Frankly, I think the idea of NK launching COIN attacks in the south is just laughable. But hey, if we’re going to maintain a military presence in a country where it’s not really wanted, we need a bad guy to justify it, right? And until some other evil despot in the region raises his ugly head, Kim Jung Il is it.

My guess is that he (Kim Jung Il) will continue to be the bad guy until the issues of command transfer, troop relocation and strategic flexibility are worked out. After that, I predict that we will see a miraculous thaw in tensions on the peninsula and General Bell will return to walk across the DMZ into North Korea with his Granddaughter.

- Benicio974, you asked if GEN Sharp is fresh off the boat. I think the better question is “what is his background, and where did he come from?” GEN Sharp is an armor/cav guy who most recent jobs were in Joint Strategy, Force Structure, and Resources. So let’s see, his background is an Army job specialty that has had to redefine itself around counterinsurgency operations (COIN), and he recently came to USFK from a job where funding priorities have been clearly established to support COIN. Policy has this strange tendency to follow the money, especially when you are under the gun to appear relevant.

- Getchuself Some Egicashun, you adapt your tactics to meet the demands of the operating environment that you find yourself in. You don’t adapt your operating environment to meet the demands of tactics from somewhere else. In summary, Korea is not Iraq and never will be. But to your observation credit, this principle hasn’t stopped 8th Army units from conducting silly and poorly resourced “OIF style” training events. This goes back to following the money to stay relevant.

If North Korea tried to launch an armed insurgency in South Korea (extremely unlikely) the US should stay totally out of it and not be involved in any counter-insurgency work. Could you imagine soldiers patrolling hillsides for insurgents and accidentally shooting some civilian hiker? The anti-US groups would go absolutely nuts.

Counter-insurgency should be handled exclusively by the ROK Army which just like after the Korean War the last remaining communists guerrillas in the mountains were handled by the ROK Army.

IED training got it, my unit did that the last time I was stationed in 2ID using lessons learned from guys like myself that had served in Iraq. Being involved in implementing an counterinsurgency doctrine in case of an armed insurgency in South Korea is something I don’t agree with.

The US got its ass handed to it for more than 3 years by relatively untrained, unfunded, and uneducated bomb makers in Iraq. What has North Korea, with its extensive SOF program (thousands of guys trained to go deep into the south and dissolve amongst the populace) learned?

If you’ve been to Iraq and then you come to Korea, it’s really shocking to see how underprepared everyone here is. From equipment to training, the US is not ready for the sh*t. How many HMMWVs in Korea are armored? How are people training?

Go to Iraq and then come here and participate in a Convoy Live Fire Exercise. They still have people firing from the windows of soft-skinned HMMWVs. They have people stopping HMMWVs to dismount and bound across rice fields for an assault. What is this, 1995? You never do that in the real world.

Hey, I’ve spent a lot of time in Korea, but I left for 3 years and went to Iraq. Now I’m back, and there’s a lot of people who were here when I left and are still kicking it on the AIP.