North Korea
Mood:  caffeinated
In the last few months American TV viewers and newspaper readers have been deluged with all manner of claims about North Korea and the North Korean military.
The refrain is this, the US can't attack North Korea because the North Korean military is too powerful. The North Korean army outnumbers our army. North Korea has hundreds of fighter planes and thousands of tanks. We can't attack because in the first few hours of the war, hundreds of North Korean artillery pieces would open fire and destroy the South Korean capitol of Seoul. North Korean soldiers would fight fanatically and kill tens of thousands of American troops.
Now where have we heard this line of nonsense before? From the same self proclaimed military experts talking about another potential enemy Iraq. Remember IRaq had hundreds of fighter planes and thousands of tanks. Iraq's army outnumbered ours before the first Gulf War.
Yet on two seperate occassions the US military and its allies had no trouble completely defeating the Iraqi military. In the last war the Iraqi air force didn't even take to the air and most Iraqi soldiers ran away.
Given the media's track record of predicting military outcomes my guess is that North Korea could turn out to be even more of a pushover than Iraq. North Korea's military is more primitive than IRaq's it's weapons and vehicles are strictly of 1950s vintage. Many of its tanks and planes are so old they may no longer run because spare parts are no longer available and there is no fuel for them anyway. Much of North Korean is blacked out because it's out of fuel. It's tactics come straight out of World War II. Besides a few skirmishes North Korean military forces haven't fired a shot in anger since 1950. Arrayed against this third world force are two of the most advanced and professional military forces in the World armed with the latest weapons employing the latest tactics. Military forces with plenty of fuel and spare parts and vehicles. How is the North Korean peasant army with its ancient AK-47s supposed to stand up to that?
Yes, the North Korean artillery could open up on Seoul but destroy the city come on. Are the South Korean and US military forces going to sit by and let the Communists destroy Seoul? Of course not, a few minutes after the first shell was fired on Seoul, US and South Korean planes, tanks, artillery, helicopters, missiles and infantry would be hitting the North Korean artillery with everything they had. My guess is that most of the North Korean artillery would be destroyed in the first hour of the war and most of the North Korean soldiers would be running for Pyonging. Or surrendering en mass. Another prediction the second Korean War would last about two weeks. Within two weeks of the war's beginning American and South Korean soldiers would be in Pyonging toppling the statues of Kim Po Yi and his father Kim Il Sung. The mighty North Korean Army would be surrendering en mass and the self proclaimed military experts in our news rooms would be nowhere to be seen.