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What happens if the rest of the world decides to strike first with e.g. a massive wave of conventional missiles and bombers, combined with a ton of defensive mi
by csense 11y ago
What happens if the rest of the world decides to strike first with e.g. a massive wave of conventional missiles and bombers, combined with a ton of defensive mines air-dropped into the DMZ?
Would it be enough to take out North Korea's nuclear capability and cripple troop encampments on the DMZ enough that they can't immediately launch a massive counterattack on South Korea?
- maxlybbert 11y agoI think the road to destabilization would be for the US to give nuclear weapons to South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, and then tell China to deal with it.
- yongjik 11y ago"Hey friends, because I trust you guys, I prepared this special gift. I hope you guys like it." "Oooo a present! What is it?" "It's a T-shirt with a giant logo reading "FUCK YOU CHINA", with a red bullseye painted on the back. Like it?"
- evanb 11y agoSouth Korea and Japan are already under our nuclear umbrella. It would be a major change in our nonproliferation stance to give weapons out.
- maxlybbert 11y agoThat's the point. I don't want destabilization. But if that's your goal, you can get it pretty quickly without any need for a sneak attack by conventional forces.
- dogma1138 11y agoWell accept them into NATO and you can give out nukes like candy under the strategic arms sharing clause.
- bzbarsky 11y agoGetting Japan to accept them might run into some internal political issues; there's historically been some opposition to nuclear weapons in Japan. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Non-Nuclear_Principles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Non-Nuclear_Principles for example. That said, if Japan decided it _wanted_ nuclear weapons, it can almost certainly produce them itself very quickly (order of 6-12 months according to most estimates I've seen). They have the raw fissile material due to their longstanding nuclear power plant program, and the general knowhow and infrastructure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapon_program#De_facto_nuclear_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapon_progra... has some more data.
- GordonS 11y agoI rather doubt that further proliferation of nuclear weapons would do the world any good, either now or in the future
- yyyuuu 11y agowhy would you want to do that? Kill innocent civilians because the leader has a hydrogen bomb. There are better ways to deal with this. Diplomacy ... perhaps
- umanwizard 11y agoNot saying an attack is the solution, but diplomacy has been tried for decades and hasn't worked at all thus far.
- bcoates 11y agoNorth Korea has done within a rounding error of nothing since the armistice. It's working fine.
- nikdaheratik 11y agoThe issue, as always, is cost/benefit. N. Korea has always tried to walk the line between wanting to seem strong enough that you can't just toss the leaders out and not so threatening that you actually worry they might mess you or your allies up. It's not worth it to the U.S. or anyone else to invade, lose 30K-100K soldiers and then have to rebuild the country, and it never has been. The nuclear arms race serves partially as a deterrent against possible invasion, and partially an attempt to get people to the negotiating table for some resources by scaring Japan and N. Korea enough that they want to deal with this. But if they had the capability, they still don't have the desire to use it as a first strike since that would give every country around + the U.S. a reason to bomb them to the ground.
- PvsNP_ZA 11y agoThis was the main idea behind the South African nukes as well. If memory serves, the country had only 6 nuclear warheads, but they were never meant to be anything but a deterrent (and probably a display of power and capability).
- duncan_bayne 11y agoSure it has. North Korea has attacked no-one outside its borders, nor shown any (realistic) intention or even capability to do so. What definition of "worked" are you using? Serious question.
- umanwizard 11y agoI'm not an expert but according to conventional wisdom, NK has enough conventional-arms firepower (mainly artillery) to do massive damage to Seoul before they're taken out. Looking at a map, it's a bit unnerving how close Seoul is to the internal Korean border.
- xerophyte12932 11y agoDoes anybody have any idea why is it that way? Considering the obvious threat, why haven't they tried shifting away from there? I agree an entire city can't be moved, bu the "Capital" nature of it can be.
- umanwizard 11y agoRhetorical question: what's the biggest potential target in New York State? Albany, or NYC? You could move the government, but it wouldn't matter. Seoul would still completely dominate South Korea. Their entire economy and around half their population is based in the Seoul metro area. It's only a mild exaggeration to say that Seoul is South Korea.
- PhasmaFelis 11y agoA batch of kindly old grannies with popguns could cripple NK's military capability. The problem is, they have hundreds (thousands?) of artillery pieces buried in mountain bedrock and pointed at Seoul. Even if we dropped paratroopers on Great Leader's palace and captured him in the first two hours, it is simply not possible to find, let alone knock out, all of the artillery within a few days, which is how long it would take for them to level Seoul. ...If any of them still work. An awful lot of NK's military equipment hasn't been maintained for decades and has rusted solid where it sits. So the artillery could be one big bluff, for all we know. But can we risk it, with South Korea's largest city at stake?
- peteretep 11y agoWonder if Israeli steel dome anti rocket stuff would be effective Update: apparently I wasn't the only person to think of this: http://www.nknews.org/2014/07/how-israels-iron-dome-could-help-defend-against-north-koean-threats/ http://www.nknews.org/2014/07/how-israels-iron-dome-could-he...
- njharman 11y agoChina would retaliate or threaten to. If, in your scenario, you imagine China would be join in with "rest of world" then your scenario is about as likely/realistic as NK saying "sorry, jk, our bad" and surrendering to US/SK (who, btw, are still at war with NK).
- FeepingCreature 11y agoI wonder if we could pay China to do it. I wonder how much they'd ask.