Noah Shachtman on prepping for war with North Korea:

Even the hawks say there’s not much America can do, in response to North Korea’s nuclear test. But that doesn’t mean the U.S. military isn’t prepping for a war with the Kim Jong-Il regime, just in case.

In March, American and South Korean forces teamed up for the “Key Resolve/Foal Eagle” war game. 13,100 troops from outside Korea — and tens of thousands more, already stationed in the country — participated in the massive exercise, which focused on “deploying troops and equipment to Korea in the event of an attack,” according to a military press release.

Some U.S. and South Korean commandos made airborne jumps together from a helium blimp; others, from helicopters hovering above the Korea Strait. A third group ran a mock “operation to secure a suspected chemical weapons lab.” Unconventional weapons experts drilled in responding to a simulated strike involving “hundreds of WMD.” Navy helicopter pilots swept for mines, while Marine fighter pilots flew with their South Korean counterparts to “wipe out” simulated enemy aircraft.

The Americans and their allies kicked all kinds of butt in the exercise, of course. Other war games, testing out the North Korean scenario, didn’t end quite as cleanly. One ran by The Atlantic in 2005 forecast 100,000 or more dead civilians in the first few days. And that was if the U.S. could assemble the half-million to million troops needed for such an assault; none of the participants thought such a staggering number of troops could be gathered together, given all of America’s military commitments around the world.