North Korea
- Thread starter terley
- Start date
just a minor issue of a few million people in Seoul within range of thousands of NK conventional rockets and artillery guns all under cover in the mountains, even the US doesn't have the resources to destroy all of those in one piece and it wouldn't take them long to wipe out a whole load of South Korean civilians
Sure militarily the west could wipe the floor with NK, their logistics, their comms could be destroyed rapidly - you'd be left with large parts of their army cut off and with no supplies and no new orders and facing constant bombardment as the US + allies would have air superiority from the start. We've seen it already in Iraq, the conventional Iraqi army collapsed incredibly quickly - the long term issue came from militia groups both those loyal to the old regime and those funded by other players (such as Iran).
But it would mean a huge loss of human life , there is also the risk that China or Russia send troops into parts of NK to protect their borders and to block further advances/lead to a new standoff and potentially all sorts of risks there
Certainly would be a worry there as well Russia would attempt to frustrate efforts so as to tie the US down in one theatre with a relatively token effort while giving them freer reign to do things elsewhere like Ukraine which the US would have to put on a much lower priority.
Quite a bit of worry at the moment that Russia might try to use subterfuge so as to engineer the solidifying of land corridors around Kaliningrad and Donetsk/Crimea.
Because they actually have WMD making it worrisome for any invaders. Hence the reason NK at hellbent on making something to reach the US. It's pretty much the main reason the US hasn't invaded NK. "MAD" works, and seriously frustrates the US (and others) when it's used against them.
Does anyone here think that America is overreacting?
Whatever NK do - they can't hurt the US without being deleted, so part of me wishes the US would just chill out and sit a bit behind it's arsenal - nobody is going to hurt it or it's allies.
Or is a nuclear armed NK just too dangerous to live with, and they simply have to be stopped?
Whatever NK do - they can't hurt the US without being deleted, so part of me wishes the US would just chill out and sit a bit behind it's arsenal - nobody is going to hurt it or it's allies.
Or is a nuclear armed NK just too dangerous to live with, and they simply have to be stopped?
Problem is the unpredictability - no one knows for sure what they will do.
Even at the level of a country being isolated and somewhat closed off tends to warp things a bit - their mentality seems to be a few decades behind the rest of the world on some things like the use of WMDs.
Even at the level of a country being isolated and somewhat closed off tends to warp things a bit - their mentality seems to be a few decades behind the rest of the world on some things like the use of WMDs.
This whole thing seems like a bit of a farce to me. I don't think the US will do anything unless North Korea tried something really extreme, and in that event the US could disable the entire country quickly without needing to use any nuclear weapons.
It all just seems... off, like it's some sort of weird joke.
It all just seems... off, like it's some sort of weird joke.
If they still launch those missiles over Guam like they plan to, that will almost certainly trigger a US attack. There is no way the US won't respond to someone lobbing missiles in their direction.
Kim is deluded. He will be thinking the US can't touch him and that NK really is a world power.
Kim is deluded. He will be thinking the US can't touch him and that NK really is a world power.
Yeah the whole thing seems farcical on many levels. The modern day US doesn't seem to know quite what to do when they can't talk or intimidate their way out of a situation with an opponent who isn't a 100% easy target.
No oil or resources to steal
.They still couldn't "disable" the country quickly enough to be sure of preventing them launching a missile. In that kind of scenario, NK would have nothing left to lose and would likely chuck a few nukes at South Korea simply out of spite and before they were obliterated.
The real threat here is that they'll succeed in miniaturising the warheads to the point they can be installed on submarine-based missiles, a la Trident. At this point they'll have the same nuclear deterrent we do, the whole principle of which is that, even if the entire country is obliterated, the subs would still be able to retaliate.
They need some pretty significant work on both the missiles and the submarines before they'd have an effective deterrent along the lines of what we have - nothing NK has sub wise is remotely close to our former Resolution class never mind the Vanguard class subs.
Soldato
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Such a nice friendly world we live in
not really, the nukes aren't an issue at the moment (in terms of them being actually used) but could be rather soon, the bigger issue is simply the conventional artillery and the proximity to big population centres in South Korea and the massive loss of life that would inevitably result from any conflict with the north
And that is what people were saying about their ICBM program only a few years ago...
I'm not given to underestimating them and they are certainly trying but logistically it is a whole different ballgame even to developing a nuclear capable ICBM. None the less it isn't well suited to diesel/electric propulsion in this day and age when you can need to stay submerged and mobile for significant periods of time.
AFAIK Iran for the most part has voluntarily suspended their nuclear weapons R&D - it seems they've been fairly crucial in NK getting to the level of missile tech they currently have however - without a certain amount of tech sharing between the two its unlikely NK would have got to where they are today. Part of the reason it has confounded many commentators who'd ignored/underestimated the links to Iran.