MilitaryForums.co.uk

jonboy wrote:Judging from those pictures, they know exactly where they keep there expensive 'stuff' so why dont yankie just bomb the mad lot of little freaks...problem solved? or created?

All evil needs to succeed is for good men to stand by and do nothing

North Korea, which can and is willing to face up to the sole military superpower of the world, cannot be called a weak nation.

North Korea has made it clear that it will strike all US targets with all means, if the US mounted military attacks on North Korea.

The US crew {of the spy plane} must have informed the base of the danger they were in, but no action was taken by the base. If Kim Jong Il had given the command, the MiGs would have shot down the US plane and returned to their base before the US could have scrambled war planes.

North Korea's total war plan has two components: massive conventional warfare and weapons of mass destruction. If the US mounts a preemptive strike on North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear plants, North Korea will retaliate with weapons of mass destruction: North Korea will mount strategic nuclear attacks on the US targets.

The US intelligence on North Korea is faulty at best. Donald Gregg, a former US ambassador to Seoul and a 30-year CIA veteran, said that even the best spy gadget in the US arsenal cannot read what's on Kim Jong Il's mind.

North Korea has annual production capacity for 200,000 AK automatic guns, 3,000 heavy guns, 200 battle tanks, 400 armored cars and amphibious crafts.

North Korea makes its own submarines

Several small to medium hydro-power plants serve these {weapons-producing} plants so that it would be nearly impossible for the US to cut off power to the plants.

North Korea is the world most-tunneled nation. North Korea has 8,236 underground facilities that are linked by 547 km of tunnels. Beneath Pyongyang are a huge underground stadium and other facilities.

North Korea is mountainous and its coasts are long and jagged. The Korean peninsula is narrow on its waste. The Gulf War and the recent war in Iraq saw US tanks in open fields. Tank battles in Korea will be fought on hilly terrains without any close air cover, because North Korean fighters will engage US planes in close dog fights.

North Korea's fighter planes are ill-equipped for air-to-air combats at long distances. but they can hold their own in close-quarter air combats.

MiG21s are North Korea's main workhorse. The MiG21 debuted in 1965 in Vietnam and proved itself as an effective attack fighter. In 1999, North Korea bought 40 MiG21s from Kazakhstan.

In September 1996, a North Korean submarine got stranded at Kangrung, South Korea, and its crew abandoned the ship. Eleven of the crew committed suicide and the rest fought to the last man except one who was captured. In June 1998, another submarine got caught in fishing nets at Sokcho and its crew killed themselves. Such is the fighting spirit of North Korean soldiers.

The Korea Herald

'N.K. has no tech to fire nuclear arms'Rep. Chang Young-dalThe National Assembly's Defense Committee chief cast doubts about North Korea's capability to launch missiles bearing nuclear warheads, dismissing Pyongyang's recent nuclear threats as an act of diplomatic brinkmanship. "Although the North might have extracted weapons-grade plutonium, they do not have the capability of compressing a nuclear warhead to 500 kg or less so it can be loaded onto a missile," Rep. Chang Young-dal said in a recent interview with The Korea Herald.

Rep. Chang said he obtained the intelligence on the North's nuclear capability from Defense Minister Cho Young-kil when he attended a session of the parliamentary defense panel last Wednesday.

The committee chairman quoted the minister as saying that a nuclear warhead must be compressed down to this weight before it can be attached to missiles for launching.

Chang also dismissed a flurry of foreign news reports that suggested North Korea has already completed reprocessing spent fuel rods that could produce weapons-grade plutonium, or that Pyongyang was preparing to declare itself a nuclear power by Sept. 9.

"The recent reports are not accountable," he said. "It is our mutual belief - verified by information shared by the U.S. and South Korean governments - that North Korea has not reached that stage."

Chang, however, stressed that the North's severe economic hardship may lead the country to obtain technology essential to developing nuclear weapons.

"It (the possession of nuclear weapons) is translated as their means of survival, there is no country that feels more threatened than the North right now. It is their last negotiating card," he said.

Chang said it is therefore important for the international collective to relieve the sense of crisis from the North, assuring it of its survival without nuclear weapons and urging it to return to the international community.

"While it is difficult and impractical for the United States to attack the North considering the power of neighboring countries like Russia and China, not to mention North Korea having no power sources such as oil like Iraq had, North Korea has reached its extreme limit of poverty, making it untenable to reject the United States' nonaggression pact even verbally," Chang explained.

Chang also expressed optimism about the possibility of the United States and North Korea breaking though their differences diplomatically.

"I believe the wall will be broken at the second-round of bilateral or trilateral talks with North Korea when they open in the near future. The United States may have more to lose than gain by taking military action against the North, with it already in a state of confusion over the post-war project in Iraq."

"The Korean Peninsula also has relationships with other powerful states unlike Iraq, while the efficacy of the nuclear weapons card for the North seems to have lost its flare," Chang said.

On the controversial subject of the U.S. military base's realignment in the South, Chang said the repositioning of U.S. troops currently stationed north of the Han River to the south will raise tension on the Korean Peninsula.

"The movement of troops southward will create an effective range for missile attacks by the U.S. on the North, which will mean weaker negotiating power for both Koreas and a constant state of alertness in the North," he said.

"The relocation further south will also influence foreign investment in Seoul, which was greatly facilitated by having the U.S. military based in the neighborhood," Chang said. He added that the British defense minister recently told him that Britain would not be able to invest even $1 should the United States withdraw its troops from South Korea.

As for South Korea's participation in the U.S. Missile Defense program, Chang said it is the South Korean government and experts' stance that it is not "advisable or possible" in terms of geography and military capacity.

Regarding the Korean War armistice agreement, Chang said the two sides must build up a fundamental level of trust to establish a permanent peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.

To this end, he added, both North and South must be able to inform the other side of scheduled military drills simply by a phone call, and the authenticity of the call should be confirmed by an invitation to attend the counterpart's drills.

The Defense Minister-level talks should also be held regularly in order to build up trust and eventually persuade the United States to shift into peace mode, Chang said.

"I believe an environment has formed where it would be highly advantageous for the United States to assist the unification of the two Koreas, which will allow the country to secure stronger alliances and expand its influence amid the power rivalry Asia still has against Russia and China," he added.

(angiely@heraldm.com)


By Lee Joo-hee


2003.07.28

URNU-Student wrote:so why are the Yanks in such a flap about it then?

and why should the rest of us be bothered?

munky wrote:

URNU-Student wrote:so why are the Yanks in such a flap about it then?

and why should the rest of us be bothered?

yanks are in a flap about it for many reasons, probably the most honorable being because north korea - if it can produce nukes - will gladly flog them to anyone - *anyone* - who turns up on their doorstep with a large-enough suitcase of hard currency.

as for why the rest of us should be bothered; north korean missiles can't hit the uk, and they can't hit the usa, but they are in range of japan, and taiwan. and hong-kong, and singapore. and if any one of those places was attacked with a nuke then the entire world economy would go down the toilet and we'll all end up tossing off truckers for pennies. that's why

URNU-Student wrote: Yeah just like Saddam was going to give WMD to al-Qaida. Sorry but im getting a sense of deja vu here, im afraid im not as trusting of our politicans as i used to be after the Iraq affair.

Also i seriously doubt NK would launch a strike unless attacked first.

1. north korea has a population of over twenty million people, most of whom are peasants digging in the dirt for a living. they live in fear of the police. they live in fear of the secret services. they live in fear of not having enough food to eat next year, or not having enough heat to survive this year's winter. they live in fear of getting sick, because healthcare in north korea isn't exactly wonderful.

and the only reason they have this nightmare existance is because their "king" is a cretin, who uses his entire country to try and get even with the rest of the world, because he's a complete mentalist. i think the western world has a moral obligation to free these people, preferably by surgical strike but by other means if necessary - though not all-out full-on carpet-bombing, because that rarely does much good...

i mean, more people have died of starvation in north korea - as a direct result of their dictator's decisions - than were gassed by the nazis in the holocaust. call me idealistic but i think we need to do something about this, soon, because it's not going to get better.