How Is the U.S. Going To Afford A Renewed Korean War When It Happens (and it will).

Eventually, a renewal of the Korean War will happen. And the U.S. has both treaty obligations to defend South Korea and standing United Nations authorization to do so.

So how is the U.S. going to afford the multi trillion dollar price tag of such a war?

^ Yes, but there are probably upper limits to what is possible in that regard.

So basically you're expecting there to be an Iraq level occupation of North Korea by the US?

China will do it, not us. They don't want the full might of the US military staring at them across the Yalu. Their puppet regime will require no US troops across the former DMZ in the short term and withdrawal of all US troops from the Korean peninsula ten to fifteen years out as part of the capitulation/reunification. The US, China, Japan, and S Korea will split short term reunification costs (10-15 years) with S Korea assuming all long term liabilities.

No. The South Koreans can do that.

But I doubt the actual war fighting will be so kind to the U.S. as the invasion of Iraq was.

IIRC, the projections for a renewed Korean War (if the North Koreans do not collapse after a few days) are for the U.S. to suffer the worst number of casualities since World War Two.

Any renewed war would certainly involve up to 200-250,000 American soldiers.

Plus, there are 100,000 American civilians living in the Seoul area.

Maybe it could be like the novel "Proud Legions" where the U.S. lost less than 500 soldiers in a renewed war that lasted only a few days.

But I doubt it.

Militarily they would. Wiping them out as a threat to South Korea or Japan would take days at most, although how much they could lash out in those days is anyone's guess.

The post collapse clean up would be incredibly expensive, but it's unlikely there would be many US boots on the ground in NK.

Like I've said in other threads before, China will deal with this. North Korea's the dumbass cousin who smokes crack and screams at the cops as they drive by, while sitting on the front porch of China's house. They're not going to tolerate this much longer.

I thought N. Korea had a pretty large military? 4th largest in the world. Why would anyone think they'd fall in just a few days? As a matter of fact, I tend to think the Military is behind all this bravado and not its young inexperienced leader.

Deadliest Warrior had an episode pitting NK soldiers vs US Rangers.

Final score was something like 50.4 % in favour of the Rangers.

Now if say a half million US troops are busy in Korea, how convenient to take back Taiwan if you're China?

Oh, look.

Another thread where Dayton masturbates furiously over the possibility of war.

At least it's not a shoplifter he's choking

you can't see inside his mind...

I suspect there's a bit of horse trading going on.

If it turns to war, and if the NK troops are as dedicated as described then the US isn't going to want to do the necessary slaughter as it'll be horrific.

They'll do the tactical bit, and leave the bloodletting to the Chinese. In return the US will give very muted condemnation and veto any UN resolution condemning it.

Equally, the US will likely offer material and financial aid for China to rebuild NK and turn a blind eye to any excesses on the part of the Chinese there, in exchange China shushes over various disputed territories and Taiwan.

The world will be a slightly more peaceful place for a few weeks, albeit at the cost of an awful lot of dead Norks.

Only because we've not invented the gluon microscope yet.

As others note, it depends on the level of commitment. If it happens, something which Dayton is obviously pining for.

Of course, you realize, there's a huge roller-coaster dropoff after the first two.

When the US military starts sending it's dependent civilians back to America.....that would probably be the red flag telling the street vendors to take their fried squid stand indoors for a few months, if you get my drift.

They'll pay for it the old fashioned way, they'll borrow the money and tax the crap out of the people. But I do hope that the young people think twice, or more, before joining the military on this one.

My son is stationed in Seoul right now. His decision to join the military had nothing to do with our current (or future) military involvements. You can't even try to second-guess that shit or nobody would ever join.

All he's pissed off about is being in "lock-down" (no drinking, can't travel all over the country on weekends) until this blows over.

Fuck that.....a soldier can't drink in Korea is the biggest threat to their well-being! If any soldier capture Kim alive they would cut him into pieces one chunk at a time just for shits and grins just for fucking up their free-time.

You don't have to kill all the soldiers, just stop them being a threat. The NK offensive hardware wouldn't last long and they'd have no hope of stopping air strikes against supply lines. That basically just reduces them to Zerg rushing the border.

Why is that, exactly?

Baily's right as far as killing. The objective is to stop the enemy's ability/will to fight. If you can do that without killing, you are full of epic win. It's called "winning the battle without unsheathing your sword" or some Asian philosophy idea.

If we get dragged into it, the only way we can afford it is a one-and-done. By that I mean nuke Pyongyang.

Should we? No. Will we? Most unlikely. But is that the only way we can financially afford to deal with it? Yes. The boat's already taking on water and listing, we can't afford for Naporeon to plunk his fat little ass down beside what we're already dealing with.

We can level Pyongyang (or at least anything military/industrial) without nukes. Also it would send out a an asshole-puckering message to those who doubt our abilities.

I don't care for him, but I think President Obama would be on board for this.

But let's give Dennis Rodman a chance to iron things out first.

Oldfella is dayton3 are major burns?

Anybody care to tackle the challenge of translating that?

My son is a combat medic. He knows a lot about major burns. Maybe he can score us some morphine for our major burns! Party over here!

I see no "wanking," despite Canada Dude's fantasies.

This is a legitimate discussion, predicated by current events.

How did you pull that number out of your ass? In the last ten years of fighting in Iraq/Afghanistan, there's been less than five thousand causalities. The days of loading tons of troops for ground assaults on a scale of WWII is long over, short of a nuclear attack.