north korean theory

Actually North Korea would be a good supply of industrialized labour that SK could use, not to mention the Nuclear plants in North K for cheap energy.

Also theres the prestige issue, South Korea if it unifies with North Korea gets its nuclear bombs, Korea would have nukes and would add to Korean pride.

The_Zergling said:

I strongly doubt that the difference in civilian population will be an advantage in any potential conflict. The fact stands that though North Korea does indeed enjoy numerical superiority, they cannot deploy all of those troops at once, making them only useful if both sides are suffering from a war of attrition and the side with more reserves comes up on top.

That advantage is quickly negated by foreign assistance, of course. Also, I think you have it backwards. SOUTH Korea has the technological advantage over the North, not the other way around.

Click to expand...

but north korea has the support of china ! they signed a treaty of mutal assistance ages ago

north korea has many mountains and hills over the years NK has heavily fortifyed the border so I dont think they can be conquerored easily

The_Zergling said:

I strongly doubt that the difference in civilian population will be an advantage in any potential conflict. The fact stands that though North Korea does indeed enjoy numerical superiority, they cannot deploy all of those troops at once, making them only useful if both sides are suffering from a war of attrition and the side with more reserves comes up on top.

That advantage is quickly negated by foreign assistance, of course. Also, I think you have it backwards. SOUTH Korea has the technological advantage over the North, not the other way around.

Click to expand...

I never said South Korea was at a technological disadvantage. Nor did I say North Korea had a technological advantage.

"SK holds a population advantage over NK, much like the North held one over the South in the American Civil War. However, since war is more technologically based rather than numerically based today, whoever has the more technologically advanced military is likely to win."

My exact words. Maybe you didn't see Civil War. I wasn't sure who held technological advantage between SK and NK. Instead of skimming though, you should have actually read it. By the way, civilian population is relevant because if you paid attention to my CIA fact book info, SK holds the actual advantage. They have a bigger population to draw from. SK holds real numerical advantage, although their current military is actually smaller. Yeah, actual military size is irrelevant, but if that were entirely true, NK would have no advantage because they have 596k more people. But, although actual numbers of men is worth less than it was 200 years ago, numerical advantage still helps.

"However, since war is more technologically based rather than numerically based today, whoever has the more technologically advanced military is likely to win."

I said that technology would probably be the winning factor. I was putting the numbers up to point out that Korea actually did have the capacity to have a larger army. (because people made it sound like they had a smaller population or something.)

Yes, the current NK military is slightly larger, but SK could probably defend an attack long enough to call up some reserves and begin conscripting.(conscription is why civilian populations matter.) I mean, especially if SK has technological advantage, which I wasn't sure who did. Since they have a better economy, they probably could have a bigger military rather fast.

Yeah, no one can deploy an entire reserve at once. I mean, China has the capability of having about 342 Million men, but they only have about 960,000.
Lemme explain my original thoughts though.

NK holds 1,082,000ish men. If they blitzkrieged SK, they might win. But SK might be lucky and repel them. I knew technology would be the winning factor, but I didn't know which side had it, so I just stated it as if SK actually had it, but it wasn't as great. I only made that guess because SK does have a better economy, so it's more likely they have the better technology in their military. SK alone could probably beat NK, since I now know they actually DO hold a good tech advantage. They would probably be invaded in part way, and then they would shove NK back into NK.

Now that I look at it though, it seemed implied NK had better technology and a good military. (I already knew their military sucked, I was just throwing in the fact they hold a big numerical advantage and if they threw everything at SK, NK might win.) So, I'm going to go ahead and apologize for being mean and snappy. I did say "whoever has the more technologically advanced military" just to show I wasn't entirely sure. My guess was really SK, but I wasn't sure of it. I'm still not sure of how much, so perhaps you could tell me how much more SK is technologically advanced than NK.

Ender's Shadow said:

I never said South Korea was at a technological disadvantage. Nor did I say North Korea had a technological advantage.

Click to expand...

Well then, my mistake. From your civil war analogy I kind of assumed that you meant the side with more men would prevail in the long run, but the wording was so ambiguous I couldn't tell whether the numbers were referring to civilian or military.

You bring up the point that SK could probably defend an attack long enough to call up reserves and begin conscripting. While true, training people takes time. Training people to use the higher technology available in the militaries today arguably takes longer than it used to. Having a strong economy may or may not help produce a larger military quickly.

For one thing, things will be affected by war. On one hand you have the military conscripting people. On the other hand you have to keep up the agriculture business which is very important to SK. It's not entirely possible to keep both up at a peacetime pace, but I don't think that a realistic scenario will be as clean cut as yours on paper.

Anyhow, no hard feelings from you being "snappy". What you meant originally and what it came off as was different, but that's not really anyone's fault.

I'll follow up later on when I get my hands on my comprehensive information, but a relative reliable tactic that I use when comparing technological differences is to compare the two Air Forces, and the aircraft available.

Most notably, SK has F-4s, F-5s, and relatively advanced versions of F-16s. (I can't remember how the competition for the next order came out, IIRC the F-15K came out on top, if someone could clarify that would be great)

On the other hand, North Korea's Air Force is mostly composed of nearly obsolete combat aircraft of a previous generation, and a limited number of MiG-29s. From what I understand, pilot training isn't very extensive, one reason being fear of defection, plus the limited amount of resources. Although the GNP% spent on the military is very high, it still isn't enough to make the Air Force comparable to South Korean capabilities.

Well, I'm sorry to be so ambigious. Didn't realize it until after I posted, but I figured people would figure it out. I did think about the fact things would be affected by the war, but I didn't mean heavy conscription. (Like actually getting all 12 million men in the war.) And no, it wouldn't be as clean cut. NK might get a slight numeric advantage, or they SK could just conscript a few hundred thousand and it might be even numerically. And wow, SK could tear NK a new one with those planes if NK has old-gen planes. They could dominate the skies. NK's only hope would be China helping, and SK's only hope in the event that happened would be US intervention. Wow, Korean war all over again. Oh, and I'll try to be more specific and organize when I speak from now on. Sometimes I get a little unorganized. (Because I think randomly a lot of the time.) But yeah, it appears SK has a HUGE tech advantage. Numbers might just actually be irrelvant in a war between them after all. But yeah, thanks for the info.

You guys might want to check out the thread I made about the DMZ and its fortifications, defence and attack possibilites and other stuff in general.

The South has a massive advantage in its armour, including the K1, designed to operate in the hilly terrain of Central Korea. The South also has T-80s and some souped up M47s and M48s. The K1s and the T-80s are vastly superior to the T-60s that the North fields. South Korean infantry regularly trains with the US and has superior weapons and leadership to the North Koreans. They would be supported by a fleet of infantry support vehicles. All this would allow the South to execute a mobile defence in depth, which would be an even more formidable obstacle than the realtively small DMZ fortifications. Northern breakthroughs would be sealed by more mobile Southern forces. The North's numbers advantage is not nearly as formidable as it seems. The Korean Peninsula is not wide enough to allow for the use of the North's number advantage in an efficent fashion. However, the North does have massive amounts of artillery in the hills on its side of the DMZ. These would be the only weapon the North could use to win, or at least capture Seoul; theoretically the artillery could punch holes in the defences. However, as I said, the South, supported by the US, could mount a defence in depth, which is much more difficult to simply punch through with massive firepower. Even if the North did manage to break a hole in the Southern line, it would be difficult to exploit, as any large concentrations of troops would be attacked relentlessly by air because the US-ROK forces would have air superiority. Finally, given the fuel situation in Korea, I doubt the North could stay on the offensive for long. Overall, the situation would be somewhat like the battle of Mortain in Normandy; with the Allied forces hard-pressed and suffering heavy casualties, but with the enemy unable to breakthrough and concentrate sufficent forces to make their attacks successful.

North Korea would likely not win the war. The fact of the matter is is that the North couldn't beat the SK within a day, which it would need to do. They have about 24 hours before the UN would start to flood the SK with troops and supplies. In addition, though the SK is less of a military threat, they still have better technology as well as more people and most importantly, an economy. This is important due to the fact that in the event that a war lastslonger than a few months, they would be able to keep the war going.

Now whoever said that the artillery is within range of Seoul is correct. Though this may be the SK's one weakness, it isn't an achillies heel. Just because the NK take out the Seoul, doesn't mean they will win the war. In all likeliness, the NK won't even get to Seoul in the event of a war. In terms of a military threat by the NK, there isn't much of one. Sure they have many troops, but they are under trained, and they don't have some of the state-of-the-art stuff that the SK have. The 3000 or so NK tanks are made up of ww2 vintage T-34's, T-55's which were introduced in 1957,
T-62's and type 59's. These tanks, though many in number, won't do alot of good against the South's 2100 or so M-47's, M-48's, and type 88's. And that is not including the M1's that the U.S. might rush to the reigion for the war effort.

Now, for the other types of fighting machines, airplanes. The NK has the advantage her, but only by just a little bit. They have more airplanes, but the fact is is that the NK has alot of old planes, which won't do it alot of good against some of the modern planes. And of course, that is assuming that they have enough fuel to put some planes in the air.

All in all, I think that it would be suicide for the NK to go South. They wouldn't have much of a chance with most of the world coming to the South's aid. As for the nukes, they probably wouldn't be used because they are mostly there to scare the west and also there to make sure a conventional war is fought on the ground.

petty officer1 said:

Would you guys think, one day, just maybe one day the two country will be united?

After half century of embrassment and seperation? Would the two brother walk together again in the name of one and only ONE Korea?

Click to expand...

Not if Kim Jong il's son is under the influence of him. That would mean 2 koreas. Look, Kim is not what you call a good leader. People even say all he cares about is his hair style . NK will need a different leader if they want reunification. and the type of reunification im talkin about is peaceful negotiations. Well ofcourse even a cyco like Kim would not be stupid enough to invade the south.

Any reunification based on the continuation of the Kim regieme, controlling any part of Korea, is unacceptable to the South, as well as Japan and the US. To the Kim regieme, any reunification in which they lose power is unacceptable. Therefroe, reunification cannot take place while the Kim regieme exsists, unless perhaps a closet democrat is hiding in the family. I think the best chance for the removal of the Kims is a military coup by generals who want to reunite their country. Even if the North suddenly reverses itself or the Kim regieme topples, I think the South would not allow any reunification until North Korea was economically liberalised and revitalized while still seperate from the South. Why would the South want to incorporate millions of the poorest, worst educated people in the world? The groundwork for reuification would have to be laid. This could be coordinated by a Reunification Committee, containing represntatives from both North and South, as well as a UN representative, and maybe an American and/or some other foreginer to represent foreign donors to the North's reconstruction.

Isn't Finn's plan so great? Nobody dies and we all get to talk about our differences (SArcastic laugh)

just to let you guys know, North korea's army is extremely well trained. men train for an average of 6 or 7 years. during that time, they don't just march and sit around, they actually learn to kill people.

anywayz, i'll have more cool stories about korean military for you guys starting september. hopefully, one of my buddies can move in with me(the damn university can't make up its mind in who to give me as a roommate in my dorm). he served in the SK army as a grunt. he served right on the DMZ, said he actually heard NKs talking in the middle of the night.