North Korea War?

[Beiruty]

If the NK escalated the tension and exchanged heavy bombing at all Northen Islands in retaliation for coming live fire by SK. How do you expect SK/US response? If NK did not back down and started aggressive land attack across NML zone? What are consequences on the economy here in US?

[bnc]

As we have already seen, and despite words to the contrary by SK, I think it would take a true invasion of SK by NK to start a full-scale war. Otherwise, I think it would continue with trading jabs, even though the South said it will retaliate heavily the next time the North does something. It seems like the kid who gets picked on by the bully and promises that next time he'll fight back, but it is always next time. I'll probably hold this opinion until reality proves otherwise.

In the case of a full-scale war, I imagine we would fully support the South. As for the economy, it will have the same result as all wars have. Resources will be expropriated from citizens to pay for a foreign war where those resources are consumed and do not contribute to economic growth. In the process, the government will grow in size, scope, debt, and aggressiveness towards its own people. While this may result in a positive blip in GDP, that statistic won't mean much since resources will still be directed away from things that increase our standard of living, like houses, cars, computers, clothing, food, healthcare, entertainment (guns ) and etc. to produce war supplies. As nice as it would be to get rid of the regime in NK, dropping bombs on Pyongyang will not result in more plentiful, better quality, and cheaper goods in the US, it will generally be the opposite.


That being said, I don't think SK needs our help if it plays out under certain circumstances. Those being that China doesn't come to the aid of NK, and that the leadership of SK allows its military to fight with the gloves off, no hearts & minds campaign. This is because SK is a first world country with a strong economy, advanced technology, and a modern military; they will also have the moral high ground if NK attacks first (as far as I am concerned they already have the high ground). Conversely, NK is one of the most backward places on earth, where fuel and food are hard to come by, and the army is largely several decades out of date. The only real advantage that NK has is the size of its army and its likely willingness to win at all costs (I assume they are less likely to hold back than any western country, and in this case SK qualifies as western). If China jumps in, or the South tries not to be too "mean" (i.e. tries not to win too much), then they are in big trouble.

Of course, I'd much rather not find out what a continued Korean war would be, and watch NK crumble from within and eventually be peacefully reunited with the South. It will be interesting to see what the new guy does when Dear Leader eventually dies. Kim's son is in his late 20's, I believe.


edit: according to wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... _of_troops" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;), it looks like NK has an overall troop advantage of roughly 800,000, the advantage is around 400k of active duty. I thought the difference would actually be more than that.

[The Annoyed Man]

I might be wrong about this, but my impression is that NK's advantage in manpower is largely negated by a logistical inability to sustain that army in the field for an extended combat role. As long as China does not resupply them, a NK assault on the south would peter out unless they are able to capture large amounts of SK supplies. Even so, they don't use the same calibers in their rifles, or in their artillery, so captured supply dumps would be only minimally useful except for food and fuel. So the NK assault would be desperate in nature, and absolutely dependent upon achieving a blitzkrieg victory. Otherwise they'll hit like a big wave on a rocky shore, and then their momentum will peter out. A long term action favors the south and their allies.

[Beiruty]

The wearings from Russia and China and SK is not calling off the live fire makes this a serious and show-me your hands move.

[powerboatr]

if NK deploys ONE nuke

the resulting consequences i hate to say would be both devastating for the recipient of said weapon.
then china and russia will have to make a difficult decision. and when they decide incorrectly.....we and the rest of the big powers would be drawn into a very nasty conflict, with lots of casualties.

i am concerend for our troops deployed/station in korea, they would be caught in a bad situation.
nobody wins with nukes....period
then
our nutty islamic extremist (terrorists) would probably take this opportunity to do their own nuke or dirty bomb and then an escalation of a whole lot of bad stuff would surely prevail. Iran would probably step up as well and nuke Isreal. then they retaliate and it just gets bigger and bigger.

we wouldn't be worrying about the price of oil anymore.

[RPB]

we wouldn't be worrying about the price of oil anymore.

LOL, yeah, all it takes is a windy day to cause oil prices to increase

What are consequences on the economy here in US?

Ammo prices would increase again.
Perhaps I better invest a bit now in the futures market for resale later.


If the NK/any extremist Nation or terrorist escalated the tension by using a Nuke:
we'll all have a really really unimaginably bad day, no matter where we are located.

[Beiruty]

Soon UN Security council will meet and issue a worthless statement asking all parties to exercise the utmost restraint. SK will go ahead with the live fire sometime Sunday or Early Monday NK Strart firing south. SK will send bombers and then NK will use long range missiles. UN Security council meet again to impose a a cease fire.

Hmm, one to ask when the NM Gov. is expected back home?