The North Korea attacks South Korea, but they’ve decided not to use nukes, except as a last resort. It turns out that technological advantage South Korea and the US have is much less than was expected (a ton of recently-made Chinese and Russian weaponry has somehow made it’s way into North Korean hands :dubious: ) Combined with the numerical superiority of the North Korean army, this tilts the scales in their favor. After a few weeks, we are faced with the very real possability that we might lose the war.
You are the President of the United States. Some of your advisors want to to order nuclear strikes against North Korean targets. Do you order them, despite the fact that none have been used against us, or do you refrain, and risk a humiliating defeat?
Is that true? I’ve not heard of the “numerical superiority” of NK over SK before.
That said, if the US military wasn’t willing to use its nuclear arsenal in the 1950s when the Korean War was in its original bloom - wasn’t General MacArthur relieved of command in that war essentially over this point? - when it was the only participant in that conflict with the capability to do so, then how could it justify doing so now, when NK and its (nominal?) ally China both do? Especially when the US allies of SK and Japan are right there in the blast radius of any tit-for-tat exchanges of “tactical” or "limited’ nuclear strikes?
The time to play the “we got nukes and we ain’t afraid to use 'em” card was back then, if ever.
It would be insane for us to initiate a nuclear strike to avoid losing a conventional Korean war. Absolutely nuts. It would accelerate nuclear paranoia around the globe and paint a target on our backs for generations.
Then again, it’s pretty much impossible to imagine us losing a conventional war against North Korea. We flew B2 bombers from frickin’ Missouri to hit targets in South Korea and then flew back again. I’m pretty sure we could take out a bunch of ancient artillery.
MacArthur was relieve for continuing to push the North Koreans beyond a certain river which he was ordered not to. The insubordination was intolerable and Truman fired him. Sec. Marshall, once Chair of the Joint Chiefs thought Truman should have fired him earlier over other insubordination. Mac did want to use nukes. Eisenhower reportedly threatened to use nukes to get the armistice.
Apparently NK has the largest military in the world. Apparently, Wikipedia backs that up. Although I note the way they count those numbers includes ‘reserve personnel’. But even only counting active military, NK has about twice the military manpower as SK.
Edit: my favorite part of the first link is the picture of the NK generals with so many medals they have to put some on their pants.
Terrible, terrible idea. In such a situation, even if nuking North Korea would win us the war, it would definitely piss off China, and probably piss off Russia too, if for no other reason, because we dropped nukes so close to them.
Also, I don’t buy the numbers that North Korea is using. Really, 8 million reserves? Are they counting all military age men or something? Realistically speaking, even if they out number South Korea, when you’d include American troops, they wouldn’t. The only way I could see them having a meaningful number advantage would be if one of their allies got involved. If China was one of those allies, that would make nuking North Korea even worse, because now we’ve essentially initiated a nuclear strike in a war against China.
Seriously, given the fact that this scenario is extremely unlikely, we’re better off losing the war that risking open nuclear war with a legitimate nuclear power with China.
The population of NK is 24M, so I’d believe their reserves are ‘all military age men except those in gulags’.
The number isn’t really that important though. I think in a shooting war, the kill ratios between NK and SK would be hundreds to one, with NK on the losing end of that. If China and the US got involved, I think the ratio would close but probably still favor the US/SK. The real issue would be civilian casualties in SK. (Well, for the South Koreans. I dunno that Kim Jong-un would care so much about civilian casualties in his country)
Before I would use nuclear weapons - provided North Korea abstained - I would declare total war. As in a “real”, World War II-style war. Draft 10 million women and men, convert industries to cranking out war materials, shoot even bring back Glen Miller on the radio if it would help - rather than lose South Korea.
I’m not for nuking. But I am for old style carpet bombing. Just go in there and pulverize every damn military complex and every damn city into sand. Collateral damage be damned.
Yep, innocent civilians would die, but hell, I would see them as already dead by the hands of their “dear leader”. Also, I have to wonder: Wouldn’t several days of carpet bombing result in less over all deaths as opposed to ten years of war?
With as far-fetched as this hypothetical is, you may as well ask what we’d do as president if the North Koreans had dragons, disruptor rifles, or the Spear of Longinus.
Interesting data nugget re: carpet bombing North Korea. We’ve already done it.
Presumably sober historian Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer-prize winning author of books on the development of the atomic and hydrogen bombs, has stated that the US inflicted two million civilian casualties on North Korea during the strategic bombing campaign in the Korean War. That’s in addition to the 2 million North Korean and Chinese military personnel killed. Wikipedia seems to have completely missed this estimate.
The devastation was awesome. Unlike Vietnam, North Korea had infrastructure vulnerable to high explosives and napalm.
Wikipedia did capture some of the destruction:
[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
U.S. warplanes dropped more napalm and bombs on North Korea than they did during the whole Pacific campaign of World War II.[247]
As a result, almost every substantial building in North Korea was destroyed.[248] The war’s highest-ranking American POW, US Major General William F. Dean,[249] reported that most of the North Korean cities and villages he saw were either rubble or snow-covered wastelands.[250][251]
[/QUOTE]
I make no defense of the lunatic regime nor the original aggression. But their threat to unleash weaponry (even nuclear) on the US should be seen in light of historical reality. It’s food for thought that they probably have a very different memory of the Korean War than we do. We say if they touch us we will unleash hell on them…as far as they’re concerned, we already wrecked their country thoroughly. They may be lacking the technical capability. They may even be lacking the desire. But they have a historical grudge that makes 9/11 and Pearl Harbor look like a child’s boo-boos.
We can’t bomb them back to the Stone Age, because they’re there anyway. And nukes in N. Korea create radiation and fallout in S. Korea and elsewhere… kinda the nuclear version of second-hand smoke. Many S. Koreans have relatives in N. Korea, so we’d likely have no support from them even if the other risks weren’t there.
they have 10 million fit for military service - but does not list actual enlisted.
Remember that the ruling thought has been “Military First” for 60 years - but look at the pictures - they are marching with fixed bayonets - nobody trains with bayonets. Another thread recently claimed they lowered their minimum height requirements for enlistment from 5’-" to 5’-0" due to malnutrition.
These are not what we think of as soldiers - I found a pic of a North Korean soldier standing between a US and a South Korean soldiers at some ceremony - he didn’t come up to either of their chins - he looked like a 12 year old between two adults.
Search for my posts within last month for the link
This is far more likely to happen than the use of nuclear weapons.
Even if the North Koreans managed to conquer the South and drive us and the ROK Army off the peninsula, we’d likely fire up the draft, fire up war production, and start staging in Japan for an amphibious invasion of the Korean peninsula.
