According to this, there have been conventional explosions that approached that level, although not many.
Right, I think this is more historical than current, though. Up until probably the late 80s I think there’s a decent chance an outright invasion of North Korea would have meant an outright war with China itself. In the 90s-2000s it probably would have meant extremely strained relations with China and perhaps China using it as a pretext to do stuff it wants to do (like take direct control of Taiwan.) Now? I don’t think China is willing to lose any skin over North Korea any longer, I think they will of course try to use any situation to their advantage but as long as we don’t do something deliberately to embarrass or outrage China in our dealings with North Korea I don’t think they are the protectors they once were.
They would probably be more riled than you think, even assuming such a war stayed completely conventional. You have to think of what the fallout would be from their perspective. First off, the NK would be getting in some early and pretty heavy licks. I’m guessing that their logistics could at least support a drive through the DMZ and into Seoul. In addition, they would be pasting the SKs with all that arty they have…and they have a whole bunch of it. However, at the same time, THEY would be getting pasted and taking extremely heavy losses, not to mention what the US would be doing to their C&C and infrastructure…and they aren’t exactly internally or domestically logistically stable during peace time. The effect would probably be a mass humanitarian crisis almost right off the bad, and most likely a surge of NKs across the borders with China where you could have such a migration…which would be a huge pain in the ass for the Chinese an would disrupt their own internal logistics in trying to deal with it, as well as with the other fallout of such a huge battle going on their door step. In addition, I think the Chinese would feel they were unable to control the situation, if it spiraled out of control far enough for war to break out, in their own sphere of influence, which isn’t going to make them happy. It would be like Mexico going hammer and tongs against, say, a unified Central America…we wouldn’t be too keen for that to blow up in our faces, especially if Mexico was continually on the verge of complete collapse, and there would be a literal flood of refugees attempting to stream across our borders from Mexico in 10’s or 100’s of thousands.
It’s not so much cold war worries that would displease the Chinese if this situation blew up, as real, practical considerations which would make them less than thrilled if it falls in the pot.
The realpolitick-ist in me says you’re right.
The asshole in me says, “Well, then FUCKING FIX IT China!”
I don’t see China letting them across the border.
There no way North Korea is making nukes on there own they must be getting it from China or Russia.
The problem why the US did not disarm North Korea long ago is because of China and Russia.The US cannot just go in to North Korea than or now and take them out.
The US has very hard sanctions on North Korea it cannot get any harder than this other than cutting the internet off ,electricity off,food and water.
And China or Russia still does NOT take sanctions serious.If China or Russia was dead serious on reform in the country they two would go down hard on sanctions but they are not and that why the US is in that mess.
If China or Russia was to back the US and support South Korea there no way the guy would be threatening nuke South Korea and the US.
It China and Russia that problem they are top ten countries in Arms and weapons sales to Iran and Syria.Well China and Russia use Iran , Syria and North Korea ally has buffer zone , Iran is to China and Russia what Saudi Arabia is to the US and Europe
There is no way that China and Russia are going to approve of any US attack on North Korea.
That is tricky part for the US at present because China is making territorial claims in the South China which affect US allies Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines. The US does not want to either seem to abandon its friends or upset the Chinese. For the US President and his advisers this is a huge balancing act a tip too far in one direction or the other could result cold war or war with them.
Other thing because country is so bad there no way people can do any thing they will be sent to harsh labor camps and tortured or both.
Only change can come from own army take over the government or own party.
Its own army is probably fed well and live better life than people of fear of this.
If you’re talking a pre-emptive strike, you’re looking at two main targets: their nuclear weapons manufacturing site at Yongbyan and the missile launching facility at Musudan. Knock out those two sites and North Korea loses most of its nuclear attack capability.
But “most of” isn’t good enough in nuclear war. Say what you will about the North Koreans, they’re damned good at building bunkers. Yongbyan and Musudan are going to be really hardened targets. You’re not going to take them out with a couple of drone attacks. Destroying them is going to take either a really big conventional bombing strike or a nuclear attack. It’s not going to go unnoticed.
I’ll also assume the North Koreans aren’t dumb enough to put all of their eggs in a single basket. There must be some warheads that are stored in other locations. Give them a few weeks and they’ll recover some of their nuclear attack capability.
So the only reason a pre-emptive strike would make sense is if you were planning on following it up with an invasion.
I think these are all reasons why China doesn’t want us to go to war with North Korea. We have a lot of reasons we don’t want that as well. But it’s very different from the old situation in which China would literally be at war with us if we went to war with North Korea.
Until at least the 1980s, China was still lead by some of the hardcore old guard, some of whom had fought with Mao. These guys viewed the North Koreans as a bit off kilter but as “brothers in blood” who had fought and died together fighting what they viewed as the opposition forces of global capitalism. This was a very powerful, real thing amongst the guys in their 60s-80s still kicking around China in leadership positions at that point. They had fought in battles with North Korea and would no more allow it to fall in a war with the United States than the United States would allow the UK or West Germany to fall unopposed to the Soviet Union.
However starting with Nixon’s policy of detente and culminating in the 90s with various Chinese reforms relations between the U.S. and China became ever better and the economic impact of China’s relationship with the U.S. and the rest of the West became more and more important. Around the same time, Kim Il Sung, who had lots of Chinese leadership friends, died. He was replaced by a son who was never as well received by North Korea’s traditional allies because of his belligerent and bizarre behavior. We’re almost two decades removed now from that transition and North Korea has basically worked that entire time to make itself less and less of a friend of China through its actions and behaviors.
But yes, just like the United States doesn’t like a destabilized Mexico China would not like a destabilized North Korea. Mexico has fallen into instability in the past and parts of it arguably are right now, and something worth noting is to some degree we’ve been able to keep that from totally spilling over into the United States. That’s over a much longer border, the Chinese will have the ability to turn some refugees around especially since they have the natural geographic aid of the Yalu River to help them control the situation. Not saying it won’t be a problem for China, but China isn’t the Sudan. It’s a vast and powerful country economically and militarily that has legitimate ability to stop “unwashed hordes of refugees” from just streaming en masse unabated into its territory.
>sigh< Question: how much of the prior thread did you read before posting?
Why? North Koreans are just as smart as anyone else and the DPRK values education. They have a literacy rate 100% and even the children born into the total control zone camps receive an education. Obtaining uranium and other fissiles would be the largest obstacles. Does North Korea have any appropriate ore deposits? If so there’s no reason they can’t have does this on their own. Otherwise, they need another source of ore.
Countries possessing nuclear abilities have, historically, been reluctant to share them. I am not aware of any country sharing nuclear weapon technology with anyone else. Everyone who has such weapons either stole the tech or developed it independently.
Yes, we know that the US has no qualms about invading other countries because they don’t like that country’s government. See Iraq. Personally, I’m not impressed at how that effort turned out, are you?
Could you please educate yourself somewhat on these matters?
[ul][li]North Korea has never been connected to the world internet[/li][li]after dark satellite photos show North Korea as a black emptiness on the map. The electricity is already off[/li][li]during the late 1990’s North Korea experienced a famine that may have killed over a million people, as well as subjecting the rest of the population to malnutrition and physically stunting a generation of children[/ul][/li]
In other words, all of what you suggest has already happened. Also, the sanctions are not US sanctions, they are United Nations sanctions. China has provided more aid to North Korea than anyone else, probably because they don’t want tens of millions of starving, desperate people pouring over the border into their territory.
Where do you get this notion that “Russia” and China are in lockstep? In fact, China does observe many sanctions against North Korea and any defectors caught in China are returned to North Korea. They do provide food and fuel to North Korea, but as I already noted they are the ones who’d have to cope with a mass of refugees when/if the DPRK goes down so it’s understandable self-interest on their part to avoid that.
Huh? Could you rephrase that so it’s understandable?
If DPRK nukes someone without provocation they just might. It’s this funny thing where, when one country attacks another, retaliation is seen as justified. It’s no secret that the US is pledged to come to the defense of South Korea should the north ever attack. I can’t see other nations of the world allowing the DPRK to nuke someone, anyone, without extremely harsh consequences.
The Chinese also do not want to upset the US, what with the US being such a large trading partner. The US and China are on considerably better terms than they were when the armistice was signed in 1953. We’re not friends, but we’ve moved past being enemies.
The military basically IS the government at this point.
No, actually it’s army is NOT well fed. During the famine of the 1990’s low level military were scrambling just as hard for food as anyone else. While the army gets more/better than civilians what they get is still woefully inadequate. If their lives are better the improvement is only marginal.
The Israeli nuclear program owes a lot of its genesis to help provided by the French in the late 50s/early 60s. Though the French did later change their mind. Though it hasn’t been confirmed, the Vela incident of the late 70sis thought to have been a combined South African/Israeli test. (Though, as the cite later discusses, the Nobel physicist Luis Alvarez disagreed.) Mainly because the Israelis are not known to have otherwise conducted a full test of a completed device, and most countries with nuclear weapons will do one test, if only to reassure themselves that the things work. OTOH, you’d think that after the fall of the apartheid white government, the story of any SA cooperation would have creditably leaked out by now.
According to the FAS, Pakistan acquired from China in the early 1980s both its early fission device designs and HEU. There have also been reports of Pakistan sharing/helping countries such as Iran and Iraq with nuclear technology. Cynically, the reports seem to increase along with the U.S.'s irritation with the recipient countries. Nevertheless, there are multiple books on the travels of Dr. A.Q. Khan and whom he may have shared his knowledge with.
The U.S. and U.K helped each other with nuclear weapons research. I have not read this particular volume, but, as the table of contents shows, it goes into the history of 50 years of this cooperation.
Finally, it is my suspicion, admittedly without proof (but see, the references cited at the bottom of this essay), that the U.S. shares details of device design necessary to implement advanced safeguard procedures relating to permissive action links. A pdf of slides with more info than the linked essay may be found here.
Unrelated to the above, piling on Zakalwe’s comment that this is partly China’s mess to fix, what is your opinion of China’s ability to remove the Kim’s and install another, less omnicidal leader of NK?
My own thoughts on a way to avoid nuclear weapons use all together on the Korean peninsula is to quietly inform China that the U.S. will treat a nuclear detonation by NK as if it originated from China, and act accordingly. If North Korea is a client of anyone, it’s a client of China. Accordingly, why should China feel they can remain relatively unscathed when their client threatens to exterminate several million people with nuclear weapons? Increase the perceived cost to China of allowing North Korea to continue down this path and see if the Chinese don’t come up with a superior solution with their superior leverage and position. Not that war with China is in any way shape or form a good idea.
As an aside, how was the similarly hermitized government of Albania unwound? Granted, they didn’t have nukes, nor several thousand tubes and launchers for long range artillery and rockets, but the governmental situation and self-imposed isolation otherwise seem similar.
A large part of the problem, I perceive, is that most of the senior members of the NK government don’t see a viable exit from their position that doesn’t involve them and their families swinging from a noose. They can’t ease up on the repression or they’ll end up like the Ceaucescu’s. They can’t feed themselves without large amounts of aid, and if they can’t feed themselves, they end up like Mubarak did, so simply staying the course isn’t an option. As quoted in this article at ‘38 north’, they feel that if they don’t have nuclear weapons, the West or China will decide that regime change will happen (see noose swinging, above). And they can’t decide to pull a Duvalier/Somoza by running to…China(?) Switzerland (?) Saudi Arabia (?): where exactly can they run? So what do they do?
Unfortunately the danegeld to the North Koreans is still much cheaper than dealing with the destruction of northern Seoul, or a NK nuclear weapon detonation, or an EMP strike over central Japan. Even if you never get rid of the Dane. This really can’t be stressed enough. Using nuclear weapons, to eliminate hard targets like NK weapons production/storage sites, artillery tunnels threatening Seoul, and C3I bunkers would be profoundly destructive and radiologically far-reaching. It’d be an enormous public health disaster, both in NK, and wherever the fallout plumes went.
I don’t believe we’ve yet seen what happens when a long-operating nuclear reactor gets bombed, (both the Osirak Iraqi reactor and the 2007 Syrian reactor had not yet gone into operation) but my guess is that the radiological hazards are within two orders of magnitude of Chernobyl. Helping matters is that NK’s reactors are fairly small (pages 5-6 of the .pdf.), compared to the 925 MW RBMK-1000 reactor that exploded at Chernobyl. (5MW for it’s longest running one and the suspected source for any NK Pu; 100 MW for the reactor under construction in 2010—no idea if it got built or not.) This 2003 paper mentions a 50 MW and a 200MW reactor under construction at Yongbyon and Taechon. (page 9) No idea if they got built either. Hopefully also, the mode of destroying those reactors by creating a camouflet next to them, assuming they’re deeply buried, will trap much of the released radiation.
Finally, in a bit of a document dump, here is another recent (2013) Congressional Research Service white papers on various NK nuclear issues and questions, along with this snarky Foreign Policy article on North Korea’s putative new IRBM. I recommend the FP author’s co-blog for those who have an interest in WMD proliferation news and analysis.
Tibet has a history of having been occupied by and considered by the Chinese to be a part of China as a whole. It doesn’t have a history of China absorbing the northern half of it while the southern half remains an independent Tibet. Much more to the point, Korea has no history of being occupied by and considered by the Chinese to be a part of China. Your solution of China absorbing North Korea is analogous of solving the Spanish Civil War by having the Great Powers get involved and solving it by having France incorporating northern Spain into itself. It also ignores why China would want to take over the backward mess that North Korea is. China seems to have a tendency to be credited with much more influence over North Korea than they actually have. China and North Korea are friendly, but the fact that China is North Korea’s only friend says something, and its not that China has a lot of say in how North Korea acts. It’s more that China is the only one who says hi to that really creepy, socially awkward kid who sits at a lunch table by himself reading books on serial killers, and only really does so because they grew up next door to each other in grade school.
You heavily implied that that they were moving in the direction of becoming mutually unintelligible - “the two dialects are diverging even if at this point they’re still mutually intelligible.” They’re not.
Because they aren’t cultural differences, they’re differences in or caused by different political systems. All these things that they need to learn about that South Koreans take for granted are due to the deep poverty caused by an utterly failed political system in the North, not by cultural differences. It is also to cope with a lifetime of political, not cultural, indoctrination crammed down the North Koran’s throats, and while it may not be an ‘official’ reason I’m sure it is also used to try to screen for North Korean spies. You’ll note that North Korea has no problem sending infiltrators and spies into the South without problems having them stick out like sore thumbs due to drastic cultural differences.
Great post, but I can’t see idea this ending well. China doesn’t have that kind of control over North Korea, and all that it would result in is ensuring any future war with North Korea is also a war with China, and any decision by North Korea to use nuclear weapons to mean a strategic exchange between the US and China. And unlike North Korea, China can hit the US mainland. It will also seriously antagonize China. Regarding North Korea being a client state, while it never firmly came down in one camp or the other in the Soviet/Chinese schism, during the Cold War it was much more of a Soviet client state than a Chinese one.
Thank you, I now feel better informed.
I think that only works if the rest of the world is OK with tolerating a land invasion of the DPRK by China, along with the inevitable death tolls and atrocities such a war would bring.
So… if Israel nukes somebody you’re OK with having the US nuked? Isn’t that how global nuclear warfare gets started?
As noted, China does not exert as much control over North Korea as commonly supposed. The DPRK has made an art form out of playing one against another for six decades and that’s how they’ve survived this long. I don’t think either the US or China should play that game any more.
Again, the only “solution” to what you propose is for China to invade North Korea and either absorb it or force a regime change - not that there is a heck of a lot of difference there.
… And that’s why we’ve been in this mess since the fall of the USSR, if not before. Danegeld is galling on many levels but sometimes it’s the lesser evil. If they would just STFU and take humanitarian aid and stop threatening to kill other people that might be a more stable looking option.
Isn’t North Korea’s reactor graphite moderated like Chernobyl’s was?
A ground strike would incorporate the reactor interior into the fallout which just has to be new levels of nasty. Would an airstrike prompt an instant critical, or would it disperse the fuel quickly enough to prevent that?
Well, by that argument Japan should take over North Korea, as there is a history of occupation by Japan there. Do you think that would work better? I don’t. As I stated, that was a highly speculative notion, a flight of fancy if you will.
As far as absorbing all or part of a nation - which time period’s border are you considering? None of those nations have been static over history.
There is precedent for dividing what was previously a whole nation - see Ireland. The UK still owns six counties in the north, nevermind that they used to be part of all Ireland (which hasn’t always been united anyhow, if you go back far enough). Of course, that hasn’t always worked out well, either.
Not being an expert on the Spanish Civil War I’m not sure how close that comparison is, or if that would have been a viable notion. Was the “north of Spain” an ally of France at any point? If not, no, the comparison is not valid.
Really, ANY solution will wind up being the Great Powers deciding. While I would prefer the Koreans make the decision in reality those outside will determine if there is a permanent division or a forced reunification. Just because the Germans wanted to reunite and did so successfully does not automatically mean it is the optimum solution for the Koreas. It might be, but it shouldn’t be assumed to be that.
How about this as a possible motivation: keeping 20 million or more people in their territory instead of trying to push into the rest of China.
The various dialects of UK, Australian, and American English are also diverging, even if they’re still mutually intelligible. How do you think new languages happen? It’s a multi-generational process but the first step is diverging dialects.
Oh, it’s quite public and open that the first month of residence in South Korea for a defector is an interrogation by the ROK. From what I’ve read from such defectors most of them don’t even consider it particularly arduous considering how the DPRK conducts interrogations.
But I guess you limit culture to only the arts or something. “Culture” is the entire social milieu. It’s not just poverty, it’s adjusting to a system where instead of the government giving you rations you have to actually go out and buy the food, making such decisions yourself. Instead of being issued clothing you have to go out and make selections. It’s a completely different mindset from living in a capitalistic economy.
Oh, it’s easy. The problem is that there’s no way to get it done before they shell Seoul to rubble. This applies no matter which side strikes first.
North Korea dramatically escalated its warlike rhetoric on Thursday, warning that it had authorised plans for nuclear strikes on targets in the United States.
“The moment of explosion is approaching fast,” the North Korean military said, warning that war could break out “today or tomorrow”.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/north-korea-approves-nuclear-strike-on-united-states/articleshow/19371857.cms
North Korea halts entry to industrial zone; U.S. to deploy missile system.
What is the point of announcing such an attack?
The point is to intimidate us into paying more danegeld.
Have they asked for payment as a condition of backing off?
What we really need now is another Mathias Rust.
Yes, I’m serious.
*" Rust’s flight through a supposedly impregnable air-defense system had great effect on the Soviet military and led to the dismissal of many senior officers, including Defence Minister Marshal of the Soviet Union Sergei Sokolov and the head of the Soviet Air Defense, former World War II fighter ace pilot Chief Marshal Alexander Koldunov. The incident aided Mikhail Gorbachev in the implementation of his reforms (by removing numerous military officials opposed to him), and reduced the prestige of the Soviet military among the populace, thus helping bring an end to the Cold War.[1]"
“William E. Odom, former director of the U.S. National Security Agency and author of The Collapse of the Soviet Military, says that Rust’s flight irreparably damaged the reputation of the Soviet military. This enabled Gorbachev to remove many of the strongest opponents to his reforms. The defense minister Sergei Sokolov and the air defense chief Alexander Koldunov were dismissed along with hundreds of other officers. This was the biggest turnover in the Soviet military since Stalin’s purges fifty years earlier.[1][7]”*
(from Wiki link)
What is motive ? Know one knows.
See the video.
I think the guy is very angry and acting more of feelings than military strategy point of view.