Analysis: US Would See Uptick in Military Casualties in NKorean War

The U.S. would experience higher casualties in a conventional war with North Korea than it did in the Middle East for two reasons, according to analysis written for The Washington Post.

Those reasons, wrote professor and author Tanisha Fazal:

North Korea would likely wage chemical weapon warfare.

The U.S. wouldn't immediately control the airspace, limiting evacuations of the wounded at the outset.

The ratio of U.S. military fatalities vs. wounded in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts dropped significantly since Vietnam, thanks to advances made in combat care, equipment, medicine and "modern evacuation technologies."

However, Fazal argues that North Korea's likely use of chemical weapons and the U.S.' inability, at least at first, to airlift out wounded Americans would create a spike in that ratio.

"Although it is extremely probable that the United States and South Korea would quickly defeat North Korea's air force, Kim Jong Un’s ground-based artillery and missile strikes could make it hard for the U.S. military to evacuate its wounded," Fazal wrote for the Post.

"And if fewer injured military personnel could be flown to the necessary medical care, more military personnel would die," Fazal writes. "And, of course, if North Korea used nuclear and/or chemical weapons, fatality numbers would shoot even higher."

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