I've read, it sounds like this is Kim Jong Un posturing himself as a hardass to win the respect of his brainwashed masses. He can't win a war against us, but he can't appear as weak either.
If this goes to combat, a lot of people are going to die and that sucks. I believe we still have our screening force on the border and that's something like 28,500 soldiers. North Korea might not hit us with nukes, they might not win, but they can definitely fuck some shit up on the ground in a spasm of bad tech fury. Not to mention, it's not like we'll nuke them regardless. If it goes bad we'll bomb the shit out of them, potentially, but we're not going to glass the country and kill off millions of downtrodden victims of the Kim regime.
Everytime I heard of the potential "might" of NK's army, I just think of the Iraqi Republican Guard which was supposedly fearsome but then folded like a wet paper bag. Given their pathetic missile technology and the laughable backwards nature of some of their outward facing technology, I would imagine they would be worse. One never wishes for war because it inevitable leads to loss of life, but this is one of those situations where you almost dare NK to do something, anything, cause they deserve to be fucking bitch slapped. We don't need to set up a shell government, but blowing some shit up and then getting humanitarian aid into a country that is 50 years behind the times would be nice, if not wrought with challenges from an implementation standpoint.
If that happened, maybe South Korea could do a lot of the implementation as a reunification effort so we don't bear the brunt of the logistics. Might also keep China from taking as much advantage.
Is the assumption that post-war, it would become South Korea's problem? Because I don't think Americans are that eager to occupy another country these days.