We get to knock him down and then spend billions of dollars building up his country’s infrastructure while teaching the populace to hate us.
Maybe we get Hans Brixx to bust his balls a little more and write him a very nasty letter.
Nah, let China do it. If Nutbag actually launches a missile anywhere near anything but ocean, China will be forced to act lest the US step in. They want that even less than the hassle of dealing with a Great Leader-less North Korea.
I guess the question of whether Kim Jong Un can live up to the high standard of delusion that was set by his father and grandfather has been answered.
If it lands in the ocean, it’s Aquaman’s problem.
This is just a mental excercise, but what would happen if we just pulled back from the DMZ?
I mean, just packed up and left one night. Posted all our front line troops at Camp Casey, or Yongsan, or Camp Humphreys?
What would be the effect on North Korea? Just pretend they aren’t there, or at least aren’t a threat anymore. they’re only reason for being is that the evil Americans are going to invade at any moment. What if we took that away from the leadership?
We’d still have a huge military presence, so an invasion would be unlikely.
Just spit balling here.
I doubt the DPRK would let the truth get in the way of their oppression cudgel. And it may make them think their stupid shit is working.
Is this the first time the DPRK has explicitly threatened nuclear war?
No, but it is the first time (I believe) that they have directly threatened a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the USA.
Sigh, I wish this was a joke.
I keep wondering where China is in all of this. They’re pretty much the only ally North Korea has left. Can’t they put a chain on this barking dog?
It seems like they’re getting pretty tired of all this because they’ve supported the latest sanctions and aid reductions. I don’t know if they are 100% supportive and some of the new sanctions are aimed at Chinese companies that may still be doing business with North Korea, but even if North Korea has it uses to them it is becoming a bigger headache.
It doesn’t sound that way, does it?
Well let’s just say that they did launch a missile at the continental US. Success or Failure, we would plaster them back to the stone age. Worst case scenario and they managed to set off a small (sub-Hiroshima sized) bomb in the USA, there is exactly ZERO chance that the Chinese could convince or even threaten us into holding back. Our national rage would be such that we’d probably be willing to go to war with China as well just to turn NK into a sea of glass.
You know, I’ve always thought that the solution to the North Korea mess was a Chinese invasion. Surface appearances aside, China has got to nearly as fed up with this mess as we are.
I think the US, South Korea, and Japan should approach China in secret and coordinate the whole thing ahead of time. China invades, deposes the regime, and occupies the North. The US is tasked with helping to defend the border with the South, knocking out the missile batteries trained on Seoul, and helping stem the inevitable flood of refugees. The rest of the world then pitches in to address the humanitarian crisis that would follow.
It would be painful, to be sure. Seoul would probably take a pounding before we could knock out all of those missiles, for one, and it would take extraordinary effort to prevent millions of refugees from streaming into the neighboring countries. But surely the world – and the Koreans – would be better off five years down the line for undergoing that pain now.
I’m imagining here that North Korea’s nukes would be impotent. If we think those nukes could actually launch, reach Seoul. Tokyo, or elsewhere, and successfully detonate, then the calculus changes. It’s a damn tricky situation.
China would actually have more personal reasons to intervene before a launch.
The shortest path from NK to DC is a near polar flight path.
Once out of NK airspace the flight path spends a good bit of time over China. Then Russia before getting to any significant water around the Artic Ocean. Followed by a leisurely stroll across Nunavat and Manitoba before actually crossing into the USA around the eastern Great Lakes.
I don’t see China or the Russians calmly watching that bird flying by. Everyone is going to be taking a swing with their missile defense systems.
Oh man. If they managed to hit DC with anything?
We’d have our own nukes in the air within minutes.
“We’re sorry, but the USA you have been trying to reach is unavailable. We’re currently insane with rage. Please wait for us to complete the utter destruction of North Korea before any semblance of national sanity returns. We apologize for the inconvenience…”
Here’s what really pissing off the North Korean leadership right now (from the OP’s link):
“(The U.N. resolution) would also ban countries from exporting specific luxury goods to the North, including yachts, luxury automobiles, racing cars, and jewelry with semi-precious and precious stones and precious metals.”
We should rescind this provocatory act immediately and send even more yachts, fancy cars and jewelry to Kim and his goons. Then publicize it heavily, and see if that stirs enough outrage to get the government overthrown.
Nobody in North Korea would ever hear about it - or practically nobody, anyway. Kim Jong-Il’s extravagant tastes were well known and he never got what was coming to him. He was really into movies - he had tons of DVDs, supposedly, and of course there was the time he kidnapped a Japanese director and actress and had them make a Godzilla-style monster movie for him - and he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on Hennessy cognac.
Guys, all this talk about missiles coming over to the US is crap. Total crap. NK doesn’t have the missile technology to hit anything at that range. Not anything. They could maybe hit Japan, although even that’s iffy. And even beyond that, we don’t have any reason to believe that they have a nuclear bomb small enough and reliable enough to fit in a missile, even if they had one.
The current Kim is just throwing a temper tantrum. Let’s not dignify it by taking him seriously.
You mean the Outstanding Leader, the Dear Leader was his father. See, this is why the guy is so pissed off all the time.