Threat from the DPRK (North Korea)

[Eric the Green]

(10-08-2017, 10:59 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(10-07-2017, 05:06 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(10-07-2017, 02:43 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(10-07-2017, 12:29 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(10-02-2017, 10:25 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I doubt they would actually hit a US city, knowing that if they did, that would be the end of them. Mutual Assured Destruction deterred the Russians for 40-odd years. Is Kim Jung Un more likely to attack if it means Unilaterally Assured Destruction for his regime?

Considering this further, I thought today that even if NK decides to dictate that we remove troops from Korea, and the USA refuses, and NK shells or invades the South, the USA would have to fight in Korea. South Korea is an ally who must be defended, especially from a ruthless, barbaric dictator. So then Un would have to choose whether to nuke a US city, knowing that if he did, the US would nuke him in response and wipe him out.

That's why he would wait until the US invaded, since in that case his regime would be destroyed if he didn't use the nuke.

I'm not so sure that the US would nuke him in response.  Yes, we could destroy his regime that way, but we also have more cities to lose than he does.

Quote:An interesting proposal being floated, which we may have discussed before, is whether the USA would agree to encourage China to take over North Korea, and change the regime and then leave, but presumably keep it as an ally and keep it from being a US ally, and keep it in the Communist orbit. But the regime instituted would be more like today's state capitalism in China, and more responsible in its policies.

What would Kim Jung Un try to do to China if this happened, would be my question. Would he nuke his former ally? Would he consider China is now his enemy and allied with the USA, and attack all his enemies? What would he be able to do before he is toppled?

I think he would nuke them, and Beijing is in easy reach of his missiles.  This is why China would prefer that we take care of him rather than their doing it.

China possibly step in to do this once North Korea had exhausted their nukes on us.

There's no question we would nuke him if he nuked us. That's how it works. This would destroy him before he could launch any more missiles at us. Our deterrent is still very strong in any case, against him nuking us. I don't know any evidence that suggests they could get off any more missiles at us, after they do it once.

In our minds, there's no question.  In theirs, there's a lot of question in.  Keep in mind that the US has wimped out on many confrontations.  From a foreign perspective, it no doubt seems pretty random when we resort to war, and when we don't bother.

As for their getting off more missiles at us, it really isn't a problem.  They can launch when they detect our launch - "launch on warning", it's called.

Quote:It would take much longer to destroy him through ground invasion, since he has a big army.

That could well be true about him nuking China. But China stepping in once NK exhausts their nukes against us, would not happen, since NK would have been destroyed utterly if they launch even once against the USA. Especially with Trump as president.

If North Korea were destroyed utterly through nuclear weapons, China would be in a better position to occupy it than we would.  After all, nuclear weapons don't in and of themselves occupy countries; that requires infantry.

Quote:I didn't favor the SDI missile defense during the Cold War, since this would only have encouraged the nuclear arms race with further developments to evade the defense. But against a small, weak, nuclear rogue nation like NK, missile defense seems a good option, if it works. We should probably develop the capability to test it by hitting and knocking down their test launches. That might be provocative, but would not cause any actual damage to NK or their program. Missile defenses would seem necessary to enforce a future treaty banning nuclear weapons, which the newly Nobel Prize winning organization ICAN is working for, and has gotten 126 nations to sign on to.

I favored SDI during the Cold War for exactly this reason:  one could already see that the issue of proliferation was going to be important.  We should be thankful now that we got a few years head start back then.

That said, I don't think North Korea is going to be a "rogue" nuclear power for long.  The best estimate is that they already produced 60 warheads while ramping up in their first year of production.  It won't take that many years before they have as many as the US does.  A missile defense with a 90% success rate, or even a 99% success rate, isn't enough for that threat.

Testing on their test launches is a questionable idea, because it gives them information about how our missile defense systems work, and thus information about how to get past them.

Being attacked with nuclear weapons would be the worst attack on the USA by far in history; of course we would respond swiftly and overwhelmingly. If we didn't, what's the point in the USA having any nuclear weapons? The pundits and conservatives endlessly talk about Obama's failure to enforce his "red line" in Syria; the fact remains that his threat forced Russia to act and force Assad to get rid of most chemical weapons in Syria. It was not a random decision not to invade Syria; Assad was not an imminent threat to the USA. There was no congressional backing either. The "foreign perspective" of other nations, including our enemies, is smarter than ours; they realize these things. They don't have such a large reactionary faction as we have which makes these kinds of silly points incessantly. Other nations are not led by such a "fucking moron" as WE have at the helm today because of our huge reactionary faction. Well, I admit, NK has an even worse leader. Whether he has any kind of perspective is debatable, at least.

NK's nuclear capacity is not large enough to launch several weapons that quickly. I doubt they have the GDP to ever even approach the capacity of the USA or Russia. They don't even have one such missile yet.

If your ideas about test launches is correct though, doesn't that make my point about the Cold War, that a defense system gives the enemy ideas about how to get past them? Still, a 90% success rate would reduce the threat.

The USA has much better detection systems than the NK, so what you said about NK's ability to detect our launch, certainly applies to the USA. The speed of our response would wipe them out before they could launch any more.