If Kim Jong Un throws a temper tantrum....

Great Debates
1

Lets assume that North Korea has successfully built a functioning ICBM capable of hitting within 6,000 miles, and they have a total arsenal of six missles…

What would be the world’s response to the following scenarios;

1; NK launches no more than two ICBMs, targeted for the mainland USA, both missles reach their targets, but the warheads malfunction and do not detonate, the warheads strike US soil as kinetic projectiles only

2; NK launches, and the targets are confirmed US targets, but the missiles self destruct during flight, the unarmed warheads fall into the ocean in international waters

3; The NK launch succeeds and two US cities are nuked

4; NK launches, targeting Japan and South Korea, warheads work
4a; same targets, but the missiles fail and warheads do not arm

5; KJU decides to go out in a “blaze of glory” and launches all six ICBMs, targeting China, South Korea, Japan, Hawaii and the US… He knows this to be suicide, but does not care, he has one last Grand-Mal-Temper-Tantrum…

In the scenarios where the warheads fail, it’s safe to assume that would still be considered an actual nuclear strike, the lack of a mushroom cloud would be irrelavent

2; the ICBMs function as designed and two American cities are nuked

2

NORAD will detect them in flight and a nuclear response will, as per U.S. strategic doctrine, have been launched prior to the missile ever hitting its target. So we would have already nuked North Korea in retaliation prior to us knowing whether or not the warhead would fail.

NORAD will detect them in flight and a nuclear response will, as per U.S. strategic doctrine, have been launched prior to the missile ever hitting its target. So we would have already nuked North Korea in retaliation prior to us knowing whether or not the warhead would fail.

NORAD will detect them in flight and a nuclear response will, as per U.S. strategic doctrine, have been launched prior to the missile ever hitting its target. So we would have already nuked North Korea in retaliation prior to us knowing whether or not the warhead would fail.

Japan and South Korea aren’t under NORAD but are military allies. In this instance a political decision would have to be made.

NORAD will detect them in flight and a nuclear response will, as per U.S. strategic doctrine, have been launched prior to the missile ever hitting its target. So we would have already nuked North Korea in retaliation prior to us knowing whether or not the warhead would fail.

Additionally China probably has a similar response doctrine.

3

All the same.

The rules are clear–nuke (or try to), and be nuked.
Neither exceptions, nor excuses.

4

A MAD style nuclear response makes sense against a large super power like Russia or China, but does it make sense against North Korea?

North Korea is so erratic that I’d be very surprised if the US, China, South Korea, and Japan haven’t already agreed on acceptable responses to various provocations from Pyongyang. Should Kim Jong Un be the aggressor and actually fire missiles, nuclear tipped or not, at any country then I would expect that war would be immediate. While North Korea could deliver a painful first blow I don’t think anybody would expect them to last long.

Thinking through the scenario - if NK acts first then they’ll already inflict the majority of the damage they’ll be able to inflict before we could respond with nuclear weapons, so a nuclear response may not effectively prevent future strikes. Second, North Korea isn’t strong enough to fend off a major attack, especially if it was a coalition, so nukes wouldn’t be necessary to aid in deposing the leadership. And third, once the leadership falls it will be primarily up to South Korea and China to deal with the refugees which will be hard enough without factoring in radioactive waste and fallout.

So in all of your hypotheticals I think the response would be the same. Aggressively destroy the regime but without using nukes.

5

What you say makes a lot of sense although I wouldn’t rule all nuclear options. For example, tactical nukes could be very helpful against specific military targets (such as any concentration of artillery aiming at Seoul).

6

Again, the way our nuclear defense system is arranged everything is predicated on an immediate response to a nuclear launch. I simply can’t fathom a scenario where we know nuclear missiles are flying toward the U.S. mainland and a nuclear response is not immediately ordered. It’s 60 years of doctrine, it’s what all of the technology in our detection systems, all the readiness in our missile corps and etc is geared toward. I have little (basically no) respect for President Obama’s foreign policy, but he would literally be the worst of the worst U.S. President ever if he failed to uphold his responsibilities as C-i-C and execute out known nuclear response protocol.

It’s not about whether or not we could defeat Kim Jong Un without nuclear weapons, it’s about how America responds to nuclear weapons being used against us.

I seriously doubt there would be any deliberation whatsoever, we’ve set up our nuclear system so that we’re basically like a cop on the street. It’s understood if you shoot at a cop, he’s shooting back. He’s not going to decide consult with his chain of command, hold a pow wow, etc, you return fire when fired upon. We’ve designed our nuclear strategic policy around this concept, that whatever happens, no matter how many nuclear weapons or from where, if you launch nuclear weapons at the United States a massive retaliatory response will be delivered in kind.

It’s a defensive doctrine, predicated on the well thought out fear that without the absolute certainty of such a response…well, someone might think it’s okay to nuke the United States.

I have no idea what the international repercussions would be, but I seriously doubt Russia or China could put together any plausible objection, given their nuclear forces are (in theory) supposed to be geared up and ready for just such a response themselves.

7

I think a case could be made for the exact opposite scenario - that Obama does not act like a robot, actually gives it the consideration called for, and determines that given the unique circumstances involved, that no (massive) nuclear retaliation is in order. That could make him a truly great president.

8

For what it’s worth, I voted for Obama twice and would vote a third time if I could, but he would completely lose my respect if there was ever a nuclear strike on the U.S.A. by a rogue state and he did NOT immediately retaliate in kind, regardless of whether the strike succeeds or not. Restraint is called for in situations like Ukraine vs. Russia, not when nukes are actually in mid-flight.

Not that I would ever expect him to lollygag like that – he recently made a trip to Seoul, S.K. while Jong-Un was planning yet another nuclear test. For a liberal, Barack’s got balls of steel.

9

You’re talking about the guy who has ordered countless drone strikes against targets in at least 3 countries, and with known civilian casualties. I’m not sure if you’re saying that you think Obama would NOT do as Martin suggests, but if you are, I strongly disagree. He’d nuke their asses without a moment’s hesitation. This is something he has to have already decided.

If all you are arguing is what you think should be done, then that’s a different matter. I’m conflicted on the issue myself, having not really thought much about it.

10

Exactly. I think it would be a potentially wise set of moves to not nuke’m to kingdom come (with the knee-jerk retaliation option, just that - a knee-jerk with no wisdom used to scrutinize the ‘established’ retaliatory policy).

11

You want we should tell the world “Fire nukes at us and we’ll nuke you back – unless you’re erratic, in which case, hey, there’s no need for us to go all-out, right?”

12

If Kim’s got nukes in reserve, they need to be destroyed as quickly as possible, and that probably means nuking any known or suspected launch sites. If the sites are up in the mountains, that’s great. If they’re in the middle of Pyongyang… well, that’s really, really unfortunate. But our nuclear response should be limited to the bare minimum necessary to eliminate North Korea’s own nuclear capability. As much as possible, we should rely on conventional forces for the invasion.

13

Future generations would wonder why there’s a South Korea when there’s no North Korea.

14

Set North Korea aside for a moment and consider why we would respond to a nuclear attack with nuclear weapons.

If the country attacking us is Russia or China then you could expect the reason for their attack to be to put our leadership into chaos, weaken our military, and damage our ability to conduct a long term war by hitting military and economic centers. Responding to one of those countries with a full scale attack back would hopefully put us back on equal footing so we could continue to put up a fight.

MAD works at this scale because it makes war so costly to conduct that other means of diplomacy become more effective. I have no doubt that MAD prevented the Cold War from becoming a Hot War.

If North Korea uses nukes the equation is significantly different. If North Korea launched a nuclear attack it would likely be a preamble to them sending troops into Seoul. But with a coalition of forces between South Korea, China, the US, and Japan (which would be a certainty under this scenario) any military assaults would be very quickly stopped. We could use conventional missiles and weapons to take out artillery and strike key political targets in Pyongyang. We’d be in Pyongyang faster than I typed this post. The end result is North Korea ceases to exist.

If we use nukes against North Korea then the end result is still that North Korea ceases to exist, but now you have to consider the radiation sickness of the refugees and how that image affects how we are seen in the rest of the world. There will be regions of the country that can’t be farmed for decades at least because of fallout so creating a new Korea will be impossible. The scale of genocide we’d unleash on the countryside would be used by our enemies against us. Radioactive clouds could easily spread to China, Japan, and South Korea which would cause long term illness and have very long lasting repercussions.

I’m not saying that it’s ok to send a signal to countries that we can be nuked without repercussions. I’m just saying that using nukes may be overkill when we can accomplish exactly the same job cheaper and with less political fallout and damage during the aftermath. All a nuclear response would do is satisfy the emotional need for bloodlust.

15

Take them out as quickly as possible. If you know where the remaining nukes are within a radius of 5 miles then I could see a nuclear response. If you know exactly where it is then save a few bucks and use a cruise missile instead.

16

If Kim by some chance is reading this (did he learn English at that Swiss school?), the takeaway it that we don’t really know what would happen to his civilians. But we do know what would happen to his regime, and to him personally.

17

It’s not MAD, but if we don’t respond with nukes to a nuclear attack then we make the next one more likely. Every leader who would use nukes has to KNOW, “If I do this, I and my entire country, all of my people, will be wiped from the Earth forever.”

But I also don’t think a nuclear response before the missiles even hit is assured. Such decisions have to go through the President, so doctrine or no, he can still choose not to do it. I just don’t think he should choose not to do it.

Of course, in the last scenario where Kim hits China, China’s troops are probably already flooding into NK within 24 hours and they probably annex it for their troubles and expel all the North Koreans. And frankly, I wouldn’t blame them a bit. The result is the same: the end of North Korea.

18

Retaliating against a NK nuclear attack (botched or otherwise) might actually be the better political move—our allies, especially in Asia, might become radicalized by a lack of action on our part (“If the Americans wouldn’t strike back when Kim nuked/tried to nuke Los Angeles—do you really think they’ll go to war if something happens to Nagoya?”), and either move into the spheres of other powers (China, Russia, maybe India), and/or go nuclear themselves.

The same problem might come up, domestically—“My opponent risked the lives of tens of millions of Americans, because he was afraid of being the ‘bad guy.’ He was afraid of the opinions of coddled foreigners who damn us while they cower behind our aegis. He was afraid of hurting the fanatics who tried to slaughter millions of our fellow countrymen. My fellow Americans, vote for me, and from my first moment in office, I will make sure that this never happens again. Never again!”

And, on a practical level…North Korea actually has a substantial chemical stockpile. If Kim was willing to go nuclear with his handful of weapons, it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch for him to go chemical. Hitting those and their delivery systems with nukes might be the only way to quickly prevent many thousands—or more—deaths outside North Korea.

19

To literally do this, or even come close, would cause considerable global cooling AKA nuclear winter. And, yes, global cooling is a lot worse than global warming. Being the cause of massive global starvation (something North Korea does not have the ability to do on its own) would harm US credibility in any future nuclear war, since it’s hard to believe we would kick such an own goal again.

20

Yeah, Obama wouldn’t be nuking North Korea necessarily because he would need to in order to topple the North Korean regime. He’s doing it to show that nuking the United States means you get nuked. That’s a threat we stood behind for the entire Cold War, and the potential harm of showing that threat to be nothing but empty platitudes is basically incalculable.