Oh, man.

Guy's lecturing ITT about Sino-Korean relations and drops a US is a "decaying empire" akin to 19th c. Britain nook?

Do you really expect anyone to take anything you say seriously when you equate US power today with British power in 1870?

Hint: technology (much of which we are talking about in this very thread!)

Source on "60 seconds"?

Source on how utterly frantic and damaged DPRK operational infrastructure would be after sustaining catastrophic losses?

Trump could remove much of the threat diplomatically by sending a direct message (Kim uses Twitter too, right?) to KJU saying "Look, all this bull**** is just for show, and we're not going to attack you unless you attack us." "Believe me."

...NOooo Trump! You nailed it in a single sentence you ****ing idiot! YOU HAD ONE JOB!

cuse,
You make some good points. I agree that there logistical hurdles to achieving this objective (although one could argue there were similar logistical hurdles to flawlessly executing the OBL takedown--the US intelligence community should not be underestimated).

The notion that "everyone agrees" it's "not possible" to execute this plan is based on flimsy evidence coming from biased sources with a vested interest in the plan "not working". Would you post a NRO article on how any Obama attempt to take out OBL w/o collateral damage is "not possible" and "everyone agrees", and then take it as gospel? It's the Atlantic--c'mon man.

There are way too many variables to be definitive that this wouldn't work. Unknown unknowns abound. That said, if the US took an extreme response it would likely be swift and powerful. Just because a tiny percentage of its weaponry wasn't destroyed in a first strike doesn't mean they could effectively deploy that weaponry while the country is caked in dust and ash.

I basically pulled 60 seconds out of my ass. Like we don't know what the standing orders are for their military, but I think "If you got em, shoot em," is a safe bet if they're under a full out assault by the US.

So if anyone with a button to push is alive and has an operational button once the attack is obvious, I expect them to push it.

If we launch a nuclear first strike the flash can be seen for ~100 miles (source is just the result Google quotes). The peninsula is ~600 miles long, so figure NK is ~300 and I'm guessing it's impossible to hit one site that isn't within 100 miles of another. Even if it's conventional, you're talking about 10 bombers, 24 F-22s and hundreds of cruise missiles... They won't need to communicate, infrastructure won't matter. There will be dozens of American aircraft and hundreds of missiles in their airspace.

Now, I have no idea how long a North Korean nuclear launch sequence is. Maybe it's a minute, maybe it's 10 minutes... But here's the problem. If you miss a target and have 10 minutes to try again, that's one thing. If you don't know one exists, you won't know it does until it launches. Now the question is not only what does it shoot at, but can you get to it before it fires again?

Plus, again, that whole scenario relied on moving tons of US forces to the area secretly. Good luck with that.

OK. The overwhelming majority of people with a clue about this stuff seem to hold that opinion. Former military talking heads, largely, and they tend to skew toward the right and toward using force.

Again, remember, NK has an insane number of regular conventional artillery pointed at Seoul. A former US military source with expertise on that theatre said they could hit every three square foot grid in the Seoul metropolitan area within hours, and the article says they have 8,000 big guns. We're talking millions dead. We cannot wipe that out in any first strike that is remotely plausible. Like, maybe if you pepper NK with nukes, but the fallout will kill tens of millions and you'd be committing nuclear genocide on the people of NK.

This doesn't remotely compare to OBL in any way, shape or form. The risk of failure is radically different, the number of moving parts is orders of magnitude different and the scale of the surprise attack is beyond orders of magnitude different.

I get that a lot of people want to make this really simple and boil it down to platitudes and commonly held layman's beliefs. America good. North Korea bad. America stronger. America wins. America wins fast. They can't hit us, they won't kill 10 million South Koreans and I can't imagine a world where Seattle is nuked.

But in reality, none of it is crystal clear and none of it is that simple. I do think that if you game it out, the odds of a nuclear attack on US soil and the odds of an attack on South Korea or Japan all go up if we strike first on North Korea. The odds of WW3 coming from this are almost non-existent unless we start it.

KJU is sabre rattling. Let him.

If KJU does bomb Guam, what's your move?

You'll see. We'll see. And so will Trump.

My guess is the same thing KJU does to Guam, only 2x - 10x harder. Guess #2 is the weakling takes no off-Twitter action at all.

(DISCLAIMER: This post is sarcasm.)

He won't. I put the odds of that at like 1%. I don't count shooting a missile 15 miles off their coast as bombing them, either. If he shoots a conventional missile and hits them, I'd coordinate with the Western world and China and tell China to either negotiate his transfer of power or we're retaliating. I'd announce in advance of any retaliation that it would be non-nuclear, proportional and only at military targets. Maybe radar installations to weaken their defense or maybe at nuclear delivery systems. Something significant but with every precaution to avoid nuclear escalation.

Also, any response would heavily weigh input from South Korea and Japan.

Also, and perhaps more important than any retaliatory strike, I'd position enough of our navy off their coast to attack at a moment's notice, forward deploy troops, etc.

There are plenty of responses that don't involve nukes and don't invite WW3 or a nuclear response.

But again, KJU is not dumb enough to attack Guam imo, unless we're all missing something strategic about Guam as I mentioned before.

ISIS would obviously smuggle the weapon into the US once purchased. You really think China would just let us destroy NK because we told them NK sold the nuke to ISIS? They would say the same thing they are saying now: you attack NK and we join their side against you.

I think China will eventually handle the North Korea issue. They have to. They cant go to war with the United States. It makes no sense for anyone.

It seems you don't know what you think.

A slight problem is that, according to North Korean media, Kim thinks the American B-1Bs, flying practice sorties from Guam over South Korea, are 'strategic nuclear bombers', which they haven't been for 20-odd years. Had the wiring taken out and so on under the START agreement with the Russians. (This is why they carry the targeting pod in that odd position under the nose. The Russians wouldn't give permission to put it on one of the old wing hardpoints, which have to remain de-activated.) But it is probably tricky to tell Kim he's wrong about anything, not that it's much easier with Trump.

Still, Guam is sovereign American soil so he can't attack it or China will be none too pleased with him. Even plunking unarmed missiles into the sea off Guam would be so provocative he's more likely to just talk about doing it.

Trumpkins say yes. They are heartless simpletons w/out a grasp on what is happening outside of their towns. That's how we got into this mess in the first place.

Pretty good response by cuse to this.

Unfortunately, our President's attitude on multilateralism is known.

WGAF about neutralizing their nukes in a first strike?

How does the US plan to deal with the inevitable barrage of artillery fire that would level Seoul, or the release of VX / Serin gas in major population centers? Does that impact you're calculus?

I didn't even begin to get into the biological weapons... That too.

Also, for the Trump supporters willing to risk those cities and those lives, how about a global recession and a market collapse? Are you willing to risk that?

How about your 2018 Olympics? Are you willing to risk those? No biathalon! And that's a sport that involves guns. Trump is coming for your gun sports.

Stop asking trumpkins if they're willing to risk anything outside of themselves and maybe their families. The answer is they don't care.

I don't know, I thought money and watching people in uniforms with the US flag on them shoot stuff on TV might create some internal conflict over North Korea.

This is yet another example of the, "all you gotta do is _________" mentality that these people are infected with. Doesn't matter how complex or nuanced an issue is, or what the human impact the solution might be, there's always a simple and quick answer.

Oooh I love the fill in the blank game. Give me "repeal & replace President Trump" for stopping 75% of the current problems, Alex.

Wishful thinking is not actually a valid strategy.

Consider the parallel: the US has committed to defend Taiwan against a Chinese attack. We are willing to engage in WW3 to defend one province of China (US officially subscribes to one China) from another province of China. Does that make any sense? Whether it does or not, the US has repeated it many times and China would be crazy to cross that line and test the US. The statements provide the justification even when the underlying issue is weak.

China committing to defend NK against the US has a lot more logic than the US defending China. China has made statements committing themselves. If China had said nothing then the calculation would be different, but the statements push to war. The US would be crazy to cross the line and test China.

Also we've been down this road before. A nuclear US fought north of the 38th and when they got close to China, the Chinese sent an army (secretly!) into the middle of US forces. China risked WW3 to defend NK in 1950!

That was a very different China to the modern day China.

Good post. I think I agree with this approach, but it's hard to anticipate whether China/Japan/SK will comply with those requests.

Is there a list of powerful current US allies that would back us without question in this scenario? Presumably, UK/France/Germany all on board.

Obviously. But the nukes are still far more harmful and much more of a threat to global stability than the alternative weapons' systems.

If the US receives actionable intelligence that confirms Kim has authorized the use of force on any US territory, and less restrictive options are unlikely to neutralize the imminent threat, then extreme force may be warranted. In that case, Seoul may be in trouble (either way, really--if Kim attacks the US, he is going to empty the clip on SK probably, too).

I could be wrong, but this degree of saberrattling seems unprecedented from NK, not to mention their ability to inflict catastrophic harm is obviously unprecedented.


Question for the thread: If your entire extended family/loved ones/pets/friends/etc. could be saved, but 1,000 South Koreans would die, who are you choosing to protect?