How similar is North Korea to pre-invasion Iraq?

[Jolly_Penguin]

Iraq under Sadam Hussein was a nation under the thumb of a dictator. So is North Korea today. Both seem(ed) to me to be content to keep to themselves, harming really only their own people. The invasion of Iraq and killing of Sadam arguably opened Iraq up and created a considerably worse problem for other nations in the area, and for terrorism against the west. Would an invasion and displacement of North Korea on Trump's order do the same there?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Well, the radioactive crater where Seoul used to be could adversely affect video game development and the Iraq War didn't impact that, so from some points of view, the consequences would be worse.

Assuming no nuclear fallout, however, it would probably still be worse. Say, for instance, that the US invades and conquers North Korea. At that point, there is a large US army right on China's border holding onto a place which used to be under China's sphere of influence. This would necessitate China moving a lot of troops to that border and one bad incident could make the whole thing blow up into something worse. The other option would be China taking over North Korea and then you have a large Chinese army sitting right next to the large US Army in South Korea and the same thing.

So, even if the conflict could be contained and handled quickly and all the North Koreans pull out their shoulders because they're so busy throwing flowers at the feet of their invaders, it destabilizes the area and puts everyone in a position for something much worse.

 

[J842P]

Iraq under Sadam Hussein was a nation under the thumb of a dictator. So is North Korea today. Both seem(ed) to me to be content to keep to themselves, harming really only their own people. The invasion of Iraq and killing of Sadam arguably opened Iraq up and created a considerably worse problem for other nations in the area, and for terrorism against the west. Would an invasion and displacement of North Korea on Trump's order do the same there?

No, I don't think the situations are similar in this sense. Pre-war Korea was a fairly homogenous place without the deep-rooted religious/tribal divisions of Iraq. The problem with any military confrontation with N. Korea is the grave human costs that will almost certainly arise from the shelling of Seoul that would be the inevitable outcome. See this article about it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/north-korea-artillery_us_58f631a4e4b0b9e9848eb990

 

[funinspace]

I’d say that there isn’t much to describe as similar. The North Koreans are pretty much the same ethnically as the South Koreans, and until the end of WWII a long relatively unified culture. Sure, they were dominated for the previous 50 years by Japanese imperial rule, and then divided due to global politics. I’d say that a better comparison would be East Germany. A key difference is the NK has ICBM technology and is on the edge of having real and launchable nuclear weapons, or may have them. An invasion of NK outcome would depend on many volatile factors. Would the PRC cooperate or tolerate such an invasion? The main reason there are 2 Koreas now is that the PRC caught the US cold and forced a stalemate to the Korean war. It would probably be even better if the PRC did a blitzkrieg invasion of NK, as they could probably pull of a sneak attack more easily, especially if we cooperated by launching a few hundred missiles and dropped a few hundred bombs 15 minutes later into their DMZ edge full of weapons. I don’t think the US could pull off a sneak invasion of NK with enough force not to have some blowback across the DMZ into Seoul. Nobody was surprised about the invasion of Iraq, as we built up for it over many months. And if the US built up for a full invasion, I wouldn’t want to place odds on the NK punk just sitting there waiting to die.

Personally, I think the NK capacity to wreak carnage into SK is over rated as they are terribly impoverished. I don’t think that all their artillery and short range missiles would work as advertised, never mind troop moral facing an onslaught of our modern missiles and bombs. So, I think that a surprise and massive air attack on the NK DMZ would greatly reduce the blow back. Such an attack could reasonably entail sneaking a couple subs into the area, timed with a pretend ‘normal’ training exercise with one of our carrier task forces along with sneaking an extra 1 or 2 guided missile cruisers there for a shitload of missiles. Bombers could arrive in Japan for refueling in the night, and approach NK radar range just minutes after the missiles are arriving. The exploding missiles would just barely be ebbing as the massive bombs started arriving. Obviously, the ICBM facilities would also have to be attacked at the same time. After that it gets harder w/o PRC support, never mind tolerance… If the US/west didn’t have PRC participation, I’d imagine it would be a messy couple months as we built up troop strength to shut down resistance. I would assume that the SK army would take the initial brunt of holding the DMZ and mobilizing to invade. Of course, with PRC cooperation and invasion, it might be harder to just hand NK over to SK. We, the US could always promise militarily leave the peninsula if Korea was allowed to unify. Of course, SK could also tell us that we are crazy, and publicly tell us to fuck off. And it would be harder as more countries were involved, as any one group leaking out the intent to invade would really thrash everyone’s responses. It would be hard to do it right without the PRC, Japan, and SK in the know…

 

[bilby]

Iraq under Sadam Hussein was a nation under the thumb of a dictator. So is North Korea today. Both seem(ed) to me to be content to keep to themselves, harming really only their own people. The invasion of Iraq and killing of Sadam arguably opened Iraq up and created a considerably worse problem for other nations in the area, and for terrorism against the west. Would an invasion and displacement of North Korea on Trump's order do the same there?

Iraq under Saddam Hussein wasn't much like you describe it, and was basically nothing like North Korea.

If you seriously think Iraq was content to keep to itself and harm only its own people, then you need to talk to the Iranians. Take snacks - it will be a LONG talk. And the Kuwaitis would like a chat when you are done.

The only vague similarity is that both are dictatorships; but even that is only a superficial resemblance. The nature and style of the two regimes is very different when looked at in any but the most simplistic way. Both the rulers and their peoples are very, very different.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Iraq under Sadam Hussein was a nation under the thumb of a dictator. So is North Korea today. Both seem(ed) to me to be content to keep to themselves, harming really only their own people. The invasion of Iraq and killing of Sadam arguably opened Iraq up and created a considerably worse problem for other nations in the area, and for terrorism against the west. Would an invasion and displacement of North Korea on Trump's order do the same there?

No. The problem with Iraq was that if we put our army over there he would comply with the inspectors. If we brought them home he wouldn't comply. We got tired of that. Personally, while I think we should have taken action I don't think it should have been invasion. I think a more reasonable response would have been to one night remove a bunch of the places he was not letting us inspect, starting with those 26 "palaces".

 

[J842P]

Iraq under Sadam Hussein was a nation under the thumb of a dictator. So is North Korea today. Both seem(ed) to me to be content to keep to themselves, harming really only their own people. The invasion of Iraq and killing of Sadam arguably opened Iraq up and created a considerably worse problem for other nations in the area, and for terrorism against the west. Would an invasion and displacement of North Korea on Trump's order do the same there?

Iraq under Saddam Hussein wasn't much like you describe it, and was basically nothing like North Korea.

If you seriously think Iraq was content to keep to itself and harm only its own people, then you need to talk to the Iranians. Take snacks - it will be a LONG talk. And the Kuwaitis would like a chat when you are done.

The only vague similarity is that both are dictatorships; but even that is only a superficial resemblance. The nature and style of the two regimes is very different when looked at in any but the most simplistic way. Both the rulers and their peoples are very, very different.

Yes, everyone always forgets Iran, even though that war was probably the worst war of the latter half of the 20th century. As for Kuwait, that is an interesting situation, and in a lot of ways was a result of the Iran-Iraq war. Essentially, the Iraqi's were pissed off at the debt the Kuwaiti's were hanging over their heads, because the Sunni Arab states had essentially used Iraq as a proxy for a war with Shia Iran. The Iraqi's essentially felt like they had already paid their debt in blood. And of course, there were always border issues stemming from European and Ottoman imperialism.

But in any event, certainly the invasion of Iran was not the reason the US wanted to go to war with Iraq. We supported that invasion, arming the Iraqis with chemical weapons, and giving them intelligence on how/where to use it.

Sort of like the thing we are criticizing the Russians for doing in Syria right now, except worse.

 

[J842P]

Iraq under Sadam Hussein was a nation under the thumb of a dictator. So is North Korea today. Both seem(ed) to me to be content to keep to themselves, harming really only their own people. The invasion of Iraq and killing of Sadam arguably opened Iraq up and created a considerably worse problem for other nations in the area, and for terrorism against the west. Would an invasion and displacement of North Korea on Trump's order do the same there?

No. The problem with Iraq was that if we put our army over there he would comply with the inspectors. If we brought them home he wouldn't comply. We got tired of that. Personally, while I think we should have taken action I don't think it should have been invasion. I think a more reasonable response would have been to one night remove a bunch of the places he was not letting us inspect, starting with those 26 "palaces".

The invasion had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. In any case what we found out after the invasion was that Saddam had abandoned trying to accumulate weapons of mass destruction, and was mostly worrying himself with internal affairs (which makes sense given how absurd the internecine strife is in that country).

 

[BH]

I remember reading a report where North Korean advisors said the reason Iraq fared so badly in both of its wars with us is that is wasn't willing to be aggressive and offensive enough. I don't think there was anything Iraq could have done to have won the wars against us and our allies, but if the North Koreans thought so they may throw everything they got in some sort of offensive and actually use their nuclear weaopns somehow. The NK's have seen what happened to Sadaam and his captured assistants, they have seen what happened to Khaddafi, and also what is happening in Syria. If they go down might as well take a bunch of others with them to hell as they can out of spite.

 

[Warpoet]

Personally, I think the NK capacity to wreak carnage into SK is over rated as they are terribly impoverished. I don’t think that all their artillery and short range missiles would work as advertised, never mind troop moral facing an onslaught of our modern missiles and bombs. So, I think that a surprise and massive air attack on the NK DMZ would greatly reduce the blow back. Such an attack could reasonably entail sneaking a couple subs into the area, timed with a pretend ‘normal’ training exercise with one of our carrier task forces along with sneaking an extra 1 or 2 guided missile cruisers there for a shitload of missiles. Bombers could arrive in Japan for refueling in the night, and approach NK radar range just minutes after the missiles are arriving. The exploding missiles would just barely be ebbing as the massive bombs started arriving. Obviously, the ICBM facilities would also have to be attacked at the same time. After that it gets harder w/o PRC support, never mind tolerance… If the US/west didn’t have PRC participation, I’d imagine it would be a messy couple months as we built up troop strength to shut down resistance. I would assume that the SK army would take the initial brunt of holding the DMZ and mobilizing to invade. Of course, with PRC cooperation and invasion, it might be harder to just hand NK over to SK. We, the US could always promise militarily leave the peninsula if Korea was allowed to unify. Of course, SK could also tell us that we are crazy, and publicly tell us to fuck off. And it would be harder as more countries were involved, as any one group leaking out the intent to invade would really thrash everyone’s responses. It would be hard to do it right without the PRC, Japan, and SK in the know…

Eh, I think you're dreaming. NK's leadership, while many things, isn't stupid. It knows it can't win a prolonged conflict with the US and SK. The goal is rather to make the cost of victory unbearably high. That's why they're so intent on getting nuclear weapons. It's hard to catch them off guard, because they're in a perpetual state of readiness for all-out war and have been for years. A lot of their assets are underground, including more tunnels into the south we may not know about. And there's no way you'd destroy all their missiles before a good chunk of them were fired.

South Korea would suffer heavily even in the best case scenario one could realistically expect, and Japan could, too. The worst case scenarios are pretty horrifying. I'm not an expert, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find many who are that disagree on the big picture.

 

[Warpoet]

I remember reading a report where North Korean advisors said the reason Iraq fared so badly in both of its wars with us is that is wasn't willing to be aggressive and offensive enough. I don't think there was anything Iraq could have done to have won the wars against us and our allies, but if the North Koreans thought so they may throw everything they got in some sort of offensive and actually use their nuclear weaopns somehow. The NK's have seen what happened to Sadaam and his captured assistants, they have seen what happened to Khaddafi, and also what is happening in Syria. If they go down might as well take a bunch of others with them to hell as they can out of spite.

I think the overall thinking is that both Qaddafi and Saddam would never have been attacked if they had had nuclear weapons. That's why Kim wants to get his fat ass fingers on them so badly. But, whereas Iraq under sanctions was utterly crippled and unable to pursue a weapons program, NK can devote basically all of its meager income to it and let the people starve to death. Like bilby said, different countries, different problems and likely much different solutions (if there are any).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The invasion had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. In any case what we found out after the invasion was that Saddam had abandoned trying to accumulate weapons of mass destruction, and was mostly worrying himself with internal affairs (which makes sense given how absurd the internecine strife is in that country).

It was more complex than that.

While there was WMD we got it early in the inspection process.

What caused the long and basically fruitless process was underlings who were lying to Saddam. Our spies kept reporting that Saddam had WMD when in reality what he had was underlings reporting on the WMD, not actual WMD.

We had the same problem with consistently overestimating the Soviet economy--because we had the reports of underlings rather than true data.

 

[Elixir]

We had the same problem with consistently overestimating the Soviet economy--because we had the reports of underlings rather than true data.

Good think we have Cheato now. I'm sure he can give us the real skinny.

 

[J842P]

The invasion had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. In any case what we found out after the invasion was that Saddam had abandoned trying to accumulate weapons of mass destruction, and was mostly worrying himself with internal affairs (which makes sense given how absurd the internecine strife is in that country).

It was more complex than that.

While there was WMD we got it early in the inspection process.

What caused the long and basically fruitless process was underlings who were lying to Saddam. Our spies kept reporting that Saddam had WMD when in reality what he had was underlings reporting on the WMD, not actual WMD.

We had the same problem with consistently overestimating the Soviet economy--because we had the reports of underlings rather than true data.

No, you don't get it, the invasion had nothing to do with whether or WMDs. That was the pretext, the ultimate motivations for the war were complex, but essentially it was seen as an opportunity to follow the neoconservative doctrine. In essence, they really believe that America should be the police of the world and should be trying to project the American system wherever it doesn't exist, insofar as it is possible. It is sort of a Neo-colonialism of doctrines. They want American values to pervade over, say, Chinese values. The honestly thought that by toppling Saddam and bringing "freedom and democracy" that we would fundamentally alter the politics in the region to align with our values and interests.

Again, WMDs were a pretext. They would have found something else if WMDs didn't seem like it was going to be an effective motivation for the populace. In the wake of 9/11, the population was perfectly primed to accept this argument.

 

[Will Wiley]

Considering history it's not surprising N Korea wants nukes.

Why Does North Korea Want Nukes?

Why has this tiny nation of 24 million people invested so much of its limited resources in acquiring nuclear weapons? North Korea is universally condemned as a bizarre and failed state, its nuclear posture denounced as irrational.

Yet North Korea’s stance cannot be separated out from its turbulent history during the 20th Century, especially its four decade long occupation by Japan, the forced division of the Korean peninsula after World War II, and, of course, the subsequent utterly devastating war with the United States from 1950-1953 that ended in an armistice in which a technical state of war still exists.

 

[Opoponax]

South Korea would suffer heavily even in the best case scenario one could realistically expect, and Japan could, too. The worst case scenarios are pretty horrifying. I'm not an expert, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find many who are that disagree on the big picture.

Yeah. It doesn't matter that their weapon systems are antiquated, the damage is still going to be massive. The bodies that get hit by bullets and the buildings that get hit with missiles and artillery won't know the difference. Just a 5% casualty rate among civilians in Seoul = 500,000 casualties.

And I agree with the person who said that NK won't just roll over like Iraq did. Ideally, sure. But it seems so highly unlikely, that it's not worth considering as a legitimate possibility. If 1/4 of their military goes all out, that's a million soldiers that would have to be fought. Well, more like 250-300,000 combat troops. Still though, it'd be a bloody fucking mess for all sides.

 

[untermensche]

Iraq under Sadam Hussein was a nation under the thumb of a dictator. So is North Korea today. Both seem(ed) to me to be content to keep to themselves, harming really only their own people. The invasion of Iraq and killing of Sadam arguably opened Iraq up and created a considerably worse problem for other nations in the area, and for terrorism against the west. Would an invasion and displacement of North Korea on Trump's order do the same there?

No argument about it.

The US terrorist attack of Iraq directly led to the rise of ISIS.

We saddled the region with ISIS and ran.

Hussein did invade Kuwait a decade earlier and invaded Iran at the urging of the US with US weapons.

But in Feb 2001 Colin Powell said:

...[Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors....

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=complete_timeline_of_the_2003_invasion_of_iraq_435&scale=0#complete_timeline_of_the_2003_invasion_of_iraq_435

 

[iolo]

The results the last time the USA tried throwing its weight about in Korea are not encouraging, are they? The trouble is that we are so much at the mercy of propaganda - I happen to know, from someone who was listening to radio broadcasts, that the Americans deliberately bombed Mukden to provoke the Chinese into invading. It didn't work out to well for the Land of the Free that time!

 

[Horatio Parker]

The standard history that I've read is that the American high command didn't believe China would invade, despite intelligence to the contrary. US forces were too dispersed to resist. Add to that MacArthur throwing up his hands and abandoning his troops.

What I'm reading now is that NK is able to do business with certain banks and tech companies to obtain the necessary components for its arms program. That's how they brought Iran to the table, by closing all the doors.

But that would require Trump & Co. to focus. Not likely.

 

[Will Wiley]

Now Russia deploys troops to border with North Korea - what does this tell us about what's REALLY going on?

LOS ANGELES, CA (California Network) -- Russia believes there is a significant chance the U.S. is going to attack North Korea, and it will go badly for the North, resulting in millions of refugees streaming out of the country. This is the only rational explanation for the deployment of troops and equipment to the 11-mile border between Russia and North Korea.

A video circulating online appears to show a train laden with military equipment, making its way to the border. Allegedly, the train is one of three such trains observed in recent days. Other videos show all-terrain military vehicles and helicopters operating in the border area. Locals also say the military has moved by road as well as by train and air.