WI: Second Korean War over ROKS Cheonan sinking?

My answer to the post-war situation is military occupation and government like with Germany and Japan, keep the borders sealed, beg borrow or steal as much food and humanitarian aid as you can and run it into the country to try and help stabilise things, use the incredibly cheap labour you now have on hand to undercut China and other countries in the mass production market like with the current Kaesong Industrial Region, use that income to help fund reconstruction and education of the population over a couple of generations, over the 40-year period start a gradual introduction of democracy and finally unification.

China is going to be as nervous as hell about a unified Korea under the South. I think they could probably be reassured if it was promised to be fully nuclear disarmed under South Korea's commitment as a signatory of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, with the war now effectively concluded it means that the UN Security Council resolutions have been fulfilled so that United Nations Command can be disbanded and US troops asked to leave the peninsula. There's also the factor that North Korea is a headache even for the Chinese government that I think seeing the UN, really American, forces gone would be seen as a decent trade-off.

Except there would be the added problem of insurgency by forces loyal to the ex regime including NK Special Forcs types. This woul be based in the extensive mountainous and forested areas and likely would last for years. Much like Iraq
 

Ming777

Monthly Donor
To be fair, I think a war would have been more likely if a full out frigate or even one of South Korea's missile destroyers were attacked (even if they weren't sunk).
 
Except there would be the added problem of insurgency by forces loyal to the ex regime including NK Special Forcs types. This woul be based in the extensive mountainous and forested areas and likely would last for years. Much like Iraq

How long can they count on popular support? My guess is until ROK troops start distributing food.
 
People Army of Viet Nam has a kind-of-semi-official Facebook page (This page is ran by soldiers after all). And recently, they have a short "comparison" between RoK and DPRK forces. See the original here Sorry, Vietnamese only
However, most (if not all) of their post consist 20% of truth, the rest is joke and satire. You have been warned


Here is the (rough) translation:

We have been talking pretty much about North Korea [NK], hence, it should be nice talking about South Korea [SK], just in case some one says we are smoothing balls for brother Un (if he has any, that is) [1]

On total number, NK has one million elite/agressive men while SK has 520,000 active soldiers.
NK has 3500 tanks, it is 2414 for SK.
NK has 21,100 pieces of artillery on all scales, it is only 11,000 for their counter-part
NK submarine force has 72 (?) units, quite likely to be mini-type like Sang-o. Meanwhile, SK has 23 subs. However, above-sea naval force of SK is superior with 20 - compared to a mere 3
The ratio of air-force is quite balance with 563-571. Regards to modern jets, while SK already has good stuff like F-15 and F-16, most of their air-force is sill F-5E/F and F-4. Here, they will meet their arch-enemies: MiG-21 of NK> It is also noteable that it is unknown of the few F-16 and F-15 and over-power SK's MiG-23 and MiG-29.

SK's K-1 tank has better performance in electronic warfare. However, according to worldwide's recent combats, even tanks as good as Russian can become coffins once the meet anti-tank weapons. NK has "legendary" RPG while SK has the most modern anti-tank weapons from Israel and USA. So, we should cross tanks off our list.

NK has over-powered artillery, granted, but the fewer tank and artillery units of SK with support from electronic warfare and counter system with radar shall be "annoyance" with NK's artillery.

Hence, only Navy remains. It is undoubtable that above-sea force of NK will be crushed. However, it can't be such certain if NK uses tens of suicide submarines, which limit the support to SK's ground force.

PS : Of course, assume that NK doesn't have "20 nuclear warheads"
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Any ideas?
 
Such a war would be a bloody mess, however the NK air force is a joke compared to the ROK let alone US AF/Navy/Marine air. Very quickly the NK transport net will be chopped up - bridges dropped by smart bombs etc. Bottom line while this will be nasty, in a conventional war against the ROK with support from US at a minimum, especially after an incident rather than a "bolt out of the blue", NK will lose. China and Russia won't support NK like in the Korean War, doing so would totally trash their trade with the west.

Since in this scenario the ROK won't stop, I expect the Chinese might move across the border and occupy a chunk of NK along the border - for strictly humanitarian reasons of course. Of course they won't ever leave, but this would give some buffer and not have ROK/US forces right up against their (real) border.

If NK uses any nukes, things get much worse very quickly. This includes the possibility of missile strikes on US bases in Japan, Okinawa, or Guam. Another possibility is the use of artillery delivered poison gas rounds on Seoul with very high civilian casualties (not so much for military who is equipped and trained). Of course using nukes against the ROK or any US forces will guarantee sunshine at various spots in NK.

ANY war on the Korean peninsula will be a huge tragedy.
 

Ming777

Monthly Donor
I think the Vietnamese soldiers who posted on Facebook may not be aware of the state of the North Korean Weapons. Vietnam has had the ability to continue to keep its equipment running and likely still gets some stuff from Russia and other nations. The North Koreans haven't had any external support in years and their gear is largely third hand stuff, hand-me-down hand-me-downs. Their most advanced jets are a squadron of early model MiG-29s, and reports indicate they rarely use them except for scant time to qualify their pilots.

In essence once the MIGs are out the KPA is really an early to mid Cold War Eastern Bloc army.
 
I think the Vietnamese soldiers who posted on Facebook may not be aware of the state of the North Korean Weapons. Vietnam has had the ability to continue to keep its equipment running and likely still gets some stuff from Russia and other nations. The North Koreans haven't had any external support in years and their gear is largely third hand stuff, hand-me-down hand-me-downs. Their most advanced jets are a squadron of early model MiG-29s, and reports indicate they rarely use them except for scant time to qualify their pilots.

In essence once the MIGs are out the KPA is really an early to mid Cold War Eastern Bloc army.

I think they are bloody well aware of the difference since they were on wrong side of tech difference during their war.

The question is why are they ignoring. Because they must? Because they are taking a piss?
 
How long can they count on popular support? My guess is until ROK troops start distributing food.

Consider how indoctrinated the NK population is. It would take years to change that. Just look at Iraq. In maybe ten years or so you might get popular opinion starting to shift in your favour. But would the US be willing to sustain the financial costs and the caualties of a long term COIN? The conventional war, nasty and boody as it would be, is very likely the "easy" part:eek:
 
Consider how indoctrinated the NK population is. It would take years to change that. Just look at Iraq. In maybe ten years or so you might get popular opinion starting to shift in your favour. But would the US be willing to sustain the financial costs and the caualties of a long term COIN? The conventional war, nasty and boody as it would be, is very likely the "easy" part:eek:

Or Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. It took decades before occupation troops were safe from sniping and small scale attacks by old regime loyalists and rest of population started to at least talk to them. Oh wait..... :eek:
 
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