Kim Jong-il, a.k.a the Teflon Dictator, is Time Asia’s latest cover model, and he’s all smiles. They have a three-page article on everyone’s favorite Stalinist, explaining why Kim might be stronger now than he’s ever been — you’re STRONGLY encouraged to read the whole thing. And no matter how many times I read stuff like this, it never ceases to amaze me:
South Korean schoolbooks used to teach grade-schoolers to hate and fear “the enemy.” Today’s texts contain pictures of North Korean food shops (”A lot of women,” reads the caption, helpfully, “are participating in economic activity”) and suggest students practice writing letters to their counterparts across the border (without mentioning that North Korea prohibits mail from the South.) In today’s classrooms, you can find a third-grade textbook with a cartoon of two boys from either side of the border deciding not to throw rocks at each other.
Northern Boy: I’m sorry I threw the rock at you first.
Southern Boy: I’m sorry, too. It is not right for brothers to throw rocks at each other.
Northern Boy: Our parents and ancestors would be grieved to see us fighting.
Southern Boy: Speaking of which, do you want to participate in the international Ping-Pong game together as one team? … If we become one team, we can make up for our weakness and no other country will be able to beat us.
Teachers need little encouragement to use such texts. Park Geun Byung, a teacher at Song Chun elementary school in Seoul, uses a storybook that instructs his fourth-grade class in the tale of an evil dragon that prevents a Romeo and Juliet on either side of a river from marrying. The river is plainly the DMZ. The evil dragon is meant to represent the U.S. Park is a believer in what he calls “unification education.” “Teachers,” he adds, “don’t have to be neutral.”
You may recall “unification education” from my post here. God bless the Korean Teachers Union — who else is going to teach the kiddies that while GI crimes are worthy of fury and indignation, mass starvation and gulags don’t mean a thing as long as they’re within the family.
Also in Time Asia is a piece by Nicholas Eberstadt, a favorite of the Marmot. Nick’s latest contribution, however, might be a little off base — while one could probably draw a number of parallels between the failures of European “conference diplomacy” in the 1930s and the current running joke otherwise known as the six-party talks, I just can’t see the North Korean Peoples Army imitating the Wehrmacht anytime soon. Nevertheless, he’s probably right on about South Korean diplomacy, however:
For its part, South Korea seems intent upon re-enacting the role originally made famous by France. The French interwar appeasement policy was characterized by anxiety, opportunism and self-deception–Seoul’s current North Korea policy in a nutshell. Look at last week’s jubilant announcement that the South will loan the North yet another 400,000 tons of rice and that the North will consent to bilateral sea-lane and military-hot-line arrangements to avoid another naval clash like the 2002 incident in which a South Korean frigate sank and six seamen died. Apparently lost upon Seoul is that the incident was a carefully planned North Korean ambush, which better lines of communication would not have prevented.
Yet even as South Korea’s novitiate government builds fantasy peace castles with Pyongyang, it also fecklessly undermines its best deterrent against North Korean aggression: namely, its alliance with the U.S. The announcement that America plans to withdraw a third of its troops from South Korea is a sign of how bad things have gotten: this wouldn’t be happening if Washington viewed the government in Seoul as a reliable friend.
In fairness to Seoul, the armed forces of the ROK are capable of stopping a North Korean invasion, and I think Seoul’s biggest concern shouldn’t be potential North Korean aggression (which it could handle), but North Korea possibly doing something incredibly stupid (like selling nukes) that ends up provoking the United States into launching a little aggression of its own. In such a situation, there is no guarantee that South Korea would be safe from North Korean retaliation, no matter how much Seoul insists that the nuclear question is a bilateral issue between Washington and Pyongyang alone.
29 Comments
The sooner that SK gets it “re-unification” with NK the better.
I’ll be quick on my first point — I think the Time piece is great. You can’t get Americans to pay attention to South Korea. At best, you get a fleeting two seconds of concentration, then they move on. “Burning US flags. Big deal. See it all the time.” Conversly, they do pay attention to North Korea. You just can’t get them to understand the two work hand-n-hand.
That’s why the Time piece is great. It bridges the thought gap. Wonderful.
Secondly, I generally agree with you about the South being able to handle its own defense, but I want to play devil’s advocate a minute, because there is a fair counter argument.
If the North uses WMD (not even nukes) as a tactical element of its invasion, I think they could do very well. They couldn’t defeat a combined US-SK force, but I give them a shot at beating SK alone. I’d probably bet my money on SK, but I don’t think it’s a sure thing at all.
A big problem is that South Korean society, even before 1998, was not prepared for warfare.
Coming from perhaps the last generation of the Cold War in the US, I was surprised how different the mindset was between the US and Korea. I’d ask my adult students when the city had the monthly air raid warning, “Where are the bomb shelters?”
The fact there were none was something to think about seriously. The fact none of my students — class after class — had ever thought about it needs serious consideration on its own!
Koreans, those south of the DMZ, were simply ignorant of the possibility of war. “It will never happen.” “Why are you so sure.” “….Because they US can wipe NK off the face of the earth easily…..”
Even back then, I thought they put too much faith on common sense. History is full of very bad decisions on a massive scale.
Now that South Korea is full of love for their brothers in the North, I see no reason not to believe South Korean society’s ability to win a war has gone down even more.
I don’t know how much South Korea’s military prepares for non-conventional warfare.
From what little I’ve seen and what I’ve heard, the regular/career Korean military is a good fighting force —- especially used to living with hardship given how little the SK military puts into the living conditions of its people. But…..the SK military is full of short term conscripts and the quality shows this fact.
That’s why I think a NK invasion using WMD — not simply as weapons of terror — but as tactical battlefield weapons —- AND to cause mass confusion —- would give them a good chance to win against SK by itself.
Maybe they wouldn’t even have to drive all the way to Pusan. Maybe South Korea would sue for peace……..The change in climate in South Korean society coupled with the shock —- the shock to an unprepared people —- of WMD and massive death coupled with the shock of the initial success NK would gain through having the initiative — might be too much for a Sunshine Policy conditioned South Korean people……..
It is at least something to consider…..
“Apparently lost upon Seoul is that the incident was a carefully planned North Korean ambush, which better lines of communication would not have prevented.”
/I think I heard a Korean radio report claiming that these new communication devices would prevent future NK/SK naval confrontations. Only a vegetable will believe that was the cause. It’s more like Kim Jong Il wanted to stir up Korea which was in a celebrating mood during the world cup. Why the hell is TV/Radio news still doctored in South Korea?
And why the hell is the general public so dumb in every country?
Gobbels was right. Tell a lie a hundred times, it becomes truth.
Everyone Korean who has some dissent with the government turns to the newspapers for what they consider real news.
Yet, they still can’t resist the fact that some things they watch and hear from TV and radio are truthful as well. That’s the magic of propaganda.
I blame Kim Dae Jung for initiating this liberal stance by use of TV/radio news.
He played it just like the Japanese did in Pearl Harbor.
On the Diplomatic level, he was very submissive. With the TV/radio news, he let them blast away. Police did not stop TV reporters with cameras accompanying student protestors infiltrating US military bases. What a load of caca. It was a South Korean government sponsored protest against US troops.
One of the cheapest Nobel prizes of late is the Nobel Peace Prize.
Mandela and Kim did not deserve it. They won it because of PC reasons.
ANC did nothing to stop AIDS proliferation in South Africa. They probably killed more people by denying the problem.
I too believe the ROK forces are frequently staffed by competent and loyal soldiers. …but that is what we thought of the ARVNs in South Vietnam. There seem ample evidence that there are perhaps hundreds of thousands of NK sympathizers in SK society. How unlikely is it that some of them may be wearing general’s uniforms? I think the ROK’s 700,000 plus troops may be too bogged down fighting other South Koreans and each other to be truly effective. Remember France anyone, when nearly all off their navy leadership actively sympathized with Hitler and did next to nothing in 1940 to repel the Nazi invasion. Perhaps Rumsfeld is right in getting the USFK as far as possible from the DMZ.
what would happen to nk if it used the a bomb on sk? well, it would be the end of their country. you think the us is going to stand by and do nothing? please, it would be the perfect opportunity to destroy nk once and for all.
and kim jong il is not going to go down in history as the first man to drop an atomic bomb on his own people. the man’s smart enough to know that any use of nuclear weapons will be the end of his regime.
man, oh lord! the way many of you have it, south korea can only have war. if you’re not saying that north korea is going to blow seoul to smithereens, you’re saying you have a right to destroy south korea by way of attacking nk because you have the right to think of your people first and thus may kill as many people as is necesary to defend the homeland.
i notice no indignation at the ten thousand souls who lost their lives courtesy of die bush/cheney/rumsfeld machtpartei.
now listen, you conservative types have had your opportunity and you have failed. my god, just look at the fricken mess there you’ve made in iraq. rather than win us friends in the arab world, you’ve made more terrorists for all americans to fear. won’t you neo-cons stop trying to contol people by killing them? can’t you see it’s not working?
anyhow, how about you stop bitching and tell us what you want south korea to do? i never see this articulated clearly. won’t one of you say?
“i notice no indignation at the ten thousand souls who lost their lives courtesy of die bush/cheney/rumsfeld machtpartei.”
That’s because no one’s going to share the indignation of someone so clueless as to use bogus German in a lame attempt to compare the American government to Nazis.
I really hope you don’t think anyone is going to take that seriously. Not anyone serious, anyway.
Remember France anyone, when nearly all off their navy leadership actively sympathized with Hitler and did next to nothing in 1940 to repel the Nazi invasion. - Mumbles
The major Nazi invasion forces to France had been on the land route, so the usefulness of a French navy to fight back the Germans was near zero. In an old-fashioned, outadted belief (stemming from the experiences made in the trench warfare and heavy artillery shellings of World War I with the German army) the majority of the French staff of command saw the heavily armed, static “Maginot”-line as an effective bumper against any invasion from their Eastern enemies. The only military guy, who insisted for years to build up a modern, mobile heavy main battle tank force was the later General de Gaulle. He had foreseen, that the Nazis, (ruthlessly barbaric in their mindset, but by using the tools of modernity deadly efficient) would make use of their modern tank force and Stukas (”Sturzkampfbomber”/ dive-bomber) to crack up the Maginot wall for their invasion route to Paris. The “Blitzkrieg” tactics of massive attacks at a few chosen points of the Maginot line and the rapid mobility of the new battle tanks made the Gemran invasion quite successful. The have planned and organized the war since Hitler’s rise to power and the French supreme command were taken by surprise about the ineffectiveness of their Maginot line, which sucked a huge portion of the then defense budgets, without leaving the right funding for a modern tank force of de Gaulles’ wishes.
It had nothing to do with an assumed lack of courage, bravery or patriotic will of the French people to defend their fatherland.
SJI — I don’t see what the problem is. Seoul has, for all intents and purposes, said that the nuclear issue is a bilateral issue between Pyongyang and Washington. Take a look at the role Seoul has decided to play in the six-party talks — that of a mediator, not an ally. And that’s perfectly fine, BTW — if Seoul thinks its interests are best served by sitting this issue out, so be it. Anyway, if Seoul goes out of its way to accomodate Pyongyang — as it has done — and distance itself from the United States — as it has done — why would the North Koreans attack the South over an issue Seoul has washed its hand of? This is especially so if a U.S. attack was launched after U.S. military assets were removed from South Korea. Unless, of course, all the sunshine Seoul has been blowing up our asses concerning intra-Korean reconciliation has been a load of horseshit. In which case Seoul has made some serious strategic miscalculations.
Look, I don’t know how to break this to you, but the attitude taken by the current South Korean government is that the North Koreans would NOT use nuclear weapons on other Koreans, and hence putting pressure on North Korea in an effort to end its nuclear weapons program is NOT worth risking “intra-Korean reconciliation.” Maybe this is a correct assessment, maybe not. Regardless, what it DOES say is that the South Korean government would rather minimize the risk to Seoul by maximizing the risk to Tokyo and LA. Again, perfectly reasonable — the South Korean government must protect South Korean interests. Needless to say, Seoul have the “right to think of [its] own people first.” What I don’t get from you, KJI, is that since everyone involved in this mess in clearly looking out for No. 1 at the risk of causing serious harm to other participants, why is it that you think the U.S. should behave any differently. If South Koreans do not concern themselves with nuclear proliferation and hence possible nuclear attacks on U.S. cities, I don’t see why Washington should concern itself with a possible North Korean attack on South Korea as a tradeoff for taking measures to ensure that said proliferation does not happen. This is especially the case when so much of the rhetoric coming out of Seoul nowadays is of “unity” and “brotherhood” with the North, and Seoul keeps on reassuring its own populace that North Korea no longer represents a serious threat.
Now, if you really want to know what I think South Korea should be doing, it should realize that as long it keeps undermining U.S. attempts to put pressure on North Korea to give up its nuclear program, there is no way said pressure is going to succeed short of U.S. military action. Which means, KJI, that Seoul’s excessive concern for “provoking” the North may very well lead to the North “provoking” the U.S. into launching the war Seoul so fears. Right now, Seoul needs to stop appeasing the North out of fear of war and start appeasing the U.S. out of fear of war, because this situation will not get any better as long as the North can continue to play one side off the other
Idiot Shin, please try to get beyond your desire to rant and read the posts.
I clearly said WMD not even considering nukes.
But, like swatting at a gnat, because I have nothing better to do at the time, I’ll take up part of your rant.
Unlike most Koreans, I don’t take it for granted the US would use nuclear weapons against NK if the North used one or more first against the South. It is clear the threshold for action of the US is much higher than for dictatorships like the North.
Before Iraq War I, people like Sen Sam Nunn said if Iraq used WMD, no US response was off the table - that we would respond in kind. After the war, he was asked about that again, and he admitted what I always believed —- there was virtually no way the US could use WMD against Iraq even if Iraq used them first.
North Korea is a different situation. If they used one nuke, and we believed they would use more in the coming days, and we couldn’t take out all possible locations from which they could use them, maybe we’d respond in kind. But it is a big “if.”
But really, Shin, I don’t believe you even take the time to think about this kind of stuff. If you can’t get your geopolitical rants off a crackerjack box, it takes too much of your time.
For example, it would be interesting to compare the number of Iraqis currently being killed in isolated strikes and the frequency of people killed under the Hussein regime. If you want to talk about the big scale, it would be interesting to compare the number of Iraqis killed in the recent war with those killed during Huseein’s reign.
Things in Iraq are not good right now. But are they really much worse?
One thing is clear….they stand a whole hell of a lot better chance getting better now than they did under a Hussein regime…..
There seem ample evidence that there are perhaps hundreds of thousands of NK sympathizers in SK society. How unlikely is it that some of them may be wearing general’s uniforms?
Pretty darn unlikely. Don’t know Koreans very well do you? Koreans are full of bluster and will spout emotional nonsense like “hanminjok” and “Fuckin U.S.A.” but when push comes to shove they’ll do an about face and pick self preservation/economic self interest almost every time.
Examples check out Michael Breen’s book about how nationwide anti-U.S. protest stopped cold COLD (you remember the ones sparked by the incident with the tank and little girls) after Moodys or S&P (I forget which one) told them their national bond rating was going down). Another example is of course how many in Roh’s administration don’t want U.S. troops to leave despite the fact that they’ve done nothing but made the U.S. troops feel unwelcome.
Some of the blue collar types may sincerly sympathize with the North but for most South Koreans it’s just talk. You think most Koreans are gonna give up their standard of living (including high tech cell phones and Starcraft) in the name of hanminjok?
Anyway, what could the starving North Koreans possibly have to offer a ROK Army general who probably has (i) a daughter in college in New England and (ii) grandchildren with U.S. citizenship cause his daughter in law took trips to Hawaii during the third tri-mester to give birth on U.S. soil (assuming his son isn’t living in the U.S. til he’s 35 to avoid military service) Answer: nothing.
USinKorea: Ref, your “devil’s advocate” position about chemical weapons —
I agree also with the Marmot about the overall result of a theoretical renewal of the conventional war that ended with the 1953 armistice. The South should be able to stand off the North on its own (meaning without US ground forces, but with US air and naval support), given the political will to do so.
As regards the possible use of chemical weapons as a WMD by the North — I think the military details of such a potential use matter. The world hasn’t seen massive battlefield use of chemical weapons since WWI, and for some good reasons. Against trained troops in the field, who are equipped with chemical protection gear, I think the prevailing consensus among military theoreticians is that chemical weapons will be “relatively” ineffective at producing a lot of casualties. Chemical weapons are very dependent on proper weather conditions which of course shift constantly.
The one possible theoretical use that makes some sense would be as warheads on long range surface- to-surface missiles. The idea would be to fill the warheads with sticky liquid “persistent” agents, and try to “airburst” the warheads over significant military targets deep in the rear (such as military airfields, to deny their use by potential USAF and ROK AF air cover, and maybe port facilities, that would be used to bring in US reinforcements).
In Germany during the cold war, we were told by our US intel estimates that such a use of their SCUDS (ie with liquid persistent chemical agent warheads) was a capability of the Warsaw Pact. Of course such a use would almost certainly end up causing a large amount of deaths among nearby civilian populations; as we saw in Gulf War I, the SCUDS used by Iraq were notoriously inaccurate, even given the fact that the Iraqis never fired any with chemical warheads (as everyone feared they would at the time –remember?)
And I remember reading that there are significant technical problems to be solved in accurately delivering a SCUD type ballistic missile with a warhead loaded with a large quantity of liquid chemical agent. The relatively large mass of the liquid tends to shift around during the “g-force” stresses of the long flight time. Whether North Korean missilemen have solved these problems or not is probably unknown even to the experts; it may depend on how much help the Soviets gave them with their missile program, back when the Soviet Union was actively assisting the North with the intial buildup of short range ballistic missiles (and I’m not sure when this first occurred).
And of course I’m sure North Korean missilemen have not been idle in their own test and training program since then. I suspect the PRC has also actively sought this type of chemical warhead capability with their own short and intermediate range ballistic missiles, for potential use against Taiwanese airfields during an invasion scenario.
The big unknown factor here is one’s estimate of the “rationality” of the NorK military, and in particular that of the “Dear Leader”. I think Shin Jong Il’s unstated presumption is that the DL is a “rational” Korean nationalist who will not use nukes — or chemicals — in a first strike against his own countrymen. If you agree with Shin in this assumption (I’m not being sarcastic; he may be right)– then the possibility of use of even this type of chemical weapon is as unlikely as the use of nukes by the north against the south, at least initially during any renewal of conventional warfare.
Kim Jong-Il is an egomaniac surviver. Everything else is propagandistic glitter of his toadies in the North. And all these thoughts about use of WMDs or not: South Korea has also stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. The missiles to deliver them up to the Yalu river with the appropriately functioning warheads is a piece of cake for the ROK military, too. Man, I think some of you are really too much interested to speculate about an outcome of a real war on the peninsula. Am I here on a war college or something like that?
“Northern Boy: I’m sorry I threw the rock at you first.
Southern Boy: I’m sorry, too. It is not right for brothers to throw rocks at each other.
Northern Boy: Our parents and ancestors would be grieved to see us fighting.
Southern Boy: Speaking of which, do you want to participate in the international Ping-Pong game together as one team? … If we become one team, we can make up for our weakness and no other country will be able to beat us.”
One minor plot hole in this nationalist piece of garbage. The North Korean boy would be immediately sent to the gulag for AT LEAST ten years immediately following the conversation. Why is it so hard for South Koreans to get this through their heads? Another point that seems to be lost– it isn’t the evil American dragon preventing real exchange between them and their ‘brothers’ it is the North Korean government itself.
I am especially pissed off about the teacher claiming that teachers don’t have to be neutral. Um, yes, they do, and in South Korea, they have to be by law.
Oh brother. The south korean teachers have lost their freaking minds!
Further note from a “war collegian” (I don’t deserve such a compliment, I never qualified for US Army war college).
Sugar, you know your history. But your recitation of the “ineffectiveness” of the Maginot line is wrong. It did its job militarily (though in fairness to you, the legend of its ineffectiveness is the standard one that lives on in history and refuses to die).
The Maginot line only covered the French-German border, and was never extended north to cover the Franco-Belgian border as well. Proposals were made to do so but the defense budgets were not allocated in time for the outbreak of war in 1939.
Once the Germans made their initial advance into Holland and northern Belgium (10 May 1940), they successfully assaulted the Belgian frontier forts (the most spectacular was the famous German glider assault on the top of the key Belgian fort of Eben Emael along the Albert Canal). This drew the BEF and some French armies into Belgium towards the north.
Meanwhile, another German army with the majority of their tank forces penetrated the Ardennes forest area of southern Belgium (the Allies had assumed the roads in the Ardennes were impassable to tanks).
The German tanks of May 1940 were not “superior” to the Allied ones in their firepower and armor protection. They were faster, though, and the Germans did concentrate their tanks in large units and use them all together (while the Allies spread theirs out along the front). The Germans went too fast for their artillery to keep up so they compensated for this by the use of dive bombers as you point out — the first successful use in history of large scale ground attack aircraft and tanks assaulting in combination.
In contrast to Allied commanders who were in comfortable chateaus well back from the front, the German commanders were with the forward units furiously driving them on (Rommel and Guderian were the two most famous ones).
They outflanked the Maginot line to the north. Once the Germans crossed the Meuse River the Allies had to retreat.
Later on in the battle for France, the Germans did stage an “set-piece” assault on a portion of the Maginot line, and filmed it for newsreel propaganda purposes (the film still exists and is occasionally seen by “war collegians” who are interested in such things). However, though the film does not imply it, I think even this staged assault was not particularly successful in actually making a penetration of the ML. The hardening of the forts enabled them to hold out for some time until the general French surrender.
To win the Battle of France, the Germans went around the Maginot line. The Maginot line was “ineffective” only in the sense that one can consider it to be indicative of the politico-military “mindset” of France of the 1930’s — one which was afraid of war and would only consider “defensive” expenditures on fixed fortifications, instead of on up-to-date mobile armored forces (as De Gaulle advocated).
The Germans’ stunning victory was a thunderclap which resonated politically all over the world. It’s been forgotten now by the general public because of the ultimate outcome of the war. But –neither the quick German victory in the Battle of France, or then their ultimate defeat 5 years later, was foreseen by that same general public of the time.
I think it’s worth remembering, because it’s an example of why the “military details” do matter, and I don’t think that events on the Korean peninsula (or anywhere else) are “preordained” to ensure that the “good guys” will always win in the end.
‘compare the american government to nazis.’ bs
i didn’t compare the us government to nazis, i compared bush/cheney/rumsfeld to nazis. verstehen sie?
The North very effectively infiltrating South Korean society except for one very large and improtant institution: the ROK military. Note how Comrade Roh’s “reform” conspiciously omits the military…for now. More on that later.
A few years ago, I tutored an ROK intelligence Colonel who was soon to go to Washington. He told me some shit that would curl your hair but has also told me, while drunk, that the military was aware of the infiltration and would stop it when the time came critical.
A few weeks ago, a criptic article appeared in the Korea Lies about how Jeolla officiers were going to get priority in promotion. Of course, Jeolla is the Fifth Column in South Korea, home ot the Dear Leader party. If there is one way to wrankle a military it is by giving preferential promotions.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see the military take some action in South Korea before too long.
For the record, Paul H., the main task of the Maginot line was to prevent a successful invasion of France from the East, so in the end the whole concept was “ineffective”, it doesn’t matter that the fortresses of the line had withstanded the German attacks militarily in the middle section, the defensive strategy as a whole was a backburner. France was defeated and Germany invaded and occupied it.
If the French had built up a vast, offensive modern tank force (like de Gaulle had appealed for years) the outcome of the war might have been not so clear. The area to Belgium couldn’t be fortified at France’s will, cause until the declaration of neutrality of the Belgians, they were France’s allies and so the mutual defense line was forward based on Belgian flat soil, though not matching up to the standard of the Maginot line. But our opinions are not apart. German army group A invaded the Netherlands and Belgium and army group B made the then unthinkable motorized march through the “invincible” Ardenne forest with nearly 1 million soldiers and roughly 1500 tanks and armored vehicles, without encountering much resistance. Army group C, actually the forces assigned to attack the most heavily defended fortresses as a diversion maneuver to keep the French defenders in their bunkers and army group C managed later a major breakthrough at the Maginot line’s middle section and could speed through the area at Verdun. Mussolini’s Italy jumped on the bandwaggon and tried an unsuccessful offensive from the South, but couldn’t overrun the southern part of the Maginot line. The Germans ignored the Maginot line and made the famous “Sichelschnitt” (sickle cut) from the Northeast into the back of the French defense forces at the Maginot line. The highly mobile German army group A was able to direct their tank units to the British Expeditionary Corps at D?쩌nkirchen, but Hitler ordered (for whatever reasons) a stop of their possible annihilation, so that the Brits had been able to evacuate 330.000 British soldiers back to their island.
After our little summary of the Nazi invasion of France, the source of mentioning the World War II battles was the previous comment of “Mumbles” and his talk about the French navy officers “sympathy” for Hitler, indicating an ill-will of the French armed forces to fight the Germans - which I found embarrassingly false.
So, if some facts and details of my post here are wrong, than excuse me please, because now the European Cup match (SOCCER RULEZ THE WORLD!) France vs. Croatia has started right now and I’ve typed this post as fast as possible.
Guess what: I’m rooting for the French team. Allez le Bleu!!!
Poiboy, it is doubtful that France could have repelled any German invasion in 1940, no matter what the plan was. The morale of the French just was not there. It is also easy to romaticise the Nazi victories on 1939-41 which were just as much caused by their enemy’s weaknesses than their strengths.
‘undermining us policy…’ mr marmot
you mean like george bush did as soon as he got into office? you mean underminig like that? and which policies are you referring to? are you referring to the policies formulated in consultaion with the south korean government, or are you referring to policies that simply dictate to south korea?
perhaps you’re referring to policies where the us thinks it has the right to start a war in korea without ever consulting those who would be most affected by such a war.
you can understand why the koreans have put such policies in the trash bin where they belong.
korea wants an ally, you want a dog.
‘for instance it would be interesting to compare the number of iraqis now being killed with those killed by hussein…’ sundubuman
wow, the united states has come a long way! now, we see guys dressed in overalls comparing the greatest nation on earth to a third world dictator. the neo-cons are doing what they can to tarnish america and i’m not going to allow it to continue! you’re out in novenmber, guys.
‘the us spent countless lives defending your country…’ sundubuman
no, it spent countless of lives defending korea. just like korea spent countless of lives defending us policy in vietnam.
‘you’re either with us or against us.’ herr cheney, totsfuehrer
‘anyone who criticises my policies is helpng the enemy.’ bush, fuehrer, das viertes reich
‘the abba crowd…’ insignificant moron of the neo-con brigade.
Mr. Shin Jong Il,
I concur with the idea that the French Army never stood a chance, Maginot line or not.
Their command system was very fragile and their discipline was uncertain to say the least.
The tactical story along the Meuse in May 1940 showed that even first line French units could not hold for long against the Germans even under favorable circumstances, and when broken could not easily recover. Consider the case of the river crossing of the 7th Panzer vs 5e DIM, a first line French motorized division, supposedly one of the best in the French army, without even proper bridging equipment. Not only was the river crossed, against greater numbers, against prepared positions, but 5e DIM was shattered, never again a factor in the battle.
The same thing happened over and over again, at the loop of the Meuse at Sedan, vs the French reserve divisions (DCR), etc. ad infinitum.
There are just too many of these cases to think that they were flukes.
Some French units did well defensively against the poorer German ones, but on the whole the French army lacked the leadership and morale to compete.
Their fathers in 1914 were not so fragile. French divisions in 1914 could be defeated with heavy casualties one day, and attack under full staff control two days later.
Hey Shin,
I am not some Fracophobe redneck, I have once read Jean F. Revel’s insight into how those that declared “Better Hitler than Blum” were a vast array of left and right-wing malcontents. Remember Stalin was on Berlin’s side at the time. Seoul does not have to be full of Juche freaks to hinder U.S support. Utopian pacifism and rabid nationalism would do just fine.
For your info the “inferior” French Char B almost fried Rommel’s ass in France ( a shell went straight through his small tank) , and the Germans only made big PZ IVs after they encountered the superior French tanks…but this is nerdy wargamer stuff.
I respect your opinions Ari but….
” Koreans are full of bluster and will spout emotional nonsense like “hanminjok” and “Fuckin U.S.A.” but when push comes to shove they’ll do an about face and pick self preservation/economic self interest almost every time..”
I know tons of Koreans/K-ams in school, and many of them do blame the US for what is happening. I am not trying to stereotype complex Korean culture.
While I may think Shin Jong il’s criticisms polemic, it must be admitted that our forces are fairly thinly extended. It may be Ok to have our forces strecthed out from Manila to Casablanca now. But if real war breaks out Washington will probably choose oil over Samsung Phones.
This is not a slam to the Korean people, just economic realities.
Remember we haven’t found a way to outsource oil yet, but PCs and Cars are made all over Asia.
Sugar Shin,
You’re point about the South having WMD and the capability to use them in kind in reponse to a North Korean attack is a good one. I think the South Korean military would pull that trigger — much faster than the US could by far — and that would effect the ability of the North to win quickly, and quickly is the only way I can see them winning.
But, these are things to think about.
The problem I found with South Korean society even back in the mid-1990s was that even people in their early 40s had not considered the potential of war much at all. It was a night and day difference between the US-USSR cold war and the one with NK-SK.
It makes no sense, because even now that SK loves to pretend it doesn’t face a cold war enemy, if you scratch pass the surface just a little, you find most Korean adults will admit the North scares them.
The only reason I found SK adults didn’t bother to think about war was this — “Oh. Kim Jong Il knows the US will defeat NK completely, so there won’t be a war.”
Besides forgetting all the collasal mistakes in judgement in history…..
…SK should see the huge warning signs that the US stands a good chance of pulling out of SK in the near future……
France Comparison:
remember the german invasion was helped along by a generation which believed that beefing up the military with more tanks/planes would by itself cause agression. that was the leading theory of why ww1 happened at that time. also daladier said upon returning home from the imfamous munich conference something along the lines of “i would have been more willing to stand up to germany if we had the same numbers of planes and tanks.”
As they say, and as the eponymous jong-il reminds us, it takes a shin to really raise an ass. Like all independent-minded Korean nationalists, you can usually find him within a 50-mile radius of Costa Mesa, and his obsession–which his Web surfing habits prove decisively–is getting America to pay attention to him. He hopes to earn the respect he craves by comparing its leaders to Hitler and offering up such gems of insight as “fricken” and “moron.” He apparently lives in abject terror that the United States will do exactly what he’s been shouting for and leave Korea to its independent self. So tell me, jong il, where did you do your ROK Army service?
Ok Sugar, as I said you know your stuff & perhaps better than me as I can’t do WWII German Army Group nos out of my head. Also soccer doesn’t “rule” for me (not enough scoring on offense, my friend, which makes it the perfect Euro game).
I made my possibly-too-elaborate post for the benefit of others here who might have been interested — and got some good mil history responses to include your own. Also to point out that good defensive fortifications and obstacles have their place in the scheme of things.
I’ve never been to Korea but I understand the whole of the peninsula south of the DMZ has elaborate forward defensive positions; also barriers, ready for immediate implementation in the event of war (such as large concrete structures that can be blown down by demolitions to block a road). And the hilly terrain of most of the peninsula favors the defense.
BTW, those of you who have never been to Europe might never have realized that during the entirety of the Cold War, not one meter of West Germany bordering against the Warsaw Pact was ever fortified with barriers, or even had any defensive postions pre-prepared (too much of an imposition on valuable farm and forest land, I suppose).
Not even one foxhole — anywhere. The only thing the government of the FRG would permit was the “pre-chambering” of major autobahn bridges (manholes with covers for the wartime insertion of cratering charges).
The normal way to bypass a complete linear defense, such as the one on the Korean peninsula, is to go around by sea and make amphibious landings, but that option has been forever denied to the North by US/ROK naval and air superiority.
But with 50 years of time to prepare by a Leninist/Stalinist “war communist” state, ways to get around such a defense can be found with enough energetic dedication; thus the famous tunnels.
(First one found 1979 or 80? Total of 3 found so far? But there may be as many as 17 more yet undiscovered I gather, some of which may be big enough to transit vehicles).
A lesson for the ROK, a la “Maginot Line”? Perhaps. But as you imply, I’m far away and just speculating as a “war collegian”.
Woa… talk of calling a priest and getting connected to the Pope. I never expected my little quip to start a thread of hard-core military history and geo-politics, even though this is fun. I guess I must blame Marmont for getting me thinking of 1939 France by posting from Eberstadt. DAMN YOU MARMONT, now my brain hurts!
luisalegria,
you’ve mistaken me with Mr. Shin Jong-Il, he didn’t post about France and the Maginot line.
And Mumbles, it’s “Marmot” and not “Marmont”.
To all interested minds, the outcome of the match yesterday was 2 : 2. Football indeed rules the world, taking the soccer enthusiasts on all five continents into account!
Again for the record: I’m far away of romanticising Nazi victories of World War II. The content of my posts are obviously anti-fascistic, but one/some reader(s) seem to suffer from deliberate dyslexia.