Why doesn't the US invade North Korea

Manic Moran · 15-02-2012 11:28pm

The nice thing about DPRK is that they really aren't in a position to affect very much. They aren't going to stop the regional export of rice, for example, nor can they really destabilise a fairly stable region. Further, any country that they might take a crack at, such as RoK or Japan are both extremely capable on their own bat, and with US support the result would be a foregone conclusion.

Basically, in addition to the issues of simply having a really, really big military, DPRK is already pretty contained.

NTM

alandublin33 · 15-02-2012 11:34pm

the reason is north Korea has the second largest army in the world plus plenty of those nuclear things plus it would annoy China a bit too , and if that happened we could all say bye now! and me you , everyone else and everything would no longer exist , even boards would be gone!

Zombrex · 16-02-2012 1:07am

North Korea has a massive army with technology supplied by the USSR and China. This technology has dated in recent years abut all N.K did was replace that with biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, and they ain't following standards of how they should be used.

The idea that America could just walk into the country is frankly laughable. They would probably have better luck invading China, China at least would be less likely to set nukes off in their own country.

Solair · 16-02-2012 1:11am

1) It has no oil
2) It has no oil
3) It has no oil
4) It would REALLY make the Chinese VERY angry.

The popular Chinese hobby of "North Korea Gawking" is keeping a close eye on it.
There's now a significant industry involving looking at North Korea through telescopes, binoculars and long-lens cameras!

Zombrex · 16-02-2012 1:16am

Solair wrote: »

1) It has no oil
2) It has no oil
3) It has no oil
4) It would REALLY make the Chinese VERY angry.

I think you mean

1) They would lose
2) They would lose
3) They would lose
4) It would REALLY make the Chinese VERY angry.

Solair · 16-02-2012 1:18am

But, basically it has no oil, it has no control over oil and it has nothing the US particularly has any interests in.

It's more of a problem for China and South Korea.

China will more than likely keep NK in check anyway as it has absolutely no intention of having any wars or nuclear bombs going off on its door step.

I get the impression China just sees NK as a bit annoying. If it does anything to undermine China's interests, you can be sure it will deal with it.

Bear in mind that China controls most of NK's energy supplies.

Zombrex · 16-02-2012 1:26am

Solair wrote: »

But, basically it has no oil, it has no control over oil and it has nothing the US particularly has any interests in.

It's more of a problem for China and South Korea.

It is some what of a myth that America fights wars over oil. Gets the CIA to mess around in the country, maybe over throw the government sure. But that is relatively cheap. A war on the other hand isn't. The economics don't stand up when you look at the cost of an actual war.

America would love to take out North Korea if it could, it has nukes that some day could reach the western sea board of the USA.

But it knows it cannot. The NK army is too large, the most the US could hope for is stealth bombing runs to knock out key infrastructure.

Manach · 16-02-2012 1:41am

I'd disagree with here. The US has experience winning against mass armies using Soviet era arms and doctrine. For instance in Iraq.
It also has a excellent combined arms force, that is literally best in the world.
Saying that, the US seems incapable of winning the peace - creating a stable nation post invasion. Besides given how much debt the US owes the Chinese, they could not afford a war.

vard · 16-02-2012 1:43am

Mutually Assured Destruction.

RandomName2 · 16-02-2012 10:18am

Border-Rat wrote: »

But y'see todays US technology and the US Airforce could defeat them in 2 hours.

ffs by that stage Seoul would be leveled.

Ah, I suppose it doesn't matter, I'm pretty sure that you are just posting as a US bashing exercise in the first place.

RiseToTheTop · 16-02-2012 12:13pm

It's amazing how China just stand by while North Korea lets it's civilians starve to death. In the late 90's an estimated 2-3 million North Korean citizens perished, all the while the Kim-Il Sungs and Kim Jong-Il's have giant statues of them put up in Pyongang, they show themselves as Gods.

An earlier post in this thread compared the US invading North Korea to China invading Canada or Mexico. I'm sorry, but i'd like to think that if Mexico or Canada was having a famine, and this famine was happening because of the dictatorship, the US would do something about it. Plus i'd say they would.

I'm sorry, but nothing would satisfy me more than having the Kim family getting blown out of the water. Leave the statues unscathed by the bombs so the people can tear them down and piss on them :mad:

nacho libre · 16-02-2012 8:09pm

to paraphrase Dick Cheney in an interview:
You don't enter wars where the military cost is going to be politically unsustainable. For all his lies, he was telling the truth on that occasion.

RichieC · 16-02-2012 8:59pm

Manic Moran wrote: »

The nice thing about DPRK is that they really aren't in a position to affect very much. They aren't going to stop the regional export of rice, for example, nor can they really destabilise a fairly stable region. Further, any country that they might take a crack at, such as RoK or Japan are both extremely capable on their own bat, and with US support the result would be a foregone conclusion.

Basically, in addition to the issues of simply having a really, really big military, DPRK is already pretty contained.

NTM

People should bare this in mind when "human rights abuses" are cited against Iran.

KIERAN1 · 16-02-2012 9:03pm

Economically, South Korea is a wealthy nation and can supports their people without the need of foreign assistance. South Korea is also an independent state and westernised due to American influence in the region. Any attack on North Korea by the United States would be seen as been akin to madness without provocation. A serious clash or war between South and North Korea would undoubtedly setback the South Korean economy for tens of years and cause rapid high fluctuations to the worlds markets.

North Korea army is not well-equipped most of the technology they have is early 60's What they do have is missiles and rockets more then enough to wreck havoc on South Korea's cities towns and villages thus inflicting thousands of casualties, civilian and military, on South Korea.

There also has been since 27 July 1953, been an armistice agreement adhered to by North and South Korea. Any serious attack on North Korea would end this agreement immediately. America, has been there and done that with the Korean war, that conflict did not end too well in the end for the United States. So another conflict in that region isn't likely to happen any time soon unless provoked by the other side. Also North Korea allegedly has "Nuclear" weapons how many and how usable they are is anyone's estimation. But an Invasion of North Korea the regime has nothing to lose then so it might use them if things go really bad?

And lastly any invasion or air attack on North Korea would not please the Chinese. The last time American forces entered North Korea the Chinese took the calculated risk of supporting North Korea and the regime then. The Chinese engaged and eventually successfully pushed back the UN forces who then were under the leadership of the United States military from North Korea. The Chinese forces did all this with a force of 190.000, but they were ill-equipped and had less weaponry to their United States counterparts. The Chinese military while still behind the United States military with weaponry, military hardware and technology today. Its advanced enough still to win a conventional war if the situation arose. But a non-limited war between one superpower and emerging superpower mostly likely will lead to use of Nuclear Weapons if military frustration sets in.

Mr.Micro · 16-02-2012 10:02pm

nacho libre wrote: »

to paraphrase Dick Cheney in an interview:
You don't enter wars where the military cost is going to be politically unsustainable. For all his lies, he was telling the truth on that occasion.

He must have not been well that day.:D

Eggy Baby! · 27-02-2012 1:53am

The main reason is that China does not want tens of millions of North Korean refugees fleeing across its border. That's why it provides free electricity and so forth to them to prevent the country from collapsing.

Plus, in a war, North Korea would certainly not be a pushover. And the PR of such a war would be catastrophic, no matter how good the American spin doctors wind this one up.

27-02-2012 2:21pm

OP-There are many, many reasons why the US wouldn't attack North Korea, but i'd say the main reason is the fact that if the conditions necessary for it to happen were to occur, it would be a ready-made recepie for world war 3. America's military, logistical, and political allies, which it would need to wage such a campaign, just wouldn't go for it.

America is currently stony broke and probably couldn't afford to finance such a war now without logistical and financial support from China (one of their largest trade partners AND creditors) and military and naval support from the EU allies, especially Britain and it's fleet of Nuclear subs.

Firstly, the EU is not exactly flush with spare cash at the moment, and its still smarting politically from the PR disaster that was the Iraq war. European leaders would be very unlikely to agree to support such a move in any great measure, even if the justification for invasion was sound (which it's not). Apart from the sheer financial cost and utter recklessness of it, the UN members would never sanction it.

Add to that the fact that China (a fledgling superpower and economic powerhouse) probably has most to lose in a war with North Korea and you can see the likelihood that they would have strong reservations about offering their support. The two countries' capitals are only about 500 miles apart, and their borders are easily within the range of the other's ICBMs, air forces, or an invading ground force's supply lines.

It would be a hugely damaging conflict for China. They would stunt their own economic growth, sustain heavy damage, and pay the largest price, all to take part in what was basically America's war.

On top of all of this, North Korea have an as yet unclear Nuclear capability, which ups the game hugely, and their entire population of 25million or so people have been bred from birth in a military dictatorship to hate and distrust America-It's a recepie for disaster on a worldwide scale. It could amount to the first time two warring nations had ever used nuclear weapons on each other in active warfare. What head of state would wish that as their legacy?

Invading North Korea would be crazy. Politically, as long as neither side makes any big moves then the best option for both sides is just to keep up the posturing and idle threats, tighten up security, and keep a close eye on each other, but basically carry on as before, and NOT blow each other to kingdom come.

Overheal · 27-02-2012 2:54pm

Said on here a few times, but the DPRK might have cold war era weapons and armaments but these things are still just as lethal. You can have all the high tech weaponry you want it doesn't mean the north korean army isn't quite large, and on very rough home soil. Take a fly by on Google Earth sometime. Or, here's a topomap: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/North_Korea_1996_CIA_map.jpg

Unless the goal is to raze the country to ash you can't win any war from the air, and any ground assault would have casualty figures I'd rather not guess at. So at that you're not really accomplishing the point of saving lives. Then theres the inevitable guerrilla warfare, which again, doesn't discriminate very highly against who has the most technologically advanced gun. I could go on for several paragraphs how knights in full plate armor were rendered useless by long pointy sticks and peasants with daggers.

That's not even considering the political ramifications of how Koreas neighbors will take to the idea, or how much collateral damage would happen to the South.

And yes, if you want to tickle that thought: I wouldn't want to go in there myself particularly, unless the mountains were gold plated on the outside and full of rare metals on the inside, and they were sitting on 300 years of crude. You're absolutely correct that there are no good reasons to invade DPRK: Not politically, not economically, and not humanitarian. As NTM says, they are contained, they aren't trying to invade their neighbors. Nooo good reason exists to go an piss them off.

RiseToTheTop wrote: »

It's amazing how China just stand by while North Korea lets it's civilians starve to death.

No, it's really not. Take a closer look at China. They don't exactly do right by their citizens, either.

nacho libre wrote: »

to paraphrase Dick Cheney in an interview:
You don't enter wars where the military cost is going to be politically unsustainable. For all his lies, he was telling the truth on that occasion.

A pretty blunt but true statement. If the country doesn't support the war politically it has no chance of success.

and someone mentioned Israel? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Prevailing_world_religions_map.png

1 Hindu country: Has nukes
1 Judaic Country: Has nukes
Christian Countries: Lots of nukes

etc.

If Israel ever thinks of lobbing nukes at it's neighbors it'll be the dumbest thing they've done in a couple thousand years.

27-02-2012 4:32pm

Overheal wrote: »

You're absolutely correct that there are no good reasons to invade DPRK: Not politically, not economically, and not humanitarian. As NTM says, they are contained, they aren't trying to invade their neighbors. Nooo good reason exists to go an piss them off.

Lol @ Humanitarian reasons for going to war on a country. Since when has that p1ss poor excuse for unilateral action ever been believable? If there's a genuine, heartfelt desire in western politics to do right by people from a humanitarian perspective, then why is it that oppressed people in countries which have vast resources up for grabs seem to be the only ones that anybody in power in the west ever seems to defend?

Where were they in the 100 days when rape, torture, and murder were widespread in Rwanda, when Clinton's administration was carefully avoiding the use of the word "genocide" because it would have compelled them to act? Whose rights are they defending in Zimbabwe, where a power crazed dictator's intelligence agency death squads have been carrying out widespread ethnic cleansing for decades?

War is about money and power. It always has been, and it always will be, plain and simple. There's no room in it for being nice, or humanitarian, or benevolent. Such things are used for moral justifications of war when needed, but they are a means to an end, and anybody who believes otherwise is is just being naive.

Anyway, i digress. You're quite right, there are no good reasons at all to go to war with North Korea, and a perfect storm of reasons not to. International politics, American Domestic Politics, international trade, world power balances, economic markets stability, bolstering existing anti-western terrorist sentiment, selfish self-preservationist instincts within the G8, and yes, lest we not forget it, the real prospect of a war against an as yet unknown quantity who just may be nuts enough to push the big red button if they're backed into a corner.

Unless North Korea give the world powers a real, credible, reason to believe that they are a genuine and present threat (IE, do something stupid like run a nuclear missile test on the China border on the 4th of July) they will be more or less left to their own devices, and i suspect that both sides are well aware of that. Why would they antagonize the west to such a point as to give them a justification to go in and wipe out a long-time enemy for once and for all without risking a major PR loss? They won't. The war of words and uneasy peace will go on, because ultimately it's in both sides interest for it to.

RiseToTheTop · 27-02-2012 4:53pm

But it's almost certain they have nukes.

Overheal · 27-02-2012 8:22pm

RiseToTheTop wrote: »

But it's almost certain they have nukes.

And?

al28283 · 27-02-2012 8:24pm

RiseToTheTop wrote: »

But it's almost certain they have nukes.

1. No it's not

2. So what?

RiseToTheTop · 27-02-2012 9:09pm

Overheal wrote: »

And?

What if they were to launch a nuke at Seoul? The people in charge are lunatics.

[Jackass] · 27-02-2012 9:26pm

I'm not sure I understand the OPs question of why don't the U.S. invade North Korea, why would they invade anywhere?

For decades there has been mass genocide in vast amounts of Africa, yet the only region of interest has been in the North, where the "west" has been meddling in the affairs of places like Libya, with sponsored assasination attempts etc., where of course there is an invested interest in controling the output of about 4% of the worlds oil reserves (I know it's been done to death - oil - but it's only because it's a very lightly veiled motivation for almost the entirety of U.S foreign policy for so long), and looking at the toppling of Gaddafi is a good example of how manipulated we are by "the bogey man axis of EVIL that we always hear about...

Not only did Libya thrive under Gaddafi, but he was a highly respected member of the African Union, where he actually oversaw a thriving Economy with high standards of living, and was a non-acting head of state who does not have a record of human rights violations, and was actually quite a liberating figure in Libya. The country was (is) debt free, and he used oil money to completely modernise the housing and infrastructure of the country, moving people from slums into modern housing, developing the best education system in all of Africa, GDP was growing at massive rates (always around 10%) and many other great things.

He was enemy number 1 though as he resisted foreign influence (i.e US and UK bullying) and had great nationalist ideals, and "sponsored terrorism" as foreign states attempted to murder a sovereign state figure head and imposed embargo's on a country, and he retaliated by sponsoring what he saw as other struggling nations who were under the tirany of these states (such as sympathising with IRA republican independence ideals).

Yet a "no fly zone" was announced as mass bombing occured to destroy the Government of a nation and kill one of it's stately figure heads, as he wasn't playing ball with the others and ruffled feathers by retaliating to threats and helping those as he saw sharing his values, and he eventually fell victim to a rebelling group looking to sieze power, as there are massively volatile fluctuating political opinions in North (/all) of Africa.

He was no saint, he was no hero, but just an example of U.S. and western foreign policy in general.

Countries like North Korea, another AXIS OF EVIL merely developed nuclear weapons so that the U.S. could not impose their will on another sovereign state, who are massively withdrawn and show little or no interest in the outside world, basically minding their own business, but buying a gun because they know there's a bully in town.

U.S. foreign policy intentionally prevokes extremist groups in order to give them the political amunition to more or less do whatever they like.

They take little or no interest in regions where they can not pillage and steal.

I'm not a radical, I'm not supporting anybody or have any strong opinion on foreign states, just calling it as I see it.

Benny_Cake · 27-02-2012 9:36pm

RiseToTheTop wrote: »

Overheal wrote: »

And?

What if they were to launch a nuke at Seoul? The people in charge are lunatics.

How would attacking North Korea reduce the chance of them using a nuclear weapon? They may well look and sound like lunatics, but the actions of the North Koreans up to now have been perversely rational - they want external aid, and to get that they do a lot of sabre rattling. And it works.

Eggy Baby! · 28-02-2012 12:18am

Said on here a few times, but the DPRK might have cold war era weapons and armaments but these things are still just as lethal.

Well you have to remember America's army is mostly cold war material as well...

A10s are 40 years old, most of its fighter jets are decades old, its tanks were around in the 70s, it uses bombers from 1940, some of its pistols and machine-guns were around for the Great War, it still uses APCs from Vietnam. The soldiers use retrofitted guns that were ineffective half a century ago, snipers use rifles from the Korean War.... whenever you see the troops in fancy ballistic vests or with EOTechs or sights on their guns they are usually only the marines...however its navy, admittedly, is fantastic. Most of their choppers are retrofitted..transport planes are ancient..

Most of its fancy jets, drones and armour are in too small numbers to be deployed en masse. Usually the Yanks rely on surprise, size, organisation and overwhelming force ("shock and awe" tactics) to win. The US Army is a large blunt object, like the vast majority of armies.

and was a non-acting head of state who does not have a record of human rights violations,

Gotta lol at that.

28-02-2012 2:00pm

RiseToTheTop wrote: »

What if they were to launch a nuke at Seoul? The people in charge are lunatics.

That's a fairly simplistic view of the situation. Even if they do have nukes, (which they may or may not TBH) do you really believe it's a rationale for an invasion? All of the people who are promoting it are firmly in camps that are in favour of attacking, so it can hardly be described as an impartial assessment of the situation.

Remember when saddam hussein was a lunatic with an arsenal of WMD's at his disposal that could be deployed within 45 minutes? The UK and US, along with their allies used that rationale successfully, went in and killed him and installed a western sympathising government to shore up control of the oil.

Fast forward a few years, and a few public enquiries later. There were no WMD's ever found and it turns out Saddam had never had the capability to launch anything at anyone within 45 minutes. Guess what though, he's still dead (which is a good thing for humanitarian reasons) and there's still a US sympathetic puppet government in charge. The supply of oil out of Iraq and Kuwait is still secure, and the good friends of the west in the area are still nice and safe.

Do you see a pattern emerging here?

RiseToTheTop wrote: »

But it's almost certain they have nukes.

Says who? The same people who provided the military intelligence on those pesky Iraqi WMD's? The same people who couldn't effectively track the whereabouts of a guy on a camel for over ten years?

Sounds too convenient to me. A ready made excuse to go in and wipe out an unfriendly government who's been rattling it's sabre at their friends in the south for years, without actually ever doing anything.

Overheal · 28-02-2012 2:20pm

RiseToTheTop wrote: »

What if they were to launch a nuke at Seoul? The people in charge are lunatics.

They could do that if they didn't want to themselves be destroyed. Even if they have nukes they have too few to accomplish anything of significance. By launching one they are just inviting themselves to being bombed into the stone age, conventionally at that.

Sunnyisland · 01-03-2012 6:23pm

Well it looks if you cant Invade them , Feed them,

North Korea's pledge to suspend uranium enrichment, as well as nuclear and long-range missile tests, The US has announced 240,000 tonnes of new food aid for Pyongyang in return for the freeze.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-17215805

[Jackass] · 01-03-2012 8:20pm

Eggy Baby! wrote: »

Gotta lol at that.

Alright, well put on your dancing shoes then, and let's do a jig.

Gadaffi's achievements during his REIGN OF TERROR!!:

Introduced Democracy
Brought Literacy from from 10% to almost full literacy (in the 90% region)
Introduced Welfare Payment scheme that did not previously exist
Introudced free education that did not exist before
Introduced free health care that did not exist before
Half of the country (50%) lived in shanties and tents prior to his reign of terror, he introduced housing assistance and finance.
Put refinements in to give every citizen free clean water that did not exist previous to his administration
Made the nation debt-free
Brought the country to the best human-rights rating in all of Africa and was ranked higher than the U.S. close allies of Saudi Arabia
Accused a US funded research by Amnesty International produced a report claiming human rights violations and non-evidence backed disapearences, this was then refuted by the United Nations Human Rights Council who priased the high level of progress in human rights in the country.
Allowed the formation and free election of opposing parties, mostly based on ethnicity and were allowed entire freedom of expression
Was again accused of human rights violations when it was claimed thousands of prisoners were killed in a riot, yet Human rights watch later confirmed there was no evidence of this
Allegations of torture were made by oppisition parties, but no human rights association presented any case confirming this

All of this occuring during multiple assassination attempts on Gaddafi, spondored by the US and UK, and decades of claims of violations, none of which have ever been verified and many of which have been disproven over the decades.

He got the oil. He not co-operating. Kill him. And they did.

Now, what was so loloriffic about my original post if you please?

Why doesn't the US invade North Korea

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