PB

PB

That's what I meant by retaliate. I don't expect Obama to use a nuke first.

...nuclear weapons at their disposal, if they used nuclear weapons. US nuclear weapons != North Korean nuclear weapons. I'm not convinced any nuclear response from the US would come from a B-2, but if it did, it appears it would be using variable-yield, variable-penetration B83 nuclear weapons.

We're not going to do a Tzar Bomba over Pyongyang.

PB

A nuke is used, let alone several, all kinds of bets are off...and you might even see third powers cough China cough, get involved and really go to town n their client state.

Could we end in a hot war, rather resumption of hostilities, yes. Exerts agree it s possible with a series of miscalculations. Unlike prevailing ideas the US is not rushing to war.

...going to be whether the nuke over Pyongyang came from China, the United States or (long shot) Russia. But the Chinese have not been having this shit for about two months now and if Kim Jong-un is crazed enough to launch a nuke into Seoul, there's nothing really stopping him from turning the rockets on the Chinese. Chinese know this, too.

Just my opinion.

PB

Yes, we can tell where nucleotides came from. The question is, will they tell us.

PB

They got enough troubles.

...Iran is the new North Korea. But I agree, right off the bat they'll be churchmice.

I'm callin' it ahead of time!

PB

Through nucleotide analysis. Why clam something you did not do.

...retaliatory nuclear strike on North Korea, in the eventuality that there is such a strike and retaliation, will notify major world powers as they're doing it so as not, ya know, to get anybody too ruffled about it. I don't think the perpetration of a retaliatory strike against North Korea would be any kind of mystery. (IMO)

PB

They could decide that NK isn't worth their trouble.

That includes the North Koreans.

We would not respond with a nuclear weapon to a third rate nuclear power. They have what five or six nuclear weapons? The world gets upset when they test, but it eats up a weapon every time they do.

If they were stupid enough to attempt to kill 100,000+ people, we would be able to use conventional weapons systems and eliminate any possibility of military action, ever again. There are of course elements of the defense industry that would love to demonstrate a nuclear weapon deployment as we haven't tested anything of the sort in ages outside of a computer model. But the rest of the sane world wouldn't have it.

They would also have no safe haven. The Chinese and Russians have both made statements/moves to show they would not protect/defend North Korean if North Korea were the aggressor.

with 100,000 troops, it wouldn't take long, loosing a measly 200,000 along the way for dear leader, China would side with NK in a moment to keep the US and the rest of the peninsula quiet. We could do nothing unless we want to be in another 12 year war or have China threatening us with real nukes. NK owns the South and we are out of the fight. NK would still have another 700,000 troops waiting at home. Grandiose thoughts of power and retaliation are for gamers.

They desperately need foreign markets for their production. And we're #1. All this crap about them owning so much of our debt, but they need us more than we need them.

I think China would make it abundantly clear that North Korea should stay home.

South Korea is a major customer of China's labor and resource markets as well. Samsung, Kia, LG, etc. China needs South Korea more than it needs North Korea.

If China were to permit North Korea to do anything at all, China would have hundreds of thousands of newly unemployed factory workers in the streets as Samsung/Apple/and the like pulled out. And China has enough trouble with their internal markets to handle that kind of an uproar.

the balance of power has shifted so much that NK is not going to be able to invade SK. They have no gas, no food, no spare parts and an antiquated military. They haven't conducted meaningful military training in a very long time. They have a powerful artillery that will kill a lot of SK civilians but that is about it.

Nukes are old-style mass devastation type weapons. Like if you want to carpet bomb a city, but all at once with just one bomb. They'd make a huge mess of a small country, and the many near neighbors wouldn't thank us for that.

For better or worse, if you have decent intelligence and decent targeting (both of which we have), you can do a lot more with a lot less.

First, nukes would wipe out far too many innocent civilians who had nothing to do with a decision by their leaders to use a nuke. It leaves a wide area radioactive and uninhabitable. It would be just a further humanitarian disaster for the North Korean people. That the US would be responsible for mitigating.

Second, the US can easily use a first strike by DPRK to justify flying in our bombers and wiping out all of their missile sites with our precision weapons. Eisenhower didn't have this option in 1945. We didn't have GPS-guided weapons. We do now. There is absolutely no need for the US to level cities to effect an end to hostilities should North Korea be so foolish.

...facilities which would be command and control centers for potentially launching more North Korean nukes (in such a hypothetical as we're discussing). The U.S. (or anyone, really, wishing to stop potential further North Korean nuclear launches) would want to sever that system as quickly and completely as possible and, with a penetrating nuclear weapon such as the B-2 has been designed to carry, it could be an attractive option.

But not as an air burst weapon. As a deep penetration for underground facilities.

There's like 50 million South Koreans and 25 million of them are in Seoul and surrounding areas.

PB

I fully expect to wake up one morning to news in the next few days that NK has attacked SK.

Because China wouldn't leave anything of the Kim regime to retaliate against.

Our friendship with S. Korea goes back a long ways. As an American airman, I had many friendships with Korean nationals who worked on base. They were solid, good people who valued their democratic government. They have excelled and been exemplary allies and trade partners and built a strong economy for themselves. In my own opinion, I would retaliate with a nuclear response if they even attempted to strike S. Korean cities or Seoul itself with a nuke.

These are our friends and I expect our longtime defensive front will show it's greatest resolve in an actual attack from the North. That' why we have stayed these many years and built a mutual defense. We haven't done that for no reason. Now is the time to stand tall and show the strong bonds we share with S Korea.

Presumably they would be targeted. I'm very anti-war, but I would have no problem with Obama unleashing nukes on North Korea if they struck first with a nuke against South Korea.

That's only if South Korea was nuked first. Also, South Korea did try to acquire nukes in the past, but the US talked them out of it. It's better they don't have nukes and stay under the US nuclear umbrella.

The amount of archaic North Korean artillery so close to Seoul makes going nuclear unlikely. North Korea can cause enormous damage and kill AT LEAST hundreds of thousands of South Koreans within minutes using even its outdated conventional weaponry. In an all out war of course North Korea will lose but at the cost of millions of lives in both North and South Korea. Millions of refugees flooding the already devastated South will completely wreck the Korean Peninsula and end for the foreseeable future South Korea as a viable economic entity. The question is -Are North Korean leaders authentically nuts - or are they pretending to be for the purpose of achieving some other agenda?

.. before someone else did, like probably China. From what I've read they're sick of the N.Korean antics too.

NK fires off a nuke, most likely Pyongyang will end up a glass landscape.

Sorry to be so blunt, but this one is facing reality.

It boggles the mind, doesn't it?

999,945 people's lives would be saved
but for a few collateral, except those collateral would also be killed by the fallout from NK's own nuke.

If only Harry Truman had drones.

yet people in 1980 hated Jimmy Carter and even democratic people voted for Ronald Reagan.

sometimes I don't get it.

Drones are indeed the most humane form of warfare, but its easier to rant and rage against President Obama.

BTW, why not title this OP, what should be done if NK's leader does something.

What would the drone do to save 999,945 people's lives? Take out the North Korean leader?

Even the bunker buster scenario is completely unrealistic given our intelligence capabilities in NK (zero or nearly zero).

It was about retaliatory mass murder. You really want to come down on the side of that?

Point being, if your kid does something bad, do you use an effective level of discipline, or cut off his arm?

Care to explain what nukes would accomplish that conventional retaliation couldn't?

You might want to check out my #52 or the Magistrates #54.

See my reply to your #52.

Additionally have you ever even had positive control of nuclear weapons before?

or SSBN captain, the answer to

The SSBN Captain and other officers have minimal technical knowledge of the strategic weapons systems and lack the ability to even launch them on their own. Three different ratings have the knowledge and technical skills and ability to launch with or without the CO’s or Officers involvement. The enlisted have the knowledge and ability to bypass all the key’s and other safety’s to launch if they so desired and yes the enlisted not the officers have the ability to retarget the missiles if they so choose. If the right people decided to do an independent launch they could and nobody could stop them. The launch orders/codes are a joke any way, but it does create a procedure to make killing millions legal so to speak.

The first day of Strategic Weapons Systems training for CO’s , XO’s, Weapons and Nav Officers they are told that they will not and cannot be trained on the technical aspects of the weapons system, they have to trust the enlisted on all technical aspects of the system, period. They are trained on their script they have to read during a launch and given enough technical knowledge on the system to be dangerous, nothing more. The CO, XO and other officers are trained by, you guessed it, mainly enlisted and yes I was one of their instructors in the school house for a few years.

As for the POTUS…well they too are just an actor playing a role. The POTUS cannot roll out of the rack, turn to the person with the football and on a whim decide to nuke someone, it does not work that way safe guards are in place to make sure that does not happen either.

The only real safe guard is the people involved and trusting the people from actually launching on a whim.

Oh yeah for the record, yes I would have launched if so ordered.

If you want to know more PM me.

were on a boomer

Because I think there are opinions that Obama wouldn't "go there." I wanted to see how much of that was out there.

Lil' Kim is not crazy. Every move is calculated to leverage aid and gain more control over his own people. If you look at it that way, he has nothing to lose by threatening, and everything to lose by actually acting upon his threats. He'll escalate and provoke us into a first strike as much as he can get away with, but the best diplomacy is to ignore him.

His only winning path would be to provoke a first strike and gain the sympathy & support of China. He knows he's losing that - that's why he's ramping up the rhetoric.

North Korea may be many things, but they are not suicidal.

While I could see them launching some more conventional attacks like they have already by attacking that SK boat and shelling some islands, they don't want to open Pandora's box, assuming they even had the capability to deliver said nukes to begin with, which is doubtful.

Are you people nuts?

We truly are fucked.

This came from him

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022587385

...that thinks it's okay to use nukes AT ALL, is fucking nuts, regardless of their nationality or political lean. ALL of them. PERIOD. Korean, American, Democrat, Republican, Teabagger, Socialist. ALL of them.

And no, I have no fucking interest in following your propaganda link.

The way I see it, once somebody drops a nuke it is very important to stay calm lest a chain reaction of retaliation lead to every country firing off their missiles. So if Obama were to use a nuke it would mean one of two possibilities.

1) Instant retaliation that has been done despite the danger of setting off everyone's hair-trigger response and bringing about Armageddon.

or the other possibility

2) A delayed response in which the entire nuclear club is informed that nuclear forces will be used and that they should be prepared for it and not take the exchange as an indicator that the world is ending and it's time to fire off their weapons. Such a response would be better from a world safety perspective but comes across as an extremely cold-blooded infliction of suffering.


Neither of these alternatives seems quite sane.

awfully good shelter very quickly. He and his underlings would be instant targets. We have all that is needed to accomplish that goal without the need for nuclear devices.

....putting Japan squarely in the path of any nuclear fallout. Given the sensitivities on the nuclear issue, I doubt seriously that we would use nukes that would place Japan in danger.

One that's just Kim's size.

My hope is that the President would find a way not to use a nuclear weapon in response and yet still send the necessary message, but it sets a dangerous precedent and not just for the US.

If it is known that a rogue state with a few low yield nuclear weapons can get away with using nuclear weapons against big nuclear powers or their allies simply because the rogue state is a very minor nuclear power, then the chances that something like that will happen again become much greater. And let's be realistic, the chance that the world will again see hostile use of nuclear weapons is much higher in terms of minor power/small state use than that by Russia or China or the US against someone else or each other. So this is something we really need to think about.

I've noticed that many of the people saying how horrible it would be for us to respond with WMD are also some of those saying that even if Iran went nuclear, it wouldn't be a big deal because they would know if they used one against us or our allies, they would be annihilated. Well, no they wouldn't, not if we would react to the use of nukes by North Korea by not responding in kind.

The big fear of using a nuclear weapon is that said use will result in a nuclear weapon being used against you. If we remove even some of that fear, what message does that send and what are the dangers of that message?

So this would be a really difficult issue. I voted other. I think the President would have to get on the phone with Moscow and Beijing and the three countries would have to talk out the response. I would bet in that discussion that Putin and Xi Jinping would advise and/or support a retaliatory strike for the reasons I have outlined.

We are fully capable of destroying NK's military without nuking anything. The South Koreans would gladly use this opportunity to re-unify the country. The mop-up would be pretty quick, once the hardware was destroyed. A half-decent humanitarian program would ...probably... limit insurgency, given the supposed conditions in NK.

The Kims and their generals would be killed, probably in really disturbing ways. International outcry would be near zero because they would have been an aggressive nuclear power, the first in 60 years.

None of this is letting the regime "Get away with" anything, and none of it requires nuking anything. Certainly nuking cities would accomplish absolutely nothing. The bunker buster theory put forth by some in this thread is flawed as it a) requires us to have intelligence inside the NK military, which I find doubtful, and b) still assumes there are no alternatives to nuclear bunker busters.

No one is arguing whether we can destroy or deal a terrific blow to North Korea with conventional weapons.

The question is, what message are we sending to the next country that would think about doing something like this. Current nuclear weapons doctrine from all nuclear power states call for the use of nuclear weapons in response to nuclear weapons being used against them or their allies. 100%, no exceptions, Russia, China, the UK, India, Pakistan, etc.

Those doctrines exist for a reason, and a big part of those reasons has to do with deterrence. Conventional bombings, invasions, etc., does not carry the same fear factor as a retaliatory strike with a nuclear weapon. You can hole yourself up in a basement and reasonably expect to survive any conventional attack. The same cannot be said for nuclear.

The entirety of the message is "you will be destroyed".

The means are irrelevant. If we can do this without massive innocent casualties and environmental damage, so much the better.


I am a dictator in a nuclear armed state. I watch the US, Japan, ROK, maybe even China pile on to DPRK with conventional weapons, after DPRK uses nukes. Well, all the kims are dead and their legacy is now burnt dog turd... BUT HE DIDN'T GET NUKED! Wow, I wanna try it!

You are saying the message I should take from this is "I can use nukes and get away with it"?? In what universe?


If the job could NOT be accomplished with nukes, then yeah, sure. But only then. The doctrine of mutually assured destruction exists only to ensure destruction, not because nukes are magical or something.

A dictator, and for that matter, anyone else is not nearly as afraid from a 1000 plane raid on their city using conventional weapons as 1 plane or 1 missile with a nuclear weapon.

You keep saying you think "destroyed is destroyed". No, it isn't. Even lots of conventional explosions have a fairly localized effect. It requires a massive tonnage to generate effects similar to what happened in Dresden or the like.

Nuclear weapons have several effects that even lots of conventional bombs do not have. Even if we consider a small nuke which is what the Hiroshima and Nagasaki weapons (16kt to 20kt) are considered. You have

1. An Electromagnetic pulse which would likely destroy many semi-conductor based electronics within several miles of the targeted city

2. Thermal radiation would cause everyone within 1 mile of the blast not in a reinforced building to be incinerated, everyone within 1.5 miles of the blast to get 3rd degree burns, everyone within 2 miles of the blast would get 2nd degree burns, and everyone within 2.5 miles to get 1st degree burns

3. Ionizing radiation with a lethal dose to anyone within 1 mile of the blast and acute radiation sickness out to 1.5-2 miles

4. Blast damage from overpressure that would destroy most buildings and kill most people within 2-5 miles from the blast and even cause moderate damage to buildings 5-10 miles out.

Again, that is from a relatively tiny yield weapon. If we dial that up to the smallest nuclear weapons that would likely be used in such a scenario, which are in the 50kt range and you can double or triple those mile ranges above.

People who know these things do not have the same fear of a large scale conventional attack.

http://www.carloslabs.com/node/20

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions

End result either way: war lost, regime lost, war crimes trial and execution. I don't think Dear Leader gives a shit about anything beyond those consequences. Why should he care if electronics have been knocked out and shit burned down or whatever?

[quote]1. An Electromagnetic pulse which would likely destroy many semi-conductor based electronics within several miles of the targeted city[/quote]

[quote]2. Thermal radiation would cause everyone within 1 mile of the blast not in a reinforced building to be incinerated, everyone within 1.5 miles of the blast to get 3rd degree burns, everyone within 2 miles of the blast would get 2nd degree burns, and everyone within 2.5 miles to get 1st degree burns[/quote]

[quote]3. Ionizing radiation with a lethal dose to anyone within 1 mile of the blast and acute radiation sickness out to 1.5-2 miles[/quote]

[quote]4. Blast damage from overpressure that would destroy most buildings and kill most people within 2-5 miles from the blast and even cause moderate damage to buildings 5-10 miles out.
[/quote]

if they were to ever use a nuke on So. Korea , it would be very hard to predict how things would shake quickly after that. A nuke exploding anywhere puts all countries with nuclear capabilities on alert. Deflating the situation could be difficult.

There are rules to this sort of thing, and they are of the firmest and most binding sort --- unwritten rules.

The most basic is that nuclear weapons are not to be used against states that do not possess them.

Next up from this is that use of nuclear weapons is deterred by the certain prospect that if you use nuclear weapons you can count on their being used against you.

The whole system breaks down if the threat is not followed through....

"Law is made of pen and ink, custom of old oak and iron."

...the leadership". That could include a nuclear response, but wouldn't inevitably mean that, I think. It would depend on how good the US and other powers think their intelligence is - do they know exactly where and how many nuclear warheads NK has? How precisely do they know where Kim and the powerful generals are, and how strong are the reinforcements? Something they should know well, but I don't, is where the artillery that can cause heavy damage to Seoul is. Could one nuclear weapon be used against one section without too much civilian loss of life pour encourager les autres to surrender? Would heavy conventional attacks on the artillery be enough to stop it/make the rest surrender?

The thing is, there is no 'custom' with nuclear weapons. The only time they've ever been used was against a state that didn't possess them. The assumptions made in the cold war about how the USSR, or China, would behave with nuclear weapons don't automatically hold with NK too.

NK does not have a reliable, deliverable nuclear device.

Come on, people! NK is a comedy.

The first offensive move against SK would result in immediate annihalation.

trained on their military installations than is necessary to completely wipe out the entire N. Korean government (which is really just the military). Nukes would harm the innocent civilians. N. Korea's targeting systems are pathetic at best. Even if N. Korea did use a nuke, I think we'd stick with conventional just because it is sufficient to do the job without long-lasting consequences.

Other than a rogue unknown attack I don't believe any nation will use nukes again. North Korea or America...Iran or Israel...nor China and Russia.

Obama does all kinds of things that I find inappropriate, though, so who knows?

Although I would replace "called for" with "absolutely necessary, tactically".

There are few military or economic targets in North Korea large or significant enough for a nuclear weapon to be appropriate, and there's no point destroying their population centers. The only rational uses I can think of are destroying massed infantry before or as they are crossing into South Korea, or destroying major military or economic targets in any state that directly sponsors aggression by North Korea.

This is all academic, though. North Korea will not invade anybody, and Kim Jong Un would likely be assassinated by another General if he attempted to start a war. The top echelons of the NK government and military know how outmatched they are, and that the most destructive thing North Korea can do is lose. The refugee problem they'd present for South Korea and China would be incomprehensible.

PB

Any President would in the right circumstances.

The little dictator and make peace with the people of NK.

South Korea might be their first target. The second Japan. The third, who knows when dealing with a mad man.
An end would need to be put to it at some point in time.
If they had only 5 weapons and they were crazy enough to use the first one, what says they wouldn't continue to fire of the other 4 until conventional warfare took them down.
After the first shot is fired, bringing it to a quick though unmerciful end may be the best we could hope for.

If NK were to begin a war, they'd understand before the first shot was fired that they were going to lose, badly, and that the entire Korean peninsula would be even more badly scarred. The use of nuclear weapons by the USA wouldn't have a significantly different effect than conventional weapons, and probably wouldn't even alter NK's military strategy if they had elected to use their own. Considering the state of North Korean air defense, any objective that could be accomplished with nuclear weapons could be accomplished as effectively and less dangerously with conventional ones. Nuclear weapons are very powerful, but they come with risks and benefits that can make them a remarkably poor tool for the job. I think that's the case in Korea, by virtue of their infrastructure, location, and global opinion.

Let us say that before North Korea fired the first shot they had only five functional and launch-able nukes.
As you remember Don Rumsfeld promised us that the Iraq war would last a mere six weeks.
That would be only slightly longer than the six weeks required to end the Vietnam war.

Given four remaining functional and launch-able nukes, how much damage would we be willing to accept from a country who has proven to have no hesitation using nukes in the six weeks it took to end the first Korean war?

Would it matter what North Korea's targets were?
Would it matter if North Korea actually hit anything they were aiming at?

Like software development, war tends to drag on a bit longer than the 'planners' expected.

Wish there was a :irony: tag right about now.

For future deterrence against nuclear aggression. Simple as that.

nukular war doesn't benefit the interests of the 1%.

It would save a lot of tree bark from being eaten.

Then the US attacks with conventional weapons. Let's say 3 days later NK uses another nuke at the US base in SK. Three days later another. If the President doesn't use nukes back by this point, his approval rating would be worse than even Bush's in 2008. Probably a lot worse.