I am sure there are plans being made if NK uses a nuclear weapon against SK.

Do we:

a) Nuke the country back and make it completely unusable for generations, as well as kill millions of "innocent" civilians?

or

b) Use conventional warfare to target military leadership and hopefully take out other nuclear targets and then re-build country?

c) ???

Trump is in charge so a) naturally.

It's very unlikely that NK nukes SK without extreme provocation because of this.

Israel probably was close to a working nuke device in May 1967

http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...-desert-215228

One nuclear weapon will dramatically change our world. When we dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was at the end of a bloody conflict, and it was also sold very well to the public that it will save lives on all sides because the only alternative was an invasion with extreme casualties. Even though we used the biggest weapon in the history of the world, we did not do it to obtain something, like owning Japan. We also had a lot of scientists who were publicly conflicted about its use, which showed we had a moral compass and we used it responsibility and understood its implications.

NK just out the blue dropping a bomb on Seoul would create world havoc.

I also think Trump will do one major military strike in his presidency. I think he wants that as part of his legacy. I doubt he wants to be known as the "Tweet" President. He wants and needs action and NK would certainly make history. A preemptive strike on a country with 12 nuclear weapons would be incredible. Not sure incredibly good or incredibly bad, but I don't think it matters to Trump.

OK, so let's take this as a statement of US policy. So the question is, what does this look like going forwards? In arguing that it is not a good road to continue down I'm not arguing the US is either incorrect or unjustified in not wanting NK to have nukes - the argument is that it is a recklessly dangerous response.

This US plan is essentially some variant on the sanctions backed by force play. US intervention is mentioned, but it's clearly not just economic intervention that is talked about - Original Position has been clear the military build up and threats on the part of the US are sensible, justified and part of the strategy. In sanctions plus force maybe your opponent thinks you're bluffing, maybe you ramp the sanctions up again and again, but unless they give some credence to the threat of force it's a weak strategy - why introduce an aspect your opponent can figure out is an empty threat? If this is the US strategy they at least need to convince China that intervention might be military intervention.

There is, in my opinion, no credible way to be reasonably sure military action in Korea can stay non nuclear. If the US invades, NK will use it - their ground Army will be useless, I'm sure they realise that. No serious US first strike could try to remove their nuclear capacity without being seen as also a threat to take out the regime, so unless it succeeded it would provoke the same response. It's not sensible to think one strike could do that, even if for no other reason than that we're relying on inference and espionage to know their capabilities.

As for further escalation the only non nuclear scenario is if the US resolutely refuses, China stands by as the US crushes an ally it shares a border with, and NK strikes no-one other than SK. Maybe there's some fancy way to war game that, but it's certainly not the likely outcome. In any case bare minimum is tens of thousands of Koreans are dead.

That's what the threat of US 'intervention' looks like. That's what, in this plan, they need to convince China it's willing to risk if it wants China to shut down NK. Given these scenarios are clear disasters for the whole world China will be massively pre-disposed to think they're bluffing. Even if the US actually has little to no intention of following through it needs to seem very resolved.

Then, even if the US pulls that off successfully - if they convince China they are about to invade NK without somehow triggering a defensive strike from NK along the way - we have to hope that a regime (or at least a significant proportion of it) that is willing to go to the lengths they are currently going to to preserve themselves, choose to dissolve themselves voluntarily into their neighbours, who have been a historical enemy for literally thousands of years.

If China has to do it by force instead, then everything we said about the US invasion follows - just not the Chinese path to escalation, obviously.

So, that's the tightrope being chosen to walk.

I think (and hope) we're not walking this tightrope quite yet. At the moment I think the US plan is to pressure China economically and the military stuff is a not fully thought through consequence of historical wishes to have a presence in the region, along with a slightly-dumb love of tough rhetoric. I hope and trust the US comes to its senses and realises that, if it's not credible then a military threat adds nothing to their strategy - in fact, making it credible locks them into a different strategy, one outlined above, which is insane.

I'm not talking much about what I hope NK does because it doesn't seem sensible to hope they'll do anything too intelligent. It's not because I think they're innocent victims or anything daft. God help us, I'm painting the Trump regime as the sensible ones. That last bit sounds stupid, I know.

I don't know what you mean about pressuring China economically. I take it you mean that China needs to economically pressure NK to make changes by not trading with them. I don't think they like being told what to do by the US in their very own region.

I just don't foresee any situation that NK would voluntarily give up their nuclear weapons. Perhaps if they had 100% assurances from China that they would nuke anyone who tries to invade NK but I doubt China would agree to that.

For a tiny country with not much of an economy, they sure know how to market themselves. Front page of NY Times.

Their GDP is less than Libya, Ethiopia, Nepal, Zambia, Ghana, you get the drift.

Can you imagine any of those countries being in the news every single day as a threat to us? For a totalitarian, God-like leader, this is nirvana. World-stage, every single day. And it seems like we are much more worried about them doing something to us then they are concerned about us attacking them.

One of our college students goes there and they send him home in a body-bag and there is not one single thing we can do.

When did that happen?

Grunch...

Much like the way Trump complains about everyone "targetting" him, this situation is KJU's fault, and KJI's fault before him.

It's one thing to build a nuclear arsenal for defense, or for a seat at the world table, and it's a whole other thing to build it while using it to threaten a specific country over and over again. Especially when that country has the ability to crush you in return. He's just banking on the hope that we won't.

Not yet I guess. They've been talking about it since 2008 and I got ahead of myself.

Putin shut that **** down a year or two ago. Ain't happening with him running the Kremlin. Probably ain't happening ever period. Russia won't allow it to happen.

Man, if Donald Trump possessed this ONE quality, the world would be in a much better place.

Should just ignore North Korea and leave it to Japan to do something about it. Of course that means Japan would have to officially rearm, but the US wants that anyway, to take some of the pressure off vis-a-visa Russia and China, so it's a good excuse. The strategy should be to provoke Japan into taking a hard line on North Korea.

Until when?

Don't understand this north Korea long range missle concern. They are well within range of s korea and japan who live with it and are better targets, and if n. Korea strikes either it will cease to exist.

The US strategy should be full info warfare. Drop free radios, magazines, k pop, chocolates, ball point pens, fake/real kj uhn photos and get the message out that the world wants N. Korea to rejoin and everyone will get a pony if they do, but that kj uhn is intentionally holding them back. This is not an easy strat but should be viable with info from defectors and would put actual pressure on regime. Certainly better than current approach.

That is a much better idea.

We can even do it to Russia! Wait, they could do it to us too.

We may look back when they have 50 nukes and can hit multiple cities across the world and wished we did something. They will probably have their weapons so dispersed that we lost the ability to do an effective preemptive strike.

NK is pretty market savvy. They have now become automatic front-page news for every single test launch.

It seems that NK is going to continue unabated increasing the number and efficacy of their weapons. I don't know if KJ is taken out if that will change. He probably has orders to fire all weapons if he is killed which may be another reason we don't attack him or NK.

They have done an excellent job at frustrating the US. We scream that there will be no more negotiations but we really can't do much. We pulled every economic string possible. There is so much pushing we can do with China and Russia before they get resentful of us interfering in their zone of influence.

They are crazy or smart to publicly state they want to attack the country with the biggest military in history. Where we could annihilate them 100x over with 1% of our force.

Unique situation where we can really all watch this happening in front of our eyes, yet it seems dangerous to stop it, even though we probably should and can.

NK isn't doing anything special, other than riding a Trump wave. He's opened the door for them to be on the front page for every threat.

On the other hand, a normal POTUS would have organized a global coalition against NK, and would even attack pre-emptively, long before sending his first tweet about it to the world.

NK has been a major issue for 15 years. Trump's only issue so far is that he had no comprehension of the complexity. Have to deal with needs of s. Korea, China, and Japan. There's a cover story in last month's Atlantic by Mark Bowden (Black Hawk Down), which I still need to read.

MAD strategy becomes less viable as more players are added. Especially players who appear to be weirdos or zealots.

In any case, the window for meaningful military action on North Korea appears to be right now. If a successful ICBM test doesn't inspire that, nothing will, and in that case it's time to drop any kind of pretense about it and act accordingly. It's a monster of a decision though and it sucks that so much of it is in the US's lap.

It's not in the USs lap and right now is not a window. Conventional weapon strike on Seoul tomorrow would be worse than a nuke in LA. It's arguably not the USs decision whether to trigger the death of 1-5M S Koreans and trillions in economic loss to prevent some potential future harm to US.

Trump accelerated the issue by about a year, lost the US a bunch of global support, and squandered much of China's influence on Trump brand trademarks, Ivanka's shoes, and Jared's $500k per VISA scandal.

Without a comprehensive united effort by allies to do something that's actually effective as a deterrent to their weapons program, and without meaningful cooperation with China on the issue, it is a problem very much in the US's lap in that inaction isn't the only possibility.

That's not to say that military action wouldn't be absurdly costly, which it would be at really any scale as it relates to NK. There are scenarios in both cases kill a lot of people, that's why it's a difficult position to be in. But it's worth remembering that the people who make these decisions are generally more concerned with threats to the mainland US than anywhere else. And that includes even a financial epicenter ally like Seoul.

I strongly suspect they'll just talk and not do much, but it is a choice. There aren't a lot of steps left to full capability from where they're at now.

I'm starting to wonder if the best response by the US is just total indifference to whether or not North Korea has nukes while re-affirming that if they attack our allies, we'll defend them vigorously and wipe out Kim Jong Un.

Like, what's the end game of an American indifference strategy? KJU builds up a nuclear arsenal and holds Tokyo or Seoul hostage for a seat at the world table and economic/financial rewards? So if the rest of the world tells him to pound sand, what's he going to do? Attack Seoul or Tokyo? Even China wouldn't consider defending him if he did that, and he'd guarantee his demise and the destruction of his country.

So then it comes down to whether or not you think he's actually insane, and if he is, what's the benefit vs. cost of taking action now as opposed to waiting?