Yes, it appears that this is the case and was found on www.stratfor.com. Perhaps this was in response to the earlier thread on the North Koreans massing along the DMZ. The link site is http://www.stratfor.com/asia/aiuarchive/w990322.htm (snip) In an interesting related development, Japan9s Asahi Shimbun reported that the United States would conduct evacuation drills in South Korea next week. A key problem facing the United States in Korea is the evacuation of tens of thousands of non-essential or non-military personnel in the event of war. Asahi has reported that a small-scale exercise testing the ability of the United States to rapidly evacuate these personnel in time of war will be tested. This report immediately triggered a North Korean warning that the United States was bringing the peninsula closer to war. (snip)

-- smfdoc (smfdoc@aol.com), May 16, 1999

Answers

the "test" evacuation drills have been going on for several years. The question is are they taking this year any more seriously than before? The Reuters (sorry no link) stories I have read indicate that the participants are joking and waving and not taking this very seriously...So much for preperation....

Korea continues to be a very hot spot..............

Helium

-- helium (heliumavid@yahoo.com), May 16, 1999.

The participants in the evacuation are "joking and waving..."

Since it's only a drill, why not? Nothing like a day in the country to freshen one up. Should the day come when it's not a drill, they will at least know what to do and where to go. The joking and laughing may be more subdued.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), May 17, 1999.

A drill scheduled for last year was postponed due to weather. (Think about that for a minute... When would an adversary plan an assault?) The rescheduled drill was just 2 months ago and it was only a couple of planeloads of dependents. There is no way to evacute the noncombatants without less than a few weeks of preparation. Assuming the planners can find the right map.

As I stated earlier, it's not a military tour anymore...it's American homesteading. Think of trying to evacuate the city of Macon, Georgia.

-- PNG (png@gol.com), May 17, 1999.

smfdoc, in the previous thread Wildweasel stated, "Key thing about my Korea experience is that we spent lots of time practicing using nuclear weapons to stop a North Korean invasion of the South. If tactical nukes are used by US forces, then about fifteen minutes after the North begins an attack their staging areas, forward and main supply areas and key choke points would be vaporized. After that it would be a mopping-up operation against any forces that got across the DMZ." As stated by Wildweasel his experiences were in the 70's, and things are much different today.

Besides having a weany in the whitehouse we are facing a much more deadly enemy in North Korea. They have nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. And, much more ominously, they supposedly have a particularly nasty strain of smallpox that they would love to unleash upon the good citizens of the United States. I'm sure that Kim Jong Il now considers himself to be a player in the game of Mutually Assured Destruction.

I suspect, in the absence of US tactical nuclear defenses, that North Korea could punch deep into the South. A total conquest, however, is highly unlikely (I was around ROK's in Vietnam, and they are EXCEEDINGLY TOUGH warriors.) Kim Jong Il has a highly distorted view of the outside world, and he consideres blackmail to be a normal activity in foreign relations. If this thing does go to war, and if it does not result in a total victory for either side, then he likely will approach any peace talks with demands that are outragous and unrealistic. Events easily could escalate beyond a stalemated situation.

-- No No (nono@nogo.com), May 17, 1999.

Here is todays worldnetdaily article by Nyquist who now writes for them. He earlier reported that N. Korea had its special forces slip into Japan recently ready to destabilize its infrastructure.

Is a military offensive being contemplated?

) 1999 WorldNetDaily.com

"Only the offensive leads to the attainment of victory over the enemy," wrote Col. Sidorenko, a Soviet military strategist in the 1970s. "As a type of combat, the offensive has incontestable advantages over the defense." Why is the offensive so incontestably superior?

Sidorenko explained, "The attacker has broad capabilities for launching surprise strikes, for the rapid exploitation of the results of nuclear attacks. ..."

On Dec. 15, in a Washington Times op-ed piece, J. Michael Waller broke a mainstream media taboo. He noted that Russia's new hard-line leaders had been "spending their time and money preparing for ... nuclear war against the United States and its allies."

Waller's statement, of course, is correct. As crazy as it sounds, the Russians have been preparing for a Third World War, even as Russia's leaders have warned that such a war may be imminent. In recent years, the Russians have built huge underground shelters, bunkers, and nuclear-proof cities. Under Yamantau Mountain in the Urals, the Russians have built an underground city the size of metropolitan Washington. But that is not all the Russians have done.

According to Bill Lee, a former official with the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Russians have 10,000 to 12,000 ABMs defending their country. These ABMs have been deceptively described to the outside world as Surface to Air Missiles (SAMs), but as Lee told me in Washington last February, many of these so-called SAMs can carry one-megaton warheads far above the earth's atmosphere. Lee also explained how a special type of nuclear warhead, which puts out x-ray radiation, could be used in these "SAMs" to kill American nuclear warheads as they travel towards Russia, along flight-paths outside the earth's atmosphere. Inside the earth's atmosphere, explained Lee, "the Russians would use interceptor missiles with neutron bombs. The peculiar characteristics of this warhead give it a better kill radius against warhead electronics."

Another peculiar move in recent months, the Russians have been upgrading 180 MiG-29s to what they call the MiG-29 SMT. The upgrade involves the addition of a fuel tank and in-flight refueling capabilities that would give the MiG-29 intercontinental range. Why the Russian Federation would need a jet fighter that could fly to Chicago is something curious. If you put this together with the stockpiling of strategic metals, food, and fuel, a more ominous picture begins to unfold.

Since the NATO bombing began against Yugoslavia, Russian war preparations have accelerated. Over 80,000 Russians have volunteered to fight the West. Last month, the Russian Defense Ministry called up a draft of 170,000 recruits. Russia also called up a large number of naval and marine reserves, which have been used to man Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

In terms of naval deployments, the Russians have mobilized their Northern, Pacific, Baltic and Black Sea fleets for unprecedented training exercises, which have been held almost continuously since 27 March. These exercises have involved marine amphibious landings, missile launches, and mock air-strikes.

But Russia is not alone in preparing for war. China, too, has been engaged in a serious buildup of forces opposite Taiwan. There is also China's invasion of the Spratly Islands, which are located more than 800 miles from China yet 140 miles from the Philippines. In January, Manila was alarmed to discover that the People's Liberation Army was erecting gun and anti-aircraft emplacements on Mischief Reef. The Chinese ambassador to the Philippines, Guan Dengming, insisted that China was merely constructing "shelters for fishermen." But a leading Philippine official countered this, saying, "We strongly believe a fortress is being built. ..." Philippine Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado stated that concrete buildings in the Spratlys "are beginning to look more like military structures rather than the so-called fisherman's refuge the Chinese claimed it to be." Mercado further accused China of bullying the Philippines, referring to recent Chinese moves as a "a creeping invasion."

As it happens, Taiwan's lifeline runs near to the Spratlys. On Jan.12 of this year, Taiwan President Lee, taking note of Beijing's obvious attempts to encircle his small island country, called on his fellow citizens "to raise their vigilance against the military threat from China." Four days earlier, on Jan. 8, Chinese President Jiang Zemin laid out the mission of the People's Liberation Army in a speech: "We must resolutely safeguard the unity of the motherland and the nation's territorial integrity."

Unity, of course, is the war cry of the Communist Chinese against the Nationalist Chinese on Taiwan. President Jiang also warned that the Chinese People's Liberation Army should prepare itself for two things: nuclear war and internal uprisings. Soon thereafter, in mid January, China conducted bomber and missile exercises in which Chinese forces practiced targeting American troops in the Far East. The Chinese have also announced radical changes in military doctrine. The Chinese Air Force was placed in "offensive mode" in January, and China's army doctrine was altered to one of global war-fighting.

Chinese war preparations have also been unmasked, more recently, by the United States Congress. The House select committee's long-awaited report, slated for release this week, describes the emergence of China as a serious military threat, claiming that: 1) China has stolen five of America's most modern nuclear warheads through "pervasive" spying at U.S. nuclear laboratories; 2) China has stolen satellite and missile technology; 3) China has illegally acquired supercomputers, telecommunications equipment, jet engines and sophisticated machine tools.

Meanwhile, in a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense, America's top general said last Tuesday that North Korea was continuing to strengthen its military, which is mobilized and poised to attack South Korea. According to General Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, North Korea has deployed most of its one million troops near the South Korean border to prepare for war. "Despite its collapsed economy and struggle to feed its own population," explained Shelton, "the North Korean government continues to pour resources into its military and to pursue a policy of confrontation with South Korea and its neighbors in the region." Shelton further said that the threat from North Korea is serious.

In recent months the North Koreans, who are close allies of Moscow and Beijing, have declared, "The United States will [soon] be reduced to ashes and will no longer exist. ..." North Korean headlines from the first week of 1999 proclaimed that: "U.S. Imperialist Aggressors Will Be Unable to Avoid Annihilating Strikes." Another North Korean newspaper stated that the Americans would be wiped "from this planet for good." In the New Year's message of the North Korean government, the Communists called on their citizens to "love rifles, earnestly learn military affairs and turn the whole country into an impregnable fortress."

South Korean President Kim Dae-Jung, fearing the Communist threat, warned his people to be ready for a surprise attack from the North.

While the Far East appears on the brink of war, the Middle East is equally bad. Intelligence International has reported that Saddam Hussein recently sent a memorandum to "senior staff in the party, state, and the army." The memorandum says that war is imminent. It says that "the showdown with the United States is not far away." Further along, Hussein promises a "crucial confrontation that will end in Iraq's favor." Saddam's memo also stated: "Iraq will confront -- with determination, vigor, and a devastating response that will be remembered throughout history -- the latest U.S. attempt to inflict harm on it."

Small countries like Iraq and North Korea could not, by themselves, defeat the United States in any kind of war. However, if Iraq and North Korea are supported by the Russian-Chinese alliance, then we are talking about World War III. In that event, all bets are off. Presently the United States is not prepared for a global war, and is certainly unprepared to fight a nuclear war.

From the statements of Iraqi and North Korean officials, one might get the idea that these small countries know that something is about to happen. The Iraqi and North Korean statements, as quoted above, seem to indicate that weapons of mass destruction will be used against the United States and its allies.

"A massed nuclear strike is a strike inflicted by a large number of nuclear weapons simultaneously," wrote Col. Sidorenko in his book, The Offensive. "Its goal is the destruction of enemy means of nuclear attack, the inflicting of destruction on the main formations of his troops, and disorganization of the rear, economy, and troop control."

Is a military offensive against the U.S. being contemplated by Russia, Iraq, North Korea and China?

To this question there is only one right answer. Let's not get it wrong.

-- BB (peace2u@bellatlantic.net), May 17, 1999.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), May 17, 1999.

Among the supersonic fighter pilots of todays air force some new combat terms have arisen to define strategy and tactics of dogfighting. One of those terms is SITAW. It is an abreviation for situational awareness. In other words keep your head out of your butt and pay attention to what's going on, where the threats are coming from, what's on the horizon.

Another phrase is "Honor the Threat". In high speed missile dogfights when you hear a warning tone that an enemy radar is trying to lock you up for missile launch you must immediately take evasive action. Whether the enemy is actually capable of launching or locking is assumed to be a given, becuase if you fail to honor the threat you will die. If not this time the next for sure. And in the words of WW (wild weasel), check six. Or in common english, keep an eye out on your rear to see what's sneaking up on you.

If Bill Clinton were a fighter pilot he would be a very dead one. And with him as our leader we may as a nation become a very dead one.

-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday@y2000.com), May 17, 1999.

Twelve Chinese warships intruded into Japan's exclusive economic zone. Were observed by P3 and JMSDF. Also, another ominous development: my son read that American films in China have been replaced by Chinese films depicting China's heroic efforts in the Korean War.

A very informative site: http://www.taiwansecurity.org/

-- No No (nono@nogo.com), May 17, 1999.