Postulated Role of Special Forces in Japan

[soryang]

Last edited Fri Aug 31, 2018, 12:50 AM - Edit history (1)

South Korean Channel A News Top Ten podcast on youtube posted today explores the role of US special forces alleged to be exercising in Japan "some days earlier." The exercise they described allegedly involved Osprey aircraft, and some number of C-130J's, "Superhercules," aircraft operating at night.



The graphics are fairly self explanatory. The implication, without explictly saying so, is that North Korea's accusation in the August 26 Rodong Sinmun that US forces in Japan, were practicing for incursions into North Korea has an element of truth to it. The program says the exercise was confirmed and suggested the forces could be used to enter North Korea and remove nuclear weapons.

These Channel A News reports tend to disappear from their youtube channel in one day or so.

Source:

채널A 뉴스TOP10
Published on Aug 30, 2018 美 특수부대, 비밀리에 '야간 침투훈련' 실시했다

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

1. Training is best when you train for what you will be doing.

End of the day its just training. Wheres the outrage when china wants a base on the yucatan penninsula? That action speaks to me. It says china is training to invade America. But, lets all howl about regular training in the far east. china threatens to shoot at anything near a man-made base in the china sea...and we quiver....china makes inroads to a base in the gulf of mexico area....cover your eyes and pretend it isnt happening...until its there...like the base that sprouted from the ocean. Once its there, its literally war to remove it.

[Sherman A1]

2. Sounds like routine stuff to me

granted we would all likely be better off if everyone could just find a way to get along and the world had far less military stuff, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

[DashOneBravo]

3. Training is good

There has been one battalion from 1st Special Forces Group permanently stationed in Okinawa since the 80’s.

[soryang]

4. I think there may be conceivable scenarios where they might be useful

...in the event of some sort of collapse of central authority of the Pyongyang regime and a general breakdown in governance in North Korea, to perform the function of securing, safeguarding and perhaps in limited circumstances assisting in the removal of nuclear weapons. I've seen one US think tank study anticipating such developments presented during the earlier so called strategic patience period.

The notion that they could be used as a "nuclear counterforce" to preemptively eliminate the nuclear threat, in conjunction with other offensive attacks, in the plans as described by this program, not just in this episode but in greater detail in one or more previous episodes, is fundamentally flawed.

[DashOneBravo]

5. I haven't seen that

I don’t think it would be used as a counter punch. SF is not really geared for large scale direct action missions.
There are other units more suited for that.

Whatever unit is involved still has to deal with that one major issue that Army guys worry about. Aircraft

[soryang]

6. Good points

Bruce Bennett's work at Rand related to this issue (2013) was oriented to a mission to locate and secure WMD in North Korea, in a "collapse" environment in which the environment might be unopposed, partially opposed by some elements of DPRK armed forces, or the possibility of contact with Chinese forces essentially doing the same thing, looking to disarm DPRK within their expected "buffer zone."

The force requirements seemed daunting and very challenging. Preparing for the
Possibility of a North Korean Collapse Bruce W. Bennett Prepared 2013. Chapter 6 addresses this problem. There is a link to the study which offers a free PDF version.

https://www.rand.org/pubs/authors/b/bennett_bruce.html

This may be earlier in the study, I lost the page number:

"As chaos develops in North Korea, the ROK, the United States, and
China would all likely send special operations forces (SOF) into the
North for special reconnaissance, focused in particular on North
Korean WMD facilities."

I guess the odd thing about these South Korean broadcasts is that they seem to be clearly addressing an opposed environment. They did say that the Special Forces would be "tier one" forces, backed up by more substantial forces.

[DashOneBravo]

7. Thanks. I read it

I don’t think the Norks are going to ever split into factions. Even if they did the minute our side made a push. They’d all stop and start fighting our side.

I don’t know how’d they’d react to China sending special recon teams in. They have to get there the same way. Aircraft. unless they are humping it in. Every avenue of approach of those sites are going to be covered by air defense units