The North Korean defector who continues to defy regime – live Q&A.

Kim Jong-un pictured without a cane at Korean People's Army rally in Pyongyang yesterday.

Surfing the net in the world's most isolated nation

On the other hand, you rotate the entire stock of experience out-theatre whenever you switch units.

That's the chief criticism of this "strategy". Yeah, it saves money in that rotating units don't bring families (and pets and furniture moving costs).

But the "tribal knowledge" isn't there.

We know the Norks are spying on US Forces Korea (USFK). There are sleeper cells in the South whose sole purpose is to spy then sabotage when the balloon goes up.

New units will run afoul of the many, many pitfalls of doing business in the ROK. From the cultural clash, to the weather all the way to the hazards of working on the DMZ, expect a few cock ups as new units try and figure things out.

Will the North get cocky? For a bit, I suspect Best Korea will claim a "victory" with 1st BCT leaving. The 2nd Infantry Division has been iconic and a legend in Korea. Seeing their old enemy go has to be a morale booster in the Nork High command. I suspect that they are drinking champagne right now.

Didn't the US follow a similar strategy in Vietnam, with similarly deletrious effects on their military capabilities there?

It was the "tour of duty": constantly replacing troops with fresh draftees every year. The flaw was that commanders would be rotated willy nilly along with troops.

In Korea, most commanders and senior NCO's were required to do a 2 year tour of duty before this policy.

Units rotated whole does foster unit cohesion, but then the whole unit needs to be trained. The previous unit must to "Relief in Place", that can take a few weeks.

edited 8th Nov '14 6:48:19 AM by TairaMai

North Korea frees detained US men Miller and Bae

Wow, I thought I was fast posting this as it was breaking news. But someone's already updated Matthew's Wikipedia page!

edited 8th Nov '14 7:41:06 AM by betaalpha

Wonder what they are getting in return?

Recalling the experienced USA soldiers from South Korea, perhaps?

I'd be extremely surprised if the two events were linked in any way. Iron Brigade's rotation out is due to personnel policies within the DOD, and the intention is to maintain the troop presence in a way that will theoretically be even more effective. That's inconsistent as a 'concession'.

More likely, I think NK realized that it wasn't going to get any concessions, and let the hostages go because they weren't doing any good.

edited 8th Nov '14 1:36:28 PM by SabresEdge

I think you guys are exaggerating the deleterious effects quite a bit. I hate to break it to you folks but that was definitely not the issue with troop quality in Vietnam. Having the bulk of your army being unwilling draftees is a lot more deleterious then a rotation.

Also relying so heavily on just one battalion is worse then rotation. Ever hear of all your eggs in one basket? That is exactly what that is. Those forces take any notable casualties trying to replace those numbers and train up the green boots will make rotation look like a cake walk. Having a larger body that is familiar with the theatre at a time makes sure the US is not so heavily reliant on just one unit.

Rotating troops out to gain experience, new training, rest, recuperate, get new troops, resupply, and refit state side was done quite a bit in modern wars with a high degree of success. Those green units are only green for so long as the rotation chain gets going and units start hitting repeat rotations it becomes a lot less of a problem.

Putting all the emphasis and weight on just one unit leads to stagnation, complacency through familiarity, and operational fatigue. That is the breeding ground of sloppy entrenched mindsets and units getting sloppy.

Only 25% of troops in country were draftees during the Indochina war, and they formed 30.4% of the combat dead. They did not form the bulk of either the US Army in Indochina in general or the combat arms in particular. The individual rotation policy as practiced in Vietnam likely played more of a role in poor US performance there;

Gabriel and Savage, Crisis in Command.

edited 8th Nov '14 2:22:15 PM by Achaemenid

A full 25% is a significant portion of your forces. That would mean 1 in 4.

Combat dead statistic means next to nothing in this discussion.

I call bullshit on your second part. Numerous other experiences say otherwise. We did regular whole unit rotations in multiple wars in the past with negligible negative effect. They grossly overstate the negative impact.

edited 8th Nov '14 2:32:39 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Personally, I would not describe 25% of something as "the bulk" of it, since that implies the greater or main part of it. I think its pretty hard to argue that the 25% of US forces in Indochina who were draftees are "the bulk" rather than the 75% who were not. The combat death statistic was intended to illustrate that the majority of frontline units - ie, those who fought the Communist forces on a regular basis - were not draftees but volunteers.

It seems I made a mistake, however - the policy the US is following in NK is not the same as the Vietnam policy; the Vietnam policy was the rotation of individual soldiers, whilst the NK one is the rotation of whole units.

I can agree to that. Individual rotation is a bad idea which is why stop loss is a thing.

Bulk was a poor choice. But the death statistic does not reflect the total number of combat draftees just those that died out of the total deaths who were draftees. When they are 25% of the possible forces across the board distribution of that number is not likely even across the total force. We can probably guess based on 25% of total combat but like I noted without knowing the actual distribution across the forces it is a rather broad number.

This is true - I couldn't find an exact number. But I'd be surprised if the proportion of draftees who died in combat was lower than their prevalence in frontline units.

I dug around and all I can find are the big numbers and not the detailed. Someone who has done a detailed study may have dug up the specifics.

Kim Jong Un's sister is now vice director of departments within the WPK.

In other news, the son of an official loyal to Thaek recently managed to escape a kidnapping attempt in France where dude was studying architecture.

North Korea is using cyber attacks to punish Sony Pictures for their upcoming release of a movie involving Kim Jong Un. In response to the accusations they've done a 'neither confirm nor deny' that pretty blatantly means sure, they did it, and want everyone to fear it could happen to them too.

So in the spirit of The Streisand Effect that their attack fully deserves to generate, please let people know about this :) More about the movie here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2788710/

edited 2nd Dec '14 2:51:52 AM by betaalpha

There was a thread for that movie in the Live-Action Film subforum.

If I was Sony I would just hire people to show North Korea how real cyber attacks are launched.

What are they going to attack on North Korea? The website where they claim the Kims were born without ever needing to poop?

Sony has quite a few people on the payroll who are likely rather good hackers. If they're allowed to let their hair down for, say, a "rewarding period of paid holiday during which they are not particularly encouraged to partake in any specific or coordinated activity — at all: there is free pizza and a raffle prize".

Wonder how much stuff Best Korea has wired up just waiting for a kicking...

edited 3rd Dec '14 1:44:37 AM by Euodiachloris