To the OP: You attribute insanity toward a person who has power, is willing to use it to advance or defend his nation’s interests, and takes a strong and belligerent attitude against you. The truth is, you, if given the power, would take that exact same stance against North Korea that Kim Jong Un takes toward the US. It is not that one is crazy or insane and the other is reasonable and sane.
It is that both don’t know how to speak softly and carry a big stick.
“We have to nuke 'em, we have to nuke 'em now.”
“We have to strike now sir, annihilate, kill, kill, kill!!!”
I don’t think this question was addressed to me…
I think 250,000 people died in the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
The US has already killed some two million “innocent” civilians in North Korea in the Korean War, which was a conventional war, so I estimate that another two million might die in another such war.
keep in mind that .3 kt is 300 tons of TNT. the largest conventional bomb is 11 tons of TNT. .3 KT is still overkill unless you want to kill a bunch of people. the North Korean command structure can probably be sliced and diced with normal ordinance in a very short period of time. They would quickly lose air support which would make tanks sitting ducks. those could be taken out with B-52’s from 9 miles up. The only real threat are the guns trained on Seoul and you can’t nuke them without affecting Seoul.
Where did you pull that number from. Estimates range from 150,000 to 400,000.
Also on Wikipedia, Total civilians killed/wounded: 2.5 million (est.)[9].
Personally, I took “Pyongyang” as a metonym for the NK government/military; it’s a bit snappier, and probably fits in the poll line better, than “I want the North Korean nuclear forces and command & control areas glowing by sundown.”
**
Wrong.
In retaliation for them trying to murder millions of us, and failing.
If somebody tried to stab you to death but dropped the knife, would you slap him on the back and say: “no hard feelings”?
Or, if you were armed, would you shoot him before he tried again?
I choose survival.**
This was a failed nuclear attack - since we can easily take them out, I don’t see any reason to respond with a nuclear bomb. To use your analogy - a 6-year old tried to stab me. I can either kill him, or just remove both of his arms so that he can’t attempt it again.
Also, which way do the prevailing winds blow in NK? I’m pretty sure China, South Korea and Japan do not want fallout blowing into their countries, particularly after a failed attack.
I doubt the American public would be willing to entertain the Impossibility Defence when it comes to the attempted destruction of a US state capital (granted one of the freak states, but a state nevertheless). Nuclear retaliation against the launch/assembly sites would be mandated at the bare minimum - if a POTUS fails to immediately authorise the swiftest means to ensure that the enemy can not follow up the dud attack with a real one then he has failed in his duty and would be rapidly impeached.
The Asian Dust blows out over the Sea of Japan, however we are also obligated to defend Japan - who would no doubt react in horror to NK’s new insanity. If they’d attack the US they’d also attack our most important allies in the region, Tokyo isn’t too far away for NK for lobbing a nuke and since the regime knows that reckoning is coming there would be nothing stopping them from doing so.
Yo!
The situation isn’t symmetrical.
The OP postulates a North Korea that shoots first against folks who can obliterate them; that wouldn’t “advance or defend his nation’s interests”. A strong and belligerent attack on those who can’t obliterate us can be reasonable and sane – while still being a crazy insane approach for morons who start a suicide-by-cop fight.
I voted for both conventional arms and a nuclear attack. I’d prefer conventional but I think that the nuclear option should be kept open. I wouldn’t want to turn the whole city into a radioactive parking lot, but the option should be there in case they try another nuclear attack.
Something like this would literally be the actions of a few hundred individuals at the very top of that nation. The people calling for a nuke are psychopaths.
Military action with allied help following a clandestine, targeted attack of high level officials is the way to go, and part of the operation would be humanitarian in nature. Dropping pamphlets and food as we go.
Seriously, 90% of the people in that country are suffering from starvation. Granted, they are also brainwashed for the most part, so it won’t be bloodless, but I’m hoping we can win “heart and minds” if we’re careful.
Helping to create a democratic, united Korea seems like a much better goal, than murdering millions of innocents for the deeds of a few assholes.
Again, people calling for nukes are seriously evil. You’d fit right in with the North Korean regime.
I am a US citizen not from Hawaii. I choose non-nuke unilateral bomb the hell out of them option.
StG
No, they are people who believe that the best way to insure that nuclear arsenals remain unused long-term is to immediately reinforce the doctrine that he who unleashes nuclear fire will die by nuclear fire. You might not like that stance, but it has in fact kept hundreds of millions of people alive worldwide over the past half-century.
Sounds like an idiotic, inept, overzealous and wrong headed thing to do, IMHO.
Nothing is black and white in the real world. It’s all shades of grey.
You might be ok with murdering millions of innocent men, women and children over the actions of a totalitarian regime that treats them like cattle, and over which they have 0 control.
Very biblical of you. Also very EVIL.
I think that making sure those responsible pay for their actions, and providing aid to these abused people, and possibly even creating a stable, democratic country might be a better end result for EVERYBODY.
Again, evil people, such as yoursellf, apparently, might not agree. Luckily I don’t give a shit though, in general, what evil, morally bankrupt people think.
Many of you may not be aware of the situation in North Korea. Seoul starts only a dozen miles from the NK border. The North Koreans have been stockpiling conventional artillery along this border for decades. They can inflict more damage on Seoul in a few hours than you could with a dozen Hiroshima-sized bombs. Seoul has 25 million people. I don’t know what percentage of those are within range of the artillery, but we’re talking about a huge amount of people here. NK also SCUD style missiles that could add to the carnage. Japan is also in danger from such weapons.
A conventional military response would most likely trigger this attack, resulting in the deaths of millions to possibly tens of millions of people in South Korea. The disruption to the world economy would cause untold hardships.
So what do you do, fail to respond to a nuclear attack on your nation? Leave a government crazy enough to do this in power?
Nuke the living shit out of them. Hit anything that has any offensive military capability whatsoever. Twice. Let the only thing that slows you down be concern about the fallout over SK and Japan. If you wait for their attack to launch the nukes, by the time your attack lands millions will already have died. The NK conventional threat to Seoul is the biggest mass slaughter that any country can inflict on another country short of the big nuclear players. You can’t play around with that shit, you can’t be merciful on the assumption that a psychotic dictatorship dumb enough to launch a nuclear attack on the United States wouldn’t be willing to use the rest of their military options.
Yeah, a years-long hearts and minds campaign as the batshit crazy regime who’s willing inflict untold damage on their own people or others slowly loses power while sitting on one of the greatest destructive threats in history sounds like the way to go. Anything else would be barbaric. I’m sure all of the dead South Koreans, millions to tens of millions of them, would applaud you for how civilized you are, and how psychopathic the rest of us are. Give me a fucking break. Your plan would almost certainly result in more deaths than a nuclear strike on the military capabilities of the NK, and yet you feel so smug that we’re bad people for wanting to prevent that.
I’m a U.S. citizen from the mainland, and would favor immediate military action to completely destroy the Kims’ government, but I would be very hesitant to use nuclear weapons.
I don’t understand where people get the idea that there is some established law about nuclear retaliation, considering that to date exactly two nuclear weapons have been used in war, and both of them were against a non-nuclear power. There is zero precedent in strategy or international relations for a nuclear conflict between two nuclear powers. We will be making it up as we go along. And I think it’s very unlikely that any foreign nations would consider a massive conventional attack on the DPRK to be weak. If North Korea tries to attack the U.S., then their Worker’s Paradise is over. Period. The only questions is: do we defeat them by killing millions of civilians, or do we defeat them by attacking military targets? Personally I would prefer the latter.
I’m pretty sure we can easily find out, if we don’t already know EXACTLY where every artillery piece pointing in the general direction of South Korea is.
I’m opposed to “Nuking the entire country into a parking lot”. I’m not opposed to targeting military installations capable of hurting south Korea or Japan. I don’t think Nuclear weapons, as in the type that wipe out an entire city, would be called for. Conventional weapons dropped on artillery and military installations,or small yield nuclear devices where necessary (and away from population centers) sounds fine to me.
Really, this was what I was thinking when I said clandestine operations.
Drone strikes/other precision strikes on the heads of state, and strikes on military installations that pose a danger to South Korea with whatever weapons are appropriate. This is done immediately. The moment we know they’ve launched something at us, and while we gather the resources for step two. In fact if we don’t move fast, Seol is probably toast anyway, given that they’d hit that FIRST before launching anything at us. THEN we can work to stabilize the country with boots on the ground, and humanitarian aid.
Not sure why people on here would be so hell bent on exterminating a bunch of abused people for the terrible misfortune of having been born North Korean.