SlowManHow long are these jets expected to last beyond 2025 and more importantly what will replace them?
The F-15Es have an airframe life of 19,000 hours, so they can fly for 100 years if the parts are available, just like the B-52.
As of now, there is no direct replacement for the F-15E, and some of its missions will be taken over by the NGB when it becomes ready.
As for the F-15C/D, they will be flying until the F-22 replacement becomes ready in the 2030s.
SlowManI think it’s Finland. Because Finnish F/A-18s are relatively young having been delivered in the mid 90s and the fleet is large enough to justify an upgrade.
SlowManimagining that he’s replicating what China did
More like ROK government officials are thinking about replicating what they did.
ignoring the rural boom kicked off by Deng Xiaoping which preceded & created the conditions for the industrial boom we see now.
North Korea can skip this step because the capital and the expertise needed to jump start the industrialization is right there.
For example, his mania for high-speed railways & 8-lane highways. What good would they do for most of the country?
It would help companies relocate their factories from China to North Korea. You talk about companies in China staying put there because other candidate countries do not have infrastructure; well North Korea will have that in a short order.
The current railways run at very low capacity. Upgrading them with new trackbed & tracks to allow higher speed, & new signalling to increase throughput, could be done much more quickly & cheaply than building new high-speed railways.
North Korea’s existing railways cannot support high speed operation(ie 150 km/hr); it’s the issue of the straightness of the tracks. By high speed I mean 150~180 km/hr, not 300 km/hr.
The next stage would be to double track any single track lines.
It is a lot cheaper and simpler to just build two new straight tracks than to put another curvy track alongside the existing one which also need to be rebuilt.
Then, one could think about high-speed lines.
Or the HSR may never get built because the land acquisition cost just went from 0% to 90% of project cost.
Effectively, what Slowman suggests as a development model for N. Korea is more of what has already failed there, i.e. Stalinist central planning & gigantic construction projects.
What the ROK government plans is what it went through.
He does not even mention legal & institutional changes, which would be essential to create the conditions for N. Koreans to develop their own economy
The ROK would transplant the Southern law into North Korea with transplanted court, policing, and legal enforcement, with the exception of travel rights.
Slowman makes ridiculous statements such as “all new power stations would be nuclear”, ignoring the fact that N. Korea already has under-used power stations, which could be refurbished much more quickly than & for a fraction of the cost of enough new nuclear power stations.
Those are not enough to power new industrial zones in North Korea and new power plants must be built; otherwise the ROK would face a huge fuel import bill similar to Japan in the post-311 quake that turned Japan into a massive trade deficit mode. Because these have to be nuclear, they must be build in the South. Fossil fuel plant is not an option.
Do all that lot, & inward investment will follow without his mega-projects (though they will probably be built one day, when there’s the economy to support them), & the indigenous economy will be able to grow.
Well, the ROK government has no plans to do that.
SlowManOh no. Where to start?
What is this madness about 8 lanes highways, high speed rail links, & new cities built froms cratch?
Build them while the land is cheap.
Modernising existing railways (refurbishing the tracks & trackbed & introducing modern signalling, & replacing the old & worn out rolling stock) would be much quicker & cheaper than building new high-speed lines
North Korean railway is 100 years old and is single-tracked.
It’s a lot simpler to build a new HSR than to fix 100 year old tracks.
Ditto for surfacing rural roads. That’ll give you a hundred times the return on capital of new eight lane motorways
Rural roads can wait, but the highways connecting major industrial cities cannot. Transportation is critical in getting companies move their factories from China to North Korea.
No welfare? So you’ll let them starve to death?
There will be hundreds of church charities feeding North Korea’s hungry. Heck these Korean churches feed the homeless of Tokyo, so why wouldn’t they feed the hungry of North Korea and spread the “faith” in the process?
Without that aid, there’d be another famine.
Why would there be a famine when there are jobs and unemployment is low?
Add in the disruption of a war, & you’ll need to feed several million people for at least a year, & a few million for a few years.
That’s nothing. All for less than $2 billion a year.
That’s screwdriver work, with little added value. Until the infrastructure is in place, it’s cheaper to leave it where it is, already integrated into logistics nets.
iPhone has 6% Chinese content(mostly in labor), yet it is assembled in China because that 6% cost was the cheapest in China. This is not the case anymore and Foxconn is now setting up plants in other countries.
An iPhone assembled in North Korea would have at least 40% Korean content by comparison, because much of chips, screens, and batteries came from Korea in the first place anyway. A Galaxy assembled in North Korea would have even higher “Korean” content.
Taking all the land as state property would create a population of state tenants.
Which is the current stage of North Korea. The ROK changes nothing by taking over Kim regime’s hold on all lands of North Korea.
A sensible state would grant ownership of farms to the workers on that land, thus giving them an interest in maximising the productivity of the land.
The land distribution, yes the ROK government will redistribute North Korea’s leftover lands to North Korean residents, won’t take place until the civic planning is completed and the ROK government has taken all the lands needed for infrastructure.
Massive prestige projects can wait. There’s no point in a motorway & a 300 km/h railway from Seoul to Pyongyang
Massive infrastructure projects come first because these are what’s needed to relocate factories from China to North Korea.
Kaesung isn’t a model for the entire N. Korean economy.
That’s what the ROK government planned, and it actually worked well until the Kim regime decided to use it as a bargaining chip.
You can’t rebuild a country to modern standards with a few imported managers & unskilled workers.
But that’s how exactly China was modernized.
One thing you’ve got right is that land will be much cheaper in the north, so why build more power stations in the expensive south, instead of the cheap north?
All new power plants to power North Korea would be nuclear, and building new nuclear power plants in North Korea would be a sensitive topic.
SlowManSeems as if the clock is ticking ….
Deino
The bigger problem is convincing the Obama administration to take military actions; the ROK hardliner government is ready for a preemptive strike but the US is not, just like how the US is opposing the Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear installations.
I’m sure the Chinese know that a B-2 can reach Beijing from S. Korea, or Japan, or Guam, or even further away, without refuelling.
But the F-22s, F-35s and drones cannot.
Aircraft burn a lot of fuel taking off & climbing to an economical cruise altitude. Refuelling at that point could give more extra range than the additional distance they have to fly.
For stealth aircrafts, the need to refuel from a non-stealthy tanker is both time consuming and giving away their positions.
You propose turning N. Korea into a sort of giant prison camp, a labour reserve for its S. Korean overlords, & you dare to mention human rights! Hypocrite!
North Koreans would be free in North Korea. The only thing they won’t be getting is the right to travel to the South.
China is strong Germany is weak. If China wishes they could take the whole Korea in 2 months and niuke Washington in the process.
Two problems.
1. The PLA is likely to lose most of ground troops it sends in within a month. The ROK’s firepower increased exponentially with 500K rounds of rockets ranging 80~130 km, so the human wave attack doesn’t work this time. This is the same force that destroys 700K North Korean troops in 5 days under war simulations.
2. If Washington DC is nuked, then so is Beijing. So the mutual nuclear destruction.
Nobody can risk to confront the Chinese
Taiwan and Japan seem to do exactly that at Diaoyu Islands.
Koreans had a firm hand with Chinese for a long time, detaining some 700 Chinese fishing boats and throwing thousands of Chinese fishermen in prison each year.
and nobody can defeat them.
Well, Vietnam defeated China in 1979 war.
We are heading for a Chinese dominated century.
Actually the 21st century is the Indian century.
SlowManchina has all influence.
That’s all in your imagination.
China’s lack of influences is demonstrated by North Korea ignoring Chinese warning on nuclear/missile tests, and Taiwan’s decision to side with Japan and hunt down Chinese fishing boats around Diaoyu Islands.
if china farts, korea will be there to smell it. that is how big china is.
Indeed, China smells so bad with farts that all the rich people are immigrating to western countries for a fresh air.
SlowManchina has to go in to make sure nuclear weapons do not fall in the wrong hands.
China can help by doing nothing.
hundreds of thousnads of north koreans go to the north into china.
To escape from China to get to a 3rd country what will let them go to the ROK.
they do not need to risk their life.
Their lives are at risk if they are caught by Chinese authorities and are deported back to North Korea. What the UN human rights council is demanding China to do is to provide a safe passage to the ROK and the US(which has a law accepting any North Korean defector as refugees if they wish), but China doesn’t care about human rights and deport them back to North Korea to face the prison camp and possible executions, because China fears that letting them go to the ROK or the US would trigger millions of North Koreans to flee North Korea and collapse the Kim regime.
At least Russia provides a safe passage for any North Korean who wish to flee, so Russia is light years ahead of China in human rights account.
What possible reason could China have to invade North Korea?!
To install a pro-China puppet government, although that’s a hard task because there is no pro-China element left alive in North Korea, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il wiped them all out. Being pro-Soviet and pro-Russia is OK in North Korea(Kim Il Sung himself was a Soviet army commander and Kim Jong Il was born in Russia), but being Pro-China is an act of treason whose punishment is death.
What possible economic benefit would that have and why would China spill the blood of its troops just to gain a basket case like North Korea?!
1. China has a thirst for new territories. China is eyeing even Russian Siberia.
2. China fears US bases across Yalu-river, where the US stealth bombers and F-35s may reach Beijing un-refueled.
Well it is easier to escape over the Yalu river into China then in it is over the heavily defended and mined DMZ!
This is why the ROK’s “Seal the North Korea” plan works, because the DMZ will stand even after the ROK takeover of North Korea.
By all accounts once North Korean’s escape into China all they want to do is get into South Korea without being caught by the Chinese authorities and deported back into North Korea.
To face prison camp or execution, unfortunately.
China will only have the world’s largest economy by 2020
China will not. The flaws of the Chinese system is finally eating into growth, and the last year’s real GDP growth was something like 5.5% based on industry surveys, far less than the Communist government claims.
but no place in Asia…
Basically China has no place in Asia because it has little regional influence, too many enemies and no friend with the sole exception of Pakistan and Iran.
world is begging china to stop north korea.
By cutting the food and oil supplies.
North Korea won’t listen to China, so the only way to pressure North Korea is if China cuts off the food and oil supplies. But China won’t, China keeps providing North Korea with money, food, and oil like a battered wife no matter how many times North Korea slaps and humiliates China in public.
But China has only itself to blame, because of the unconditional food and oil aid that John Kerry is demanding Xi Jinping to cut off.
obviously china is asias biggest influence.
China has no influence. This is why even Taiwan would side with Japan on the Diaoyu Islands dispute.
but even china cannot completely control a loose dog like north korea.
Because China has no influence.
SlowManAgain zhengpao33 what reason does China have to fly to North Korea’s rescue in this scenario?
They are not trying to rescue North Korea; their objective is to overthrow Kim regime and install a pro-China puppet government.
China would have to use IL-78 and Y-8 to drop paratroopers. Landing in air bases near Pyongyang is not viable.
actually in north korea they are trained to distrust and dislike south koreans
North Koreans “dream” of going to south. Tens of thousands risk their lives to go to south each year.
china save north korea in the korean war so north koreans do not dare attack their savior
China in this context is a backstabber, trying to make a regime change by a surprise attack. This is why Kim Jong Il willed his son to always watch out for China.
SlowManyes, china is the only one who can go into north korea during an emergency and set up an emergency government.
it is like how the americans came into haiti and saved them.
china is the only country north korea can trust
The problem is that the Chinese paratroopers, if they are successful in getting into Pyongyang and not shot down by the North Korean air defense, would then face the ROK troops besieging Pyongyang 4 days later; according to the ROK’s war manual, the landing and the siege of Pyongyang is supposed to start 4 days later from the beginning of war.
The lightly armed PLA paratroopers would then have two choices, 1. Fight to the end or 2. Surrender and become ROK POWs. They are surrounded by the ROK/US troops, and no help is coming from mainland.
But what would happen if this whole situation gets out of control and Kim Jong-un does drop a nuke on Seoul?
This is why the ROK is now eager to invade.
Before the nukes, the ROK would have looked the other way even if there were major instabilities going on in North Korea; now the North Korean nukes actually have made the invasion more likely.
There is little doubt that if the North starts a full scale attack, SK will launch a full scale invasion in return. The question is, will SK invade if NK does another Yeonpyeong or Cheonon?
Only two automatic triggers are known. 1 A Syrian style popular revolt or political struggle. 2. Either an immediate use of nukes or the transfer of nukes outside of North Korea.
Does SK think now is the best time to initiate a full scale war based on their estimate that NK nuke is not weaponized yet?
Obviously.
SlowManThe Taiwanese position the same as China’s.
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1211568/china-angered-japan-taiwan-sign-fishing-agreement
Taiwan would ‘expel’ mainland trawlers under Japan fishing deal
After signing fishing-rights accord with Tokyo, Taipei warns coastguard will protect its zone
Taiwan’s fishery authorities say they would kick out mainland trawlers caught in areas covered under a new Taipei-Tokyo fishing-rights accord reached on Wednesday.
Maritime and cross-strait experts said Japan successfully used the fishing deal to prevent Taipei and Beijing joining together to defend their sovereignty claims over the disputed Diaoyu Islands, now controlled by the Japanese, in the East China Sea.
When asked on Wednesday by journalists in Taipei what Taiwan’s coastguard would do if it were to encounter mainland fishing vessels in the waters designated under the fishing deal, the minister of Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration, Wang Jin-wang, said the vessels “will be expelled”.
“All other vessels entering the territorial waters of the Diaoyus will be expelled according to the law,” Wang was quoted by the China Times as saying.
“The deal was made because Japan sought to divide Beijing and Taipei, while Taiwan was willing to co-operate, because the island also has its own political goal.”
Yup, Taiwan definitely sold out to Japan; China’s calling Taiwan’s declaration to kick out the mainland flagged boats from the area a treason to the Chinese race.
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/774416.shtml#.UWiAyMoVxI0
Taiwan should consider mainland’s feelings on Diaoyu
Global Times | 2013-4-12 0:28:02
By Global TimesWang Jinn-wang, the head of Taiwan’s Coast Guard Administration (CGA), said after signing a fishery agreement with Japan on Wednesday that fishing boats that enter the waters off the Diaoyu Islands from outside Taiwan, including the Chinese mainland, will be expelled. His words triggered anger from the mainland.
Taiwan alone cannot compete with Japan. As Taiwan seeks to maximize its interests, it won’t side with the mainland. Taiwan authorities have been seeking a balance among the Taiwan public’s demand for sovereignty over Diaoyu, its own politics, and the attitudes of the mainland, the US and Japan.
The latest statement from Taiwan’s CGA is widely seen as a move to appease the pan-green camp and show appreciation for Japan’s concessions in the fishery deal negotiations. But they obviously neglected the mainland’s feelings.
The Taiwanese authorities clearly know that the more tacit understandings they share with the mainland, the more respect Japan will pay to Taiwan’s interests. Totally splitting up with the mainland over the Diaoyu Islands issue would be a severe blow to Taiwan’s capacity to bargain with Japan.
The mainland will not alter its Taiwan policy because of a false statement by Taiwan’s CGA. However, this ludicrous statement should not be tolerated. The mainland public’s strong discontent with the statement from the Taiwan CGA should not be neglected by authorities on both sides. Otherwise, the current positive momentum of cross-Straits relations will be undermined.
SlowManI really would love to know what stuff YOU are smoking !!!???
I am not a smoker. I do thank you for your concerns for my health, though.
Do You have any proof of these statements that either the SK or China is eager to invade the poor NK’s ?? ..
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2012/04/06/2012040600891.html
S.Korea, U.S. Practice Stabilizing N.Korea in Civil War
The annual joint South Korean and U.S. exercises dubbed “Key Resolve” last month for the first time practiced deploying more than 100,000 South Korean troops in North Korea to stabilize the country in case of regime collapse.
The two countries “practiced deploying a large contingent of troops to bring stability in the North in case of civil war in the wake of sudden change there,” a government source said on Thursday. “Seoul and Washington practiced preparing for sudden change in the North for the first time during last year’s Key Resolve drill, but this was the first time we went on the assumption that South Korean troops would be deployed in the North.”
This year’s exercise supposed that civil war breaks out due to conflict between hawks and doves in the North Korean military. It envisioned deploying several South Korean Army corps south of Pyongyang to bring hardliners under control and stabilize the North.
A few years back, the two countries’ militaries formulated a contingency plan for six scenarios of sudden change in the North — a coup, civil war, a mass exodus of North Koreans, a massive natural disaster, and kidnapping of South Korean citizens by the North. But they did not stage a drill on the specific assumption of civil war for fear of upsetting the North.
“We conducted the drill this time because top military leaders in South Korea and the U.S. concluded that nobody knows what scenario will materialize because the regime of new leader Kim Jong-un is still unstable,” the source added.
Seoul is reportedly worried that North Korean military hardliners have strengthened their position since former leader Kim Jong-il’s sudden death late last year.
http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/South-Korea-Plans-To-Invade-The-North-6-26-2009.asp
South Korea Plans To Invade The North
by James Dunnigan
June 26, 2009
South Korea has made public what many have suspected for several years now. If North Korea attacks, South Korea is prepared to go north and attack, or invade, their neighbor. This is no surprise to those who have been observing the South Korean armed forces development after the end of the Cold War in 1991. During the same time, the North Korean armed forces have declined because of a bankrupt economy and no money for replacing obsolete equipment, or for training. Meanwhile, the booming economy in the south led to the growth of domestic arms industry, and the re-equipping the South Korean military with modern, and locally made, weapons.
http://rki.kbs.co.kr/english/news/news_In_detail.htm?No=87669&id=In
‘Chinese Troops to Enter Pyongyang Within 2 Hours of Contingency’
Write : 2012-01-22 12:12:48 Update : 2012-01-23 13:20:22
A Japanese daily says China is boosting the mobility of its troops stationed near its border with North Korea in preparation for possible contingencies in the North.
In a special report on Sunday, the Asahi Shimbun quoted a Chinese military official as saying that the Chinese military is raising its mobility so that it can enter Pyongyang within two hours in case of an emergency in the North.
The daily added that the Academy of Military Science, a think tank of the People’s Liberation Army, has been operating a crisis management team on the Korean Peninsula since 2007, when rumors of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s health problem began to emerge.
The Asahi Shimbun said the think tank also drew up a secret report in 2010. The report called for China to place top priority on preventing nuclear proliferation in the event major changes occur within the North, as the North’s nuclear weapons development could lead to a full-scale war on the Korean Peninsula.
Everybody with the exception of Russia wants to invade North Korea at the first available opportunity, even the Japanese cabinet is discussing the North Korea invasion plan.
This common knowledge seems to escape you, just like your knowledge on the PLA structure.
SlowManWhat’s your source that Defense Minister Kim Kwan-Jin favors invading the north?
even NK propaganda is only accusing him of advocating retaliatory strikes rather than full invasion.
http://www.naenara.com.kp/en/news/news_view.php?19+4828
Meeting Threats
South Korea may respond with force if its citizens at Gaeseong are threatened, Defense Minister Kim Kwan Jin said in a closed meeting with lawmakers, according to parliamentarian Won Yoo Chul who was an attendee.
The South is ready to “annihilate” 70 percent of North Korean forces within five days of an attack, Kim told the meeting, Won said in an phone interview.
So do you think the ROK government would want to stop the war after having annihilated 70% of North Korean troops after 5 days of combat, or go “all the way”?
One industrial complex right next to the DMZ built at great expense with the acquiescence of the NK government. It is not a like for like scenario, Kim il SlowMan
But you said sending power from the South to the North was impossible, when it has been done for years in reality.
SlowManSee it from the NK regime’s perspective; they have the ROK in the south with an overwhelming firepower eager to invade at the first available opportunity in the front and China in the back plotting to launch a surprise attack from behind to remove the current regime and install a pro-Beijing puppet government. This is the reason why China’s the only country conducting civilian air-attack evacuation drills right now, because the Chinese leadership envisions a possible North Korean strike of China in contingencies.
In this context, the only thing that guarantees the Kim regime’s survival from both ROK and Chinese invasion is the nuke, and is investing a significant portion of North Korean GDP in the development of nukes and ICBMs as deterrent. And there is a pressure in the ROK to invade North Korea now before this deterrent is completed.
SlowManbut exactly this is the behaviour which lead to Your banning !
Fortunately you are not a mod here to ban me.
SlowManGyeongbu Expressway was built I presume by a workforce that was well fed and housed people willing to build said road?
The ROK itself was a 3rd world country when that highway was built.
Any new highway built across North Korea will be built even faster with today’s modern technology. Expect to see a modernization process faster than China’s modernization following the ROK occupation.
Again you assume that a starving population
Why would the workers be starving? They have good paying jobs(By North Korean standard anyway)!
The power will come from the South?
Errr how? That presumes that there is a power infrastructure to handle it.
The power used in Kaesung Industrial complex and Kaesung city comes from the South right now. Just do it on a grander scale.
So NK workers can be taught like migrant workers?
Yes.
You appear to be working under this assumption that the NK population are going to happily going to jump to work for their new SK masters building the industrial powerhouse of the newly reintegrated ROK!
That was what was happening in Kaesung, where North Koreans workers were paying bribes to North Korean officials to get a job at Kaesung. Being at Kaesung was even better than being in Pyongyang, because here you had jobs, plenty of food, and electricity.
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