If a North Korean nuclear attack happened

[Nebuchadnezzar]

The United States calls China and says, "Hey man what's up? I've got a little problem and I would really appreciate it if you could take care of it for me. There's this little guy in North Korea, yeah, I need you to take him out in the next 7 days. If not, I'm going to have to do it and put in my own puppet government. Please be a dear and take care of this little problem for me, thank you."

After that phone call, the United States calls South Korea and says, "Hey y'all, we share your little problem and maybe if you could send one of your guys over here, we can develop a plan of attack. I'm thinking we open a hole about 5 miles wide on the eastern most part of The North's side of the DMZ. This will allow your military to push north past Pyongyang and swing around to the west cutting off any kind of retreat."

The the United States says, "We are hoping China will take care of it and we gave them 7 days but if they don't, you do what I said before and we will destroy North Koreas coastal defenses, land our troops and push east to Pyongyang. Once we meet up north of the North's capital, we'll take the city together and we'll allow you to march in first taking the credt."

Sound good?

[Millhouse]

Food for thought question:

Let's say NK does not launch a nuke at us. But they keep up the rhetoric of destroying us with nukes and Trump gives the ok to launch a nuke strike on them first.

Do you think the generals would go through with it? Or would they disobey a direct order from the President and refuse to do so?

[Bengalzona]

(08-08-2017, 06:09 PM)Millhouse Wrote: Food for thought question:

Let's say NK does not launch a nuke at us. But they keep up the rhetoric of destroying us with nukes and Trump gives the ok to launch a nuke strike on them first.

Do you think the generals would go through with it? Or would they disobey a direct order from the President and refuse to do so?

Having met some brother Air Force officers who did duty in the silos, I can tell you without a single doubt: when the launch order is sent, they will launch.

[Bengalzona]

(08-08-2017, 02:16 PM)Au165 Wrote: ...and now we are here.

"North Korea has taken a major step forward in realizing its goal of becoming a nuclear power, according to a Washington Post report on a confidential US intelligence assessment that concludes Pyongyang has developed a nuclear warhead capable of fitting inside its missiles. "

As I said standing around doing nothing is not an option anymore. We need to push China to stand down through any means necessary, including flat our bribery. Russia won't back them by themselves, so with China agreeing to stay on the sidelines we can take care of this. I disagree that a coordinated strike can't incapacitate their nuclear capabilities preemptively. The country is basically the size of Alabama, we can take out enough known and suspected instillation to limit the possibilities and trust that anything they have left can't reach us, or won't make it pass our missile defense systems.

We can't even find a meth house in the backwoods in Alabama.

[Au165]

(08-08-2017, 06:38 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: We can't even find a meth house in the backwoods in Alabama.

A facility required to house and launch an ICBM is slightly larger...

[Matt_Crimson]

(08-08-2017, 02:16 PM)Au165 Wrote: ...and now we are here.

"North Korea has taken a major step forward in realizing its goal of becoming a nuclear power, according to a Washington Post report on a confidential US intelligence assessment that concludes Pyongyang has developed a nuclear warhead capable of fitting inside its missiles. "

As I said standing around doing nothing is not an option anymore. We need to push China to stand down through any means necessary, including flat our bribery. Russia won't back them by themselves, so with China agreeing to stay on the sidelines we can take care of this. I disagree that a coordinated strike can't incapacitate their nuclear capabilities preemptively. The country is basically the size of Alabama, we can take out enough known and suspected instillation to limit the possibilities and trust that anything they have left can't reach us, or won't make it pass our missile defense systems.

And now this was just reported.

Quote:North Korea seriously considering strike on Guam: Reports, citing state media

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/08/north-korea-seriously-considering-strike-on-guam-reports-citing-state-media.html

North Korea said on Wednesday it is "carefully examining" a plan to strike the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam with missiles, just hours after U.S. President Donald Trump told the North that any threat to the United States would be met with "fire and fury".
A spokesman for the Korean People's Army, in a statement carried by the North's state-run KCNA news agency, said the strike plan will be "put into practice in a multi-current and consecutive way any moment" once leader Kim Jong Un makes a decision.
In another statement citing a different military spokesman, North Korea also said it could carry out a pre-emptive operation if the United States showed signs of provocation.

Earlier Pyongyang said it was ready to give Washington a "severe lesson" with its strategic nuclear force in response to any U.S. military action.

Washington has warned it is ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear programs but that it prefers global diplomatic action, including sanctions.

The consequences of any U.S. strike would potentially be catastrophic not only for North Koreans but also South Korea, Japan and the thousands of U.S. military personnel within range of any North Korean retaliatory strikes. "North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen," Trump told reporters at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Saturday over its continued missile tests, that could slash the reclusive country's $3 billion annual export revenue by a third. North Korea has made no secret of plans to develop a nuclear-tipped missile able to strike the United States and has ignored international calls to halt its nuclear and missile programs. It says its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are a legitimate means of defense against perceived U.S. hostility. It has long accused the United States and South Korea of escalating tensions by conducting military drills. U.S. stocks closed slightly lower after Trumps comment, while a widely followed measure of stock market anxiety ended at its highest in nearly a month. The U.S. dollar index pared gains and the safe-haven yen strengthened against the U.S. currency.

Tensions rise

The United States has remained technically at war with North Korea since the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty. The past six decades have been punctuated by periodic rises in antagonism and rhetoric that have always stopped short of a resumption of active hostilities.

Tensions have risen since North Korea carried out two nuclear bomb tests last year and two ICBM tests last month.
The Trump administration's attempts to pressure North Korea into abandoning its nuclear and missile ambitions have so far gained little traction.
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has warned of an "effective and overwhelming" response against North Korea if it chose to use nuclear weapons but has said any military solution would be "tragic on an unbelievable scale."

The United States has 28,500 troops in South Korea to guard against the North Korean threat. Japan hosts around 54,000 U.S. military personnel, the U.S. Department of Defense says, and tens of thousands of Americans work in both countries.
Seoul is home to a population of roughly 10 million, within range of massed pre-targeted North Korean rockets and artillery, which would be impossible to destroy in a first U.S. strike.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, according to a confidential U.S. intelligence assessment.

But U.S. intelligence officials told Reuters that while North Korea has accelerated its efforts to design an ICBM, a miniaturized nuclear warhead, and a nosecone robust enough to survive reentry through the Earths atmosphere from space, there is no reliable evidence that it has mastered all three, much less tested and combined them into a weapon capable of hitting targets in the United States.

The bottom line is that its almost impossible, given the amount and reliability of available intelligence, to reach a high-confidence assessment of the Norths nuclear capabilities, a U.S. intelligence official said.

U.S. intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, also said there is no certainty about the number of nuclear warheads North Korea has assembled, with estimates ranging from 20 to as many as 60 and most experts leaning toward the lower end of that range.
North Korea's ICBM tests last month suggested it was making technical progress, Japan's annual Defence White Paper warned.
"It is conceivable that North Korea's nuclear weapons programme has already considerably advanced and it is possible that North Korea has already achieved the miniaturisation of nuclear weapons and has acquired nuclear warheads," it said.

War of words

On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held the door open for dialogue, saying Washington was willing to talk to Pyongyang if it halted its missile test launches. Still, he maintained the pressure, urging Thailand on Tuesday for more action against Pyongyang.
Former U.S. diplomat Douglas Paal, now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank in Washington, said Trump should not get into a war of words with Pyongyang.

It strikes me as an amateurish reflection of a belief that we should give as we get rhetorically. That might be satisfying at one level, but it takes us down into the mud that we should let Pyongyang enjoy alone, said Paal, who served as a White House official under previous Republican administrations. South Korea reiterated further United Nations resolutions against Pyongyang could follow if it did not pull back.
"North Korea should realize if it doesn't stop its ... provocations, it will face even stronger pressure and sanctions," Defense Ministry spokesman Moon Sang-gyun told a news briefing. "We warn North Korea not to test or misunderstand the will of the South Korea-U.S. alliance."
Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon's No. 1 weapons supplier, said on Tuesday its customers are increasingly asking about missile defense 
"The level of dialogue ... is now at the prime minister and minister of defense level," Tim Cahill, the vice president of Lockheed's Air and Missile Defense business, told Reuters.

[Matt_Crimson]

Is it wrong for Trump to be threatening North Korea? Personally I don't think so. Was just watching CNN and they were reporting the breaking news of North Korea threatening to strike Guam because of Trumps war of words towards them and it seems as though people on the panel were acting like it's strange for Trump to be threatening North Korea when they've been threatening us for years and have never done anything. In other words Trump should just not respond to them.

The problem for me is that although North Korea has be threatening us for years, they haven't been able to threaten us with nuclear weapons for years. That is a reality for us now. Here's an interesting chart....




Am I the only one that finds what's shown here disturbing? According to this chart Kim Jong Un has tested more missiles than both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il combined and doubled. I don't see how we can just let them go nuclear and make threats towards us when they've clearly shown increasing destabilizing behavior.

[Bengalzona]

(08-08-2017, 06:59 PM)Au165 Wrote: A facility required to house and launch an ICBM is slightly larger...

An above-ground launch facility can be constructed rather quickly and under camouflage cover. It could take months to detect by satellites, if you detect it at all.

[*jason*]

(08-08-2017, 08:10 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: Is it wrong for Trump to be threatening North Korea? Personally I don't think so. Was just watching CNN and they were reporting the breaking news of North Korea threatening to strike Guam because of Trumps war of words towards them and it seems as though people on the panel were acting like it's strange for Trump to be threatening North Korea when they've been threatening us for years and have never done anything. In other words Trump should just not respond to them.

The problem for me is that although North Korea has be threatening us for years, they haven't been able to threaten us with nuclear weapons for years. That is a reality for us now. Here's an interesting chart....




Am I the only one that finds what's shown here disturbing? According to this chart Kim Jong Un has tested more missiles than both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il combined and doubled. I don't see how we can just let them go nuclear and make threats towards us when they've clearly shown increasing destabilizing behavior.

Yeah it's disturbing. The whole situation, not just the chart. These are two childish dbags fighting in the sandbox. We know very little about Kim, but we know Trump isn't really a thinking man. This kind of thing was my biggest concern when he was elected. He knows next to nothing about international relations, and is now engaging this other clown in a shit talking contest... And yes, he was wrong to respond in that manner. When you are the bigger man, you don't respond to some punk running his mouth with words. You ignore said punk, or you respond with action.

[Au165]

(08-08-2017, 08:15 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: An above-ground launch facility can be constructed rather quickly and under camouflage cover. It could take months to detect by satellites, if you detect it at all.

We have drones today that can shoot images from 20k feet that are as small as six inches at high definition. If we want to canvas a country the size of North Korea we can do it in days not months.

[Bengalzona]

(08-08-2017, 08:40 PM)Au165 Wrote: We have drones today that can shoot images from 20k feet that are as small as six inches at high definition. If we want to canvas a country the size of North Korea we can do it in days not months.

Not quite.

You know, the North Koreans do actually have an air force and air defense missile grid. While not as powerful and advanced as ours, they are more than capable of shooting down drones.

Also, violating a sovereign country's air space isn't done lightly.... particularly a volatile country looking for any reason to launch a nuclear weapon.

[Au165]

(08-08-2017, 08:52 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: Not quite.

You know, the North Koreans do actually have an air force and air defense missile grid. While not as powerful and advanced as ours, they are more than capable of shooting down drones.

Also, violating a sovereign country's air space isn't done lightly.... particularly a volatile country looking for any reason to launch a nuclear weapon.

The military currently has stealth drones. I'm not sure why you think we don't already fly spy missions over hostile air space. Being located so close to wright Pat most here probably know some people who are flying some of these missions already. We can get the information with some risks, but now is a time to take those risks.

We can literally turn your camera on on your smart phone and listen to you through the on star mic in your car. We have the ability to see what we want to see especially when we have a good idea where it is.

[Matt_Crimson]

(08-07-2017, 12:56 PM)Benton Wrote: I don't think anything in regard to NK can be attributed to anything Trump has done or not done. Going back 20 years, they threaten a nuclear attack on the US at least monthly. Hard to say anything in the last 6 months changes much the way the US reacts to NK.

As to the last, I would say if the US were nuked, they would have to respond with nukes. I don't think there's any diplomatic channel available after someone nukes you, it's an act of war. 

I guess my question is can we really respond with nukes? And at what point?


I think one of the dilemmas facing the US if North Korea decided to launch nukes towards us is we would obviously try to shoot them down, but with that response comes the possibility of starting a conflict with Russia if we are not able to alert them in time that the missiles we're firing are intended for North Korea and not Russia. It's apparently a Russian conspiracy that the US will use a "defensive strike" to attack Russia. If the North launched a nuke some experts say that we would not have the time to alert the Russians before firing off our own defensive barrage because of how time sensitive the entire situation would be.

[Bengalzona]

(08-08-2017, 09:05 PM)Au165 Wrote: The military currently has stealth drones. I'm not sure why you think we don't already fly spy missions over hostile air space. Being located so close to wright Pat most here probably know some people who are flying some of these missions already. We can get the information with some risks, but now is a time to take those risks.

We can literally turn your camera on on your smart phone and listen to you through the on star mic in your car. We have the ability to see what we want to see especially when we have a good idea where it is.

But we don't have a good idea where anything is in North Korea. And only a tiny percent of North Koreans have cell phones. Most are lucky if they have food.

Consider our intel on Iraqi "nucyular weapons of mass destruction". How accurate was that? And we actually had access to some human intell in Iraq. We have practically no human intell in North Korea. They are locked up "tighter than a d*** headband", as my DI used to say.

Our intelligence commuity can do some pretty amazing things. But they can't do everything. And like all of us, they do make mistakes and miss things.

[Au165]

(08-08-2017, 09:21 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: But we don't have a good idea where anything is in North Korea. And only a tiny percent of North Koreans have cell phones. Most are lucky if they have food.

Consider our intel on Iraqi "nucyular weapons of mass destruction". How accurate was that? And we actually had access to some human intell in Iraq. We have practically no human intell in North Korea. They are locked up "tighter than a d*** headband", as my DI used to say.

Our intelligence commuity can do some pretty amazing things. But they can't do everything. And like all of us, they do make mistakes and miss things.

My phone and on star examples weren't literal in this case but showing our capabilities today. Our ability to gather intelligence in the last 5 years has grown 100x from the Iraq war. I know contractors in various parts of the military and I can say with no hesitation if we want to see somewhere in North Korea we can , and we can have it high resolution within days maybe sooner depending on how well we know what it is we are looking for.

I'm sure your speaking from your experiences, I am only speaking from what I have been told by those who are involved in these kinds of things today. The reality either way though...this situation isn't good.

[Bengalzona]

(08-08-2017, 09:32 PM)Au165 Wrote: The reality either way though...this situation isn't good.

Definitely true.

[Dill]

(08-08-2017, 08:10 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: Is it wrong for Trump to be threatening North Korea? Personally I don't think so. Was just watching CNN and they were reporting the breaking news of North Korea threatening to strike Guam because of Trumps war of words towards them and it seems as though people on the panel were acting like it's strange for Trump to be threatening North Korea when they've been threatening us for years and have never done anything. In other words Trump should just not respond to them.

The problem for me is that although North Korea has be threatening us for years, they haven't been able to threaten us with nuclear weapons for years. That is a reality for us now. Here's an interesting chart....

Am I the only one that finds what's shown here disturbing? According to this chart Kim Jong Un has tested more missiles than both Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il combined and doubled. I don't see how we can just let them go nuclear and make threats towards us when they've clearly shown increasing destabilizing behavior.

This increase in activity is in part a response to the US invasion of Iraq, which made it clear that the only way to CERTAINLY prevent a US invasion is have nukes.

[Dill]

(08-08-2017, 09:32 PM)Au165 Wrote: My phone and on star examples weren't literal in this case but showing our capabilities today. Our ability to gather intelligence  in the last 5 years has grown 100x from the Iraq war. I know contractors in various parts of the military and I can say with no hesitation if we want to see somewhere in North Korea we can , and we can have it high resolution within days maybe sooner depending on how well we know what it is we are looking for.

I'm sure your speaking from your experiences, I am only speaking from what I have been told by those who are involved in these kinds of things today. The reality either way though...this situation isn't good.

I know contractors in the military who said with no hesitation that Iraq had WMDs.

This isn't a matter of just "seeing" what is on the ground.  If you live in a mountainous country with a paranoid xenophobic leader who is well aware of US geoint capabilities, where will your nukes be? 

Will you have a plan for what happens after a US first strike?  I believe you will.

[Belsnickel]

Has anyone mentioned, yet, that all of this is going on and there is no ambassador to South Korea nominated, or Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs nominated?

[GMDino]

(08-09-2017, 01:16 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Has anyone mentioned, yet, that all of this is going on and there is no ambassador to South Korea nominated, or Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs nominated?

Look, Trump is smart and has the best words.  He doesn't need people telling him what to do.  Or give him information over and over.  He'll consult with himself and then make the best decision that only he can make.



Literally that is what people voted for.