Joelcool7 said:
Its all nice to talk about invading North Korea but as users have pointed out China and even somewhat Russia have ties to North Korea. You would need their support in order to avoid a possible world war. Also North Korea has 3,500,000 soldiers in their army. While poorly equiped that is more then enough brute force to invade and conquer South Korea. Also remember North Korea has thousands of artillery and long range weapons aimed at Seoul and could flatten most major cities over night.
Winning such a war would probubly require the US and even Nato to conscript the majority of their citizens into the army. Losses of millions of lives are probable. Unlike Afghanistan a war in Korea could destabalize the whole earth. While the US and Nato are invading and dealing with North Korea other rogue states like Iran could take advantage of the US being weak and launch operations against Israel and Saudi Arabia and other US allies. A war of this size would change the political and military landscape for years.
If a war started without China supporting the US. I think the US and Nato would have to surrender Seoul. Sure they could bombard the north for months on end from air craft carriers. But the North with its huge army would over run the South in days. Any defences the south has would be flattened by long range weapons.
I think the real action that Nato should take and probubly will is putting pressure on China to raise sanctions higher. Maybe cause China to blockade North Korea to a degree. If the North threatens China's relationships with the rest of the world China might allow the impossition of more sanctions. But in all honesty we have already sanctioned the hell out of North Korea and they don't seem to be stopping.
But if China imposed sanctions on the North we might see over the next decade changes gradually from North Korea. Also once Kim is dead his successor might thaw relations. Here's hoping a return to war in Korea does not occur.
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This post makes several large errors of fact. The North Korean Army has closer to one million soldiers rather than 3.5. Even that number is misleading, as most of them are poorly trained, and all of them are under-equipped. You're right in saying that enormous damage could be done to Seoul by artillery, but wrong in claiming that all of South Korea's cities would be flattened.
Also, any attack by North Korea would be suicide. Contrary to what you say, the American and South Korean militaries are fully capable, right now, of annihilating what would be left of the North Korean military right after the initial assault. It would be carnage. It would not be the goal in that case of the US military to occupy North Korea. It would simply be a (very fast) air and naval war, that the USA would win convincingly.
The only reason this would all happen is if the North launched a significant aggressive action against the south. In that case, it would be extremely difficult even for China to ignore the fact that a military response is necessary.
