North Korea ‘had plan to attack Japan’

The Yomiuri Shimbun is reporting this morning about North Korean plans of attack on Japanese soil. I’ve read it twice and I’m not sure I believe it. It sounds very much like the type of fear mongering heard on American News Channels such as CNN and so on. (Tonight at 6 oclock, if you live in this state, you live on the edge of disaster. Will tell you which state, after the break!)

But never the less, its an interesting read.

On Jan. 9, a U.S. Navy nuclear submarine collided with a large Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd. tanker in the Persian Gulf, causing damage to the submarine’s bow and the tanker’s stern. The accident itself was not serious, but Koh Young Choul, a former South Korean National Defense Ministry officer in charge of intelligence covering North Korea, analyzed it as follows:

“It was highly likely that the nuclear submarine hid itself in bubbles created by the commercial ship’s screws to sneak past surveillance by Iran,” Koh, 53, said. “That’s the best way for a submarine to slip through airplane patrol searches.”

“Even North Korea’s old-fashioned submarines could come close to Japan in the same way,” he added.

Immediately after starting a war, Rodong missiles would be launched, targeting U.S. bases in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, Yokosuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, and other locations in Japan, as well as more than 50 reactors at nuclear power plants. In the meantime, ballistic missiles loaded with chemical warheads would be launched at Tokyo.

After that, commando units aboard submarines would enter Japan and carry out guerrilla attacks against important facilities.

9 Responses to “North Korea ‘had plan to attack Japan’”

berocca Said:

I’m sure they have ‘contingency plans’ for war with Japan as well as with the US, the South and possibly even China or Russia. Whether or not they are or were about to act on them is another matter altogether. although if they were to act, they’ve pretty much given the game away by revealing their strategy, haven’t they…?

Papigiulio Said:

Sounds like a bad dream. Hope it never happens

Zak Said:

I have serious doubts about the capabilities of the North Koreans to carry out such attacks. First off, North Koreas military doctrine is based off the old Soviet style of ‘mass’: Throwing as much as they can against the enemy in the hopes of flat out steamrolling them.
Second, The tactics described in the article seem to based off of blitzkrieg(or Maneuver warfare) type doctrines common with the Yankees and other western style militaries.
Third, Communist militaries are notorious for not training there troops up to task. I have read many instances of Soviet pilots getting as little as 8 hours A YEAR of flight time. Whereas the Yanks and Brits get about thirty hours a month. If they neglect there pilots in such a way, how do you think they treat the training of there tank crews, grunts, and SPECOPS(the one who would carry out the guerilla attacks mentioned in the article)???
In my humble opinin the article is propaganda, whether it was created by the Yomiuri Shimbun or the North Koreans is up in the air.

Raj Said:

I think North Korea missed its chance, Papi. If it tried to invade Japan today the SDF would munch its assault force up quite easily.

tlxtftrf Said:

Okay now that we no what the plan is, here’s is what actually would happen.

1. Half the Rodongs would never get of the launch pad, instead being complete duds or going kamikaze on the launchers.
2. Of those half that do make off the launch pad, one half of them would malfunction somewhere in mid flight, landing in the sea of Japan, S. Korea, or doing a u-turn and hitting Pyongyang.
3. The missile defense system purchased from the US would (faulty as it is) probably take out half of the 25% that don’t malfunction in flight.
4. Of the 12.5% that make it to their Japanese targets, another half will not explode on impact, be disarmed, and their frames made into playground equipment for Japanese school children.
4. Of the 6.25% of the original rodongs that function perfectly, most of them will do little damage since their margin of error being too great for precision strikes on airbases, perhaps a few will cause random mayhem or kill a few service men.
4. None of the nuclear plants will be hit and even if they are, the regulatory requirements for most reactor cores will prevent a massive disaster by limiting the damage (most reactor domes in case of a meltdown are built like bomb proof buildings.)
5. The chemical weapons headed for Tokyo would most likely all be shot down, and even if not, provided that the missiles used to launch them were of the same quality/age would most likely be ineffective. That’s the problem with chemical weapons, to be effective they have to be launched in mass, in a highly concentrated area, with stale air which won’t allow them to be dispersed over a wide area to the point of non toxicity, with such a high failure rate in their missiles reaching the target, the chemical attack would kill very few at best, and be a complete failure at worst. Not to mention I would doubt highly the effectiveness of any chemical weapons that N. Korea might have, most nerve agents degrade quickly due to their instability and must be maintained (an expensive process). Due to the situation of the N. Korean economy and their recent focus on nuclear, I doubt that their chemical weapons are really all that effective.
6. The special forces would probably do the most damage, but only for a short time before the now alerted US military and SDF forces proceeded to wipe them out.
7. N. Korea would have the shit bombed out of it by the US. Kim Jong Il would be poisoned by the Chinese (who would now be in an hostile situation with its ally vs. America, Japan, and S. Korea; its 1,2, and 4 largest trading partners) and replaced by a better behaved puppet, and N. Korea would most likely lose all its economic support from the UN. Article 9 would be revised and the situation would be brought to an end.

This article shows the lack of imagination in the Japanese or Korean bureaucracy which spawned it. Kim Jong Il is smarter than this, he may be crazy, but he’s not that crazy. Granted the fact that there are N. Korean agents in Japan, many with falsified Visas, a more likely scenario for a N. Korean attack would be this: An agent or cell of N. Koreans assassinates the Prime Minister, or poisons the Okutama and Kasumigaura Reservoirs, or blows up the Ministry of Defense; or subcontract these duties to terrorists. All of these options would allow them to achieve the goal of attacking Japan without war and with the possibility of deniability

Zak Said:

The last effective employment of chemical weapons in a battlefield enviroment was WW1. tlxtftrf is right on point 5. Artillery shells loaded with Chemical weapons need to fired en masse to be effective. Also, the weather has to be conducive to the spread of the chemicals.
In Europe during WW1, Mustard gas was extremely effective because the soldiers were stuck in trenches where the gas would settle. The thick air would cause the gas to ‘hang’ and not dissipate very fast.

ROK Drop Weekly Links 19-25FEB07 at ROK Drop Said:

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Ray Said:

The last effective employment of chemical weapons in a battlefield enviroment was WW1

Iraq vs. Iran?

Zak Said:

Ray your right, however I usually dont count Iraq due to the fact that most of the chemical munitions expended during the Iraq-Iran war were against Iranian, Kurdish, and Iraqi Civilians.

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