North Korea Now Making Missile Ready Nuclear Weapons

[Thumpalumpacus]

They fought tooth & nail 60 years ago; what has changed since then?

Actually, they were saved by the Chinese in the autumn of 1950. Tooth-and-nail didn't cut it then, when their equipment was closer to modern standard than it is today. Had it not been for Chinese intervention, the Korean war would have been won probably by July of 51 at the latest.

-- and, they hadn't had 60 years of dictatorship [your number] starving their own families. Morale is hard to keep up when you know you're fighting for a regime that has your 60-year-old mom digging taters on the sly to supplement an otherwise thin diet.

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What makes you think DPRK regulars would be more loyal? Would you be willing to fight to the death for a regime that starves your cousins?  Would you do that much?

Soldiers are not robots. They have to have a reason to fight. Unit loyalty will give them coherence in a tactical situation, but once the shit hits the fan, even that is often traded for intact skin and home with the family.

First of all, the Kim family have been venerated as gods for three generations now, and they have had a pretty much unchanging world view during that time.  In Iraq's case, Saddam was propped up within memory of many of the soldiers, and their relationship with the US was in a lot more flux.  If anyone doesn't think the N. Korean soldiers have absolute faith and loyalty toward their leadership, I think you might underestimate the power of that level of brainwashing.

But I do have a question related to yours.  Could N. Korea ever have boots on the ground in Seoul?  It seems to me that Seoul is so much more advanced and generally grand than Pyeong Yang that just being there would immediately render everything they were taught about their country a lie.  I mean, just across the street from me there's a 70-story apartment with a neon-outlined helicopter landing pad on top-- well, technically there are 4 of them, but they are part of the same complex.  How does a N. Korean see something like that and not just break down right away?

I think the veneration angle is a bit overplayed, considering the veneration for elders in general inside Asian culture. I know that even as a fervent believer (of a different stripe, admittedly) I still had questions about my indoctrination which assumed greater importance when the shit hit the fan.

I have no doubt that many DPRK soldiers are hardy and devoted to duty -- don't get me wrong. But I also think that morale touches on a hell of a lot more than military indoctrination.

DPRK could quite possibly make such inroads into ROK that the DPRK soldiers start to question why they're fighting, and who they're fighting, and if their leaders have told them the truth. That too could perhaps sap morale. I don't know. They might see this magnificent wealth and get distracted, for all you or I know. It's happened before.

I know that with a large infantry force and given the hypothetical initiative, they could sure put put a dent across the DMZ. I'm more than certain that without outside help, they could not maintain any gains, much less capitalize on momentum. If I had to guess, I'd say ROK does a fighting retreat until airpower tells on a land that is (from the air force perspective) simply a series of chokepoints.

I'd just as soon not see any lives lost on what is essentially a troll-war between Un and Trump, each trying to inflict more butthurt with hot words than they take from the same.