Obviously the exact capabilities of their missiles are a thing that no one really knows, intelligence services have problems with that, let alone people on forums, so let’s assume a probably unrealistic scenario where they have a nuclear capable ICBM capable of reaching Seattle.
Even in the case of a ICBM capable of reaching it’s target, which is highly unlikely, I suppose that it would get shot down. So, what else could North Korea do?
Do they have some smaller submarines that may launch missiles near the US coast?
Anything else?
Also, what if they launch a nuke at the US, but detonate it before it reaches the mainland, whilst it’s still in air, would they effectively create a EMP blast?
North Korea has a bunch (roughly 70-ish) of diesel-electric subs. Since they are diesel powered with limited battery life for electric use, they are air breathers and their underwater range is significantly limited. They need to spend a lot of their time on the surface or close enough to the surface to snorkel. They aren’t like US nuclear powered subs which can stay underwater as long as the crew has enough food to eat.
Most of their subs are designed to fire torpedoes, but at least one (Sinpo class) is designed to fire missiles. Reports vary as to whether the Sinpo class is a single test sub or if they have built multiple subs, possibly half a dozen or so. Regardless, since they aren’t nuke subs, they have to surface often enough that they will easily be detected long before they get anywhere near the coast of the US.
If they did explode a nuke somewhere over the Pacific, it would cause an EMP but a nuke that far away would not be the devastating weapon of terror that some folks in the news and across the internet are making it out to be. Depending on where the nuke exploded, Alaska or Hawaii might lose power for a few days, and some areas in the western US could be affected, but the damage would be quickly repaired. Computers, phone systems, business systems, point of sale systems, cell phones, etc. might be damaged, so there could definitely be some disruption to our economy in the western states, but the US isn’t going to be crippled. The power will be back on in a matter of days. Most businesses will be up and running again in a week or so at the most. Some damage may take a few months to repair, but that’s going to be a small percentage of the population that ends up affected by that.
North Korea has maybe half a dozen nukes. The US has somewhere between five thousand and ten thousand nukes, depending on whose numbers you use. If North Korea decided to start a nuke war, they would likely become a huge glass parking lot, so they would definitely end up on the worse end of that exchange.
If you assume that North Korea has an ICBM capable of carrying a nuke to Seattle, then what they can do to the mainland US is nuking Seattle. I’m sure we’d love to shoot down such a missile, but that’s really not a realistic option.
Assuming the missile actually was shot down (or, more likely, failed to detonate due to malfunction); what levels of radioactive contamination could be expected? Chernobyl, Fukushima, or what?
(I understand there are lots of unknown variables involved here.)
We’ve accidentally dropped nuclear warheads before (no, really, we have… actually more than once) and all that happened was that we basically had to scrape off a few feet of topsoil from a fairly large area, and that was that.
Google Palomares Spain for more details.
If the bomb actually detonates at all (even if it kinda fizzles) then things get much worse.
China would certainly be very unhappy if we turned their neighbor into a parking lot. They would be unhappy if we invaded their neighbor. NK would probably let loose all the artillery they have pointed at the South Koreans.
If the guidance goes stupid and it lands intact in the Pacific and never tries to detonate then nothing. The bomb itself has a few pounds of mildly (but long-lived) radioactive stuff. All in a lump sitting at the bottom of the ocean inside a fancy metal box. It’ll eventually corrode and sea water will get into the box and corrode the radioactive stuff very very slowly. Like over decades and centuries.
If the thing is shot down before reentry and the warhead breaks open there the few pounds of radioactive stuff will probably be at least partly vaporized in the high energy reentry & float around in the far upper atmosphere for decades or centuries. But it’s only a few pounds and the Earth is a very big place. Some chunks might fall intact to the surface. But assuming they’re shooting at the US mainland, any chunks that fall very far short is gonna land in the ocean, not suburbia. So the effect on the surface will be nothing or close to nothing.
As mentioned about Palomares, if the warhead tries to detonate but completely fails to fission, all you’ve done is spread the few pounds of stuff across an area of ground or sea. For what had been a planned ground burst the mess might be just a couple hundred feet on a side. For a planned air burst it might be more like a couple miles on a side. Of course with a corresponding reduction in density of debris; there’s still only a few pounds of dangerous material to spread over that whole area, whatever size it may be.
To be sure the panic will be proportional to the size of area, while the actual hazard is inversely proportional. This will also depend on whether the missile guidance worked well so the debris field is right in downtown Seattle vs. the guidance worked badly and the debris field is out in the countryside or 20 miles out to sea. The location will hugely affect the expense and effort of cleanup and the size of the popular panic. Out to sea the practical effects may well be effectively zero.
Next bigger possibility is the bomb sort-detonates atomically and sorta not. Now you’re getting into a real mess on the scale of, say, a local nuclear powerplant accident.
Worst case the bomb detonates properly at the surface right downtown someplace (e.g. Seattle) as planned. Now we’ve got a mess on the order of what the Japanese had to deal with in rebuilding Hiroshima or Nagasaki. But hampered by a public vastly more phobic about radiation and vastly less used to hardship than was the case in late 1940s Japan.
So to answer your Q in a single TLDR sentence: “The result could be anything from absolutely nothing to Hiroshima.”
China said a while ago that if NK did something like bombing Guam or anything that would invite apocalyptic retaliation on the part of the US, they would not stick their neck out for NK and basically would abandon it to its fate.
Of course, if instead the US was bombing first, then they would help NK. But they made clear that they would not save NK from itself if NK decided to do something stupid.
I think you are swallowing misinformation. On the North Korean side, at least, they are perfectly rational. If you want to keep your population pliant and working hard for little reward, convince them that catastrophe awaits and the enemies are circling waiting to pounce. Someone in Washington talking fire and brimstone is exactly what they want. Plus, the occasional hot crisis keeps the armed forces n their toes and watching outward, lessening the chances they have time to contemplate internal regime change. It’s all an act for Kim to stay sitting on top of the tiger he’s riding. He’s not stupid enough to actually start something, but any slackening of the emergency mode could lead to an Arab Spring event or a palace coup.
People say this as if the North Koreans would all suddenly spring into unison, in a jolt of common thought.
The truth is that in nearly all dictatorships, the “commoners” would easily overwhelm the dictator and kill him if they did have a sudden hive mind - but they don’t, because nobody wants to be that first nail that sticks out and gets hammered. If someone stands up and shouts, “Let’s revolt!” and nobody joins in, then…he’ll be gunned down by himself. And the regime has, for decades, forced North Koreans to inform on each other, so that there is no mutual trust.
