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Thunder Run to Seoul: Assessing North Korea’s War Plan
- pdelbarba 10y agoIt's an interesting read if you're into the nuts and bolts of modern warfare. The key assumption is that the DPRK actually has any ambition of attacking the ROK though. They'll scream and carry on until they get their sanctions lifted and, in their minds, come out of the whole thing a nuclear power. Now those running tomorrow's senate briefing on the other hand... Edit: it's also worth noting that they're playing a somewhat "smart" long game here. They won't likely do much until they're confident that they can convince the world they have ICBM capabilities. At that point, they no longer have to just menace the ROK or Japan but can realistically extort anyone they want.
- WillyOnWheels 10y agoI don't think DPRK really wants to nuke anyone. They just look at countries in the last 30 years and look at their options: Libya: Gave up their WMDs, Libya government gone. Ukraine: Gave up their nukes, Russia invaded (I admit this is a bit contrived) Iraq: Didn't have nukes, Iraqi government gone. Pakistan: Has nukes, is incredibly unstable, still there!
- pdelbarba 10y agoThat's pretty much my point. Short range nukes = a few countries forced to cooperate. Long range nukes = all countries forced to cooperate. Edit: interesting comparison with the noted countries BTW.
- WillyOnWheels 10y agoThere is a Twitter account from a right leaning Westerner(as in he occasionally favors a military solution to NK politics, writes policy papers for a think tank) in Seoul who speaks and reads Korean, reads all of the North Korean press releases, he claims that the NK government is the sanest government around. They want to stay in power. Everything they do, in their mind, furthers this goal. They don't want to be regime-changed! I'll see if I can find his URL again.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- lettergram 10y agoYou can also look at places like South African. Where the government gave up nukes, transitioned to a different government, and everything was fine (internationally)
- tcoppi 10y agoThis leaves out some issues such as likely targeting of Japan by DPRK, but otherwise a clear-headed analysis of the dark and sobering reality there.
- pm90 10y agoThis is a pretty reasoned article. One thing I have never understood: why can't China and the US join forces and militarily overrun DPRK? I know they fought each other in the Korean war, but the world has changed so drastically since then. From what I've read so far, DPRK is a source of dangerous instability for everyone involved. Wouldn't having a more stable regime on the Korean peninsula serve the interests of all neighboring countries?
- pdelbarba 10y agoChina does not want the US building military bases a few miles south of their border. Additionally, in the event of a conflict with the US directly, the DPRK will almost certainly seize the opportunity to cause havoc on the peninsula and therefore divert US/NATO resources away from a Chinese/US conflict. One could argue that the US wouldn't need to maintain bases on the peninsula after the fall of the DPRK, but with the situation in the South China Sea, we'd be stupid not to and even if we agreed with China that we wouldn't, they don't have a lot of reason to trust we'd hold up our end of the bargain given our history.
- vkou 10y agoDPRK is a buffer state for China. The United States lost its mind when communism established a foothold in Cuba. Russia did likewise when Ukraine began aligning towards NATO. China would prefer to have a stable regime in DPRK - but it would also prefer to not have US military bases on the other side of the Yalu river. The last time that happened, the two countries went to war. Also, arguably, the DPRK regime is extremely 'stable'. The same royal family has ruled it for what, seven decades, now?
- jacquesm 10y agoIt's stable right up until it is no longer stable just as much as a boat that has been afloat for 70 years can't sink. The current leadership does not strike me as 'stable' in any way. But then again, that goes for more world leaders.
- arwhatever 10y agoShould some of the stunts they have pulled during that time be considered when defining "stable?"
- sytelus 10y agoThe article surprisingly leaves out Russia altogether. In essence, Russia is the "father" of DPRK and its hard to think that it would sit around quite when DPRK is losing. Another big factor is that DPRK would have no qualms in attacking civilian population in Seoul using missiles and artillery and in fact that's what they would focus on in order to terrorize and put RPK+US on defensive. A single bomb can do much more damage in Seoul then in Pyongyang. Air supremacy is irrelevant more or less as the distances are small and war on ground would be much more deciding factor. They can probably use chemical weapon warheads as well. All these things RPK+US won't be at liberty to do to DPRK but even if they could the DPRK would care less about its civilian population perishing en-mass. Finally, atomic threat is very real one for RPK. If everything is going in the ditch, they can try to transport one single warhead in to a city using even ground vehicles (if missiles aren't working yet). On the other hand, using nukes on DPRK by US would have almost no impact on its leaders mindset.
- ng12 10y agoWell the USSR was the father of North Korea -- and the two had a falling out in the 1980's. North Korea was much closer to China for most of it's history.
- sytelus 10y agoRussia is the more friendly country than China according to DPRK's own assessment. Russia has very significant vested economic and political interests in DPRK remaining in place. China and Russia are the two major countries that do not technically participate in sanctions against DPRK (although they may agree on "paper") and which is why DPRK is able to survive at all. It would be hard to think of Russia just sitting quite when US is taking over one of the major sized country with tons of natural resources right on its border. See http://thediplomat.com/2017/02/russias-love-affair-with-north-korea/ http://thediplomat.com/2017/02/russias-love-affair-with-nort...
- ng12 10y agoYes, modern Russia has economic interest in NK (specifically providing energy in return for hard labor). But pretending Russia is the patron of North Korea is simply disingenuous. USSR/DPRK relations were broken after the USSR/China split, and then again after the USSR dissolved Russia cut all ties to NK. Do you have a source for USSR providing military equipment to NK? I'm skeptical.
- jgable 10y agoA bit OT: does anyone have recommendations for textbooks or other resources that teach basic military strategy and tactics? Whenever any military discussion comes up that even touches technical aspects, I feel pretty lost. Similar to how with certain sports, I just can't see the movement patterns or how the plays develop.
- pdelbarba 10y agoTom Clancy's old books (not the garbage that used his name recently). Start with Red Storm Rising and then go through the Jack Ryan series beginning with The Hunt For Red October. You'll find his political views slightly odd if you're younger, but his military knowledge is unparalleled. Edit: for the HN crowd especially, his detailed descriptions of weapon systems and politics are pretty amazing. You can argue he predicted the Russian annexation of Crimea among other things.
- protomyth 10y agoHis description of everything was, well, detailed, as I remember a credit card scene that had some length to it. Red Storm Rising[1] was effectively co-written with Larry Bond who is the game designer behind Harpoon. He has written his own books with one being Red Phoenix dealing with a Korean conflict. > You'll find his political views slightly odd if you're younger not so much with a lot of surveys dealing with conservatives and youth 1) It should be noted that Red Storm Rising occurred before the F-117 was actually revealed so the book has a description of the rumored F-19 in the chapter "The Frisbees of Dreamland" but the tactics were what was written about (kill other sides AWACS). Bill Sweetnam had some alternate views.
- panglott 10y agoI guess everybody's supposed to read Clausewitz and play wargames. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_War http://www.consimworld.com/ http://www.consimworld.com/
- tcoppi 10y ago
- charles-salvia 10y agoThe assessment predicts: "Tens or hundreds of thousands could become casualties" ... in the event of an all-out DRPK/(US+ROK) conflict. One factor to consider here is what happens if no conflict occurs? In that case, there are ... still likely tens of thousands of civilian deaths happening as the status quo in North Korean labor camps[1]. Allowing the regime to continue to exist also has a major cost in human lives. I'm not saying war is clearly a superior option - I'm saying this whole situation is mostly losses. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisons_in_North_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisons_in_North_Korea
- 0xfeba 10y agoI think one of the major reasons no one does anything about it, ignoring the buffer China enjoys from the US (via proxy), is the humanitarian crisis from the entire NK population after the war is over. Who is going to help them? China? SK?
- antimatter 10y ago> Who is going to help them? China? SK? Most likely? The US taxpayers.
- vkou 10y agoDoubtful. If Iraq is any indication, US reconstruction money is as likely to be stolen by the contractors, as it is not.
- lettergram 10y agoSouth Korea already has plans in place for that. I can't find the article at the moment, but they feel super bad for and about North Korea and really want to help if they could
- panglott 10y agoEverything I've read about a postwar reconstruction of North Korea says that the costs would be much, much greater than the integration of East and West Germany. Not only assuming that a hot war would have serious consequences to the economy of South Korea.
- Animats 10y agoThe key thing here is the geography. Seoul is only 20 miles from the border with North Korea. It's within artillery range, and North Korea has the necessary artillery. If there's a war, Seoul gets clobbered in the first minutes. Few countries have their capital that close to a hostile border. Syria does. Look where Damascus is.
- jacquesm 10y ago> If there's a war, Seoul gets clobbered in the first minutes. Alternatively, that artillery gets clobbered in the first minutes.
- smacktoward 10y agoThe artillery pieces aren't sitting around in the open waiting to be bombed; they're deeply dug in, inside fortifications the North has been building on its side of the border for decades. It would be very difficult to neutralize it from the air before it could do real damage without resort to something like nuclear weapons.
- jacquesm 10y agoRemember that MOAB the other day? Who do you think that message was aimed at?
- pdelbarba 10y agoThe artillery threat is well known so I can only assume that they have some cruise missile/counter-battery forces sighted in to destroy the current installations immediately. That just leaves lighter mobile artillery which can still be destroyed via radar counter-battery, albeit more slowly.
- tcoppi 10y agoHere's a decent analysis of the artillery situation https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/how-north-korea-would-retaliate https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/how-north-korea-would-reta... TL;DR; DPRK can probably get off at least one good barrage, not enough to level Seoul but it would hurt.
- panglott 10y ago"The final element in the DPRK plan is an extensive deep battle across the entire South Korean depth using some one hundred thousand special operations forces (SOF). An interesting feature of this war is that since both sides look and speak more or less alike, covert insertion and operation is easier for each side—but especially so for North Korean agents who may move freely within South Korea’s open society. ... As with artillery strikes, fighting by SOF on objectives in Seoul will be aimed at heightening panic and demoralizing political leadership, and will be exploited by DPRK information warfare agencies to give the impression that the front has already reached the ROK capital." This is an interesting point: every major terrorist attack of the Twitter age sees wild rumors flying. An actual DPRK invasion combined with cyberwarfare could yield a campaign of information warfare like nothing we've seen before.
- lurker456 10y agoI'm not sure that's still true based on the stories of malnutrition in NK, even for their own military. Considering the cultural differences, a few pop quiz questions might be enough as well.
- ilamont 10y agolocal breakthroughs on the major routes towards Seoul—their first operational objective. Playing devil's advocate: How do we know Seoul is the operational objective? It seems obvious (capital city located near the border) but what if DPRK went for something not so obvious? i.e. "Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected" (classic Sun/Mao approach) Also, what if Pyongyang tries to draw in a sympathetic third party that would also give the US/ROK pause? China is the obvious choice, but there is also Russia ... An interesting feature of this war is that since both sides look and speak more or less alike, covert insertion and operation is easier for each side—but especially so for North Korean agents who may move freely within South Korea’s open society. In the 1990s I remember reading an account of North Korean special forces landing by submarine and trying to infiltrate ... and immediately being tripped up by unfamiliarity with modern technology. One of the captured agents had no idea every farmhouse had a phone, and was therefore surprised that the alarm was raised as soon as they were spotted. There is still a huge technology divide, not to mention social giveaways relating to accents and other behavior. Sure, they can be trained, but it won't make them impervious to detection.
- aphextron 10y ago>Playing devil's advocate: How do we know Seoul is the operational objective? It seems obvious (capital city located near the border) but what if DPRK went for something not so obvious? Such as what? Taking control of Seoul under the element of surprise is the only conceivable endgame for a DPRK invasion. Anything else would end in a protracted fight where US air superiority would absolutely demolish them. >In the 1990s I remember reading an account of North Korean special forces landing by submarine and trying to infiltrate ... and immediately being tripped up by unfamiliarity with modern technology. One of the captured agents had no idea every farmhouse had a phone, and was therefore surprised that the alarm was raised as soon as they were spotted. This sounds like propaganda. North Koreans are not stupid.
- ilamont 10y agoIt was this incident: http://www.newsweek.com/reds-rocks-178000 http://www.newsweek.com/reds-rocks-178000 Other accounts did mention the agent was surprised that farmers would have a telephone. He also did not or could not hide his North Korean accent, as the article states.
- etheric 10y agoI found this article to be an interesting read on what a war with NK might look like http://defconwarningsystem.com/2017/03/25/what-a-korean-war-could-look-like/ http://defconwarningsystem.com/2017/03/25/what-a-korean-war-... Essentially NK would use every weapon they can and China would be the only winner.
- tcoppi 10y agoThis and the OP both discount the small, but very real possibility of conflict escalation with China, completely unintended by both sides. If China enters militarily(big if, given recent statements) on the side of DPRK and the conflict has escalated to using nukes, it will be very hard for it to not spiral out of control into a full-on regional, if not worldwide, war.
- smacktoward 10y agoIt's important to note as well that Chinese intervention isn't a binary, fully-on or fully-off kind of thing; it's possible to imagine various degrees of intervention. One that seems likely to me in this kind of scenario, for instance, would be for Chinese forces to move in to uphold the integrity of the pre-war border. Allied forces would be free to push the North Koreans out of South Korean territory; but if they tried to push beyond that towards Korean reunification or some kind of territorial gain at the North's expense, they'd have to fight Chinese troops to do it. This would let the Chinese get involved but still pose as a neutral arbitrator rather than a direct combatant or contributor to escalation, since their nominal goal would be resumption of the status quo ante bellum.
- tcoppi 10y agoI think this is probably how the Chinese intervention, if they choose to intervene, would start, to restore the current DPRK/ROK border after a ROK/US incursion into the North. It seems likely that if that happens, DPRK would escalate with nukes in order to force China's hand into full intervention on their behalf, as USA's current doctrine, to the best of unclass knowledge, is to respond in kind to nuclear aggression. Once that happens all bets are off, unfortunately. I don't see how it ends well for anyone once China decides to get involved, given the current doctrines and state of military technology.
- gricardo99 10y agoThe bottom-line seems to be there's a huge range of plausible outcomes, from a relatively contained, short war to multiple WMD strikes on cities (Seoul, Tokyo, NYC, etc..) with prolonged fighting for months (years?) to finally defeat all DPRK forces. And this is why the situation persists. No sane person will risk the consequences of "the war is not going as well as we hoped it would"
- AcerbicZero 10y agoA reasonable, if somewhat short, overview of the topic, although a bit generous when discussing the air power situation over Korea. Smashing older Russian SAM sites is almost an American pastime at this point, and I have serious doubts the KPAF would put up anything beyond token resistance in the air. The author also skims over the massive leaps in lethality on the modern battlefield. It's difficult to stress this enough, but T-54's and T-62's do not have a long life span under these conditions. So the DPRK would need to achieve total surprise, fight ~20 miles to Seoul against an opponent who is equipped with mostly modern weapons, and who has planned for this very attack. They also need to do this with no air support, little to no armored support, and limited night fighting capabilities.
- pdelbarba 10y agoIt's in many ways similar to the first Iraq War in the sense that all the old eastern-bloc equipment is specifically what the following generation of US equipment was precisely designed to destroy with great speed. The US was worried about Russian tanks rolling across Europe in greater numbers than their anti tank missiles could handle so they developed the A-10 and various other systems to stem the flow and support such operations (anti-radiation missiles, etc). 40 years later, the US still comes up against those systems with some regularity.
- AcerbicZero 10y agoI agree. The only comparison I could come up with, when trying to explain the lethality of the modern battlefield was the "highway of death" situation during the Iraqi retreat from Kuwait. I'd expect this to turn out much the same, but worse, as that kind of destruction would occur during the attack, and then be continued during the inevitable rout.
- charles-salvia 10y agoObviously the DRPK stands no chance of tactical victory in any sense. But they have a very good chance of just saying "fuck it", and causing arbitrary damage and mass civilian casualties on the order of dozens of September 11 attacks. It's basically the nation-state scale equivalent of the fact that a single lone shooter can hurt a lot of people before the police take him out.
- WillyOnWheels 10y agoThis reporter, who grew up in Korea but doesn't read Korean, and was given honorary citizenship by a city in South Korea, writes that ordinary South Korean citizens think the military threat of North Korea is really a North Korea versus United States thing, and not really a conflict between North Korea and South Korea. South Koreans are more focused on what sort of government will be in power after elections on May 9th, after the craziness of the most recent government. https://www.thenation.com/article/in-south-korea-war-hysteria-is-seen-as-an-american-problem/ https://www.thenation.com/article/in-south-korea-war-hysteri...
- tiatia 10y agoNorth Korea, like the Sow jet Union, has fought a war that the US can not imagine. They fought a war in which they lost 10% of the population. If the US would lose 32 Million in a war maybe the US would lose the taste for war too. Not going to judge their outdated equipment. But they will fight. This a not Arabic troops from tribal societies who will run as soon as they are given the chance. In fact, North Korea CAN NOT lose this war. They have not lost the last one, they won't lose the next. North Korea is too important for both, China and Russia as a buffer country. Both countries have moved a lot of troops recently near North Korea. If there is a conflict we may seem a regime change (supported but Russia and China). What we are not gong to see is a US occupied united Korea. One risk with Trumps pressure is they it works two ways. North Korea could reasonably assume that they will loose most equipment if the US attacks. So why not attack first? Use it or lose it. The safest place for a rocket or artillery shell is still in the air....
- dba7dba 10y agoNorth Korea DID lose the war in 1950, in a way. After Incheon Landing, the North Korean army never really recovered. The majority of fighting power for north side was from Chinese army. The reason UN Forces got pushed back and couldn't advance was because of the human wave attacks from Chinese army.
- tiatia 10y agoWell, so it did definitely NOT lose. The same reason why it won't lose the next war. A Chinese/Russian brokered Regime change is still a possibility. But Kim is not an idiot. He had his brother killed just to eliminate one of the options for a regime change.
- panglott 10y agoClearly North Korea's strategy here is deterrence of an invasion rather than an invasion. Looks like deterrence is effective.