Korea Thread: Fumbling to take a bite of kimchi

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Korea Thread: Fumbling to take a bite of kimchi

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Whitlam posted:

Yeah, like how the US removed Saddam Hussein and it worked out great and now everything is just peachy.

Loyalty to Jong-Un may not be as high as it was to Jong-Il or Il-Sung, but it's still North Korea, and a lot of people still aren't wild about Americans. Serious question: how would Jong-Un's removal play out in your view? As in, who does it, how, and what happens after?

You don't seem to be paying attention. Iraq's government indeed no longer goes around threatening other countries, but that's not the only problem that was at stake in the first place. South Korea is also hardly a weak state in the way something like the US-backed replacement government of Iraq was and is, and China and Russia also aren't weak states either.

Uh, how it would play out is over a million people dead in the war (because there's no way to forcibly remove Kim Jong Un and the military generals with the real power without war, and it'll probably be many more than just a million), and then trillions spent on occupation and rebuilding in the course of unification afterwards. Is it really that hard for you to read the conversation that already occurred?

The people doing the invasion would obviously be the coalition of forces currently stationed in South Korea with the vast majority of the manpower and all of the civil duties coming from South Korea (and the US probably being the ones contributing the next highest portion of the military forces).

# ? Apr 18, 2017 23:34

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# ? May 22, 2024 16:54

Dapper_Swindler: Feb 14, 2012; Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Whitlam posted:

Yeah, like how the US removed Saddam Hussein and it worked out great and now everything is just peachy.

Loyalty to Jong-Un may not be as high as it was to Jong-Il or Il-Sung, but it's still North Korea, and a lot of people still aren't wild about Americans. Serious question: how would Jong-Un's removal play out in your view? As in, who does it, how, and what happens after?

to be fair. that has ton of different issues. NK is extreamly unified culture in most ways. Iraq was only held together by saddam and military service.

# ? Apr 19, 2017 00:38

Whitlam: Aug 2, 2014; Some goons overreact. Go figure.

fishmech posted:

You don't seem to be paying attention. Iraq's government indeed no longer goes around threatening other countries, but that's not the only problem that was at stake in the first place. South Korea is also hardly a weak state in the way something like the US-backed replacement government of Iraq was and is, and China and Russia also aren't weak states either.

Uh, how it would play out is over a million people dead in the war (because there's no way to forcibly remove Kim Jong Un and the military generals with the real power without war, and it'll probably be many more than just a million), and then trillions spent on occupation and rebuilding in the course of unification afterwards. Is it really that hard for you to read the conversation that already occurred?

The people doing the invasion would obviously be the coalition of forces currently stationed in South Korea with the vast majority of the manpower and all of the civil duties coming from South Korea (and the US probably being the ones contributing the next highest portion of the military forces).

North Korea's only problem isn't that they go around threatening other states either.

My question about how it would play out isn't just "will people die?", it was meant to be more specific than that. Does the US formally declare war? Bay of Pigs 2.0? The US has close allies in the region, but if Trump decides to just go and declare war on NK, he's going to be putting Japan, South Korea, and Australia, to name the major regional allies/forces in a very uncomfortable position. Japan and SK for obvious reasons including that they have their own policies for dealing with them, especially on the offchance that NK is actually capable of firing some missiles that don't blow up on launch in their general direction, and Australia because it relies on China for trade, and a decent focus of recent governments has been on improving our relationship, which would tank if we went to war over NK. It also doesn't help that most Australians couldn't care less about NK, so wouldn't be too excited at the prospect of another huge military entanglement, especially after how the last one ended (although many would argue it's still ongoing). Afghanistan was an unmitigated failure and people just aren't excited to be marching off into another huge conflict for the hell of it, especially under a President who's hugely unpopular overseas. If the international community sees Trump as a senile, unfunny joke (spoiler: they do) they aren't going to be champing at the bit to go off to war with him.

Since this is a war that nobody (apart from maybe Trump) actually wants, it isn't obvious that the US would be swimming in support from the coalition already over there. There's a huge difference between being stationed to stand in the region and glare in the general direction, and actually going to war. One would have support, the other would not necessarily, and not nearly as much.

Dapper_Swindler posted:

to be fair. that has ton of different issues. NK is extreamly unified culture in most ways. Iraq was only held together by saddam and military service.

I agree, but my point was more broadly "when will Americans stop trying to remove foreign heads of government it doesn't work?" Was Saddam lovely and awful? Without a doubt. Has what's happened after been better? That depends on who you ask. I could've gone for other examples, but Iraq was the most recent that came to mind.

Whitlam fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Apr 19, 2017

# ? Apr 19, 2017 02:22

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Whitlam posted:

North Korea's only problem isn't that they go around threatening other states either.

My question about how it would play out isn't just "will people die?", it was meant to be more specific than that. Does the US formally declare war? Bay of Pigs 2.0? The US has close allies in the region, but if Trump decides to just go and declare war on NK, he's going to be putting Japan, South Korea, and Australia, to name the major regional allies/forces in a very uncomfortable position. Japan and SK for obvious reasons including that they have their own policies for dealing with them, especially on the offchance that NK is actually capable of firing some missiles that don't blow up on launch in their general direction, and Australia because it relies on China for trade, and a decent focus of recent governments has been on improving our relationship, which would tank if we went to war over NK. It also doesn't help that most Australians couldn't care less about NK, so wouldn't be too excited at the prospect of another huge military entanglement, especially after how the last one ended (although many would argue it's still ongoing). Afghanistan was an unmitigated failure and people just aren't excited to be marching off into another huge conflict for the hell of it, especially under a President who's hugely unpopular overseas. If the international community sees Trump as a senile, unfunny joke (spoiler: they do) they aren't going to be champing at the bit to go off to war with him.

Since this is a war that nobody (apart from maybe Trump) actually wants, it isn't obvious that the US would be swimming in support from the coalition already over there. There's a huge difference between being stationed to stand in the region and glare in the general direction, and actually going to war. One would have support, the other would not necessarily, and not nearly as much.

We are already at war, we've never stopped being at war. There's only an armistice in place after all. The United Nations Command authorized in 1950 to retaliate against North Korea's invasion has never been disbanded despite 64 years of armistice.

It would also have be a full bore invasion, and yes it's going to mean a lot of destruction in South Korea too because of course North Korea is going to retaliate. I want to be very clear forcibly removing Kim Jong Un and the generals from power would a terrible way to go about things and I do not advocate it happening. We would expect it would mostly happen from Trump's brain bugs acting up and starting poo poo by ordering attacks to happen. And then once that occurs, South Korea has no choice but to continue with it because there's not really a way to back down from that sort of thing - because once those attacks occur North Korea is absolutely going to start shooting back at South Korea. That means South Korea needs to fire into North Korea on their own to take out artillery batteries and airbases and stuff, and they've now fallen right back into full scale war. And that'll mean at least many months of direct fighting and probably years of ongoing operations - it would all be a real mess that could have been avoided.

So essentially it wouldn't matter that there wouldn't be much in the way of a coalition involved. There'd be the US troops and massive South Korean army that exists precisely for war with North Korea and little else, if we're honest. There would also be the small contingent of other forces currently stationed in South Korea that would be obligated to at least fight in their own defense before they can be evacuated in the likely scenario that their countries don't want to take part in the renewed war.

# ? Apr 19, 2017 02:47

Whitlam: Aug 2, 2014; Some goons overreact. Go figure.

fishmech posted:

We are already at war, we've never stopped being at war. There's only an armistice in place after all. The United Nations Command authorized in 1950 to retaliate against North Korea's invasion has never been disbanded despite 64 years of armistice.

It would also have be a full bore invasion, and yes it's going to mean a lot of destruction in South Korea too because of course North Korea is going to retaliate. I want to be very clear forcibly removing Kim Jong Un and the generals from power would a terrible way to go about things and I do not advocate it happening. We would expect it would mostly happen from Trump's brain bugs acting up and starting poo poo by ordering attacks to happen. And then once that occurs, South Korea has no choice but to continue with it because there's not really a way to back down from that sort of thing - because once those attacks occur North Korea is absolutely going to start shooting back at South Korea. That means South Korea needs to fire into North Korea on their own to take out artillery batteries and airbases and stuff, and they've now fallen right back into full scale war. And that'll mean at least many months of direct fighting and probably years of ongoing operations - it would all be a real mess that could have been avoided.

So essentially it wouldn't matter that there wouldn't be much in the way of a coalition involved. There'd be the US troops and massive South Korean army that exists precisely for war with North Korea and little else, if we're honest. There would also be the small contingent of other forces currently stationed in South Korea that would be obligated to at least fight in their own defense before they can be evacuated in the likely scenario that their countries don't want to take part in the renewed war.

I didn't mean to imply we aren't at war, my bad. That said, I think it's fair to say that there's a difference between "actively at war" and the situation as it stands now.

I suppose one of the biggest threats could be Trump deciding "hey this whole blowing poo poo up thing is kinda fun" and being all gung-ho to do it in more places.

South Korea's army is decent, but is it enough to stop NK and China? Granted, Korea is pretty small, but in the event of full-scale war, wouldn't you have to divert US troops away from where they're stationed and get a bunch over to Korea? The way I see it happening is, for whatever reason, war breaks out between NK and SK (say it's because the US gets a bit excited with missiles), in which case China will without a doubt get involved (especially when more US troops arrive in Korea, assuming they do, or else SK is kinda screwed, and going to be pissed at the US). I genuinely have no idea what the gently caress Australia would do if forced to choose between China and the US. Possibly abstain from sending troops, or send aid or a peacekeeping force.

So basically you've got NK and China, (possibly with Russia because they'll take any chance to gently caress over the US and will go back to the old communist alliance if it's convenient) on one side, and SK, the US and Japan (possibly with Australia) on the other.

I totally agree it wouldn't end well (especially for SK), but I don't necessarily agree it "wouldn't matter" if there wasn't a coalition involved, because otherwise you have NK and China vs SK and ???

# ? Apr 19, 2017 05:12

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

I don't understand why you think China would stick their necks out to help North Korea, nor why you think Russia would. Both of those countries would be mostly interested in securing their own borders with North Korea. And especially in the case of China, that'll probably mean a limited invasion of their own - maybe eventually leading to permanent annexation of direct border areas, but probably not.

South Korea would also always have the US to count on, but their military is more than capable of taking on North Korea - North Korea's army is underfed and underequipped and has been for decades. It'd just, again, mean a whole ton of death and destruction on the way to an inevitable SK victory. Additionally, you seem to forget that we already have a bunch of troops stationed in Korea and in areas right near Korea specifically with the intention of being deployed in case of the war heating back up. Although these days we only station ~30,000 troops directly in South Korea, we've also got another ~50,000 stationed in Japan.

But it's worth remembering that again, the majority of the burden of actually fighting the war will be on the South Koreans, and to avoid things like border issues, they might be the entirety of the forces at the true front lines especially once the invasions really penetrated deep into the North. The US is likely going to focus on providing logistics, weaponry, and naval assistance in this sort of scenario. Not so much original Korean War stuff where the US troops are coming in 300,000 strong and handling a ton of the day-to-day fighting.

Also to add on: China only got deeply involved in the original war due to certain American officers continuing to approach the Chinese border aggressively, even after being asked to halt and leave a buffer. Especially with a non Mao China involved, it should be easy to prevent that sort of pointless thing regardless of how dumb Trump orders things.

fishmech fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Apr 19, 2017

# ? Apr 19, 2017 05:27

Koramei: Nov 11, 2011; I have three regrets
The first is to be born in Joseon.

Whitlam posted:

Granted, Korea is pretty small

This isn't really to do with your post, but it comes up a lot so it's worth establishing- Korea isn't actually that small. It has more land area than Great Britain, with a population almost as high as Germany's. It's small compared to China, but then so are most countries.

# ? Apr 19, 2017 05:30

RandomBlue: Dec 30, 2012; hay guys!; Biscuit Hider

It's been a while, time for someone to post that we have 72 carrier groups headed to Korea right now, even though we have 0 that are actually there and only 1 that might... maybe... be on it's way there now just so Trump doesn't look like more of an idiot.

# ? Apr 19, 2017 05:31

Samurai Sanders: Nov 4, 2003; Pillbug

RandomBlue posted:

It's been a while, time for someone to post that we have 72 carrier groups headed to Korea right now, even though we have 0 that are actually there and only 1 that might... maybe... be on it's way there now just so Trump doesn't look like more of an idiot.

Tbh it's been hard for a lot of people including myself to fully accept that the president of the US really is this much of an irresponsible cretin.

# ? Apr 19, 2017 05:56

Telsa Cola: Aug 19, 2011; No... this is all wrong... this whole operation has just gone completely sidewaysface

Koramei posted:

This isn't really to do with your post, but it comes up a lot so it's worth establishing- Korea isn't actually that small. It has more land area than Great Britain, with a population almost as high as Germany's. It's small compared to China, but then so are most countries.

Depending on where he lives it actually is tiny in comparison to his base of reference, California is almost twice the size of the entire peninsula for example.

# ? Apr 19, 2017 06:07

RandomBlue: Dec 30, 2012; hay guys!; Biscuit Hider

Samurai Sanders posted:

Tbh it's been hard for a lot of people including myself to fully accept that the president of the US really is this much of an irresponsible cretin.

It helps if you just realize we're in the evil timeline now and grow out your goatee like I have. Taking two-handed slow unarmed combat lessons helps as well.

For further training, practice this motion:

e: But maybe with a little less thoughtfulness and a lot more evil. I think if you make it past one stroke without saying "Kill them all!" then you're doing it wrong.

# ? Apr 19, 2017 06:29

Whitlam: Aug 2, 2014; Some goons overreact. Go figure.

fishmech posted:

I don't understand why you think China would stick their necks out to help North Korea, nor why you think Russia would. Both of those countries would be mostly interested in securing their own borders with North Korea. And especially in the case of China, that'll probably mean a limited invasion of their own - maybe eventually leading to permanent annexation of direct border areas, but probably not.

South Korea would also always have the US to count on, but their military is more than capable of taking on North Korea - North Korea's army is underfed and underequipped and has been for decades. It'd just, again, mean a whole ton of death and destruction on the way to an inevitable SK victory. Additionally, you seem to forget that we already have a bunch of troops stationed in Korea and in areas right near Korea specifically with the intention of being deployed in case of the war heating back up. Although these days we only station ~30,000 troops directly in South Korea, we've also got another ~50,000 stationed in Japan.

But it's worth remembering that again, the majority of the burden of actually fighting the war will be on the South Koreans, and to avoid things like border issues, they might be the entirety of the forces at the true front lines especially once the invasions really penetrated deep into the North. The US is likely going to focus on providing logistics, weaponry, and naval assistance in this sort of scenario. Not so much original Korean War stuff where the US troops are coming in 300,000 strong and handling a ton of the day-to-day fighting.

It's not a matter of China sticking its neck out to help North Korea, it's a matter of China won't be remotely okay with US forces in such large numbers so close to China, and China knows that if there's a war, they're going to have a bitch of a time securing their own borders.

I think that's where we fundamentally disagree - if active hostilities were to resume (as in, missiles firing and guns blazing), I'd see Chinese involvement as inevitable. Not because China wants war (China knows as well as SK what a disaster it would be), but because of historical and regional context, and because I don't think Trump is a good enough statesman or politician that he could get China to essentially look the other way, or solely focus on securing their own borders.

I think that's part of why China's actually having apparently productive discussions with the US at the moment about NK - the last thing China wants is to be put in a position where it's forced to act.

Whitlam fucked around with this message at 06:39 on Apr 19, 2017

# ? Apr 19, 2017 06:35

Koramei: Nov 11, 2011; I have three regrets
The first is to be born in Joseon.

Telsa Cola posted:

Depending on where he lives it actually is tiny in comparison to his base of reference, California is almost twice the size of the entire peninsula for example.

So is Great Britain, is the point, but we don't think of it as small, or of Germany as having a tiny population. I guess maybe some people in California or Texas have a different base of reference for those too (and yeah, those states dwarf most European countries in most metrics) but that's not generally the case in my experience.

# ? Apr 19, 2017 06:37

WorldIndustries: Dec 21, 2004

calm down, we're not going to war

*nukes explode in background*

# ? Apr 19, 2017 06:41

Tias: May 25, 2008; Pictured: the patron saint of internet political arguments (probably)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

fishmech posted:

And I don't consider reunification under a DPRK-descended government to be any sort of viable scenario, because it's become too ossified around supporting the Kims and the generals. And even outside of that, most of the world's countries just don't plain trust them for international dealing, which would be quite harmful to Korea as a whole.

This isn't really true. Reunification would pose enormous and possibly insurmountable difficulties, but the "north koreans are brainwashed cult members" have been pretty seriously debunked by now. It's a bigger problem that they are malnourished, poorly educated and some are illiterate.

# ? Apr 19, 2017 06:47

Guy Goodbody: Aug 31, 2016; by Nyc_Tattoo

What is South Korea's plan to limit civilian casualties in case of war? They have to have bomb shelters in Seoul, right? Do they have evacuation plans?

# ? Apr 19, 2017 08:26

WarpedNaba: Feb 8, 2012; Being social makes me swell!

Main Paineframe posted:

Man, I can't wait to see how much people panic when Trump sends a B-52 to fly along the Korean border.

I thought Obama did that plenty, culminating with that new plane that flew from the US to SK, dropped a payload, then flew back without refueling.

# ? Apr 19, 2017 12:58

icantfindaname: Jul 1, 2008

Koramei posted:

This isn't really to do with your post, but it comes up a lot so it's worth establishing- Korea isn't actually that small. It has more land area than Great Britain, with a population almost as high as Germany's. It's small compared to China, but then so are most countries.

corea actually is the largest state on earth, most of it just happens to be temporarily occupied by japanese imperialists and allies

# ? Apr 19, 2017 13:41

suck my woke dick: Oct 10, 2012; I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!

Put this cum-loving slave on ignore immediately!

icantfindaname posted:

corea actually is the largest state on earth, most of it just happens to be temporarily occupied by japanese imperialists and allies

it reached its maximum extent under the two greatest koreans, genghis khan and alexander

# ? Apr 19, 2017 13:48

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

RandomBlue posted:

It's been a while, time for someone to post that we have 72 carrier groups headed to Korea right now, even though we have 0 that are actually there and only 1 that might... maybe... be on it's way there now just so Trump doesn't look like more of an idiot.

There is one that is "on its way" there...it's just that in this case "on its way" means "it's been placed on the schedule, so it'll head there after it's done with the other things it's currently scheduled to do". It makes a fair amount of sense if you step back and think about it from the military's perspective: with tensions and posturing on the Korean peninsula running a bit high, the military would obviously like for the carrier stationed in the Pacific to head over there to posture back, but it doesn't look like there's any imminent risk of war or diplomacy so they decided it wasn't important enough to cancel the things already on the carrier's to-do list. Trump left that detail out of his public pronouncement and acted as though the carrier was currently on its way (it's anyone's guess whether he purposely misstated things to trump up the impact of his statement or just didn't realize that's what was going on), and Mattis played along in public statements.

Guy Goodbody posted:

What is South Korea's plan to limit civilian casualties in case of war? They have to have bomb shelters in Seoul, right? Do they have evacuation plans?

Seoul's subways are dug pretty deep and it's thought that they could be used as bomb shelters, but South Korea's civil defense planning has slacked over the past couple of decades, and it's unlikely that the authorities realistically have the ability to conduct an orderly evacuation of Seoul's ten million people.

WarpedNaba posted:

I thought Obama did that plenty, culminating with that new plane that flew from the US to SK, dropped a payload, then flew back without refueling.

That's the joke. For all the hand-wringing about Trump's escalations, we've pretty much done it all before.

# ? Apr 19, 2017 15:25

OhFunny: Jun 26, 2013; EXTREMELY PISSED AT THE DNC

RandomBlue posted:

It's been a while, time for someone to post that we have 72 carrier groups headed to Korea right now, even though we have 0 that are actually there and only 1 that might... maybe... be on it's way there now just so Trump doesn't look like more of an idiot.

South Korea is unhappy about this.

US Aircraft Carrier Revelation Leaves South Koreans Feeling Cheated
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/world/asia/aircraft-carrier-south-korea.html

quote:

On Wednesday, after it was revealed that the carrier strike group was actually thousands of miles away and had been sailing in the opposite direction, toward the Indian Ocean, it left South Koreans feeling bewildered, cheated and even manipulated by the United States, their country’s most important ally.

“Trump’s lie over the Carl Vinson,” read a headline on the website of the newspaper JoongAng Ilbo on Wednesday. “Xi Jinping and Putin must have had a good jeer over this one.”

“Like North Korea, which is often accused of displaying fake missiles during military parades, is the United States, too, now employing ‘bluffing’ as its North Korea policy?” the article asked.

# ? Apr 19, 2017 15:41

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Tias posted:

This isn't really true. Reunification would pose enormous and possibly insurmountable difficulties, but the "north koreans are brainwashed cult members" have been pretty seriously debunked by now. It's a bigger problem that they are malnourished, poorly educated and some are illiterate.

I'm not talking the populace. I'm talking about the government. The North Korean government has been building their reputation as cheaters and refusing to complete on trade deals since the 80s (The North actually used to have a lot of productive trading relationships with the West and Eastern Bloc before the early 80s), and other international agreements since the 90s. The rest of world doesn't trust them as far as they can throw them at this point. So the reunification would have to take place under the direction of the South Korean government, which is much more trusted even with its own problems.

Whitlam posted:

It's not a matter of China sticking its neck out to help North Korea, it's a matter of China won't be remotely okay with US forces in such large numbers so close to China, and China knows that if there's a war, they're going to have a bitch of a time securing their own borders.

I think that's where we fundamentally disagree - if active hostilities were to resume (as in, missiles firing and guns blazing), I'd see Chinese involvement as inevitable. Not because China wants war (China knows as well as SK what a disaster it would be), but because of historical and regional context, and because I don't think Trump is a good enough statesman or politician that he could get China to essentially look the other way, or solely focus on securing their own borders.

I think that's part of why China's actually having apparently productive discussions with the US at the moment about NK - the last thing China wants is to be put in a position where it's forced to act.

Again, the simple way to solve that is to not have the American forces approach too closely again. It's going to be mostly South Korean troops in the first place. Remember that China only got involved in the war when American generals ignored warnings to keep away from the Chinese border - a foolish decision by the American generals that led to the battle lines being forced back down to the DMZ of today, more or less.

Of course the Chinese would be involved, but the Chinese have no incentive to be involved on the North Korean side. They would, loosely, be involved on the South Korean/American "side" with an interest to securing the borders via a limited invasion of their own. The primary goal of this would be to prevent North Korean refugees from flooding into China, but keeping them so that if they're going to flee it'll be towards the South. They have no interest in propping up a puppet government in North Korea at that point, which would be heavily reliant on Chinese funding to stay in power - it would just be turning North Korea's problems into China's problems when China would most prefer they become South Korean problems.

# ? Apr 19, 2017 17:02

TenementFunster: Feb 20, 2003; The Cooler King

fishmech posted:

You don't seem to be paying attention. Iraq's government indeed no longer goes around threatening other countries, but that's not the only problem that was at stake in the first place. South Korea is also hardly a weak state in the way something like the US-backed replacement government of Iraq was and is, and China and Russia also aren't weak states either.

Uh, how it would play out is over a million people dead in the war (because there's no way to forcibly remove Kim Jong Un and the military generals with the real power without war, and it'll probably be many more than just a million), and then trillions spent on occupation and rebuilding in the course of unification afterwards. Is it really that hard for you to read the conversation that already occurred?

The people doing the invasion would obviously be the coalition of forces currently stationed in South Korea with the vast majority of the manpower and all of the civil duties coming from South Korea (and the US probably being the ones contributing the next highest portion of the military forces).

insert grovers_iraq_war_predictions.txt here

# ? Apr 19, 2017 17:17

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Guy Goodbody posted:

Do they have evacuation plans?

A long while back, someone posted photos of what traffic out of Seoul looks like on Korean New Year, when people traditionally return to their hometowns. Let's just say that there's no realistic evacuation plan for a city like Seoul.

# ? Apr 19, 2017 17:19

BI NOW GAY LATER: Jan 17, 2008; So people stop asking, the "Bi" in my username is a reference to my love for the two greatest collegiate sports programs in the world, the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Marshall Thundering Herd.

R. Guyovich posted:

"the only solution that would work is this one, which implies the other ones would not work, making them worse options. this is different from calling it the best option because i'm going for a gold medal at the pedant olympics"

and no, having the dprk government decide to up and leave would in all likelihood lead to the north being a slave state for the imf, an objectively worse solution than a reunification government formed by friendly cooperation between the dprk and rok

Are you really trying to argue that any sort of continuation of Juche would be preferable to anything else? Like are you that stupid?

"Slave state of the IMF" is one of the dumbest rhetorical flourishes I've read in a while.

Guy Goodbody posted:

What is South Korea's plan to limit civilian casualties in case of war? They have to have bomb shelters in Seoul, right? Do they have evacuation plans?

Yes and yes, as well as a whole bunch of Anti-Air poo poo that we've installed.

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Apr 19, 2017 17:24

TenementFunster: Feb 20, 2003; The Cooler King

Guy Goodbody posted:

They have to have bomb shelters in Seoul, right?

all over town!

# ? Apr 19, 2017 17:39

RandomPauI: Nov 24, 2006; Grimey Drawer

What bomb shelter do I get off at if I want to catch a cheap show and a good bite to eat?

# ? Apr 20, 2017 00:07

Guy Goodbody: Aug 31, 2016; by Nyc_Tattoo

Main Paineframe posted:

Seoul's subways are dug pretty deep and it's thought that they could be used as bomb shelters, but South Korea's civil defense planning has slacked over the past couple of decades, and it's unlikely that the authorities realistically have the ability to conduct an orderly evacuation of Seoul's ten million people.

TenementFunster posted:

all over town!

So the plan is that if a siren goes off or whatever, everybody goes to their nearest subway station? I don't anything about anything, so that sounds good to me, are there are any serious criticisms of it from people who know stuff?

# ? Apr 20, 2017 00:44

Lote: Aug 5, 2001; Place your bets

RandomPauI posted:

What bomb shelter do I get off at if I want to catch a cheap show and a good bite to eat?

Baseball tickets at Jamsil are like $9 and the beer and food are cheap.

# ? Apr 20, 2017 00:48

TenementFunster: Feb 20, 2003; The Cooler King

Guy Goodbody posted:

So the plan is that if a siren goes off or whatever, everybody goes to their nearest subway station? I don't anything about anything, so that sounds good to me, are there are any serious criticisms of it from people who know stuff?

that was the plan based on the civil defense-ish signage and VERY metal-rear end safety videos i saw when i was there, but i'm no expert!

RandomPauI posted:

What bomb shelter do I get off at if I want to catch a cheap show and a good bite to eat?

great seafood place just northwest Hongik Univ. Exit 7

# ? Apr 20, 2017 00:54

Main Paineframe: Oct 27, 2010

Guy Goodbody posted:

So the plan is that if a siren goes off or whatever, everybody goes to their nearest subway station? I don't anything about anything, so that sounds good to me, are there are any serious criticisms of it from people who know stuff?

Basically, that's it. There's two main problems that I see. First of all, Seoul rarely does emergency drills these days, so there's a lot of potential for problems in a real emergency. Second of all, if people need to stay down there for more than a few hours, they'll start getting hungry and thirsty and having to go to the bathroom; are Seoul's subway systems and emergency personnel equipped to deal with ten million people's biological needs? It's dubious whether it's even possible to handle any emergency on that scale.

# ? Apr 20, 2017 01:07

Kavros: May 18, 2011; sleep sleep sleep
fly fly post post
sleep sleep sleep

Wherever they crop up, it is always painful to read unironic support of Juche as a good ideology.

# ? Apr 20, 2017 01:30

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

On the plus side, Seoul's size poses an enormous military problem for the North, as no army has ever fought a battle for a mega-city of that size before or even anything close. I'm trying to think of military operations in large urban areas and I'm coming up empty. Baghdad? Which is a fraction of the size of Seoul. The Bangladeshi Liberation War? A North Korean push on Seoul would be unprecedented in terms of just figuring out how to do it.

Which is why I don't think North Korea can do it.

Kavros posted:

Wherever they crop up, it is always painful to read unironic support of Juche as a good ideology.

Yeah. B.R. Myers' argument is that "Juche" is unreadable garbo that the Workers Party invented for foreign sympathizers. The first mention of "Juche" was from a Kim Il-sung speech to the "Party Propagandists and Agitators" in 1955, which doesn't even mention self-reliance but praises the Soviet Union at length. Then the term vanished until Kim mentioned it again to some Japanese journalists in the late 60s (or 70s?) I think. And then academics overseas got carried away with it. Like, "Juche! Finally! What a mysterious Korean word! It must hold the mystery to how North Korea thinks!"

The actual texts on it are vague platitudes about "man being the master of all things." North Koreans don't read Juche Thought texts, because that's not the point. If you ask your Pyongyang tour guide about Juche Thought, they'll go "uhh..." and then change the subject. It's also why foreign sympathizers seem to have this fantastical "Juche" version of North Korea which is so at odds with reality that I'm gobsmacked.

The closest thing to an official ideology I've seen is Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism. And also "Songun" or military-first.

BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Apr 20, 2017

# ? Apr 20, 2017 01:55

Guy Goodbody: Aug 31, 2016; by Nyc_Tattoo

Wikkheiser posted:

On the plus side, Seoul's size poses an enormous military problem for the North, as no army has ever fought a battle for a mega-city of that size before or even anything close. I'm trying to think of military operations in large urban areas and I'm coming up empty. Baghdad? Which is a fraction of the size of Seoul. The Bangladeshi Liberation War? A North Korean push on Seoul would be unprecedented in terms of just figuring out how to do it.

Which is why I don't think North Korean can do it.

Could they even get there? Serious question, if the North started massing troops at the DMZ for a push into the south, wouldn't that be pretty obvious? And then the South and the US military would be able to prepare for it

# ? Apr 20, 2017 02:00

Warbadger: Jun 17, 2006

Wikkheiser posted:

Yeah. B.R. Myers' argument is that "Juche" is unreadable garbo that the Workers Party invented for foreign sympathizers. The first mention of "Juche" was from a Kim Il-sung speech to the "Party Propagandists and Agitators" in 1955, which doesn't even mention self-reliance but praises the Soviet Union at length. Then the term vanished until Kim mentioned it again to some Japanese journalists in the late 60s (or 70s?) I think. And then academics overseas got carried away with it. Like, "Juche! Finally! What a mysterious Korean word! It must hold the mystery to how North Korea thinks!"

The actual texts on it are vague platitudes about "man being the master of all things." North Koreans don't read Juche Thought texts, because that's not the point. If you ask your Pyongyang tour guide about Juche Thought, they'll go "uhh..." and then change the subject.

The closest thing to an official ideology I've seen is Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism. And also "Songun" or military-first.

Not quite, it was created to be Kim Il Sung's contribution to communist thought, but written in a hurry by ghost writers who had little knowledge of communism/socialism while under pressure from the North Korean leadership who was tripping over themselves trying to copy Mao. It was basically gibberish as a result with a lot of overly wordy fluff to stretch it out, so it's not especially useful for anything except throwing at gullible foreigners.

Warbadger fucked around with this message at 02:20 on Apr 20, 2017

# ? Apr 20, 2017 02:04

Ekster: Jul 18, 2013

lmao at any scenario where the north would gain any significant ground in the south. The question isn't who would win, it's how to annihilate the north with the least amount of casualties to the south. There's a billion reasons why no one (including the north) actually wants a war to happen so all players secretly hope the north has a peaceful regime change that doesn't want to build nukes as a best case scenario. All other options would be awful at best.

# ? Apr 20, 2017 02:07

fishmech: Jul 16, 2006; by VideoGames; Salad Prong

Guy Goodbody posted:

Could they even get there? Serious question, if the North started massing troops at the DMZ for a push into the south, wouldn't that be pretty obvious? And then the South and the US military would be able to prepare for it

That would be a major problem yes. All the highways from the north down into Seoul, and many of the high quality surface roads, have tank/troop/vehicle blocking obstacles that can be deployed quickly in case of war.

This example is from right up near the DMZ and is on a relatively minor road (but right up on the DMZ area, they do try to block almost all of them) but it's a good example:

Those big concrete blocks have a bunch of explosives mounted at the base. In case of invasion, the charges are detonated and the blocks will partially fall on the road and partially on the sides of the road. It's not the sort of obstacle that lasts forever, but it'll slow movement down long enough to make a military response.

The North Koreans have similar stuff on roads leading on their side from the border to Pyongyang et al of course, it's just one reason of many that any invasion would be long and bloody.

# ? Apr 20, 2017 02:10

BrutalistMcDonalds: Oct 4, 2012; Lipstick Apathy

Warbadger posted:

Not quite, it was created to be Kim Il Sung's contribution to communist thought, written in a hurry by people who had little knowledge of communism/socialism while the North Korean leadership was tripping over themselves trying to copy Mao.

Yes! Forgot to mention that. But I don't think we disagree here. The Workers Party needed to compete with Mao for foreign attention / sympathy from communist fellow-travelers and the like, and they can tell their own people about how Kim Il-sung invented the amazing Juche Thought to benefit the personality cult, which is different from teaching a doctrine.

Looking at the North Korean propaganda organs now, the mentions of "Juche" when they do come up generally seem to be in stories about foreign pro-DPRK study groups and the like:

http://juche.v.wol.ne.jp/en.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Udj1PyGyA

What's amazing about that is... that's what the Juche Idea study delegation does? They have three-legged races and play tug-of-war? You'd think they'd be in the library if it was a doctrine worth studying, or if it even exists at all.

# ? Apr 20, 2017 02:18

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Wikkheiser posted:

The first mention of "Juche" was from a Kim Il-sung speech to the "Party Propagandists and Agitators" in 1955, which doesn't even mention self-reliance but praises the Soviet Union at length. Then the term vanished until Kim mentioned it again to some Japanese journalists in the late 60s (or 70s?) I think. And then academics overseas got carried away with it. Like, "Juche! Finally! What a mysterious Korean word! It must hold the mystery to how North Korea thinks!"

Foreign academics didn't spontaneously get carried away with it; it was a very deliberate thing. There was no reason to leave Juche untranslated and capitalize it, see that it's a translation of a translation of a German word that basically boils down to "agency." That the propagandists had to go digging through these obscure speeches to find something they could sell as a bold and innovative interpretation of Marxism just shows the paucity of thought in the Kim regime.

# ? Apr 20, 2017 02:21

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# ? May 22, 2024 16:54

Warbadger: Jun 17, 2006

Wikkheiser posted:

Yes! Forgot to mention that. But I don't think we disagree here. The Workers Party needed to compete with Mao for foreign attention / sympathy from communist fellow-travelers and the like, and they can tell their own people about how Kim Il-sung invented the amazing Juche Thought to benefit the personality cult, which is different from teaching a doctrine.

Looking at the North Korean propaganda organs now, the mentions of "Juche" when they do come up generally seem to be in stories about foreign pro-DPRK study groups and the like:

http://juche.v.wol.ne.jp/en.htm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Udj1PyGyA

What's amazing about that is... that's what the Juche Idea study delegation does? They have three-legged races and play tug-of-war? You'd think they'd be in the library if it was a doctrine worth studying, or if it even exists at all.

No, we don't disagree, just filling in the missing bit about why it was pointless gibberish.

The whole period was full of hilarious responses to the CCP. Mao did a long march? Well Kim Il Sung did an ARDUOUS MARCH that was longerer and betterer!! Mao wrote a little red book? Well Kim Il Sung wrote a BIGGERER BETTERER BOOK!!!

Warbadger fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Apr 20, 2017

# ? Apr 20, 2017 02:22

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Korea Thread: Fumbling to take a bite of kimchi

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