China's strategy in Korean peninsula

plawolf

plawolf

Lieutenant General
AndrewS said:
@plawolf

One question about the SCS bases withstanding hundreds/thousands of missiles.

How hardened are the fuel tanks and personnel/equipment bunkers so they can repair?

My view is that the bases are more of a tripwire in a full-scale war, but which can be resupplied by ships/seaplanes.

In any case, AG600 seaplanes should still be able to refuel and operate.
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Unclear, but the point never was about the facilities on the islands being indestructible, rather capable of rapid regeneration after a strike.

In addition, China is not Syria, in a real shooting war, it can and will shoot back.

In order to attack those islands, an opfor will either have to try saturation attack from long range with million dollar cruise missiles (which would also take up valuable VLS cells reducing the number of SAMs carried by a task force) that have to penetrate layered air, sea and land based air defences. Or it has to bring its carriers to well within strike range of heavier (i.e. longer range) land based fighters and bombers, AShBMs and maybe even AShCMs.

That's the key point I was trying to get at with my last point. Those SCS bases are not meant to just sit there and take a pounding. No defence can survive that.

But to attack those bases with enough force to try and knock them out, an opfor will need to get close enough such that the forces based on the island bases, and friendly supporting air and naval forces, will be able to strike back at the enemy fleet. The opfor can hit the island bases a thousand times, and the island will still be there, and any damage could be easily repaired. But the PLA defences only need to get through once to cripple or even kill an enemy major surface combatant or carrier. In other words, it's a contest of attrition that overwhelming favours the PLA defenders over any attacking opfor.
 
Equation

Equation

Lieutenant General
dingyibvs said:
If that could lead to denuclearization, sure, but NK's rockets will always have an easier time reaching Beijing than DC.
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The US really doesn't want the denuclerize the Korean peninsula and unite the two Koreans. Otherwise there would be no tensions and Beijing will have the far bigger influence than Washington. That means less money spent for the US military industrial complex.

manqiangrexue said:
People in Beijing aren't scared. People in DC making all the ruckus.
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Yup and the US media will always paint the DPRK in a bad light with the responsibility or blame place on China.
 
A

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Equation said:
The US really doesn't want the denuclerize the Korean peninsula and unite the two Koreans. Otherwise there would be no tensions and Beijing will have the far bigger influence than Washington. That means less money spent for the US military industrial complex.



Yup and the US media will always paint the DPRK in a bad light with the responsibility or blame place on China.
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I would disagree on the USA not wanting the Korean peninsula nuclear free.

Remember that they have 28,000 soldiers located in Korea along with their families
 
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Yvrch

Junior Member
Registered Member
AndrewS said:
I would disagree on the USA not wanting the Korean peninsula nuclear free.

Remember that they have 28,000 soldiers located in Korea along with their families
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That 28,000 soldiers and their families stationed in SK are simply not a plausible factor in this US desire to deweaponize NK nuclear capabilities.
 
A

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Equation said:
The US wanted it the Korean peninsula nuclear free THEIR WAY, meaning nuclear free under Washington's influence instead of Beijing.
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Your original assertion was that "the US really doesn't want the denuclerize the Korean peninsula and unite the two Koreans."

I pointed out that there are 28,000 US soldiers plus their families in South Korea, who presumably would be on the receiving end of NK nukes. So obviously they would prefer non-nuclear NK.

And of course the USA would prefer if they got their way on everything, but the USA is having a lot of trouble accepting that it can't get its way on a whole host of issues.

And does the USA want to see a unified Korea?

I think the answer is a yes, because a unified Korea will be a much more rational actor that could be reasoned with. If it was South Korean led, then that is a given. And if it was North Korean led, then North Korea will be secure on the Korean peninsula and no longer as paranoid that it will be regime changed. Then there would simply be much less disagreement between NK and the USA.
 
Equation

Equation

Lieutenant General
AndrewS said:
Your original assertion was that "the US really doesn't want the denuclerize the Korean peninsula and unite the two Koreans."

I pointed out that there are 28,000 US soldiers plus their families in South Korea, who presumably would be on the receiving end of NK nukes. So obviously they would prefer non-nuclear NK.

And of course the USA would prefer if they got their way on everything, but the USA is having a lot of trouble accepting that it can't get its way on a whole host of issues.

And does the USA want to see a unified Korea?

I think the answer is a yes, because a unified Korea will be a much more rational actor that could be reasoned with. If it was South Korean led, then that is a given. And if it was North Korean led, then North Korea will be secure on the Korean peninsula and no longer as paranoid that it will be regime changed. Then there would simply be much less disagreement between NK and the USA.
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And I still stand by my claim that the US doesn't want to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, because that means there would be no tensions to justify the status quo of keeping up the expense of the military spending for those 28,000 US troops and their families in South Korea. EVEN if the US has the Korean peninsula their way, they would still keep troops in there along with any new equipment to gage and test China's equipment. Military Industry does NOT make a lot money through a peaceful world.
 
A

AndrewS

Brigadier
Registered Member
Equation said:
And I still stand by my claim that the US doesn't want to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, because that means there would be no tensions to justify the status quo of keeping up the expense of the military spending for those 28,000 US troops and their families in South Korea. EVEN if the US has the Korean peninsula their way, they would still keep troops in there along with any new equipment to gage and test China's equipment. Military Industry does NOT make a lot money through a peaceful world.
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Think about it. South Korea pays for the maintenance of the US forces stationed in South Korea.

Do the soldiers, generals and politicians really think that this money is worth the risk of those troops being nuked?

And whilst the US may want to keep troops in a unified Korea, China will make it clear that this is not acceptable. And the key thing is that China has both the economic and military means (even in peacetime) to make the costs of a continued Korea-US security alliance unacceptably high.

Plus it's a good thing that the commercial world in both China and the USA make a lot more money and is way more influential than the military-industrial complex.
 
R

Richard Santos

Captain
Registered Member
Equation said:
The US really doesn't want the denuclerize the Korean peninsula and unite the two Koreans. Otherwise there would be no tensions and Beijing will have the far bigger influence than Washington. That means less money spent for the US military industrial complex.



Yup and the US media will always paint the DPRK in a bad light with the responsibility or blame place on China.
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Face it, nuclearization is NK's insurance against both hard and soft regime change from outside. The side that thinks any regime change in NK is likely to go in its own favor would want NK to denuclearize. The other side would say the same thing but would rather perpetuate the status quo.

Under the Bush administration, and to a somewhat lesser degree under the Obama administration, there was a strong sense that outwardly liberal democratic forms of government have overwhelming innate appeal, and regime changes, however it is brought about, that don't degenerate immediately into hard dictatorships, have better than even odds of evolving in a manner pleasing to the US. So if the US would simply stir up regime changes by any means necessary wherever the local regime is displeasing to the US, the chances are when the dust settles, the resulting outcome from the chaos would be more US friendly then before. So under those two administrations, desire to denuclearize North Korea was sincere, because the perception was a collapse of North Korea would more likely result in a unified pro-US peninsula.

The record since Arab spring has seriously damaged American perception that it is the most appealing model everywhere. There is no longer a feeling that but for authoritarian obstruction, the world would naturally and inevitably follow the American model. So I think American desire to remove NK nuclear arsenal has reduced. Now NK nuclear arsenal might even be perceived as a hedge against Chinese takeover of NK, or at least a hedge against North Korea being pressured into adopting the Chinese model of political authoritarianism coupled with open economic liberalism and thus fall into the Chinese orbit.
 
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Equation

Equation

Lieutenant General
Richard Santos said:
Face it, nuclearization is NK's insurance against both hard and soft regime change from outside. The side that thinks any regime change in NK is likely to go in its own favor would want NK to denuclearize. The other side would say the same thing but would rather perpetuate the status quo.

Under the Bush administration, and to a somewhat lesser degree under the Obama administration, there was a strong sense that outwardly liberal democratic forms of government have overwhelming innate appeal, and regime changes, however it is brought about, that don't degenerate immediately into hard dictatorships, have better than even odds of evolving in a manner pleasing to the US. So if the US would simply stir up regime changes by any means necessary wherever the local regime is displeasing to the US, the chances are when the dust settles, the resulting outcome from the chaos would be more US friendly then before. So under those two administrations, desire to denuclearize North Korea was sincere, because the perception was a collapse of North Korea would more likely result in a unified pro-US peninsula.

The record since Arab spring has seriously damaged American perception that it is the most appealing model everywhere. There is no longer a feeling that but for authoritarian obstruction, the world would naturally and inevitably follow the American model. So I think American desire to remove NK nuclear arsenal has reduced. Now NK nuclear arsenal might even be perceived as a hedge against Chinese takeover of NK, or at least a hedge against North Korea being pressured into adopting the Chinese model of political authoritarianism coupled with open economic liberalism and thus fall into the Chinese orbit.
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Does the so called North Korean threat or chaos matches the drama that the US perceive? Let the two Koreans either stay separated or united to their own accord. Let North Koreans to advance their ballistic missiles test to further their defenses. The bottom line is North Korea such a "bad guy" like Sadam Hussein that needs to be badly contain or eliminated?
 
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