[HN Gopher] North Korean Tactics (2020) [pdf]
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North Korean Tactics (2020) [pdf]
Author : openasocket
Score : 60 points
Date : 2022-08-02 18:39 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (irp.fas.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (irp.fas.org)
| nimbius wrote:
| page 1-12 is...generous.
|
| "Due to the United States' ability to overwhelm almost any
| opponent with technology and firepower..."
|
| with the exception of Iraq, afghanistan, korea, cuba, and vietnam
| at no real point in these battles was our technological
| sophistication or "firepower" a decisive capability that led to a
| victory. in fact in afghanistan during the last six days of
| conflict our exodus led to perhaps the largest single _transfer_
| of sixth generation advanced western warfighting technologies to
| an enemy in the history of armed conflict. the Taliban had a
| blackhawk helicopter over the city as a command presence in _less
| than a day._
|
| the entire book also neglects to highlight a real point of
| contention: the US never formally declared any end of hostility
| to North Korea.
|
| again in 1-16
|
| "To deter any foe from attacking, the country has threatened the
| use of nuclear weapons against South Korea, Japan, or any
| reachable U.S. military facility in Asia"
|
| the 2020 document neglects to mention North Koreas ICBM system
| can now successfully reach most targets in the United States, so
| any real effort toward regime change is completely off the table.
| https://www.popsci.com/north-koreas-new-icbms-can-reach-most...
| simonh wrote:
| > the US never formally declared any end of hostility to North
| Korea.
|
| There's no reason they should. The US never declared any
| hostilities with North Korea, and North Korea never declared
| any hostilities formally with anyone either. US forces were the
| major participant in a United Nations mandated intervention, in
| response to North Korean forces crossing the border, so the US
| as a nation was technically never directly a participant in the
| conflict.
|
| If anyone was going to declare anything in that regard, it
| would be the United Nations. The armistice agreement was signed
| by two US generals, true, but they did so on behalf of the
| United Nations Command, not the United States.
| legalcorrection wrote:
| The US had the military might to extract total submission from
| the populations of those countries. Anytime someone attacks
| your troops, kill them and their family and raze their
| neighborhood/town. But that would obviously be at odds with
| long term and broader goals.
| openasocket wrote:
| The method of harsh reprisals and collective punishment,
| besides being morally bankrupt, actually has a pretty bad
| track record. The Nazi's in occupied Yugoslavia, among other
| places, had a policy of executing 100 random civilians for
| every German soldier killed. But this had the exact opposite
| impact on the resistance movement, actually increasing
| resistance sentiment.
| bostonsre wrote:
| Would be interesting to compare the nazi methodology with
| the Russian way of war in chechnya. Russia seemed to get
| submission through not very nice means.
| mc32 wrote:
| They both tended to use locals to do their dirty work.
| For example in Chechnya they didn't use many "Slavic"
| Russians but mostly Allies from Chechnya or ex-republics
| of the CCCP. The red nazis also recruited locals.
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| > page 1-12 is...generous.
|
| The sentence you are criticizing is, itself, a direct
| acknowledgement of the fact that simply "overwhelming" an
| adversary with technology and firepower is not sufficient for
| victory. The full sentence reads "Due to the United States'
| ability to overwhelm almost any opponent with technology and
| firepower, the KPA emphasizes asymmetric warfare in conjunction
| with large numbers of SOF units"--much like the tactics
| employed by the U.S.'s adversaries in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
| Vietnam
| tablespoon wrote:
| > with the exception of Iraq, afghanistan, korea, cuba, and
| vietnam at no real point in these battles was our technological
| sophistication or "firepower" a decisive capability that led to
| a victory.
|
| So? In Iraq, at least, it led to the rapid collapse of the
| Iraqi government and military and execution of its leaders.
| North Korea _doesn 't care_ if the US ultimately succeeds in
| meeting its goals, it cares if the North Korean state is
| defeated.
|
| > the Taliban had a blackhawk helicopter over the city as a
| command presence in _less than a day_.
|
| So? The real question is: is it still flying?
|
| IIRC, the US backed government of Afghanistan had trouble
| keeping its own aircraft flying without support from Western
| maintenance contractors. I highly doubt the Taliban will do
| better, especially since it's cut off from a supply of spare
| parts.
| dudyr5fjo wrote:
| Jtsummers wrote:
| You skipped the end of that first sentence:
|
| > Due to the United States' ability to overwhelm almost any
| opponent with technology and firepower, _the KPA emphasizes
| asymmetric warfare in conjunction with large numbers of SOF
| units._ [emphasis mine]
|
| Which seems to imply that NK is, indeed, preparing for
| something more like Vietnam, Afghanistan, or the second Iraq
| war, or at least whoever prepared this believes they are.
| mechanical_bear wrote:
| Ability and Political Will are two different things.
| PostOnce wrote:
| There seem to be a few misconceptions or oversights here:
|
| The US military can essentially break almost any government
| instantly, insurgency is a different beast. That's no mystery.
|
| North Korean ICBMs can theoretically reach America in the same
| way that I can theoretically walk into the Kremlin and choke
| Putin to death with my bare hands.
|
| In practice, it's unlikely. There are preventive measures in
| place.
|
| As for the Taliban getting ahold of an ancient helicopter, I
| don't think it's a major concern. You may have seen that
| anything of real value was first destroyed, as is standard
| practice.
|
| The US is not going to declare an end to hostility with North
| Korea and has no reason to and many reasons not to.
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > Songbun is a three-tier class system divided into 51 categories
| that was created by the Kim regime to isolate and control
| perceived internal political threats. It is very difficult to
| move up even from one category to the next-higher category, but
| it is very easy to move downward. Even an elite person living in
| Pyongyang can commit an infraction and be exiled to the country
| with a much lower songbun. Every person above the age of 17 in
| North Korea has a file maintained by the government that contains
| the individual's songbun.
|
| Sad: This type of social credit score system seems pervasive and
| will no doubt be here soon.
|
| Doubly sad: many of the FAANGers here on HN will bring it about.
| Mizza wrote:
| Songbun is actually a good word we can use for it as it creeps
| into western society.
| Mizza wrote:
| Section 1-21 is interesting to me right now as I'm currently
| listening to season 3 of the Blowback podcast and this season is
| all about the Korean War. Their history of events is very
| different than how it is presented here.
| horns4lyfe wrote:
| Cool, another army manual that no Soldier will read. In all
| seriousness, though, sounds really interesting
| omginternets wrote:
| Enlistees? No. Officers? Yeah, absolutely.
| UberFly wrote:
| Sure they do depending on their job/rank. This is a case where
| RTFM might actually severely matter to those you work with.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Officers, warrant officers, and noncommissioned officers (NCO)
| study these in depth on the job depending on their U.S. Army
| Military Occupational Specialty (MOS) and rank.
| openasocket wrote:
| Note for those reading this: I'm pretty sure the diagrams in the
| first part of Chapter 6 are all mislabeled. The diagram labeled
| as an encirclement maneuver is really a penetration maneuver, the
| penetration maneuver diagram is really of a thrust maneuver, etc.
| jgbmlg wrote:
| The Songbun caste system is the weakness that renders the North
| Korean society inherently unstable. The most able members of the
| society are discriminated against the most. And the more powerful
| and resource consuming "Core" members are not selected on the
| basis of merit. I think that there is historical precedent for
| the political principle that Aristocracy will eventually be
| replaced by meritocracy, but there may be revolutionary
| instability first.
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(page generated 2022-08-02 23:00 UTC)