The Glade 4.0

Perhaps.

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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."

isn't there a way we can just send in a small contingent of troops, a multi national group, and exterminate every living creature inside of NorK?

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

Please tell me you're either joking, or have an actual design for working power armor you can submit to DARPA.

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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 am legit curious, why couldn't a coalition including China and Russia just make the country no more? You would have to think that if all of the countries in power decided "eff those guys" including their patrons then I would think the problem would be dealt with fairly quickly.

Mind you, I am bad at Chess and I am not very good with strategy or tactics.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

I imagine China enjoys having a buffer (albeit a terrible one) between them and a Western-friendly South Korea. I'd also imagine all the non-military No-Ko's would sooner join the South than ask to become part of China.

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The Dude abides.

China and Russia have never gotten along, much, even when Mao first took over. Sure, they only had tiny differences in ideology, but then so did Martin Luther and the Vatican, which resulted in intermittent wars over centuries.

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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
█ ♣ █

Ok, let me help you answer your own question.

Your stated parameters were "exterminate every living creature" and "small contingent of troops"

For the sake of argument I'll assume by "creature" you meant "person" and are not actually interested in slaughtering any bunny rabbits that happen to be out in the NK countryside.

First off, China, Russia, or us, could, pretty quickly, exterminate a very large proportion of the NK population and render survival for any length of time a monumental task for what remains of a populace that is already flirting with starvation at any given time. The problem is, of course, no one actually wants to do that. In addition to the very unpleasant side effects of the weapons themselves, neither us, China, or Russia has the desire to play the part of "world's crazed bloodthirsty lunatic". Exterminating the NK population is not only an appalling suggestion, it's an impractical one - doing so doesn't advance the interests of the country doing it in any meaningful way.

Now that we have the obvious moral objection out of the way, let's look at the second parameter - "small contingent of troops"

If "small contingents of troops" could accomplish this sort of thing, we wouldn't bother with nukes - or a whole lot of other stuff, for that matter. This is much like the idea that it's be "trivially easy to bomb NK flat without using nukes". If conventional weapons could trivially do that, nukes would be pointless.

NK forces may be outdated, poorly fed, and limited in capabilities of every kind, but there are still a lot of them. Their air force may be crap, but it's still got a lot of planes. Their artillery may be from 195 through 1980 but there is a truly astounding amount of it and a 155mm shell from 1955 is just as destructive as one from 2015 (or close enough that the difference is academic).

I don't know quite what you define as small, but you asked why this could not be done; you seem to think that a small number of troops could in fact defeat North Korea (leaving aside the idea of exterminating everyone) with relatively little fuss. If so, indeed, why hasn't it been done? Why hasn't it been done every time a small country annoys a big, powerful one? I would love to know what sources of information lead you to formulate this concept in the first place.

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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."

Any eventual settlement that results in re-unification will need to contain provisions in that regard, such as (for example) U.S. troops remaining in SK must remain in what is presently South Korea. It's understandable that China does not want U.S. forces right on the Yalu, and it costs us little to be accommodating of that concern.

I haven't yet had time to try these simulations of the ballistic missile situation, but I've seen some sources talking about as many as 600 SRBMs. If that number is true, even with a large number of duds, the ABM defenses are likely to either run out of ammunition or not be able to engage targets fast enough to prevent serious effects. The attack will certainly be thinned out greatly, but that is an awful lot of targets to engage.

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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."

Yeah, I'd guess that China's asking-price for supporting any kind of re-unification would be the departure of all US forces from the peninsula and a formal treaty aligning Korea with China or at least establishing neutrality.

They're not likely to get that much, since South Korea has an equal concern of having China on its border. What they'd likely get is a (heavily modified) version of this treaty.

NK is going to be a train wreck to clean up in a peaceful re-unification; it's going to be a train of flaming dog **** wrecking as it passes through a nuclear waste dump if it's not peaceful. SK is going to get stuck with most of the bill. If China presses them too hard on a treaty they can always tell the Chinese "oh, you want this mess? Fine, you clean it up." China has 150-175,000 troops on its border with NK right now, in part because they don't want that mess.

It's in everyone's best interests here to be reasonable. China's objecting to THAAD, but still basically playing ball because they don't like the tail-wags-the-dog aspect of Kim pushing things ahead and trapping them between going to war for their buffer state or losing their buffer state. They're going to demand and get some concessions, but they're not going to get a re-unified Korea as a de facto new North Korea.

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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."

The THAAD battery is emplacing. News says it will be ready in coming days, which likely means it's ready now. Some 26 year old captain likely has every general, admiral and field grade officer between him and Mattis asking every 5 minutes "how long until you're ready to fire?"

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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."

By every living creature, I mean literally. If it has a pulse, exoskeleton, pushes itself through the air ground or walks along it: Gone, eradicated. The next occupants would need to bring in their own livestock, because it is entirely devoid of life.



okay, thank you



Okay, thank you



It is not a source of information, it is a lack of it that makes me ask a question instead of a declaration. I figured that trying to get information was the point of asking a question. I just assumed we did not want to piss off both Russia and China, at the same time; which is why we did not finish and end any situations with N Korea.

As far as my opinion of why/how something should be done or why are things so bad... We have become a nation that has no desire to win anymore. And here is why:
in WW2: We fought and won against Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and Mussolini's Italy. We let Japan know in no uncertain circumstances that victory or resistance was not an option for them. So are we really to think that somehow those three Axis factions were weaker or less well equipped/trained than Afghans hidden in caves?

WW2 ended in 1945, America did not get involved until after Pearl Harbor at the end of 1941.

We beat the Axis in 4 years, but a bunch of dudes in caves are still not gone 16 years after we started and if we cannot get the hidden Afghans: what makes us think we could do any better against North Korea of the Regime in Syria?

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

I think the problem with your question is the comparison you're making. The axis that we beat in 4 years involved governments and militaries acting at their behest. Fighting North Korea would be a good extrapolation.

That is not the same as the dudes in caves that are still not gone in 16 years. It would probably be better to compare it to the war on drugs more than anything else. Al Qaeda, Hezbollah, and ISIS are not nations (but dammit, they're trying), they are not specific to one country, and to go after them (to the level you have in mind with your comment) is probably not something the actual governments would permit on their own soil. That level of pursuit would probably piss off other non-involved countries as well once civilian casualties started adding up (and they would considering those a-holes like to use hospitals as shields). Antisemitism aside, just look at the crap that Israel takes for punching the Palestinians back twice as hard.

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The Dude abides.

Thank you.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

The reason the United States, China, and Russia don't just vaporize North Korea is because it's a lot of work, and it's just not worth the effort. At the moment, North Korea isn't actually hurting anyone we know or care about. The leadership is just oppressing North Koreans, which most of the world views as subhuman. That means anything happening within that border is, by definition, not a human rights violation.

One of the problems we are having (we meaning developed nations) is that the nuclear deterrent does not exist. Less developed belligerents are making decisions around one very significant fact:

Nuclear weapons absolutely will not be deployed against them.

Some undoubtedly believe that such weapons don't actually exist, and are merely western propaganda. Others who are more in the know understand that no developed nation will use such a weapon because of the ressponse it will provoke from other developed nations. What this means, in the case of North Korea, is that if they develop nuclear capability, they can deploy those weapons with total impunity. This is what they know.

Now, the truth may be very different. Perhaps if North Korea fires a missile at Seoul, Pyongyang will cease to exist within 24 hours. That is what they will know tomorrow. Today, they know that they will not face nuclear retaliation.

The same can be said for Syria. There were some missile strikes that hit an air field. That's peanuts. Syria knows they can use chemical weapons with impunity, because there will be no reprisal.

U.N. moratorium on superbadwrong weapons are irrelevant, because the developed nations of the world lack the will to enforce them. The reason we aren't seeing more of these weapons used is because the developed nations have a gentlemen's agreement not to use them, and the rest of the world, for the most part, don't have the weapons in the first place.

At least one more nuclear weapon is going off in a populated area before we can all sit down and play the same ball game. I'm not so sure it will be the United States that lets the last one fly. I think the most likely scenario is that North Korea gets spicy and pops one off, then China decides they're not comfortable with how one the United States is taking to decide an appropriate response.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

No, it's as easy as pressing a button. It would make incredibly bad press though.

Another reason the press should back off Trump - the media being "the boy that cried wolf" every chance they get will further insulate Trump from the effects of legitimate criticism.

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In time, this too shall pass.

It's both hard and easy. It is technically very easy for China, Russia, or us, and not even all that hard for the lesser nuclear powers to destroy NK with nuclear weapons. The hard part is knowing how things will play out afterwards.

No one actually knows that. It's one thing for a bunch of generals and consultants to wargame it out, quite another to do so for real. There is a real risk that one flies, they all fly.

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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."

No one really wants China, Japan, and South Korea to be hit with the fallout nuking North Korea would end with. That as much as anything is why we will not employ full scale nukes on North Korea. Kim knows we won't fire into a crowd like that.

He also knows we could take out their pitiful navy and air force with one small carrier group.

That is why he isn't attacking anyone else right now.

With the Navy and Air Force gone their only target would be South Korea. According to several Army officers I have spoken with over the years, the real reason we are in South Korea, militarily and diplomatically is to let North Korea destroy itself without outside intervention. Realistically, South Korea could destroy the North Korean ability to attack by itself, we don't encourage that. We will attempt to stop South Korea from attacking the North when push comes to shove.

Besides, having the little guy bouncing up and down is useful to sick the media on when we're trying to downplay other things.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

What was that again?

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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 thought they published the range on this was 600 miles and the US own standard for ICBM is around 3200.

Anyhoo the best way to get NK inline is to tell China that it is the older brother's job to prevent the younger brother from embaressing the family before the neighbors get involved. Then wait a month, if there arent signs then offer a mutual swap of their leader touring here and ours there and China will be quick to take the lead lest the offer be accepted and it be embaressed.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

The range on this was not 600 miles; it reached sufficient altitude to give it a range of 4000 miles, which classes it as an ICBM. They were supposed to be 10 years away from this.

Your magic solution is exactly that, a magic solution.

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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."

Ok 4k makes it an ICBM, I saw 600 someplace.

And NK is a big problem for China, it's not like it is a big secret that it is.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I believe the impact point was 600 miles from launch site, but only because it was launched on a very steep trajectory. Given how high it went (like 1800 miles or so), if it had been launched on a more normal trajectory, its estimated range would be in the vicinity of 4-5k miles. At least that's my understanding from the reports I've read. I don't know how 1800 + 600 = 4-5k, but I'm guessing that's where all the fancy rocket sciency stuff comes into play.

Yes, it's okay that you don't understand. It actually is rocket science.

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1800 miles is seven times the orbital distance of the international space station. While I suppose it's possible, that number is highly suspect.

I need a more credible source than either RD's or DE's say-so.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.