The Glade 4.0

Ok Arafys,

Spell it out for us.

Pre-emptive strike? Or wait till he lobs a nuke at Seoul or Tokyo?

What's your strategy?

You're asking *my* opinion?

I'm honored!

He doesn't have the ability at the moment to lob anything anywhere. He's a tiny little tinpot dictator with delusions of grandeur.

China won't remove him because they don't want millions of Nork refugees on their border. He won't pre-emptively nuke anyone unless he's backed into a corner and given no opportunity to escape. He's not suicidal, and he knows that the quickest way of committing suicide would be to "lob a nuke at Japan". Sure, he's a sociopathic ****... but he doesn't want to die.

We strike first, and he ends Seoul with conventional artillery. Thousands, if not millions die.

We push harder, and force him into a corner he perceives no escape from? He strikes first, conventionally or nuclear at Seoul, thousands, if not millions die. We strike back at Pyongyang conventionally (or nuclear. I don't trust the current administration to restrain themselves) and thousands, if not millions more die. Maybe we get Fatty ****, maybe we don't. Now, there's an escalating war where one side has gone nuclear... China may or may not get involved.... thousands, maybe millions more die.

Because we can't do the thing that should be done with sociopathic bullies: Ignore them.

Sure, he has a nuke. Sure, he's testing missiles. From what I understand (and I'm sure DE will correct me) he doesn't yet have the capability to put one on the other reliably, nor the ability to precisely target one.

So, we take his bluster for what it is. Sabre rattling that he's done for years. Folliwing in the footsteps of his father who did the same thing.

That said, if you believe him to be truly *psychotic* and not just sociopathic... then we should leverage every CIA asset and *remove* him from power with China's assistance. Should they be amenable to that. Any military option will have fairly disastrous consequences.

But that's just my left wing libtard snowflake opinion

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Holy shitsnacks!

I wonder what would happen if out of the blue South Korea started evacuating Seoul?

No provocation, no explanation, just emptying the city. Would they start it? They'd have to know what's coming, but would NK actually start it? Or would there be enough confusion time to get most folks out of the way?

I'm no longer convinced NK is going to sit there rattling sabers.

NK is basically the largest crazy religious cult in the entire world. The people worship the Supreme Leaders (both of them -- the Supreme Leader is, of course, immortal, so as a NorK you worship both the father and the son.) Information is strictly controlled.

The current leadership appears... unstable, at best. I think he believes his own legend.

Like Mus, I don't think there's any good path to take right now other than diplomatic (but with the threat of more dramatic actions constantly implied.) However, he's developing missiles and nukes, and he will eventually succeed. At some point, he's going to believe he holds enough threat over the world to take actions or make demands that are unacceptable. Since we can never give in to them, eventually he's going to take action against SK or Japan or even the US (if his missiles ever get to the point where they can deliver targets there.)

At this point, Pyongyang will cease to exist, and that's really the only valid response. You don't need to go nuclear for this. Conventional bombings will do the trick.

The pacific will be a scary place to reside for a few months.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

This is the crux of the matter.

He's a spoiled brat that's never had the word "no" directed at him, and he's trying to make himself a nuclear power. He's vain, unpredictable, kind of ignorant to how the world works, and stuck in a mindset of always doing exactly what he wants because noone has the power to actually stop him.

I think China's lost control of their tame little puppet regime, and is shitting their internal pants over him. Externally though... "Its complicated".

Which... it is, truly. Noone in that region likes Fatty **** except for Fatty **** himself.

Maybe we can hire a couple of camgirls with water pistols

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Holy shitsnacks!

I don't know what the current population of Seoul is, but it's A LOT of people. There isn't anywhere on the peninsula to evacuate them to.

NK probably has enough capability to get a nuke close to Seoul.

Edit: Seoul proper had a population of 10 million people. That doesn't include the densely populated surrounding areas.

The entire country is 50 million, so, just a guess, but nearly half of the population of South Korea lives close to the DMZ.

Even if the logistics of housing and feeding that many people were feasible, the highway system there could not handle it. I've driven in that country, and on the big holidays, when City folks head "home" the freeways become parking lots for days.

Once someone goes nuclear on you, you have no choice but to go nuclear on them. Otherwise, you have permanently compromised your deterrent. Furthermore, conventional bombing does not, in fact, have the ability to reduce an entire city effectively. Later sorties rapidly lose effectiveness; pilots are put at risk to no gain, and in a very short period of time you're just re-arranging the rubble. No nation can EVER be allowed to use nuclear weapons against us or an ally without retaliation in kind. It simply cannot be permitted.

You don't, in any case, just target a city. This represents the best in late-1960s targeting when accuracy was measured in miles and warheads in multi-megaton ranges. Bombing the **** out of Pyongyang conventionally is the worst possible combination of "indiscriminately attacking a civilian area target" and "having absolutely no plan whatsoever" with a touch of "token effort to look humanitarian by not using nukes, and actually revealing a total lack of conviction in the process."

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I don't think we're quite there yet, but we are fast approaching the point where we have to decide between living with a NK that can hit the US with a nuke and launching a preventive strike. Given those two options, I would vote for the latter. A nuclear-armed NK with ICBMs that can hit the US is simply not an acceptable outcome in my opinion, whatever the cost (short of nuclear war with China or Russia, of course).

There are about 10 million people in Seoul and 25 million in its metropolitan area. Fortunately, the South Korean authorities take the issue very seriously and have for years enforced requirements in Seoul to harden it as much as possible.

Evacuating Seoul would be possible, but only on a truly extended timescale, and NK might interpret it as a precursor to attack - getting civilians out of the way to render their retaliation ineffective. There's a question of "where do you put them?" and "in what conditions"? Korea is COLD in winter time.

Also, the economic consequences and disruption would be devastating to the South Korean economy and all its trade partners would at least feel shocks from it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It seems like we are focusing on NKs ability to nuke a US Target. What about Seoul or Tokyo?

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Agreed. If NK used nukes against the US or any US ally under our nuclear umbrella (e.g., SK or Japan), we would have to respond in kind, but that doesn't necessarily mean nuking population centers. Better to launch a full-scale air war and a limited number of nukes targeted on hardened military targets where they'll actually serve a purpose other than mass casualties.

I can live with that possibility (which is already the case). If they actually do it, though, we would have to nuke back.

Or for that matter Alaska or Hawaii.

Hawaiians are worried

We tend to focus on CONUS, but that's America too - not to mention a critical naval base. What about Anderson AFB on Guam?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

A preventative strike beforehand is about the only offensive option that precludes us using nuclear weapons - and that is chancy. You have to be sure you got them all, and there's only two ways to be sure - multiple warheads on every possible sight, or go in on the ground instead to make sure you got them.

I am somewhat heartened by the fack that China apparently is getting that if it is the adult in the room (which it is) it needs to make sure NK understands who it answers to. China does not want to be drawn into conflict by someone else committing them.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I think they're still a ways away from being able to hit Hawaii aren't they? Guam or even the outer reaches of AK being reachable I think we can live with (rather than go to war), given the low number of US civilians and property at risk. Mainland US is an absolute no-go. Hawaii, for me, is where we get into a tough-call situation.

I don't think he's even 10 years away from hitting the US with anything. (Unless you count Alaska.)

Space is hard. Even if you have the budget the US does, it took us decades to perfect ICBM tech.

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Holy shitsnacks!

He orbited a satellite last February. Fundamentally, he already has the technology; if you can put something up in orbit, you can also make it come down.

It only took from 1951 to 1959 to get Atlas operational, not "decades". Minuteman III was deployed in 1970. NK is trying to duplicate what we did 50-70 years ago; it's not THAT hard.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I think that's way on the optimistic end of the spectrum, Mus. From what I've read, the middle of the road view is basically, "We think they're 5-10 years away, but we have very limited visibility into NK, so we're really not sure." In short, there's a non-crazy concern that NK could have the ability to hit Honolulu or LA in a few years. That's pretty worrisome.

I can understand where you're coming from on the Aleutians' tip, though in principle it's still a problem. Guam is a bigger problem than it might seem because of Anderson AFB; it's an important forward staging base. Also, these people are still Americans even if they don't live in a state.

As for Hawaii, and the populated areas (such as they are) of Alaska, those are actual states. I don't think its defensible to privilege CONUS states over them. A state is a state.

On the range question, that's unclear at the moment. He hasn't actually demonstrated the ability to reach Hawaii. On the other hand, he may be hiding stuff in his back pocket. Those truck-mounted launch canisters in his parade may be empty, but they look just like RT-2PM Topol (SS-25) launchers. He's orbited a satellite already. We shouldn't just leap to the conclusion he has capabilities he doesn't, but we also shouldn't assume he can't do something just because we haven't seen it yet.



There's a non-trivial possibility he could hit Hawaii now. It's low, but it's in the realm of "we should not dismiss it without significant additional evidence." We shouldn't act on that possibility, but it behooves us not to assume Hawaii is 100% untouchable. Fortunately, there's SM-3 and the Alaska and Vandenberg interceptors; it's much more in the "crazy" realm to think he could overwhelm them.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I wonder how the 20 million people living in and around Seoul feel about this? I mean, really? We wait until he's somehow managed to get a nuke into Seoul before we do anything?

I would have to assume South Korea will not wait until this happens to do something - they are either under some kind of agreement with the US/NATO that they will not let this happen, or there is some kind of reliable, specific intelligence out there that say he either wont or can't nuke Seoul (same with Japan).

The alternative is incomprehensible.

Unfortunately, I think the alternative is the reality. The US, SK and Japan (and everyone else) preferred to try bribing NK into giving up its nuke program in the 90s, but they cheated, so by the 2000s, it was a fait accompli that NK had the ability to nuke Seoul already. And then in the 2000s, we all preferred to try alternately ignoring/pressuring NK into giving up its nuke program - in part precisely because they had the ability to nuke Seoul - but that didn't work either, so by the 2010s, it was a fait accompli that NK had the ability to nuke Japan too. Now the question is whether we repeat those same mistakes until it becomes a fait accompli that they get the ability to nuke the US.

I notice you didn't actually present a strategy. You've got a tactic - assassination, by some means or other that somehow involves the CIA and China - to get rid of Kim. This isn't a strategy. This is "get rid of one problem guy and call it good." Just for starters, who takes over then, and why would they be any less looney than Kim? You just assassinated their predecessor; I don't think that's likely to reduce paranoia.

All you're really doing here is trying to present reasons why military action is bad, most likely in anticipation that you'll then have a reason to ***** about it afterwards in the event this crisis doesn't resolve peacefully. Essentially "lol stoopid warmungez done got peepz killed an' if they just did my simple plan everything would be totez ok" relying on glossing over the details and the nature of the unknowability of courses of action not taken to look over the inevitably high body count and reassure yourself that you've seen the light.

As for the missiles specifically, every time he tests a nuclear warhead, his scientists get valuable data that help them make the next one more efficient - which is key to getting it on a missile. That's why nuclear testing was a thing for so many years. Tokyo is close enough that yes, it's quite possible a missile could reach that far, or another Japanese city. There's cities in SK other than Seoul.

This is not just a matter of us handling Kim with kid gloves so he doesn't do anything crazy because anything he does is automatically our fault because he was "pushed into a corner". This guy is painting himself into a corner as hard as he can and blaming everyone else. Eventually the Korea situation will resolve, but even if it does so without a major war, it's likely to be an ugly, nasty matter of what to do with a backward hermit kingdom with a near-useless economy and millions of starving people. It's unlikely to be pretty no matter what.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It was my understanding that most appealling targets for nukes in NK were too close to China or South Korea to safely use nukes without risking fallout hitting a non-enemy target. My comment on whether it was conventional or nuclear didn't matter was due to the small size of the country. Even if your goal was truly to bomb NK flat (which it wouldn't be), it would be trivial with conventional ordinance to make sure nothing bigger than an outhouse was left standing. The entire country is the size of Tennessee.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

If we get to the point that U.S. territory has been attacked with nuclear weapons, some fallout getting onto other countries is really not going to rule out retaliation.

This is just not going to be pretty, no matter what. China may not like it, but in that case maybe they ought to get serious about dealing with this ****.



It wouldn't be even remotely practical to attempt with conventional weapons. This statement is so profoundly ridiculous that I don't even know where to start. You are wildly overestimating what conventional weapons can actually do. If they were this powerful, no one would bother with nuclear weapons.

Really.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Well, we could theoretically use incendiaries to burn out the cities if we were just looking to level civilian areas, right?