^Indeed, no one does know how they would react. But I think it is a safe bet that the South Koreans would have the most chance of success. Now perhaps the North Koreans have an insurgency plan all set up if they are ever kicked out, but then so did the Nazis and look how that turned out. If Machiavelli is right though, the more absolute control the government has the easier the country is to occupy once it has been destroyed because of the lack of loyalties else where (Iraq and Afghanistan had tribal, sectarian and/or religious leaders that allowed resistance to continue). The main challenge though (IMO) would be rebuilding North Korean's economy and standard of living from near nothing to something equal to South Korea's, which considering Germany is only now starting to near that goal after 20 years of reunification could be highly difficult.

Um, what was the point of this? I have already agreed with you that all of this is just talk. Also the size of North Korea's army is not necessarily the important thing. Iraq had the fourth largest army in the world during the gulf war, and their troops were either annihilated or surrendered in mass. Would North Korea's be the same way I don't know, but it is a possibility.

Iraq use to have the 4th largest Army.  So much for the show.  The difference between NK and Iraq is the Nuclear threat.  The army is just a bunch of guys who are trying not to starve.  They have no discipline or competent training, just full bellies (which the rest of the population lacks).

They do not need missiles to get to South Korea.  A jalopy works just fine - or even a sub sending a party ashore.

Yeah, Iraq used to have a large army. But that was before the war with Iran, which was devastating for Iraq.

I agree that the nuclear threat is a consideration. But I doubt anyone expects NK to use their nuclear arsenal during an otherwise conventional engagement. Also, NK army received a great deal of Soviet tactical training during the Cold War.

It is also a question of what China would do if there was an engagement. My guess is they would stay away from overt involvement, but would offer covert support to NK.

Even in the Persian gulf war they had the fourth largest army, with over 500,000 or so deployed in Kuwait and Southern Iraq. Granted North Korea might be able to send twice that into South Korea, but they would be facing at least 600,000 South Koreans and Americans with lots of air and naval support. And if the U.S. actually wanted to attack North Korea, we could send a lot more guys than we have now to do the job. Maybe not as much as we could have without Iraq, but enough I think, provided we don't have to occupy N. Korea.

I wouldn't use the term "xenophobia" when talking about North and South Korea: the two countries are populated by the same ethnic group. Nitpicks aside, I think in the last 60-odd years the North's fallen into a pretty clear pattern of only harassing their neighbors when they think they can get away with it. The ship-sinking is a prefect example: there's just enough doubt as to what actually happened to keep the rest of the world from attempting a direct reprisal, but they still can take credit for it back home. Any direct act of aggression, especially a nuclear strike, would bring about a great deal of hostile action from outside. I think the military over there knows it- why wait until now to attack, when they could have moved while America was bogged down in Veitnam, while the Soviet Union was still an actual force in the world, and while China was still Maoist and stood a chance of helping them again? This level of military and nuclear potential obviously didn't spring into being overnight.

It's clear that North Korea won't attack South Korea if they are not insane (but are they ?) but can american forces invade North Korea ? Imagine they use a nuke on one of your armoured division on their own soil once you invade. You could lose several thousands of your men on one strike. How would your public opinion react to this ?

Nuke are not just to strike city, if only one or a few are used correctly in a battlefield, they could make the technology and training gap between US forces and the N. Korea arme irrelevant.

North Korea recently sent one of its submarines within torpedo range of an American aircraft carrier. The submarine went undetected and surfaced close to the carrier despite the fact that the US was conducting anti-submarine warfare exercises in that very area. This has served as an enormous wake-up call to the US Navy.

Russia has developed the VA-111 shkval supercavitating rocket torpedo and no nation has any kind defense against this weapon due to its tremendous speed. It is rumored that Iran, China and North Korea had obtained several of these, possibly with nuclear warheads.

Do you have links on this stuff? Especially the torpedoes.  I would love to read up on them.  I would not put it past Russia to build a better bomb since they do not do so well at building the ships.

Here is the link for the information regarding the Russian rocket torpedo.

I can't find anything regarding a North Korean sub surfacing close to a US carrier, maybe I got it mixed up with China. Heres a link.

If war ever occured between North Korea and the US, it seems likely to me that North Korean conventional forces will initially inflict significant damage on South Korea before being quickly crushed. However, the remains of North Korea's army will probably become a fanatical geurilla force making occupation very difficult.

After reading both wikipedia articles about N. Korea army and South Korea army (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Korea_Armed_Forces), i think that South Korea barely needs the help of the US army to beat the crap out of the North korean army. They have the same number of heavy weapons (tanks, aircraft and artillery) but South Korea ones are two generations younger...

And quality matters a lot in modern warfare

About the Carriers: I read this book a while back called Nimitz, detailing the crew of the USS Jefferson which was docked in the Indian Ocean, I think a short time before the Gulf War, and the Cold War had just ended.  A group of Russian extremists who still refused to beleive the USSR was done had purchased an old Diesel-Powered submarine as well a single nuclear warhead from the former USSR military.  They left port in the Black Sea, and sailed past all NATO defense completely undetected, and eventually they reached their target, the USS Jefferson Battle Group.  They penetrated the defenses of the group, got within a mile of the Carrier, and nuked it.  It was a tragedy.

The book ends with US Subs capturing the Russian Diesel sub, however, not after serious reconsideration of the use of Carrier Tactics, how they are essentially massive floating islands packed with US Citizens, and how truly vulnerable they are.  They decide to change Battle Groups from being Focused around the sheer Power of the Carrier to having the Carrier as a mass support unit, rather like Battleships in the old British Navy; have small ships out in front, distracting the enemy so that the larger ships can rain down fire from a safe distance.

Xer0 \^/