by The Real American

Created on: July 30, 2010

The question of: "What a war with North Korea would entail" is honestly a difficult one to properly evaluate. North Korea is a far more potentially destructive adversary than either: Iraq, or Afghanistan. Their armed forces are: quite substantial in overall size, moderately well-equipped by modern battlefield standards, and intensely loyal to their strictly authoritarian leadership. They certainly wouldn't be a pushover, if they decided to fight a full blown war. And yet, they would be ill-advised to stake such a gamble - considering America's astounding technological advantages in every conceivable area of military expertise. Personally, I highly doubt that they will allow an escalation to develop quite to that political level. However, it is a very real possibility at some point in the not so distant future, so let's dive in and explore this subject.

North Korea has around one million conventional troops and a significant stockpile of military armaments. They have diverted far too much of their total Gross National Product to developing and acquiring the best second rate force projection systems currently available. Thus, the sheer size and number of their available conventional forces is a significant threat. Meanwhile, America is already engaged in two ongoing wars halfway across the planet and has scaled back its conventional forces considerably, since our peak - of two million Regular Army, National Guard, and Army Reservists - in the 1980's. Thus, considering a reasonable force reallocation - until new troops could be recruited, indoctrinated, and trained - around 100,000 Marine and Army personnel could be immediately deployed. It would take around one month to deploy a force of this size in the theatre.

Currently, the South Korean military forces are bolstered by around 30,000 American: troops, trainers, and advisers; while their own forces number around half of North Korea's sizable military force. They are better trained and equipped than in North Korea and they have proven their immense worth in both the previous conflict and The Vietnam War. Although they might lose some territory initially, they are fully capable of holding back these forces for a considerable length of time. With the tensions considerably higher than the previous decades, America has two Nimitz Class Carriers now in the region - which, when combined with South Korea's Airforce, are fully capable of maintaining air superiority. Air dominance could be effectively achieved within

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