The new old war in Korea

[kandrathe]

North Korea is not exactly humanitarian when it comes to their populace. They want to rule ("unite") Korea, but they quite obviously have no regard for the lives of Koreans, nor the quality of life under their rule. If a few million dead and a little nuclear fallout was the price to pay for conquering the South, I have no doubt they would have paid it by now.

If China would just cut them off, this pariah state would finally fall, or just explode. They probably aren't as brutal as our propaganda portrays them, and if they had the means of providing for their people better and maintaining their totalitarian state they would. But, their prime motivation has been to maintain the totalitarian state at all costs.

What deters them is the essential certainty that the would be destroyed by even trying. I don't think that the North Koreans have enough force to decisively beat the South, without any intervention at all.

Probably true, however I can't solidly count on their rationality here. They are often unpredictable, ergo, irrational.

Their troop numbers are impressive, but they have serious problems with their economy, their technology. They are not as strong as they appear.

We may be over estimating their deprivation, and under estimating their motivation. I agree though that from our point of view, they appear to have deep supply trouble within their forces and low morale.

South Korea, by contrast, is a rich, highly militarized, technological marvel. They have a smoothly functioning government, over half a million people under arms with millions more in reserve, and a fully modern army. Worldwide, they spend the 11th most on their military, 24 billion per year. That's almost the *total GDP* of North Korea, which is only 28 billion. The North is economically outclassed. If Seoul wasn't so close to the border, the South would hold all the aces.

The US has worked hard to modernize the Korean forces. They have most of the technology, and innovations that we do. They are a significant force.

Defensively, while an invasion of NK would probably cause a nationalistic reaction, they are reviled in SK, which would call up the entirety of its impressive army in a defensive war of survival. I don't think North Korea has the strength to defeat that, except at the cost of mutual annihilation.

I doubt SK would strike NK first. The US maybe would, and it would be a blitzkrieg of unimaginable speed and precision using every conventional weapon in our arsenal. It would be paramount for a successful strike to cripple their communication, command and control structure almost immediately. One concern would be NK's CBW capabilities.

I think the North Koreans understand full well how hopeless a fight would be. They maintain their level of militarization as the necessary safeguard against internal rebellion, and to prevent the US or South Korea from getting any ideas about attacking.

I think the North Koreans are mostly kept intentionally ignorant of what is happening. They never knew about the little skirmish where SK kicked their butts last November, and know little about the sinking of the SK ship except perhaps they've been falsely accused. I'm sure from their perspective the outside world seems hostile, unjustly causing deprivation and suffering for their country.