What will happen if North Korea decides to attack South Korea in 2015?
International reactions from the US, China, Russia, EU, Japan? Who will benefit the most?
See also: What would happen if North Korea launched a nuclear strike against the U.S.? How would the U.S. respond?
See also: What would happen if North Korea launched a nuclear strike against the U.S.? How would the U.S. respond?
11 Answers
Views • Michael is a Most Viewed Writer in Conflict and Aggression in Korea (2010–present).
There would seem to be a raging debate in Chinese government circles about what to do with NK. The academicians, technocrats, and the economists would want stability on the peninsula to continue economic growth. The military certainly would fear a unified Korea with US troops on their doorstep. A collapsed NK regime could also create a major influx of refugees with would destabilize the Chinese/Korean border area. The CCP officials would be in a real quandary. China needs to continue its economic boom to keep its population employed and less restive. A peninsula war creates economic issues with South Korea, Japan, the U.S., and to a lesser extent, other parts of the world. However, a warmongering North Korea keeps the U.S. internationally occupied and less focused on Taiwan and the "islands controversy."
One does wonder if this is 100% NK rhetoric. NK has a history of ratcheting up confrontation after every South Korean election. One also wonders if there is some sort of power struggle occurring in Pyongyang among Kim Jong-un, his uncle Jang Song-taek, and Colonel General Kang Pyo-yong who appears to be leading voice in the upscale rhetoric. If there is a power struggle, a real or imagined external threat would be one way to keep the internal struggle at bay.
As for the original question, it would all depend on what the attack would consist of an all-out invasion combined with missile attack on Seoul would be devastating, but nothing compared to the destruction that would be wrecked on the North. A nuclear attack would be unlikely as the NK really doesn't have a delivery capability, yet. More than likely, it would an incident such as 2010 Yeonpyeong Island incident or the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan. Such an incident would likely be all sound and fury with little consequence.
But here are two scenarios where the consequence are less certain.
1. A contingent of NK troops (less than a thousand or so) begins to march across the border with guns shouldered/holstered in perfect military parade formation. What does SK/U.S. do?
2. One SCUD-equivalent missile is fired from the Pyongyang area into the outskirts of Seoul. What is the response especially if NK threatens to launch one (and only one) missile each day?
One does wonder if this is 100% NK rhetoric. NK has a history of ratcheting up confrontation after every South Korean election. One also wonders if there is some sort of power struggle occurring in Pyongyang among Kim Jong-un, his uncle Jang Song-taek, and Colonel General Kang Pyo-yong who appears to be leading voice in the upscale rhetoric. If there is a power struggle, a real or imagined external threat would be one way to keep the internal struggle at bay.
As for the original question, it would all depend on what the attack would consist of an all-out invasion combined with missile attack on Seoul would be devastating, but nothing compared to the destruction that would be wrecked on the North. A nuclear attack would be unlikely as the NK really doesn't have a delivery capability, yet. More than likely, it would an incident such as 2010 Yeonpyeong Island incident or the sinking of the ROKS Cheonan. Such an incident would likely be all sound and fury with little consequence.
But here are two scenarios where the consequence are less certain.
1. A contingent of NK troops (less than a thousand or so) begins to march across the border with guns shouldered/holstered in perfect military parade formation. What does SK/U.S. do?
2. One SCUD-equivalent missile is fired from the Pyongyang area into the outskirts of Seoul. What is the response especially if NK threatens to launch one (and only one) missile each day?
They would lose.
First lets start with China because—frankly—we all know that China is the only that that could ever save North Korea if they provoked a war.
Why did China defend the North back in the 50's and why would they not, now? Because (let's cut the shit!), China is the world's most capitalist nation. They are so capitalist that they make the USA and the British Empire look like charlatans. China back in the 50's was an ideology driven enterprise. For Vishnu's sake, Mao had school children running around the country scaring the birds out of the trees because he considered their presence to be "frivolous". He starved peasants in the fields. China was—like many autocracies—a giant cult of Mao's personality.
China is no such entity now. It is a cash generating, died-in-the-wool capitalist engine. It's main focus is creating stability for it's 1.3 billion people. It KNOWS that the only way to hush the populous is to continue the growth it's experienced over the past two decades and that task will become more difficult in the decades ahead. One of the ways China will do this is, as wages rise, it will begin "living" off the debt that they have bought in the west and as that money flows back to them, they'll re-invest it in jobs at home, building infrastructure and investing in its people.
Pretty smart, eh?
Well, what happens if a war breaks out and China comes to the North's aid? Well, for starters it's likely that every western nation who supports the South will simply null and void that debt. There are trillions of dollars of Chinese investments overseas that they rightly want to see come back home and help build a prosperous future. What China wants is for the North to behave and just shut the fuck up and do what it wants quietly in its own back yard. It certainly doesn't want the Kim regime playing with nukes and it certainly doesn't want it provoking the most powerful nation on the planet and the otherwise quite powerful neighbors alongside China.
So, if North Korea attacked South Korea, China would wisely and unarguably wash its hands of the North and simply abandon it. It may even join the west (though I doubt that, but it might go so far as to block the border and freeze the North's assets). If that happened then South Korea ALONE would defeat the North.
Don't believe me? Look, South Korea is a powerful economic power with 50 million people and a vast industrial engine. The North has 25 million people, almost no heavy industry and a weak, deprived people. Any war between those two alone would ultimately win with the South conquering the North.
But with China out of the game and the world's 1st and 2nd largest industrial engines (China past Japan in economic size, but Japan still outproduces China in heavy industry and technology), along with support from all the US allies in the Pacific and likely Canada and the UK . . . and possibly France and other EU nations, well, there's no debate.
The South could sit it out and watch the US military pick off the North's targets in short order. It would quickly decay into anarchy up there and I happily imagine a Nicolae Ceaușescu-esque toppling of the North's government with requisite slaughter of the Kim family as icing on the cake (they've earned every bit of suffering).
Pundits and think tanks make a large deal of the Chinese position. Personally, I think China is less concerned with this than indicated. There are multiple free market democracies on China's land borders. A United Korea is unlikely to threaten a Chinese behemoth. In point of fact, the old Cold War mentality is just that, old and cold. The Chinese economy grows, because the world, specifically Western World economies consume and grow. No one is going to risk that for North Korea and a spoiled brat.
I suspect if NK really attacks, it will be in en mass with what they could muster. They would likely break through the DMZ with heavy casualties and manage some distance into SK with sheer weight of numbers. Then US, SK, Japanese, etc military units would decimate with conventional airstrikes, nullify NK's limited air, armor, naval, and missile potential. This would likely work out to be a couple of hundred sorties Supply lines would be cut and the NK army would be forced to die to last man or surrender peacefully to SK/US. They simply do not have a goal to fight for, other than to keep NK as NK and SK as SK. They don't want to unify the country, or destroy the US, just keep their sick dynastic craziness propagating for a few more years.
My sense tells me, if NK go in for a full scale attack, it will reignite the Korean War, but there will be no armistice based on map parallels. They will cease to exist. My sincere worry is the cult of personality is so complete, the SK/US back forces will encounter suicide attacks, scorched earth tactics, and things of this nature.
I suspect if NK really attacks, it will be in en mass with what they could muster. They would likely break through the DMZ with heavy casualties and manage some distance into SK with sheer weight of numbers. Then US, SK, Japanese, etc military units would decimate with conventional airstrikes, nullify NK's limited air, armor, naval, and missile potential. This would likely work out to be a couple of hundred sorties Supply lines would be cut and the NK army would be forced to die to last man or surrender peacefully to SK/US. They simply do not have a goal to fight for, other than to keep NK as NK and SK as SK. They don't want to unify the country, or destroy the US, just keep their sick dynastic craziness propagating for a few more years.
My sense tells me, if NK go in for a full scale attack, it will reignite the Korean War, but there will be no armistice based on map parallels. They will cease to exist. My sincere worry is the cult of personality is so complete, the SK/US back forces will encounter suicide attacks, scorched earth tactics, and things of this nature.
Views • Joseph has 30+ answers in South Korea.
Joseph is a Most Viewed Writer in Korean War (1950-53).
If North Korea were actually sending ground troops across the DMZ, you'd very quickly see the UN pass a Security Council resolution passed, and North Korea would be looking at a US/ROK invasion from the south, and the PLA invading from the North. There would be a good chance at this point that who ever started the war would be shot, and someone would be begging for a cease fire.
I'm rather certain that if North Koreans invaded South Korea that they would be looking at an actual Chinese invasion. China has several reasons to intervene against NK
1) The US/ROK are going to win in the end. Better to side with the winners so that you have a seat at the post-war table.
2) The second worst nightmare are massive numbers of North Korean refugees heading into China, by occupying a buffer zone, you keep the North Koreans in North Korea.
3) The worst nightmare of the PRC is to have US troops right along the Yalu River. Moving Chinese troops into North Korea keeps the US away from China.
I'm rather certain that if North Koreans invaded South Korea that they would be looking at an actual Chinese invasion. China has several reasons to intervene against NK
1) The US/ROK are going to win in the end. Better to side with the winners so that you have a seat at the post-war table.
2) The second worst nightmare are massive numbers of North Korean refugees heading into China, by occupying a buffer zone, you keep the North Koreans in North Korea.
3) The worst nightmare of the PRC is to have US troops right along the Yalu River. Moving Chinese troops into North Korea keeps the US away from China.
This is actually quite an interesting question that I'm not in the best position to answer, but I'll give you the layman's take. It would be simple to posit something along the lines of cold war divisions like SouthKor-US-EU-Japan vs NorthKor-China-Russia but the world isn't like that anymore. I tend to view economics as the back-end that informs the front-end of politics, hence it will be the economic interdependencies that will determine the overall reaction. Given the isolationist approach of North Korea, I'd say that they would be in the worst position if they ever initiated an attack - they have everything to lose. North Korea attacking South Korea would be a catalyst event on par with Archduke Ferdinand / Lusitania / Pearl Harbor / Tonkin / 911 - in short, an excuse to initiate a full-scale war. I wouldn't say that anyone would benefit the most inasmuch as North Korea would lose the most.
I think that there would be such pinpoint strategic retaliation (that has been planned for many years)that North Keorea would be taken out of the game within hours but without major human loss. There would be a massive amount of dessertion in the military and police and the country will be in a huge power vacuum. Then the carve up would start between China and South Korea.
I assume the USA would bomb them massively. Which is why it is unlikely.
The destruction of North Korea is a US policy objective. NAturally they react agressively. Answering specific charges didn't help Saddam Hussein in Iraq, even though he did get rid of his forbidden weapons. Making a general deal did not held Gaddafi.
The destruction of North Korea is a US policy objective. NAturally they react agressively. Answering specific charges didn't help Saddam Hussein in Iraq, even though he did get rid of his forbidden weapons. Making a general deal did not held Gaddafi.
If North Korea was silly enough to consider attacking and actually did, my prediction would be that the U.S. would strike military establishments across North Korea immediately, wait, assess the damage and see North Korea's reaction. Then if North Korea persisted and tried a land invasion of South Korea we'd attempt to counter that. At that point China (very reluctantly) would be forced to get involved with its treaty to defend North Korea. At this point we're talking a large amount of casualties. Then Russia, Iran, and Syria may get involved to seize the opportunity. Global trade would come to a screeching halt and we'd see a variety of damaging results economically due to how dependent each country is. Possibly a global depression that could leave its mark on the world for decades. At some point it may escalate into a nuclear WWIII.
I suspect each country (except North Korea) would try everything possible to avoid this scenario.
I suspect each country (except North Korea) would try everything possible to avoid this scenario.
North Korea's economy would collapse.
It's borders with China would be sealed - along with the small Russian Border. It's coasts would also be sealed by the Korean/US navy. Thus all exports in and out would end.
While their millitary has some reserves of fuel ammo etc. these would run out without external re-supply. All non military labour would be re-directed to the war effort and this would cause the death of many.
But then in the 1990's they let their economy collapse durring the famines.
But the worse thing would be the Genocide. I understand prisoners in the Gulags are to be liquidated in the event of war.
It's borders with China would be sealed - along with the small Russian Border. It's coasts would also be sealed by the Korean/US navy. Thus all exports in and out would end.
While their millitary has some reserves of fuel ammo etc. these would run out without external re-supply. All non military labour would be re-directed to the war effort and this would cause the death of many.
But then in the 1990's they let their economy collapse durring the famines.
But the worse thing would be the Genocide. I understand prisoners in the Gulags are to be liquidated in the event of war.
