It seems like things have been escalating for some time. But this is the first time I heard the same kind of rhetoric from South Korea. In fact, it's almost the same thing NK said, about "reducing the country to ashes".
This is the only place I've heard of this. What prompted it, and what else was said along with it?
I tend to think China would not tolerate an occupation of N.K. by anyone other than China.
At the time of the Korean War, they certainly didn't want what we now call South Korea to have the whole peninsula, but I'm not convinced they'd mind today. The "enemy on our border" principle doesn't apply because they know Korea wouldn't attack and China would win if it tried anyway, and the days of trying to spread Communism over the whole world are over.
The Korean War is still remembered with great pride in China.
How? They were on the side that was doing the attacking and trying to conquer the entire peninsula, and they didn't succeed; South Korea exists.
So if a shooting war started, I would expect China would come in from the north much faster than the U.S. or S.K could come up from the south.
ETA: Not to defend N.K., but to decapitate it themselves and replace the current regime with a more sane, but still pro-China regime.
That, like an American air strike on the artillery and missile sites, would not require invasion.
1) North Korea honchos are not exactly living in a palace where they can be take off easily.
Some are. We might no know the addresses of the entire officer corps, especially with their "turnover" rate, but their homes aren't the places where we'd want to get them anyway (except maybe Kim). And the locations of military facilities, even those that aren't in palaces, are known.
And the military infrastructure of North Korea is quite extensive and well protected so in order to take everything off the US would need to find a number of bases around NK and be prepared for a long aerial campaign.
You seem to be thinking of an invasion. An invasion is not necessary just to keep SK safe. All that would be needed for that is handling the artillery that can shoot at Seoul, and then stopping any counter-invasion that might come from NK after that, not necessarily invading NK.
2) An attack to NK would require the OK from the UNSC which would be blocked by China. So the US could still go ahead and do it but it would be an act of aggression. The United States, especially after the disaster in Iraq, can not afford to be seen as an aggressor by the international community as an aggressor again
A. No, there are several legalistic reasons why the UN's standards are already met in this case: the war never technically ended, NK recently re-declared it anyway and has repeatedly threatened us and our allies, it would be a large air strike exclusively at their weapons not an invasion, we'd be doing it at the request of the local ally for the sake of that ally's self-defense.
B. Why can't the USA afford to continue living with what it's already lived with all along for years? The UN is already a forum for a bunch of warlords and terrorists to sit around ranting about how evil the USA and Israel are and applauding each other for how much bombast and bluster they can throw in while saying it. They already call it an act of aggression any time an American eats a defenseless apple, or sneezes, or ties his/her shoes, or takes a nap. What effect has this had on the USA? We know they spout this stuff about us all the time; the constant buzz of these accusations is just part of the background of life for an American who bothers to pay any attention to it at all, which many don't even feel any reason to do in the first place, nevermind worrying about what any of the constant international harassment is going to actually somehow
do to us. We just keep happily exporting our surplus food to them and bailing them out from their own natural disasters and
not-at-all-aggressive-because-only-Americans-are-aggressive wars.
China` s military is quickly improving and they have a military budget now about half that of the US. A large number of domestically manufactured planes, aircraft carriers, destroyers and one of the largest in the world arsenals of nuclear weapons in the world... it is impossible for them to force North Korea to surrender, considering that China would almost surely support
Good reasons not to try to invade China or a Chinese ally... which is part of why nobody's seriously considering doing so.
Considering that the United States could not force militarly Iran to abandon their nuclear program...
Your English is mostly pretty good, but it failed you in this sentence. The phrase "force ___ to..." does not apply to situations in which no use of force was tried.
(Also, it's "attack on" or "attack against", not "attack to". Without that one particular phrase, I might not even have been aware that English isn't your native language.)
4) An attack to NK by the US would start a confrontation with the no. 1 economy of the world, China, which is growing at 7%. The US can not win the battle
The USA's economy could withstand the strain of war better than China's could, because China's "growth" is simply the world's biggest bubble waiting to pop. There are other reasons why a war against China in Asia would be a big problem for the USA, not that one. The real issue is that China's ground army is huge (close to the size of the USA's entire population) and wouldn't need to travel very far.
In the last 5 years:
1) the US has failed to end Iran nuclear program. Remember that the original goal of US and Israel was to have NO nuclear program in Iran, then it became OK nuclear program but NO enrichment
2) the US has failed to bring Iraq under their side
Now Iraq is going under Iran
3) the US has failed to contain Russia on Crimea
These are situations in which no military action was even tried, so they do not illustrate military abilities.
4) the US has been passed as 1st economy
Also not exactly a military issue, at least not an important enough one to counter/outweigh the others.
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5) China is now the major economy partner of all ex US allies
What are these "ex US allies"?
Considering that the US, at the peak of their power, lost to North Vietnam + China, it is utterly impossible for them to win in 2016 to NK + China
Even if I give you the idea of Vietnam as a "loss" (which is disputable), or the idea of the USA being at a "peak" back then (which is just false), all it would mean is that the USA wouldn't be able to defeat China in an invasion on Asian land which China chose to resist. But nobody's seriously considering trying that anyway.
Or else rely on means other than high precision bombs to take out those positions. It depends on how hardened the bunkers are, but dropping a couple dozen (hundred?) fuel-air bombs has a good chance of neutralizing the crews at least. The guns can then be taken out at a much less frantic pace.
I'm sure ROK armed forces have at least two distinct plans to take those guns out before they flatten their capital that also happens to be their largest population center by far and a cornerstone of their economy.
Even if some of the targets are clustered close enough for that kind of bomb to be useful, SK doesn't have those bombs, or planes with which to deliver them.
