North Korea sinks South Korean navy ship

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A North Korean submarine's torpedo sank a South Korean navy ship on 26 March causing the deaths of 46 sailors, an international report has found.

Investigators said they had discovered part of the torpedo on the sea floor and it carried lettering that matched a North Korean design.

Pyongyang rejected the claim as a "fabrication" and threatened war if sanctions were imposed, say reports.

China has urged both countries to show restraint.

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak pledged to take "stern action" against the North.

The White House described the sinking of the ship as an "act of aggression" by North Korea that challenged peace.

Technically, North Korea and South Korea are still at war.. I'm curious to see if this incident will fuel further instigation's on both sides, and escalate further violence in such a turbulent area of the world. I wouldn't want to see war, but some sort of peace needs to be brokered to end these hostility's. Post your view on this subject, I'm interested to read some solutions, or scenario's that could arise from these continuing aggressions by the North, or from the South from what the North claims.

I'm not too worried about it. North Korea threatens "all out war" all the the time it seems.

Normally, sinking a ship in international waters is considered an act of war. North Korea has oppressed its people and threatened its neighbors for too long.


Bring it. North Korea vs South Korea, when America would back the South Koreans and N. Korea no longer has the Soviets to back it up? I bet even China won't actually intervene to help the North.


Bah. Tell North Korea to show restraint when they oppress their people and kidnap foreign journalists. The time for Korean reunification is long overdue, and a necessary precondition to unification is the defeat of the Communist dictatorship in the North.

The thing with North Korea, is that they have millions of soilders. They would walk all over the South. If an all out war where to occur, who knows what could happen !

They are poorly armed, with outdated technology, and an oppressed army does not make for willing soldiers. The South is our ally, and we would defend them. North Korea has no chance at standing up against American military might.

This is one of the few places where you will see me take a hawkish stance. Europe in WWII, Korea in 1950, Kuwait in 1990, and now once against Korea in 2010. We must defend our allies against dictatorial enemies.

Tell that to the 46 families who are, I assume, fatherless.

Right, I kind of doubt that anybody will accept North Korea taking over the prosperous South Korea. Even further, as Orwell points out, North Korea is technologically backwards. Any effort they make will more likely just become a matter of slaughtering masses of troops than anything else.

South Korea also has the 11th highest military spending in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... penditures So, South Korea could likely hold its own(particularly given that they have an economy unlike North Korea, and this would allow them to actually have large deficit spending if necessary).

And yeah, I would imagine that North Korean troops won't have a morale problem so much as deficiencies given how malnourished the North Korean people are. North Koreans worship their leaders as gods though.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 20 May 2010, 10:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Iraq had an outdated million man army too and coalition forces destroyed them in less than 2 months I suspect the same would happen in North Korea. However the North could unleash untold destruction on the South with artillery that they've massed upon the DMZ not to mention they do have ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. It's best to just wait them out I think until they collapse.

As far as I know, they don't actually have nuclear weapons, at least not yet. The only serious concern would be if China decided to intervene on their behalf, but I don't think China would actually do that. They forced North Korea to erect a wall to keep refugees from fleeing to China, and besides that the Chinese are too capitalist to really be committed to upholding the extreme managed economy seen in North Korea.

If America went front on with the North Koreans, we would lose millions of our soldiers. North Korea has near 11 million able soldiers, with over a million active. The weapons aren't too outdated, the US military would haveto bomb them if real war broke out, and they have bombs too I say let's all find peace, and live happy.

Soldiers don't win wars though at this point. Aircraft and long-distance weaponry wins wars, and in recent invasions, ground troops have been rendered effectively irrelevant. All that soldiers are is something that has to be held off until they are bombed to death, and neither task should be too difficult.

If the US fought North Korea, we wouldn't go "front on". We would not even bother with a conventional battle like that, but rather our use of troops would be driven entirely by what is needed to incapacitate North Korean forces or keep them at bay. Our major offensive would be a bombing offensive.

If South Korea fought North Korea, they aren't going to have an open field where people will fire. The South Korean forces would likely behave similar to American forces in that they would also avoid engaging North Koreans, except tactically, and then using methods that the North Koreans can't defend against to clobber them.

China would not do something so risky to it's position. The most they could consider doing is likely just selling arms to North Korea(and North Korea lacks money, so such a consideration would be pointless), but beyond that, the diplomatic problems are too great, and China likely no longer has ideological ties to North Korea that it considers to be worth the effort.

They've had two successful nuclear tests in the last few years so I think a nuclear North Korea is probably a reality at this point. They have ballistic missiles that can hit anywhere in the south and Japan as well. They've been working on long range ICBM's too that could hit the US.

It's hard to say how China would react. I doubt they would become directly involved but they certainly would not be happy with the US military at it's border.

North Korea already buys weapons from China and Russia. I don't see why there can't be a "quarantine" of all offensive weapons to North Korea like with the Cuban Missile crisis.. though China would just break that anyways and cause more friction. People keep forgetting, North Korea has bombs, they've already successfully tested Nukes underground. They have air support, subs, ships, tanks ... they have ballistic missiles that are more plentiful than what the south has. Although South Korea's GDP is grossly, significantly larger- it doesn't hinder the capability's of the North and it's ability to retaliate every attack. The military is far more structured than what Saddam had, and alot more aggressive too. Plus we're forgetting North Korea could blow up it's dam, causing massive floods to the south.. they actually built a dam in defense to try and prevent this measure from happening.

I highly doubt they actually have the capability to deploy a nuclear weapon (as in they currently have a bomb and the means to hit someone with it). But they aren't suicidal even if they do have nukes. No one is crazy enough to threaten America (or any American-backed force) with nuclear weapons. The result would be swift annihilation.


They wouldn't be happy, no, but I agree with AG. They wouldn't take the risk of backing North Korea again if it meant war against America. They'd make some fuss in the UN and perhaps send a harshly-worded letter, but they aren't likely to be willing to take such risks on behalf of North Korea. They aren't the same hard-liners that fought us in the Korean War.

Well their northern neighbors are psycho. If you lived next to a neighbor like that you might be inclined to buy a gun or three.