Can We Lose A War With North Korea?

North Korea has just about the same number of troops as we the U.S. do? I thought that the U.S. would have far greater number of troops than any other country, because we spend so much on our military. I figured since the U.S. was the biggest most powerfull country in the world, it would have an army that is unmatchable. So does that mean if we go to war with North Korea, we have a chance of losing?

Thanks,
Matt =)

just because an army is larger in number, doesn't mean it's better

numbers can only take you so far

I agree with Kking123. While I dont know the outcome of any war with N. Korea, I have an inkling that we wouldnt ONLY be fighting NK, but NK with a few other countrys involved.

Do you want war with North Korea?

The strength of the US military rests not so much with manpower but with the advanced technology of equipment and weapons. This increase in technology is whats known as a force multiplyer. An example being : 1 cluster bomb ( containing 10 Skeet submunitions with 4 projectiles each) could take out 40 tanks. A US fighter bomber could carry 10 cluster bombs therefore theoretically taking out 400 AFV's ( in optimal conditions of coarse ). Therefore the individual weapons platforms can do much more damage due to these advances in technology.

That is why the US military is the most powerful in the world.

Picture of a SKEET warheads in action
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[Edited on 4-3-2003 by mad scientist]

...Superior technology (& some would also argue, superior *training*) is the reason why those 3rd World countries have such *big* problems when the US war machine gets rolling...

Remember how badly things went for Sodamn Insane during the Gulf War?...Even the so-called American "experts" figured that those oil-field fires would be burning for years, if not decades...Yet American fire-fighters had the fires put out & the wells capped in just a few *months*.

Yep, technology & the training to *use* it makes *all* the difference. The current generation of Americans are more technically-oriented than ever before & completely outstrip any other country in the world.

Yeah, I'm very proud of America...I'm just not happy with the type of people who've been *running* it for the past few decades...


[Edited on 4-3-2003 by MidnightDStroyer]

I guess it would depend just how exactly you went about having a war with NK. Don't repeat Vietnam!

It does not matter the size of an army the technology matters, the USA has the greates amount of technology and I belive that we can win.

North Korea HAS nuclear weapons. They unleash them and someone is gonna get hurt.. Personally I would think this nation may be saddistic enough to use them. So they have tech. and they may use it. The most advanced tech in the world cannot stop the millions of radiation related deaths if a nuclear weapon is detonated over the US or some such other country.

Chris

Todays military power does not rely on man power. WWII is a great example Look at russia they lost million and million of ppl to the superior German war machine. I dont think we could loose unless Kim lets out a nuclear holocaust on the SK, the west coast, or even Japan. But even then he wouldnt win just it would look really really bad. ALos if it were just manpower we have another 400,000 SK troops that would fight with us. Plus more than likely Britian and if things goes good in Iraq(providing we dont attack simutaniously) Germany will be with us.

You guys would be surprised as to how much manpower and troops could play in a war. I was reading the other day that a US infantry unit has been equipped with the latest ground assault vehicle technology. Assault tanks and hummers can hit targets 12 miles away and in the poorest weather. If the general feels the operation could be done using ground forces, trust me he'll use it instead for wasting millions on bombing campaigns. With Iraq and possibly N. Korea, extensive bombing campaigns will be needed to cripple the enemy. N. Korea defiantly can cause some hell to their neighbors with their nukes but I feel with a heavy bombing campaign and some small Special Forces operations going on we can control them and their nukes. Iraq would probably be a littler easier with more of the Desert Storm like approach. Either way I have trust in America's Armed Forces.

Damn, so many people are unimformed as the state of the NK nuke program. All this bull# about nuclear holocaust is just fantasy by scare mongers.
For the 50th time - at the very most NK has 2 nukes at the moment. Nukes which are untested and probably bulky. Therefore it is doubtful hat they even have a reentry vehicle for their rockets. These rockets are untested except for a Japanes overflight, so their ability to hit the US is highly doubtful.
The nukes they have are fission weapons equivalent in destructive power of Nagasaki. Now believe it or not if LA was hit it would destroy less than 25% of the city.

SO NO THERE ISN'T GOING TO BE ANY NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST. DO SOME READING PEOPLE.

If its' just N.Korea , then yes we can win. We won't have too worry about it being another Vietnam. N.Korea isn't much of a jungle like Vietnam was. But if N.Korea has form sometype of a alliance with some other unknown country. Pertically Iraq , and maybe Russia . Then we (USA) definitly would have a problem on our hands .

There is absolutely no reason for Russia to align itself with North Korea. There is absolutely no economic or strategic reason for doing so.
China maybe, but even then they would risk national death if they ever tried to nuke the US. They wouldn't risk it and the people wouldn't stand for it.

Mad Scientist , I just read your post regarding my say on Russia. Okay , maybe Russia wouldn't join. But if they did , along with China . Well .... I guess we're done for.

no way Russia would allign itself against us in a war with North Korea...stay neutral yes, ally against us, no

China might, but i really doubt it, they want to be a world superpower and this wouldn't be a good thing for them to do to make that happen

China aint stupid

agreed, does china have no morals? yes but they are not stupid. any country that declared war on the US would lose. while the Clinton administration decimated our armed forces, they didn't wipe it out completely. the question really is, what gain would there be for china or russia to align themselves with north korea? absolutely nothing is the answer. sure NK reportedly has nukes but at the most it's 4 or 5. how many do we have? i'm not sure on the numbers but i would bet it's atleast over 1,000. you do the math. mutually assured destruction was the deterent with the USSR, but if north korea used nukes it would just be suicide. i believe the only reason NK anounced they had nukes was for an extra chip at the bargaining table.

You annouce you have things when you don't intend to use them, whereas if you hide them and deny them, you have every intention of using them before someone finds out. hence Iraq, "we don't have any chemical weapons" next day saddam issues orders to his generals to use chemical weapons on an invading US force. which chemical weapons you ask? the ones he doesn't have. lollollollol

hahahahaha this is the stupidest comment I have heard come out of an americans mouth. If you honestly believe that this is true then, well sorry you're american, you're a moron, of course you believe that is true. The only way your army can defeat lets say Russia or China is with nuclear weapons which is a bitch ass way out, and the only thing that would come of that is the total destruction of your country in return.

We can win any war. We have the stongest millitary in the owrld and the strongest technology. We defeated Saddam in '91 withing 100 hours and lost a few men.

Its Pooched, we probably wouldn't use any nukes unless it was our final option. We would probably drop a lot of BLU-118's, the most destructive bomb we have other than a nuke.