Looming north korean threat

[ArmedCorgi]

I agree with virtually all the above, but how much more of a cold war with NK can we have? China, sure.

Well, I suppose when they actually have nukes on top of missiles pointed at us just like the old soviet union and current Russian Federation has. Then the plan will be complete, lol. We lost a lot in terms of global control, purpose and posture by "winning" the cold war with the Soviets. Being the sole super power is boring to the complex and leaves our politicians with no distraction to keep peoples concerns off of domestic issues. The defense industry needs an enemy and if we don't naturally have one, it needs to be created or instigated. I'm not saying there isn't a real threat from NK or China or any other country or group, just that I believe these issues are delt with in ways which allows for profit and purpose rather than just being addressed promtly and permanently as they should be.

 

[holdover]

His response was about preemptive nuclear attack. I agree doing that against NK is an absolutely terrible idea at this point. If NK nukes anybody, the entire world knows a nuke begets a nuke. NK does that, they are going to be flattened inside of hours and we'll see how those minutemans really work.

I agree it's terrible, but explain that to the boys on the front line. That they are exceptable losses. Explain that to their wives.. That you waited until after their loved ones are dead knowing full well they had the means motive and opportunity and stated in advance of their intentions.

 

[holdover]

I'm referring to tactical nukes not the city killers

 

[Blimey]

http://nypost.com/2017/08/03/why-china-wants-north-korea-to-be-a-nuclear-threat/

My counter arguments:

with our Pacific forces crippled

It would hurt but the US military is widely distributed, and China surely wouldn't trade the US losing parts of hawaii over having its immediate neightbor a nuclear wasteland.

North Korea would not rely on a single missile and one lonely warhead, but would wait to attack until it possessed an arsenal it believed could ravage our capabilities and break our will at one blow.

The simple math though is that it takes more effort to build an ICBM than it does a missile to hit it. More effort, more money. I believe that China will have to stfu if it thinks we are not going to keep deploying in every increasing numbers intercept vehicles enough that we can somewhat confidently take out anything NK has. China won't like that, but that's the price they pay because NK is very threatening and nobody can expect the US not to keep deploying counter icbm missiles in huge numbers.

The North Koreans are confident that we lack the guts to use nukes even in response — they don’t understand us any better than we understand them.

Can the NKs be this dumb? I don't think they are stupid and this would be inexcusable stupidity to believe it.

there is likely some value to the article. I think we surely need to think that the assessment of China has been incorrect so far and perhaps they do want a nuclear NK. I still don't quite understand why they would, though.

 

[Blimey]

I agree it's terrible, but explain that to the boys on the front line. That they are exceptable losses. Explain that to their wives.. That you waited until after their loved ones are dead knowing full well they had the means motive and opportunity and stated in advance of their intentions.

That is how it is, though. Even in vietnam, korea, even with the russians in afghanistan, there have been many opportunities to save troop lives by using nukes on the enemy and nobody is doing it.

 

[Snappo]

His response was about preemptive nuclear attack. I agree doing that against NK is an absolutely terrible idea at this point. If NK nukes anybody, the entire world knows a nuke begets a nuke. NK does that, they are going to be flattened inside of hours and we'll see how those minutemans really work.

1) Why own something you will NEVER use? In fact, why own 7,200 of something you will NEVER use? The yearly cost of mechanical maintenance, personnel, land ownership for launch, etc. is astronomical. For example - the NTI is saying it cost $180 billion from 2010 to 2018 to maintain our nuclear weapons. Why not lose 90% of them and replace them with $160 billion worth of MOAB's and cruise missiles?
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Budget: An Overview | NTI

2) If you know you are never going to use them, AND the enemy knows you are never going to use them; do you really have any way whatsoever of deterring countries from owning them? Iran is obviously not afraid. North Korea is obviously not afraid. China is obviously not afraid. Israel told us to go fuck ourselves; so we bent over and handed them $3 billion a year in cash every year since they started building them in the 1960's. India and Pakistan aren't afraid. Al Qaida will be buying nukes from North Korea within a few years; as will ISIS. So clearly NOBODY on this planet is afraid that we have 7,200 nukes.

3) We bark loudly and have less than zero balls against an actual armed country. We can fuck up Taliban living in huts like nobody's business; but we are terrified of Iran to the point that Ovomit handed them $100 billion just to promise not to be mean to us. We built North Korea nuclear power plants and whatnot for the same reason. Then they took the technology we bought them and started making nukes. We are the laughing stock of the Earth; and with fair reason. Pick an enemy, melt an enemy, and maybe get a smattering of respect on the world stage for the first time since about 1945.

 

[Snappo]

http://nypost.com/2017/08/03/why-china-wants-north-korea-to-be-a-nuclear-threat/

If worse came to worst and North Korea detonated a nuclear warhead above Honolulu, the losses would include up to 44,000 US troops, as well as our vital bases ringing the city — beginning with Pearl Harbor.

Who would benefit?

Not North Korea. We’d level that mountainous country.

Certainly not us, with our Pacific forces crippled to a degree the Japanese couldn’t have hoped to achieve in 1941.

The sole winner would be China — not even a party to the conflict. And that is a cardinal reason why Beijing will not help us halt Pyongyang’s nuke and missile programs.

Washington has deluded itself into bipartisan groupthink yet again, desperate to believe that, if only we better explain our argument, China will turn on its most important ally, North Korea. Our folly ignores the strategic perspective entirely: We don’t even try to identify China’s ultimate goals.

The central Chinese ambition is to become the dominant military (as well as economic) power in the Pacific. North Korea could fulfill that ambition for Beijing without the Chinese firing one shot.

Hawaii would top the target list, but Pyongyang’s intermediate range missiles would aim at our bases in Japan — not least, on Okinawa — while ICBMs also would target our bases in northwestern Washington state, from Joint Base Lewis-McChord to the Bangor naval base that’s our only Trident ballistic missile submarine sustainment facility in the Pacific theater. One nuke on Bangor, and our indispensable Trident subs are homeless.

But the biggest mainland target would be the complex of Navy and Marine bases in San Diego County, Calif.

With its active-duty population of 110,000 service members, the county’s the Pacific heart of our Marine Corps, as well as the home port for 66 irreplaceable surface vessels and submarines, almost a quarter of our current fleet.

Hit those three target complexes hard enough — Hawaii, San Diego County and the greater Puget Sound area in Washington, then toss in Guam, and China inherits the Pacific by default — unless we want to fight Beijing with our arms already broken.

Did I mention the Panama Canal? In World War II, the canal we built gave us a vital strategic advantage as we transferred forces and materiel between the Atlantic and Pacific theaters.

Today — thank you, President Carter — the canal is operated by a Chinese company that could close the canal to “all combatant nations” in time of war. North Korea has no navy to speak of, so that means us

Oh, Washington wonks will object that China would be too worried about North Korean refugees flooding Manchuria to let a war happen. Sorry, but Beijing is confident that the People’s Liberation Army could handle any footloose North Koreans.

Radiation blowing across the Yalu into northeast China? A small price to pay for an otherwise bloodless strategic victory. Anyway, the Chinese attitude remains the same as that of Stalin’s generals in the Great Patriotic War: “We’ve got a lot of people.”

Yes, the scenario outlined above is the worst-case version. But in the military, you always plan for the worst (a dictum ignored, to disastrous effects, in the US invasion of Iraq).

Any serious strategist with a grasp of history would describe our current responses to the North Korean threat as irresponsible. I’d call it frivolous. Certainly, that’s how Kim Jong-un and his cadres see it.

So we blunder on, fingers crossed, while the Chinese revel in our strategic blindness.

1) Hawaii is vital to what - our pineapple supply for Little Caesar's pizza outlets? Do Hawaiians and Samoans (and all those outlying places in the Pacific) even want our Imperialist asses owning them?

2) North Korea knows we would NEVER retaliate with nukes. We were too scared in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, or anywhere else. We hide under the oval office desk and cry every time there is anything remotely resembling genocide or a country going nuclear. Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, North Korea, Armenia, Turkey, Libya, Chechnya, Crimea, the Baltics, Zanzibar, Cambodia, Guatemala, Bangladesh, Berundi, Timor and Indonesia - did we stop any of those genocides? Where else am I missing? Where else on Earth since we have owned nukes and refused to intercede in genocides and other countries becoming nuclear states? India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, China, Iran, North Korea, and even USSR. When did we way "no - you can't have nukes" to any of them? We're like the world's bitch; aren't we? You know - I thought #NotMyCheeto had balls of steel and was gonna rain hellfire on any shitstain countries that crossed us. Man did I kid myself. He's another Ovomit.

 

[Snappo]

Can the NKs be this dumb? I don't think they are stupid and this would be inexcusable stupidity to believe it.

Are they they the dumb ones? Or are we sheeple voters the dumb ones? We are the biggest joke on earth. Giant military that spend 10 times as much as the next 20 countries combined, the largest nuclear arsenal on Earth, and we sit there and let shit go down no matter what. No wonder Kim Fuk Un or whatever his name is thinks we are just some whining cunts waiting to take our beating.

 

[holdover]

That is how it is, though. Even in vietnam, korea, even with the russians in afghanistan, there have been many opportunities to save troop lives by using nukes on the enemy and nobody is doing it.

I don't see it that way, None of them had nukes or threatened US cities. And if we don't do something the balance of power is going to shift. I don't see the US going quietly into that dark night. Of course the N Koreans will use them. The difference is that the N Koreans are fighting for survival and the Americans are just fighting to win. Their back is to the wall , they cant retreat. What are they saving them for? self defense? If Russian or Chinese forces ever invaded The US ,We would be forced to to use them for self preservation.

 

[Arjuna]

U.S. military hawks consider preemptive strike as North Korea nuclear-weapon capability grows

 

[Snappo]

U.S. military hawks consider preemptive strike as North Korea nuclear-weapon capability grows

Isn't the deal supposed to be "loose lips sink ships"? If Kim Ping-Pong thinks we are about to level his facilities wouldn't he just hide all that stuff somewhere else in the country? You know those GBU-43 MOAB monsters? Can those be dropped via ICBM or do you have to fly right over the target with a Hercules / Super Hercules? Because I cannot see North Korea letting us just fly overhead with a few Super Herc's, to be honest.

 

[Blimey]

1) Hawaii is vital to what - our pineapple supply for Little Caesar's pizza outlets? Do Hawaiians and Samoans (and all those outlying places in the Pacific) even want our Imperialist asses owning them?

2) North Korea knows we would NEVER retaliate with nukes. We were too scared in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, or anywhere else. We hide under the oval office desk and cry every time there is anything remotely resembling genocide or a country going nuclear. Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, North Korea, Armenia, Turkey, Libya, Chechnya, Crimea, the Baltics, Zanzibar, Cambodia, Guatemala, Bangladesh, Berundi, Timor and Indonesia - did we stop any of those genocides? Where else am I missing? Where else on Earth since we have owned nukes and refused to intercede in genocides and other countries becoming nuclear states? India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, China, Iran, North Korea, and even USSR. When did we way "no - you can't have nukes" to any of them? We're like the world's bitch; aren't we? You know - I thought #NotMyCheeto had balls of steel and was gonna rain hellfire on any shitstain countries that crossed us. Man did I kid myself. He's another Ovomit.

Some good points.

As for using them I see them as insurance and I still believe the US would use nukes as a response if attacked by nukes (but only by nukes).

 

[Blimey]

Are they they the dumb ones? Or are we sheeple voters the dumb ones? We are the biggest joke on earth. Giant military that spend 10 times as much as the next 20 countries combined, the largest nuclear arsenal on Earth, and we sit there and let shit go down no matter what. No wonder Kim Fuk Un or whatever his name is thinks we are just some whining cunts waiting to take our beating.

Yeah it really is kind of ridiculous. That's why NK should have been smacked down already.

 

[Blimey]

U.S. military hawks consider preemptive strike as North Korea nuclear-weapon capability grows

So a key reason nobody has acted is because NK has artillery trained on seoul. And it has used this to get to the point where it is about to have nuclear missiles trained on seoul. Seems like seoul should have taken its lumps a while ago.

I don't know why SK couldn't issue a warning telling all its people to get in bunkers/hide. Not because it is going to attack but it is fearful NK is going to. Then SK sits to the side and does nothing while the US sorts out NK's weapons program. And it tells NK what it's going to do. And if NK doesn't take its whipping like a man and retaliates, then it gets carpet bombed until the regime is finished.

That is the only way I see them letting go of their nukes.

 

[Snappo]

Some good points.

As for using them I see them as insurance and I still believe the US would use nukes as a response if attacked by nukes (but only by nukes).

How many you figure we need though? When I was growing up in the 60's; Kennedy apparently thought 22,500 was the right amount. Now we are down to 7,200. I'm thinking in an all out war, why would you even need 1,000? Russia and China together don't even have 1,000 cities. If you figure 4 major cities per state; Russia could erase America with 200 missiles total. 400 if half of them fuck up. So I have zero clue why we need 7,200 of them. I'm kind of blown away that it took us $200 billion bucks to maintain these 60 year old pieces of shit from 2010 to 2018. If we went from 7,200 down to 500; we could funnel $160 billion into MOAB's that could fly like a cruise missile. I bet that would give us hundreds of thousands of MOAB's. Then you can do the same damage with zero radiation. Google says the MOAB's we dropped in Afghanistan cost $170K. If that is true, you could go from 7,200 nukes to 500 nukes and buy 882,350 MOAB's. Holy fucking shit. Imagine how much damage those bad boys would do if you dropped just 10,000 MOAB's in North Korea. We decimated Toyko and killed more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined in a 1 day bombing run 6 months before going with nukes. And I think we used a total of 300 planes? Imagine 10,000 MOAB's.

 

[Snappo]

That is how it is, though. Even in vietnam, korea, even with the russians in afghanistan, there have been many opportunities to save troop lives by using nukes on the enemy and nobody is doing it.

Well yeah because we didn't have Snappo for President 2020! I'd fuck shit up and move on. North Korea? Gone. Iran? Gone. Rosie O'Donnell and Ellen Degeneris - so fucking gone it's beyond gone. What comes after gone? She'd be so gone that if she reincarnated she'd be born dead. That's how gone I would make that pair of bitches. Syria - gone. Chelsea Clinton - I'd give myself a medal of honor for making her gone. Then I would send in the NSA and make a few of the people on this forum gone! And that idiot half brother of mine - GONE! Who else? Whoever invented Papa John and Domino's pizza - gone. That shit ain't even food as far as I'm concerned. I'd make concentration camps so I could nuke those assholes together. I'd let them all huddle and cry for like 5 minutes and then press the history eraser button. And #NotMyCheeto - I would give him a forced sex change and drop his shit off in downtown Atlanta with no money and a pink mini-skirt. He hates Transgender women so much - make that cunt one. Problem solved. "Walk a mile in my shoes yada yada".

 

[Arjuna]

McMaster: Threat of North Korean nuclear weapon strike 'impossible to overstate'

 

[Robin]

What is your agenda McMaster?
Robin

 

[Drinkthekoolaid]

U.S. Prepared to Launch ‘Preventive War’ Against North Korea, Says H.R. McMaster

Here is talk about a pre emptive strike on NK



Even relatively liberal media outlets are talking an awful lot about attacking NK lately. Interesting times

 

[Snappo]

McMaster: Threat of North Korean nuclear weapon strike 'impossible to overstate'

U.S. Prepared to Launch ‘Preventive War’ Against North Korea, Says H.R. McMaster

Here is talk about a pre emptive strike on NK



Even relatively liberal media outlets are talking an awful lot about attacking NK lately. Interesting times

They probably said the same shit when Ovomit was in office. Apparently politicians are all afraid of little yellow gnomes.

 

[Blimey]

How many you figure we need though? When I was growing up in the 60's; Kennedy apparently thought 22,500 was the right amount. Now we are down to 7,200. I'm thinking in an all out war, why would you even need 1,000? Russia and China together don't even have 1,000 cities. If you figure 4 major cities per state; Russia could erase America with 200 missiles total. 400 if half of them fuck up. So I have zero clue why we need 7,200 of them. I'm kind of blown away that it took us $200 billion bucks to maintain these 60 year old pieces of shit from 2010 to 2018. If we went from 7,200 down to 500; we could funnel $160 billion into MOAB's that could fly like a cruise missile. I bet that would give us hundreds of thousands of MOAB's. Then you can do the same damage with zero radiation. Google says the MOAB's we dropped in Afghanistan cost $170K. If that is true, you could go from 7,200 nukes to 500 nukes and buy 882,350 MOAB's. Holy fucking shit. Imagine how much damage those bad boys would do if you dropped just 10,000 MOAB's in North Korea. We decimated Toyko and killed more people than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined in a 1 day bombing run 6 months before going with nukes. And I think we used a total of 300 planes? Imagine 10,000 MOAB's.

It seems we have a lot. I don't know what a good number is. How many carriers do we need? We have a shit ton. We have so many carrier fleets that our amphibious ones aren't even in the normal count, yet they seem to be the sort of carrier that the UK has. I guess it's like jay leno's car collection. How many is enough?

 

[Blimey]

Yesterday the UN security council unanimously (this means china and russia, too!) agreed to new sanctions to curb $1B of exports for NK. They have total exports of $3B. This will hurt them significantly.

I still don't see them abandoning nukes over it. I think all their exports should be shut down and imports, too. But china and russia will need to support that.

 

[holdover]

China and Russia don't want to see a war either, so it makes sense that they put pressure on him too.
NK has said that they would be willing to negotiate but that nuclear weapons are off the table, that they wouldn't negotiate their right to self defense. It makes sense since they spent years and a lot of money and endured sanctions to get them. They said something like they refuse to be dictated to by the US .

If that is accurate, it means there can be no more diplomacy with NK . We have to accept a nuclear NK and all that comes with it like them selling nukes to Iran and Syria and anybody else. and face a reduced global power and an immense threat across the globe, or We strike NK in a horrible war like nothing we have seen since ww2.

Two shity options to be sure.In either case, Trump will be blamed for the outcome.

 

[spat]

I would take it as a serious warning, the NK's won't. They see the US as a paper tiger . There is nothing the US can say that would scare or concern nk. Nothing. They view the US as politically weak. They see the US military still fighting in the Mideast after 16 years. They see that as incompetence. They see the American pubic As war weary and without the resolve to take heavy casualties .they have seen numerous presidents threaten them or bribe them so nothing Trump says will scare them.

A full scale mobilization with massive troop and naval buildup in the area may get their attention. Anything short of that is laughed at.

We should arrange a call to Kim from the ghost of Saddam Hussein about how much of a paper tiger we are.

Then spend the next 6 months shipping every piece of military hardware that isn't nailed down to the south.

And a warning to Kim, mafia style, about how that's a nice army he has, and it would be a shame if it disappeared overnight some night.

 

[spat]

I wonder if Trump is maybe waiting for them to actually verifiably put a nuke on a missile before he takes them out? Might give him solid ground to stand on when the inevitable attacks from the left and media come.

Such an example would likely come with a few million casualties.

You can have a very high degree of confidence in a nuclear missile even if the nuke and the missile were only tested separately.

 

[Blimey]

China and Russia don't want to see a war either, so it makes sense that they put pressure on him too.
NK has said that they would be willing to negotiate but that nuclear weapons are off the table, that they wouldn't negotiate their right to self defense. It makes sense since they spent years and a lot of money and endured sanctions to get them. They said something like they refuse to be dictated to by the US .

If that is accurate, it means there can be no more diplomacy with NK . We have to accept a nuclear NK and all that comes with it like them selling nukes to Iran and Syria and anybody else. and face a reduced global power and an immense threat across the globe, or We strike NK in a horrible war like nothing we have seen since ww2.

Two shity options to be sure.In either case, Trump will be blamed for the outcome.

I think this only becomes WWII if others step in. Otherwise it's more like Iraq at the start: US comes in steam rolls everything. The aftermath is unpredictable.

But NK is poor as shit and yes has funneled a lot of money at this. They won't want to give this up knowing that they could have instead modernized their conventional military to some extent instead. If they give up nukes now they will have sensed they wasted all this money and time and now the world can tell them what to do.

They won't give up nukes.

And despite this $1B thing recently being the most in a generation, it's still not enough. China still throws foreign aid at NK hand over fist. This is all just buying time for NK until the world get uses to the fact they are nuclear. I am 99% sure NK does not abandon its nuclear program and give up what it is has unless it is physically forced to. The rest is just a waste of time. It seems at lease nikki haley and rex tilerson know this but they have to play a long a bit longer before they attack (assuming the US is willing to attack and I'm not at all sure it is willing to).

 

[spat]

I think this only becomes WWII if others step in. Otherwise it's more like Iraq at the start: US comes in steam rolls everything. The aftermath is unpredictable.

But NK is poor as shit and yes has funneled a lot of money at this. They won't want to give this up knowing that they could have instead modernized their conventional military to some extent instead. If they give up nukes now they will have sensed they wasted all this money and time and now the world can tell them what to do.

They won't give up nukes.

And despite this $1B thing recently being the most in a generation, it's still not enough. China still throws foreign aid at NK hand over fist. This is all just buying time for NK until the world get uses to the fact they are nuclear. I am 99% sure NK does not abandon its nuclear program and give up what it is has unless it is physically forced to. The rest is just a waste of time. It seems at lease nikki haley and rex tilerson know this but they have to play a long a bit longer before they attack (assuming the US is willing to attack and I'm not at all sure it is willing to).

To be fair, if I had Nukes I wouldn't want to get rid of them either. Molon Labe on the scale of nations.

 

[Drinkthekoolaid]

To be fair, if I had Nukes I wouldn't want to get rid of them either. Molon Labe on the scale of nations.

I think fat boy dear leader has the mentality of "come and take my button from my cold dead finger".

 

[spat]

I think fat boy dear leader has the mentality of "come and take my button from my cold dead finger".

While we can't allow him to keep them, I also can't fault him for wanting them.

In the end though, it comes down to the same thing as an illegal machine gun. I'd love to have one, and I feel it is my right to as well. But I also know that the US government would stomp my ass, without regard to that right, if I made one so I don't.

The difference is that I could be trusted with mine. Kim, not so much......

 

[ArmedCorgi]

While we can't allow him to keep them, I also can't fault him for wanting them.

In the end though, it comes down to the same thing as an illegal machine gun. I'd love to have one, and I feel it is my right to as well, but I also know that the US government would stomp my ass without eare to that right if I made one, so I don't.

The difference is that I could be trusted with mine, Kim, not so much......

Thats not the best analogy, lol.