User blog comment:Daxus Inferno/Real Countries?/@comment-4780584-20130402142849/@comment-1375165-20130403042615

You're certainly on the money with your comparison of modern to Cold War-era warfare but you're drawing wrong conclusions from that. Those aircraft which were effective in the Cold War are designed for that style of aerial warfare. The only reason aerial battles are no longer of that form - transitioning from dogfighting to aerial combat manoeuvers - is that technology has made the former style obsolete.

The aptitude of MiGs for short range aerial combat, if they even are better than F-16s and F-22s is a disadvantage of those classes of plane. It's good to have a long combat range for the simple reason that the enemy will be taken out before close engagement. Missiles with a medium to long range are designed to break the enemy's formation before he can get in range to fire his own missiles. That's the advantage of something like an AMRAAM over a simple R-60 short range AAM. We're talking about an F-16 with 6 AMRAAM at a 46% kill probability. On its own, that plane will take out 3 North Korean MiGs before they engage.

Moreover, if any F-22s are involved in air combat, there wouldn't even be a battle. Radar onboard most airplanes can't even detect them. The North Koreans could be flying into an engagement where the enemy has twice as many planes as they earlier determined.

As for holding back invading North Koreans on the ground, ammunition and attrition in genereal is exactly what the South Koreans and Americans would have on their side. There is a whole planet of supplies available to fuel their war (and you can bet the South Koreans, who are also fighting for their survival, will spare no expense) while the North Koreans will only have China at best. Current relations between the two combined with the obvious insult it would be to NATO would probably keep China from intervening.

I think this North Korean meat grinder wouldn't be as effective in war as you expect. In the air, the US and South Korea have more than enough missiles to wipe out the entire NK air force. At worst it would take ~$2billion in AMRAAMs to accomplish this. With air superiority, ground battles in South Korea would be in the favor of the South. Predator drones and cluster bombs would wipe out or deter massed troop formations and the density of defenses along the DMZ would require a concentrated force to penetrate. A catch-22 for the North Koreans on the ground.

Of course, the unwillingness of the American public to finance another war may be a deciding factor, as you mentioned. I can't pretend to know how willing they would be if the North actually invaded. However, it is likely that defense of troops stationed in SK will be used to justify a war. If that happens, we can expect about $100 billion dollars a year devoted to the war, as in Iraq (if we take that as an example for the cost of a modern war fought by the United States). That isn't crippling to the USA and would suffice to field an impressive response in assistance of the South Koreans.

In any case, I'm still far from convinced that North Korea could conquer South Korea, with or without US involvement.