WTF? North Korea

[russell]

What the hell is going on there then?
6 million people will starve to death in the next year.
It looks like hell on earth -why have we not gone in and given 'aid' -Is it because they dont have oil?
I cant believe in a world of Human rights this genocide is allowed to continue with no intervention.

 

[Embattle]

Korean War, China and Nukes.

 

[throdgrain]

Is there anyone in the world you wouldnt like us to give aid to ?

edit

I pressed "enter" to early then ....

Anyway, since then Ch3tan has said what I was going to say

 

[Ch3tan]

Are you serious Russ? Start world war 3 by trying to enter North Korea. No thanks.

 

[Mabs]

they have nothing the Americans want

 

[Trem]

they have nothing the Americans want

It isn't that, America are just scared to provoke them. They got their arse kicked in Vietnam and NK are like Vietnam on steroids.

Russ - to give aid to them would, to put it lightly, be seen as interfering, the NK and China states would frown upon that in an explosive way.

Communism and all that.

 

[Embattle]

Technically America didn't get its arse kicked in Vietnam but the cost was too high and the reasons for going just didn't wash any more thus they pulled out. NK isn't much on its own and never has really been but the fear is always going to be about pulling China in and starting a regional war if not another world war.

NK and aid is more complex than nearly any where else in the world, they find it hard to ask for various reasons and other countries are finding it hard to give for various reasons.

 

[Gwadien]

Fighting communism is sooooo last century.

 

[Bigmac]

I'd rather we fixed our own country before anyone elses.

 

[Trem]

Technically America didn't get its arse kicked in Vietnam but the cost was too high and the reasons for going just didn't wash any more thus they pulled out.

The cost was too high because the USA couldn't make any headway, they strutted in expecting to walk all over Vietnam and they got a rather nasty surprise.

Long war = high cost.

For the difference in the countries power/wealth involved Vietnam well and truly kicked Americas arse.

 

[Wij]

North Korea is in China's back yard and they don't like anyone else interfering with them. Also, China is now fed up with the Kims and is probably hoping the state will self-destruct without them interfering.

Additionally, even though the SK army could kick the North's starving, morale-less, 60s-equipped hordes into next week, NK could still flood Seoul.

Noone dares interfere in NK.

It is a tragedy though. Let a state get run by a crime-family with total censorship and crazy things can happen

 

[megadave]

North Korea is like one big battlement, it wouldn't be a good idea

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Handing the country 'back' after WWII was so badly done, let's split the country into two parts, one Russian and one American and see what ideological battles will occur! Fucking morons.

 

[Embattle]

The cost was too high because the USA couldn't make any headway, they strutted in expecting to walk all over Vietnam and they got a rather nasty surprise.

Long war = high cost.

For the difference in the countries power/wealth involved Vietnam well and truly kicked Americas arse.

You are welcome to that opinion but you are partly right in simple terms and wrong in complex terms, either way it isn't the reason they don't want to face NK.

 

[Job]

The Vietnam war was ridiculous,the restrictions on the US forces made victory impossible.
They couldn't attack huge areas and the fighters just called a truce everytime they were losing, regrouped and attacked again.
The US generals just washed their hands of the whole thing.

 

[dub]

afaik wfp gave aid to dprk from 1995 to 2005 and from 2006 to 2009 and i guess they will resume it again soon.

 

[Shagrat]

Korea is probably the only place on the planet that's a bigger hornets nest than the whole Israel/neighbours issue. The military buildup on the parallel between the two countries is frightening

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Nah it's not that bad. Most Koreans want a unified Korea, for example. In the middle east they hate each other so much it's pretty much irreparable. There's religious and political differences with far longer and further reaching implecations.

 

[Chosen]

Nah it's not that bad. Most Koreans want a unified Korea, for example. In the middle east they hate each other so much it's pretty much irreparable. There's religious and political differences with far longer and further reaching implecations.

How do you know this? Please link me to your sources. Because last time I've checked, I have not seen anything that indicates that "most" Koreans wants a unified nation.

Thats all speculation

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Because I studied it. It's not speculation.

 

[Chosen]

Because I studied it. It's not speculation.

Well, if you have studied it. Then giving out what sources you used, shouldnt be any problem for you

 

[DaGaffer]

NK and aid is more complex than nearly any where else in the world, they find it hard to ask for various reasons and other countries are finding it hard to give for various reasons.

NK ask for aid all the time! Usually on the pretext of "give us aid or we'll carry on testing our really shonky nukes over the Sea of Japan". And they often get it too.

How do you know this? Please link me to your sources. Because last time I've checked, I have not seen anything that indicates that "most" Koreans wants a unified nation.

Thats all speculation

No its not, SK even has a "Reunification Minister" and there are regularly revised plans for reunification including tax hike plans to fund it, and governments regularly come to power with reunification talks as an election manifesto item. Most South Koreans are in favour of reunification, and always have been. No idea of the mindset of the North Korean people however.

 

[taB]

How do you know this? Please link me to your sources. Because last time I've checked, I have not seen anything that indicates that "most" Koreans wants a unified nation.

Thats all speculation

No its not, SK even has a "Reunification Minister" and there are regularly revised plans for reunification including tax hike plans to fund it, and governments regularly come to power with reunification talks as an election manifesto item. Most South Koreans are in favour of reunification, and always have been. No idea of the mindset of the North Korean people however.

The North Koreans are very pro a unified Korea. They mourn the loss of their Southern brethren to the evil influences of the USA and other countries. The perception they are under and indoctrinated into is that the South want to rejoin the glorious North and follow the Juche Ideal but are prevented from doing so by outside occupying forces (yanks).

 

[Helme]

Disregarding the fact that they've got nothing to gain, politically or economically. I think the main reason the US hasn't done anything with North Korea is that they would get their asses kicked without using nuclear weapons. Wherever you decided to invade from you'd encounter utterly shit terrain, when you get past that you begin fighting an attrition war against a million or so troops. Western nations don't really do attrition warfare anymore, because they'd lose popular support in an instant if they did.


As for why the US lost Vietnam there's a few reasons, the primary ones in my opinion are:

They lost support for the war at home, I think this is the chief one. The anti-war movement got almost entirely rolled into the anti-segregation one, which the US administration was really, really afraid of at the time - and for good reason, if it ever turned really militant they wouldn't stand a chance at stopping it. Provoking it with the atrocities required to win the war wouldn't be smart.

The US ran out of professional soldiers and had to begin conscripting, you can't fight a colonial war with civilians. It's just not possible, it takes a special kind of personality for it or an ideological/religious/regional motivation - something the US hadn't learnt at that point, but most other colonial nations had(ie. Britain using the Gurkhas against Indians). Having to do this kind of fighting resulted in really, really shit morale amongst the soldiers, drugs were very popular, desertion, fragging etc.

The enemy was heavily, heavily motivated and widely supported amongst the people - and for good reason. There's been several comments from US officials wondering how they could continue have such high morale despite the high losses, and the simple explanation is that they really believed in their cause. Something most US soldiers did not. You could argue about communism and it's evils all you want, but you'd be an idiot not to see why it would be an attractive idea to poor peasants, especially when it's ideological nemesis was bombing their huts to shit.

 

[ST^]

Disregarding the fact that they've got nothing to gain, politically or economically. I think the main reason the US hasn't done anything with North Korea is that they would get their asses kicked without using nuclear weapons. Wherever you decided to invade from you'd encounter utterly shit terrain, when you get past that you begin fighting an attrition war against a million or so troops. Western nations don't really do attrition warfare anymore, because they'd lose popular support in an instant if they did.

The US would destroy NK so hard it's not even funny.

 

[Huntingtons]

they would lose ALOT of resources and they couldnt in a 100 years afford another war, neither economically or politcally

 

[Helme]

I don't think so, for various reasons but the primary one being morale. I don't think there's anything close to the North Korean one, I mean during one failed infiltration 11 killed themselves, 1 got captured and the rest out of the 46 fought to their death. Another incident, ALL of them killed themselves when their sub got caught in a fishing net. You can't "win" those kinds of soldiers over. You won’t find support amongst the civilians either, they’ve been taught since birth that the US is the enemy, and that kind of thinking is really hard to challenge – especially when you’re bombing their homes and workplaces.

When it comes to military hardware the US obviously has the edge, but does it really matter when the Koreans can put up 10 MiG’s for every F18? Especially when the US is pretty much broke? You also have to take terrain into consideration and that it took the US a decade to fix the problems sand caused for their engines – what unforeseen difficulties will they have in Korea? Or what will they do when the country lacks the infrastructure their kind of warfare requires? How will their soldiers adapt to the terrain and how long until they catch-up with the natives who’ve trained for years defending it?

All the while dealing with these issues they will have serious problems at home from a population fed up with war. They lost less than 5000 soldiers in Iraq, and the population questions if it was worth it – how many more do you think the Koreans will manage to kill?

 

[DaGaffer]

First of all the Americans wouldn't do much of the ground fighting (they'd leave that to SK - which could be a problem in its own right), second of all, where do you get a 10 to 1 air combat ratio from? The American Navy alone would have total air superiority over the NK airforce, never mind the AF and USMC.

Its not fighting North Korea that worries the Americans, for all the batshit craziness of some of the NK soldiers (and bear in mind the NK commanders don't let the shakier, less idealogically sound, conscripts near the border, never mind over it, on "infiltration missions", so those nutjobs aren't necessarily representative) its what China would do that's the issue. The PLA isn't better than the US one for one, but unlike NK, they do have numerical superiority, and more importantly for the US, China has them by the balls economically as well.

Ironically, the US has probably never been better equipped to fight in North Korea (lots of active servicemen with real experience, unlike Korea Mk.1 where they had to recall WWII vets pretty quickly after they were nearly pushed off the peninsular altogether), but unfortunately, the same can be said for China albeit for slightly different reasons.

 

[Shagrat]

I don't think many western nations could cope with fighting another "first world" nation at the moment.

the lack of manpower, the belligerence of the home populace etc would quickly devolve into mass protests/rioting and collapsing government.

 

[Helme]

I'm going by the prices of the planes, and I wouldn't count the carrier fleets that highly tbh. Swedish submarines have been able to sneak up almost next to them and could have sunk them if they wanted to, I'm sure Korean one's can do the same.