Small skirmishes are possible, but the only war with NK will be a significant nuclear first strike by Trump. The US military will absolutely not launch an invasion and let the invasion force get nuked by NK.

Even Trump knows this and that's why he said there are submarines which are more powerful than the air craft carriers nearby. One Ohio class sub has as many nuclear warheads as China and North Korea put together.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foal_Eagle

These are the largest war games in the world and we do it every year. Supposedly defensive against NK, but we include nuclear submarines, B1 and B52 bombers.

The last practice war we had against NK was about one month ago.

Potentially complicating for this story: The USS Carl Vinson was actually thousands of miles away around Indonesia on Saturday

Wow, WTF @ both the Hill and the WH. Is nothing true anymore? GoT has more reliable narrators.

That escalated quickly. I live in Washington state, somebody said they'd hate to live in Washington state.

You seem upset.

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US armada nowhere near NK

I thought Dennis Rodman already sorted this out?

A big part of the Russian online propaganda campaign was putting the idea out there that Hillary was more likely to start conflicts abroad. A lot of effort was put into getting people to believe Hillary was actually more dangerous than Trump. Anyone who dabbles in any right wing media online during the campaign caught at least some of it.

I know at least one guy who won't be voting for him again in 2020 over this ****, so at least that's something.

Why doesn't Trump just invite Kim jong-un down to Mar a lago for KFC and a chin wag?

Dennis Rodman can be the middle man.

I could be wrong but I was under the impression that the largest nuclear blast possible using modern warheads would be orders of magnitude larger than anything seen in the past.

Tsar Bomba I believe is the biggest bomb ever made. In 1961 by the Ruskies. 1570 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb. Still, it would not sweep across the United States. 3rd degree burns 62 miles away and the thermal pulse was felt 170 miles away.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba

It has been longstanding military and strategic policy that the United States will never be the first to use nuclear weapons - a policy which would seem to rule out a [nuclear] first strike against North Korea. However, Trump was also [allegedly] "quoted" during the 2016 election campaign as asking military advisors (during a supposed discussion of national security issues) why we have nuclear weapons if we never intend to use them? (Apparently our President doesn't get that the primary "use" of nuclear weapons is as a deterrent to war - the threat of using such weapons [hopefully] prevents war from ever breaking out in the first place ...)

If Trump decides to "take out" North Korea's military capability, (assuming he doesn't actually order the use of nukes), it will require a massive (coordinated) attack using conventional munitions and weapons. North Korea has thousands of artillery pieces embedded in the DMZ all targeted on Seoul, the capital of South Korea. To prevent Kim Jong Un from turning Seoul into a "lake of fire," all of those artillery emplacements will have to be destroyed. Our spy satellites know where most of Kim's artillery is located - and can thus be pinpointed and destroyed by Tomahawk cruise missiles - but some of those artillery pieces are hidden with their precise whereabouts unknown. If a conventional attack targeting the artillery emplacements in the DMZ commences, there can be no guarantee that all of the North Korean weapons will be destroyed ... There would almost certainly be some amount of death and destruction that would rain down on Seoul. How much (how many dead and wounded?) is anybody's guess.

The United States proved that our military has the capability to "take out" an adversary back in March of 2003 when we launched a "shock and awe" campaign against Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein was clearly willing to take (and absorb) an attack. The wild card in this situation is Kim Jong Un. He's already an ultra-paranoid dictator. If he becomes convinced that Trump actually intends to take him out, he may not wait around (like Saddam did) to be attacked. Attacking first will certainly mean he's a dead man, but with all this bellicose talk from Trump, Un may come to the conclusion that he's probably dead anyway; so he might as well "go first" and make any military action by the United States as costly as possible. From Kim Jong Un's perspective, the calculus probably goes something like: "If I don't use 'em, I'll lose 'em - along with my head - so I may as well strike first."

Absent a last minute diplomatic breakthrough, I sense that we're about to see war. Trump and Kim Jong Un both seem to have their feet set in concrete. Backing down (by either one of them) would represent a serious loss of face. A recent NYT article described this confrontation as a "slow motion Cuban Missile Crisis." That "crisis" went on for 13 days with the final resolution not certain until literally the last day.

A little while back, before Trump decided that he wanted to increase military spending by like 60 billion, wasn't he complaining about being in 2nd place to Russia with nukes? IIRC, he even used that comment to justify the proposed budget. "Russia has 7000 and we only have 6980...waaaah...what's the sense of having them if we can't use them?" Every other past President and leader looking toward disarmament forever and along comes this jerkoff. Is that what you were referring to Alan?

No, the point I was trying to make is that any war that breaks out on the Korean peninsula - be it "nuclear" or otherwise - is going to be much more costly than some people may be thinking. If war actually breaks out, the United States will certainly prevail - North Korea's "nuclear threat" will be neutralized. But it won't be an "easy" (or costless) victory.

There's another danger with these kind of confrontations - the danger of escalation (due to miscalculation) that gets out of hand. North Korea has allies, specifically China. Xi Jinping, China's President, has been very clear with President Trump that China prefers that this impasse be settled through negotiation. If it gets down to brass tacks, there's no guarantee that China won't side with North Korea. If it becomes a three-way standoff, nobody can predict how this might turn out. Once bombs start exploding, this could get really ugly.

Alan,

Trump has no shame and cannot really lose face in his own mind. He could bomb or back down and be sure that he was right or just not care.

its pretty lol how just utterly careless the soviet union was. just completely reckless to test such a bomb. crazy thing from the wiki is that they decided against the 100 megaton version and this thing was only 57. idiots coulda ended the world just from a stupid test.

This isn't true at all. The U.S has always pointedly refused to adopt this position.

Eh, there have been over 2000 nuclear test explosions, over 1000 by the US. I think even in 1961 it was relatively clear what the immediate effects would be.

Unless the parachute failed and launched half of the island into the atmosphere.

North Korea's Artillery Emplacements Hold Seoul Hostage

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b0b9e9848eb990

This article is pretty blunt: Any direct military attack on North Korea is likely to result in the utter destruction of Seoul, the capital of South Korea.

Just nuke the artillery as your opening gambit.

Watched 'Trinity and beyond' today as a result of this thread.

Would recommend.

As i said in the other thread the nuclear posturing is just a shakedown. Send them some sanction relief or some other form of payoff and they'll go quiet again. Easily worth the money imo.

Where would the money come from? Just read a bit on the IMF, not sure they're involved with this sort of thing. Does the U.N. have funds for this?