# Korea can hit us, can we hit Korea? WTF do we do then? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 18, 2009, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188 "2009-06-18T16:10:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188/121 "2009-06-23T19:15:08Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > Seoul will have more damage than if it were hit with a midsized nuke within 12 hours or so from the North Korean artillery bombardment. Well, yes, if you assume that a conventional response did no damage to North Korean offensive capability. Which would be silly. ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188/122 "2009-06-23T19:21:05Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > I have to apologize for whooshing myself. When you first said you were a boomer, and I initially replied, I swear in my alcohol haze that you meant you were a “boomer”, as in, a nuclear-missle submarine crewmember. Hence my being so taken aback initially that you would not know something like this. > > I realized shortly thereafter that you were referring to “baby boomer”. FWIW, a “boomer” refers to a ballistic-missile submarine, not its crewmembers. Carry on! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188/123 "2009-06-23T19:22:24Z")
The artillery is dispersed and entrenched - and there’s lots of it. We most likely couldn’t destroy enough conventionally in time to prevent the complete destruction of Seoul. Official US policy (last I heard) is actually that an artillery attack of that magnitude on Seoul would be treated as a WMD attack - and responded to appropriately. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188/124 "2009-06-23T20:12:30Z")
> [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](#): > > Also, while I don’t know how long the radiation would linger, I can’t imagine that it would be easy to clean up a recently nuked city. Although on the plus side it \*would \*get rid of that [abomination](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryugyong_Hotel). another near urban myth. the two japanese cities. they just rebuilt on site. Besides some relatively rare and highly tied to radiation cancers, the folks living there since have a lifespan statistically the same as any other comparable japanese city. A nuked city does not become a zombie zone… ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188/125 "2009-06-23T20:23:46Z")
Even if a nuke is justified, what would a nuke get us that conventional weapons wouldn’t? We have enough conventional bombs to level any city we choose. The advantage to a nuke is that it only takes one plane or missile to deliver the city-destroying firepower, but we’d have total air superiority nearly instantly, and what does it matter then if you need to use more planes? ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188/126 "2009-06-23T20:33:04Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Even if a nuke is justified, what would a nuke get us that conventional weapons wouldn’t? We have enough conventional bombs to level any city we choose. The advantage to a nuke is that it only takes one plane or missile to deliver the city-destroying firepower, but we’d have total air superiority nearly instantly, and what does it matter then if you need to use more planes? Time. If you have square miles of artillery bombarding a densely populated city every MINUTE counts. A nuke or three will take care of those MUCH faster (IMO) than conventional stuff. I’ve worked with the military industrial complex enough to know that they have calculated nearly every possible scenario here. When the prez asks what happens death and destruction wise if we do X,Y, or Z, they are going to give him damn specific and fairly accurate numbers. Its up the the prez (and advisors) to decide what other implications of each action are. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188/127 "2009-06-23T21:31:28Z")
I’d agree if the artillery were all concentrated in one place (or a small number of them). But I suspect they’re actually scattered enough that, even with nukes, you’d need dozens to take them all out, and you’d do a lot more collateral damage than you need to. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188/128 "2009-06-23T21:50:09Z")
I think the idea of the modern sense of collateral damage, where we’re outraged when an attack accidentally kills a few civilians, goes out the window in the event of a nuclear attack or if NK is killing millions of people per day through massive artillery bombardment. We’ve as a society completely detached ourselves to the real nature of war where a few casualties a month seems like a huge deal to us. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188/129 "2009-06-23T22:31:25Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I’d agree if the artillery were all concentrated in one place (or a small number of them). But I suspect they’re actually scattered enough that, even with nukes, you’d need dozens to take them all out, and you’d do a lot more collateral damage than you need to. Yeah, but if have tens of thousands of them spread everywhere, how are conventional bombs going to take them out? Nukes have little collateral damage outside the blast radius, hollywood not withstanding. Still functional artillery…not so much…though I guess technically its not collateral damage but intentional damage. i doubt the south koreans care about such a distinction. Again, the military powers that be have calculated this stuff a gazillion times over. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188/130 "2009-06-23T22:54:59Z")
> [@Frodo](#): > > Its the “we can act as dicks all we want because everybody who hates us cannot hate us more and nobody who’s lukewarm to us will start hating us if we do” philosophy. Nuking people who nuked us doesnt seem particularly dickish to me, but YMMV. I didnt say it was a proper philosophy, I said it was an arguable one. ---
**Author:** ![Jerseyman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@Jerseyman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jerseyman)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188/131 "2009-06-23T23:08:12Z")
How many nuclear weapons does Korea have? How many does the USA have? The Kim dynasty may be mad but they are not crazy. They are not going to blow their one or two nukes on the USA and then sit waiting in their bunker for the one or two hundred that can do nothing about coming back at them. What they will do, and what Iran will probably do is to hang onto them and take say _we may be only a wasp compared to your elephant but tread on us and we’ll sting as we go down_ ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188/132 "2009-06-23T23:12:17Z")
> [@SenorBeef](#): > > I think the idea of the modern sense of collateral damage, where we’re outraged when an attack accidentally kills a few civilians, goes out the window in the event of a nuclear attack or if NK is killing millions of people per day through massive artillery bombardment. We’ve as a society completely detached ourselves to the real nature of war where a few casualties a month seems like a huge deal to us. A nuclear retaliation which kills “a few” _South_ Korean civilians would be a justifiable cause for outrage. > [@billfish678](#): > > Nukes have little collateral damage outside the blast radius, hollywood not withstanding. Yes, silly Hollywood. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were _so_ unrealistic. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188/133 "2009-06-23T23:14:50Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Nuking people who nuked us doesnt seem particularly dickish to me, but YMMV. > > I didnt say it was a proper philosophy, I said it was an arguable one. Again, i was responding to the tone of the post, not the idea of retaliatory nuking. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188/134 "2009-06-23T23:28:00Z")
> [@DSYoungEsq](#): > > Here’s what will happen. NK will warn us it intends to launch a missile. The missile will be on a trajectory that won’t actually intercept any of our Pacific Islands. But it will give us a chance to shoot the thing down using our missile defense system. If we do, then we get free target practice, and Kim gets attention. If we don’t, then Kim gets attention and we get embarrassed. Yes, but at some point children get tried as adults. ---
**Author:** ![Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/regallag_the_axe/32/445_2.png) [@Regallag\_The\_Axe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Regallag_The_Axe)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188/135 "2009-06-24T00:36:52Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > another near urban myth. > > the two japanese cities. they just rebuilt on site. Besides some relatively rare and highly tied to radiation cancers, the folks living there since have a lifespan statistically the same as any other comparable japanese city. > > A nuked city does not become a zombie zone… Well, that’s good to know… consider my ignorance fought. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/korea-can-hit-us-can-we-hit-korea-wtf-do-we-do-then/500188.md?page=6)