Five Possible Ways a New Korean War Could Start: Obama's response to North Korea could backfire.

[Better Believe It]

In the Koreas, Five Possible Ways to War
By DAVID E. SANGER
May 29, 2010

The White House betting is that the latest crisis, stemming from the March attack, will also abate without much escalation. But there is more than a tinge of doubt. The big risk, as always, is what happens if the North Koreans make a major miscalculation. (It wouldn’t be their first. Sixty years ago, Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Il-sung, thought the West wouldn’t fight when he invaded the South. The result was the Korean War.)

What’s more, the dynamic does feel different from recent crises. The South has a hardline government whose first instinct was to cut off aid to the North, not offer it new bribes. At the same time, the North is going through a murky, ill-understood succession crisis.

And President Obama has made it clear he intends to break the old cycle. “We’re out of the inducements game,” one senior administration official, who would not discuss internal policy discussions on the record, said last week. “For 15 years at least, the North Koreans have been in the extortion business, and the U.S. has largely played along. That’s over.”

That may change the North’s behavior, but it could backfire. “There’s an argument that in these circumstances, the North Koreans may perceive that their best strategy is to escalate,” says Joel Wit, a former State Department official who now runs a Web site that follows North Korean diplomacy.

The encouraging thought is the history of cooler heads prevailing in every crisis since the Korean War. There was no retaliation after a 1968 raid on South Korea’s presidential palace; or when the North seized the American spy ship Pueblo days later; or in 1983 when much of the South Korean cabinet was killed in a bomb explosion in Rangoon, Burma; or in 1987 when a South Korean airliner was blown up by North Korean agents, killing all 115 people on board.

So what if this time is different? Here are five situations in which good sense might not prevail.

1. An Incident at Sea

2. Shelling the DMZ

3. A Power Struggle or Coup

4. An Internal Collapse

5. A Nuclear Provocation

Please read the full article details of these five situations which could lead to a new Korean War at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/weekinreview/30sanger.html?pagewanted=2

[Better Believe It]

1. General Thomas Schwartz: Warns United States not to take North Korean military too lightly

North Korea's military 'bigger, better, closer, deadlier,' says General Schwartz
April 14, 2001

Pyongyang's military machine is "bigger, better, closer, deadlier," Gen. Thomas A. Schwartz said in testimony last week before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Schwartz heads the United Nations and ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Commands and U.S. Forces Korea.

North Korea so far "has yet to discuss or implement any meaningful military confidence-building measures beyond agreement of the opening of a railroad corridor through the Demilitarized Zone," he said. Schwartz said 70 percent of the North's army — "approximately 700,000 troops, over 8,000 artillery systems and 2,000 tanks" — are based within 90 miles of the DMZ and are being reinforced. Most are positioned in more than 4,000 underground facilities from which they "can attack with minimal preparations or warning," he said.

Without moving any of its more than 12,000 artillery pieces, he said, "Pyongyang could sustain up to 500,000 rounds per hour against Combined Forces Command defenses and Seoul for several hours." Most dangerous, he said, "is the accelerated deployment over the past two years of large numbers of long-range 240mm multiple rocket launchers and 170mm self-propelled guns … along the DMZ."

He said Pyongyang's ability to attack the South "without warning and (with) nonconventional weapons continues to grow bigger and get better." The North has the world's third largest ground force with 1 million active-duty soldiers, an air force of more than 1,700 planes, an 800-ship navy that includes "the largest submarine fleet in the world," and a 6 million man reserve force, he said.

He called the North's special operations forces "the largest in the world" with more than 100,000 men. "During wartime, these forces … would fight on two fronts, simultaneously attacking both our forward and rear bases," he said.

Text source: Jim Osan, Stars & Stripes, March 30, 2001

http://www.checkpoint-online.ch/CheckPoint/J2/J2-0001-NorthKoreaDeadlier.html

[brooklynite]

2. What is the alternative?

If you assume North Korea attacked the South Korean ship (and no, I don't buy the "this is a neo-con false allegation to try to generate a conflict with the North), how can you ignore it without risking a further attack?

[lib2DaBone]

3. I dont assume that NK attacked the South. why do you?

NK doesnt want a war now... it would be a nuclear event. How would they benefit?

Can the US economy afford another war? I dont think so.

So who benefits?

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Better Believe It]

5. Chinese premier skips North Korea rebuke

Chinese premier skips N. Korea rebuke
Leader wraps summit with call to avoid military clash over warship sinking
5/29/2010

SEOGWIPO, South Korea - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao says avoiding conflict between the Koreas over the sinking of a warship is "most urgent," but did not express support for a bid by South Korea and Japan to condemn North Korea at the United Nations for allegedly carrying out the attack.

Wen showed no clear public signs Sunday that Beijing was ready to rebuke North Korea. His comments came at the conclusion of a two-day summit attended by South Korea, China and Japan.

"We need to dispel the impact of the Cheonan incident, gradually ease tension and especially avoid a clash," Wen told reporters, standing next to Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and South Korean President President Lee Myung-bak.

Blame avoided
"China will continue to work with every country through aggressive negotiations and cooperation to fulfill our mission of maintaining peace and stability in the region," Wen said.

"Without peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, development in east Asia is impossible," he said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37420254/ns/world_news-asiapacific/

[Historic NY]

6. Actually the war ended with a ceasefire.....see text

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/korea/kwarmagr072753.html

[Better Believe It]

7. South Korea never signed the Armistice Agreement and remain technically at war!

The United Nations Command, supported by the United States, the North Korean Korean People's Army, and the Chinese People's Volunteers, signed the Armistice Agreement; ROK President Syngman Rhee refused to sign. Thus the Republic of Korea never participated in the armistice

The 1953 armistice, never signed by South Korea, split the peninsula along the demilitarized zone near the original demarcation line. No peace treaty was signed, resulting in the two countries remaining technically at war. At least 2.5 million people died during the Korean War.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Korea