I’d want the area from the SOUTHERN edge of the DMZ to the Northernmost artillery piece amassed contiguous to the DMZ glazed by fuel-air.
While the B-52s and B-53 were staging, for simultaneous arrival on target, I’d give the Chinese 6 hours to kill Kim Jong Un or we will.
And here’s a link of how up-to-date their technology is - we called them B-2’s, they believe they were B52’s:
http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm,
title: U.S., S. Korean Military Provocation Will Entail Ruin: Rodong Sinmun
“I know we swore off political assassinations, but we also swore off nukes. They made an exception, so we made an exception. Just this once.” - POTUS.
Along with our allies, we could bomb North Korea at our leisure. Their Air Force is a joke. We could spend weeks destroying every military installation, airport, factory…anything deemed a threat.
To use nukes on a civilian population in this instance would be immoral and unjustified. Even criminal, imho. The only justifiable reason I can think of to use nukes would be if it was the only way to prevent further nuclear attacks.
Which it is. As noted above, nuclear deterrent only works if you’re willing to use nukes. If the US is targeted with a nuclear strike and does not respond in kind, the message is that the US will never use its nukes no matter what.
No, it isn’t.
This hypothetical deals with North Korea today, at it’s current capabilities. Nuking North Korea in retaliation for their dud nuke attack would be the response of an irrational, bloodthirsty lunatic.
If the hypothetical was China or another real nuclear power, then my response would be different.
Multi-lateral, non-nuclear. If that doesn’t work, nuke 'em.
No, launching a dud nuke attack is the act of an irrational, bloodthirsty lunatic. Responding in kind is pest control.
I wouldn’t be willing to gamble the safety of US cities on the next NK nuke being a dud (or being able to shoot it down, or whatever). Since they’re crazy enough to try it once firing off another is extremely likely and sooner or later they’ll learn from their mistakes. Doctrine demands that nukes answer nukes in the name of global stability (who can predict what effects the precedent would have in the future), the fact that it didn’t detonate is mere happenstance.
However, I don’t think we should just lob our biggest nuke at Pyongyang - conventional ordnance could no doubt level the government targets there. Rather, tactical nuclear weapons should be considered against the largest army/navy/air force targets, with maximum priority given to launching against wherever assembled and launched the offending nuke. NORAD could no doubt track where it launched from. Ohio-class subs carry Trident IIs which travel at 13,000mph - the quickest way to ensure no more launches and give the NK program an appropriate mushroom cloud send-off.
It’s unbelievable to me that 25% of respondents are choosing to nuke Pyongyang, population 3 million, in response to North Korea killing zero Americans.
What would be the reaction of China to:
I would not want there to be a war between the USA and China. I expect that China would be much more likely to bash heads with the USA if there were American nukes going off on it’s doorstep, than it would be if there was a coalition dealing with NK without dropping nukes.
Along this line and in reality (outside of the hypothetical), I hope that the USA and China are speaking with each other concerning the NK problem, so that neither gets surprised by the other’s reactions. The trick is get China invested in removing the NK leadership, rather than let the NK leadership take military actions that in the long run could very well destroy the trade relationships between the USA, China, Japan and South Korea.
With the throw weight of conventional precision weapons we have in the region and can bring to the table in short order there’s no reason we can’t surgically excise the tumor that is Kim Fuk’d or whatever his name is along with his support systems.
It would be Desert Storm all over again with 24hr news clips on CNN. Send in the B-2’s to take out the known anti-aircraft installations. Send over drones with B-52 signatures to draw out the rest and slag them. Establish air superiority and pound anything military into dust.
Sit down with China to decide if they take it over or if Korea gets reunified.
ETA: Not a big fan of peach cobbler but I would have a small serving to be polite and to critique. Everyone is entitled to my opinion. It says so in the lost pages of the Bill of Rights.
This.
I have been to Pyongyang and would not want to see it nuked no matter how crazy their leadership is. There are millions of innocent people there who have zero say in their government’s actions.
well considering that we would shred NK’s military capacity in a matter of hours it doesn’t require we indiscriminately nuke the country. We’ve evolved technologically from WW-II where massive carpet bombing was required to take out one factory complex. And the size of nuclear weapons has increased dramatically since then making them far more deadly to use in a retaliatory strike although tactical nuclear weapons could be used.
It’s not like we’re at war with the NK people. It’s just a handful of people backing a crazy man-child.
This is *not *a suggestion that nuclear retaliation is the answer, however I do think it’s important to remind people who are discussing the facts that the United States does have the B61 “Dial a Yield” nuclear bomb in it’s inventory which would allow the US the option of attacking a target at less than full power, such as the NK nuclear facilities. This would allow for a nuclear retaliation without the anticipated collateral damage everyone is assuming in this discussion.
Being able to reduce the bomb’s power down to as little as .3 kt would allow for as close to a ‘nuclear surgical strike’ as would be possible in the circumstances.
In comparison Little Boy (Hiroshima) detonated at 13 - 18 kt of yield, Fat Man (Nagasaki) detonated at 21 kt.
So in short it is not correct to think nuclear weapon automatically equalls mass destruction for millions.
If someone shoots at me and misses, I’m not going to hold fire because they didn’t hurt anyone.
The US has a nuclear deterrent; NK does not.
The only reason the South won’t go after the North is the 10,000 artillery pieces aligned along and under the DMZ (they also have mobile missile launchers - I would not be surprised if a couple of those are also buried along the DMZ. The NK military are, at this point, pretty much mole people. Strategic nukes are too expensive to waste on Un, plus they piss of China - the Soviets nuking Montreal, for instance - the US would not like the fallout. Neither would the Chinese - some of the NK nuke sites are real close to both the Chinese AND Russian borders - not places to be planting mushrooms.
I might give you a small nuke on the bunker busters used to destroy their nuke test tunnels. I’m not decided on allowing breeder reactors to survive - the population needs the electricity; the military won’t be in position to use it after about day 3.
If you take out the artillery, they have no deterrent. The US can then remove their 28,000 troops and say “now you two play nice!” on our way out.
Or we could end the problem tomorrow by offering treaty negotiations with no preconditions.
We are now at the point that the Chinese - yes, fer cryin’ out loud, the friggin’ Chinese are the only ones sounding rational .
NK - "We are a real country. Extend diplomatic recognition and let’s settle a real treaty.
US - We’ll give you food, but we demand to see what you’re doing a X, Y, and Z locations.
NK OK
<food and inspectors here>
NK - we want more aid
US, China OK, but stop nukes
NK Now about that recognition. I’ll hold my breath until…
so we have a circle of they do something we don’t like to force assistance. It works. Escalate for
additional goodies
Now thousands of armchair generals are speculating strategies and tactics for a nuclear war.
Everybody relax a bit - we aren’t close to wiping out 3 million people because an old extortion game got new leaders all around and they haven’t yet worked out how to play the game.
How exactly did this 2-bit extortion drama escalate to strategic bombers spending a few $100,000 to drop dummy bombs.
And we had to tell them we did it because they can’t afford the defenses required to even detect them.
Skald, I prefer apple cobbler, but any kind of cobbler will do. No wine needed, but icecream would be appriciated and some milk perhaps? I could bring the icecream!!
We do need to respond to this attack. lets see… We ask NK if they had sent a missle toward hawaii.
If they say yes then we say “oh, we missed it. Now we have to take out all of your nuclear weapons sites. You do, of course, understand why we need to do this, right?”
If they say no, we tell them that if they ever do try to nuke us, and we find out about it, then we would have to take measures. We just want you to understand. We do not want any misunderstanding. Nukes are serious stuff you know.
When someone shoots at me and misses, I incinerate three million innocent civilians.
I am a US citizen, and I would advocate doing nothing, because I am a Korean American and I don’t want to see my fellow Korean people killed.
I wasn’t aware that “incinerate three million innocent civilians” was the inevitable result of any nuclear retaliation. How many people died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, again?
For that matter, how many innocent civilians do you expect will die in a conventional war with North Korea?