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Will There be War wt N Korea next 4 years


Will there be a War with N. Korea?  

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Um.... NO THEY AREN'T.

 

Know how I know? Because we haven't prepped anything for a war with North Korea.

 

1) There are tens of thousands of Americans in South Korea who would need to be evacuated before shooting starts. We haven't even begun that process.

 

2) Our military is not massing on the border, nor are there troops on transports waiting to land on shore further north. The majority of our troops are not in a state of readiness, and it will take weeks to get them there. The logistics of moving hundreds of thousands of troops, materiel and support staff may escape Trump, but then he's more Saddam Hussein than Norman Schwarzkopf.

 

3) Along with #2, we'd need air cover. The Air Force can operate out of bases in South Korea, but we'd need sea power, too. That means carrier task forces, plural, and those take time to move into position. Sure, The USS Carl Vinson has been stationed there for months as Trump promised ( <_< ) but we have no other assets in the area. Further, those fleets will need to be brought to combat readiness, not just geared up for patrols, all of which, again, takes time. Air Force assets can be moved in a couple days, but the support staff & infrastructure necessary to allow land-based aircraft the ability to operate needs to be moved, and that will take days/weeks.

 

4) We will build a coalition of allies to go with us. Unilateral action by the US Military would be condemned, and if anything goes wrong the onus of that lies solely with us as the lone actor. If nothing else, by garnering support from amongst our allies, we'll have fewer countries potentially condemning our move. This process could have begun in secret, but as yet nobody has publicly signed on for anything more than economic sanctions.

 

 

 

 

Trump has no grasp of the logistics of these things, but the North Koreans (and the rest of the world) certainly do. This kind of stuff whips up the base and distracts them from the Russia investigation, but it makes Trump and the US look as foolish in the eyes of the world as Saddam looked with his "mother of all battles" nonsense before the Gulf War. A GOP president, George Bush I, put an end to that blather right quick.

 

The GOP went from supporting the deposing of tin pot dictators to hanging on one's every tweet. It's sad.

well...if he has chosen the nuclear option he could mean that the bombs have now been programmed to land on N. Korean targets

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Even if he's chosen that we'd still need boots on the ground to mop up what's left of the country. We won't destroy his entire military, and whatever's left will surely retaliate against South Korea. Defending that will require a war footing we're not on yet.

I agree that Trump is probably full of sh!t.

 

But to play devil's advocate, the US military is always at a stance of possible war with NK. Here's a good article on US forces in that region. And the US has some long-range capability (we were bombing Afghanistan from airbases in Missouri at one point) and fast mobility (no reason to put aircraft carriers near NK when they can get there in a matter of hours or days). Not to mention covert assets like submarines and special forces.

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I think Trump has a basic intuition about how the kind of influence he has with his tweets. He just doesn't really care (or understand) the consequences.

 

In other words, he doesn't want this crisis to end.

 

Actually, he probably wants a war. There's nothing like a war to get everyone in line, because when it comes down to it the left and right will both want to see America's military not lose. And as Republican Senate hawks like Lindsey Graham are saying, comfortably ensconced in their continental seats, the death and destruction will be "over there".

 

This war will be useful to a lot of people, notably the Republicans who are having a hard time defending their continued alignment with the President's domestic agenda. These people, like Trump, are not particularly concerned with lives. They've got better priorities.

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Knapp is exactly right:

Again playing devil's advocate, that article makes the argument that Trump is lying based on the premise that the US "would require deploying a huge number of new military assets beyond what the US currently has stationed in South Korea and East Asia", which isn't necessarily true. The rest of the article describing why Trump is sending bad signals to NK, I agree with.

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Trying to parse this argument. I think we're saying different things, perhaps?

You're saying that the U.S. is "in place" to defend South Korea by our baseline deployment of assets, which is more or less how it has been ever since the fighting stopped in 1953.

On the other hand, that's different from a declaration that the U.S. is "locked and loaded" for a war with North Korea -- which, if not explicit, is what Trump is heavily implying. He's not one for precision (in that he doesn't know anything), but he's suggesting that something new has occurred with regard to military posture. But it has not. That's the entire reason why this is a bad signal to send; NK knows the score of the status quo, whereas the claim is vague and menacing in its false proclamation of a shift.

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Trying to parse this argument. I think we're saying different things, perhaps?

 

You're saying that the U.S. is "in place" to defend South Korea by our baseline deployment of assets, which is more or less how it has been ever since the fighting stopped in 1953.

 

On the other hand, that's different from a declaration that the U.S. is "locked and loaded" for a war with North Korea -- which, if not explicit, is what Trump is heavily implying. He's not one for precision (in that he doesn't know anything), but he's suggesting that something new has occurred with regard to military posture. But it has not. That's the entire reason why this is a bad signal to send; NK knows the score of the status quo, whereas the claim is vague and menacing in its false proclamation of a shift.

I'm not trying to defend Trump's tweet here. I'm instead pushing back against the supposition that the US is required to deploy troops for a war with NK.

 

Let me lay out a plausible military strategy for the US (even if it may not be likely): Suppose the US thinks that any engagement with NK is likely to result in using nukes against NK either because NK is likely to use nukes first or because conventional forces are inadequate to prevent an invasion. If that's the case, the US can strike NK with nukes from practically anywhere on earth (bombers from bases/aircraft carriers, ICBM's from silos or submarines, or cruise missiles from submarines/ships/aircraft). So there's no reason to move additional US military forces near NK because it makes it easier for NK to engage those forces conventionally or with WMD's. This is the terrifying case where NOT deploying more troops makes sense.

 

EDIT: And Trump could be referring to setting up the US nuclear arsenal to make that happen (reprogramming targets, moving subs into position, etc.) which would not be public knowledge.

Edited by RedDenver
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Skepticism is fine, but just saying "to play devil's advocate..." and having no support for that is just spinning tires.

 

We will not,- repeat, will NOT - use nuclear weapons against North Korea. Such an action against what is regarded as a hostage population would be condemned worldwide. Congress would condemn it and Trump's presidency would be, for all intents & purposes, over at that point. Both sides of the aisle would be hostile toward him and he does not have enough political clout to overcome that kind of opposition.

 

A president can not unilaterally order a nuclear strike. The Secretary of Defense has to sign off on such an order, and Jim Mattis is not the kind of person to rashly jump into such a conflict. He's already been a key figure in one botched military escapade (the Yemen strike) and he's not likely to make such a mistake again. Read up on what kind of man Mattis is.

 

After that nuclear strike - then what? If we don't eliminate North Korea's military in the first few minutes, they're going to retaliate. Seoul, with a population of millions, is within range of North Korean artillery. Without an evacuation, tens of thousands of civilians will die via North Korean counterstrikes. Past that, America & South Korea would have to enter North Korea and mop up what's left of the country - but there's China to deal with, and the Chinese do not want an American puppet on their flank. That's why North Korea exists at all. With under 50,000 US troops on the Korean peninsula, and with millions of Chinese just across the North Korea/China border, we'd lost that battle in days.

 

Here's NPR's analysis on why we aren't going to war. The last few lines echo other things I've read: The canary in the coal mine will be the evacuation of US citizens from South Korea. That hasn't even been hinted at yet.

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Skepticism is fine, but just saying "to play devil's advocate..." and having no support for that is just spinning tires.

 

We will not,- repeat, will NOT - use nuclear weapons against North Korea. Such an action against what is regarded as a hostage population would be condemned worldwide. Congress would condemn it and Trump's presidency would be, for all intents & purposes, over at that point. Both sides of the aisle would be hostile toward him and he does not have enough political clout to overcome that kind of opposition.

 

A president can not unilaterally order a nuclear strike. The Secretary of Defense has to sign off on such an order, and Jim Mattis is not the kind of person to rashly jump into such a conflict. He's already been a key figure in one botched military escapade (the Yemen strike) and he's not likely to make such a mistake again. Read up on what kind of man Mattis is.

 

After that nuclear strike - then what? If we don't eliminate North Korea's military in the first few minutes, they're going to retaliate. Seoul, with a population of millions, is within range of North Korean artillery. Without an evacuation, tens of thousands of civilians will die via North Korean counterstrikes. Past that, America & South Korea would have to enter North Korea and mop up what's left of the country - but there's China to deal with, and the Chinese do not want an American puppet on their flank. That's why North Korea exists at all. With under 50,000 US troops on the Korean peninsula, and with millions of Chinese just across the North Korea/China border, we'd lost that battle in days.

 

Here's NPR's analysis on why we aren't going to war. The last few lines echo other things I've read: The canary in the coal mine will be the evacuation of US citizens from South Korea. That hasn't even been hinted at yet.

You are assuming that I'm saying the US would strike first, but I said, "Suppose the US thinks that any engagement with NK is likely to result in using nukes against NK either because NK is likely to use nukes first". If NK strikes first, then what? Do you think the US won't shoot back? And do you think it's better for more US forces to be in the vicinity?

 

Just because the US isn't preparing to invade NK doesn't mean the US isn't ready for NK to strike. All I'm arguing is that there's a plausible strategy that doesn't involve Trump lying in his tweet, so people shouldn't jump to that conclusion but should instead also consider what it means if he's telling the truth.

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Skepticism is fine, but just saying "to play devil's advocate..." and having no support for that is just spinning tires.

 

We will not,- repeat, will NOT - use nuclear weapons against North Korea. Such an action against what is regarded as a hostage population would be condemned worldwide. Congress would condemn it and Trump's presidency would be, for all intents & purposes, over at that point. Both sides of the aisle would be hostile toward him and he does not have enough political clout to overcome that kind of opposition.

 

A president can not unilaterally order a nuclear strike. The Secretary of Defense has to sign off on such an order, and Jim Mattis is not the kind of person to rashly jump into such a conflict. He's already been a key figure in one botched military escapade (the Yemen strike) and he's not likely to make such a mistake again. Read up on what kind of man Mattis is.

 

After that nuclear strike - then what? If we don't eliminate North Korea's military in the first few minutes, they're going to retaliate. Seoul, with a population of millions, is within range of North Korean artillery. Without an evacuation, tens of thousands of civilians will die via North Korean counterstrikes. Past that, America & South Korea would have to enter North Korea and mop up what's left of the country - but there's China to deal with, and the Chinese do not want an American puppet on their flank. That's why North Korea exists at all. With under 50,000 US troops on the Korean peninsula, and with millions of Chinese just across the North Korea/China border, we'd lost that battle in days.

 

Here's NPR's analysis on why we aren't going to war. The last few lines echo other things I've read: The canary in the coal mine will be the evacuation of US citizens from South Korea. That hasn't even been hinted at yet.

You are assuming that I'm saying the US would strike first, but I said, "Suppose the US thinks that any engagement with NK is likely to result in using nukes against NK either because NK is likely to use nukes first". If NK strikes first, then what? Do you think the US won't shoot back? And do you think it's better for more US forces to be in the vicinity?

 

Just because the US isn't preparing to invade NK doesn't mean the US isn't ready for NK to strike. All I'm arguing is that there's a plausible strategy that doesn't involve Trump lying in his tweet, so people shouldn't jump to that conclusion but should instead also consider what it means if he's telling the truth.

 

 

Trump has not earned the benefit of the doubt.

 

If there's a choice between 1) Is Trump telling the truth, or 2) Is Trump saying something that is untrue but benefits him in some way, you ALWAYS choose #2.

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