By If it takes the Army 90 days to send soldiers to Korea in case of hostilities why bother sending them at all?:
It would take the Army time to “shift gears” if it needed to fight against North Korea, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said Thursday.
Right now, the Army is focused on the counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but North Korea’s recent saber rattling has raised the prospect that the Army might be called upon to fight a conventional war.
“I have said publicly for some time that if we had to shift gears, it would probably take us about 90 days or so to shift our gears and to train the folks up that were preparing to go to Iraq and Afghanistan to go someplace else,” Casey said after a speech at a Washington think tank.
That doesn’t mean that it would take at least 90 days to send reinforcements to U.S. troops in South Korea, Casey said.
“We would move forces as rapidly as we could get them prepared,” he said. [Stars & Stripes]
Any conflict with North Korea will be over in 90 days, so General Casey’s statement seems strange to me unless he is referring to using US troops for an occupation of North Korea after hostilities have ended. If this is the case, General Casey may want to seriously reconsider his line of thinking on that.
11:39 am on May 29th, 2009 1
"that doesn't mean it would take 90 days before we would send reinforcements to US troops in South Korea". Not exactly sure what he means here. Yes, I understand any large troop movement, brigade or higher would take time.
I also believe politics would play a role as any large engagement between the North and the South on the ground, would require large amounts of air support from the US, which could be accomplished rather quickly. Tac air, CAS, strategic bombing, air superiority, would have dramatic and quick effects on the ground situation. The follow on support of US ground troops would not be a given.
2:28 pm on May 29th, 2009 2
Utilizing the same quote Gerry decided on, it seemingly contradicts your question leading off the discussion, GI. He says it won't take 90 days to get reinforcements to Korea. Obviously, we can push one heavy brigade from 3rd ID over to Korea w/i 18 hours to fall in on the brigade heavy prepo stocks located in Camp Carroll. We can also forward the other brigades from the XVIII Airborne Corps that are not currently committed to Iraq or Afghanistan (I think at least 2 of the brigades at 101st are back from Iraq), so we can get light infantry into the fight along with helicopters relatively quickly. I think these days, light infantry with modern AT weapons, combined with fighting the urban fight inherent in Korea, could hold their own against nK army. You combine this with the ability to put accurate arty and aircraft targetting on target, it's easy to see how we could fight a light fight successfully until we got heavier reinforcements to follow the nK back into nK.
4:06 pm on May 29th, 2009 3
How long did it take Task Force Smith to get to Korea again? I forget.
Anyway, the guy (General Casey) that made a complete mess of Iraq is offering up analysis on how things would go down in the second round of Korean unpleasantness and people are actually listening to him? Awesome.
Somebody please stop the ride because I want to get off.
5:53 pm on May 29th, 2009 4
Korea is not worth the blood of even one foreign soldier.
Let the Koreans fight for themselves.
If some gyopos want to fight for it then fine otherwise start making plans to send the "tripwires" home.
11:11 pm on May 29th, 2009 5
I take his statement to mean it could take up to 90 days to train soldiers to fight in another theater other than Iraq and Afghanistan. If it even takes half that time it would be too late. So that is why I think Casey hinting towards have forces used in a occupation situation.
Actually the larger question is if the US should send any other unit other than the Marines on Okinawa. In my opinion a conventional war will last a week before all the NK armor and artillery was destroyed leaving pockets of light infantry in the hillsides plus the special forces troops blending in as civilians wreaking havoc.
Do we want US forces to be doing the difficult work hunting these people down? South Korean soldiers are the ones best trained to do this since they can tell a northerner from a southerner better than a US soldier.
11:53 pm on May 29th, 2009 6
I seriously doubt the U.S. is willing to fight another land war in Asia.
By using his knowledge of this fact The Chonger gets everything he wants. I don't think he'll be stopped and he'll die naturally.