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The US should therefore not initiate firing nukes at China unless a substantial number of US cities have already been hit, because doing so would all but guaran
by goatinaboat 6y ago
The US should therefore not initiate firing nukes at China unless a substantial number of US cities have already been hit, because doing so would all but guarantee that those cities would be hit by China in the next volley.
A ballistic launch towards NK looks an awful lot like a ballistic launch towards China, is the problem there. Will China "wait and see" where it lands?
- ohazi 6y agoIt would certainly be unnerving, but I would expect their command and control procedures to account for some amount of context. In this case, the context would be: "Holy shit guys, NK just launched a rocket that looks like it's headed for LA!" [3 minutes later] "And now the US just launched 14 rockets, and they might be headed for us, but they're probably headed for NK." China's best option is to wait and see, because if they decide to fire, and were wrong about China being targeted, they'll see another round of launches three minutes after that one, and those will be headed for China. They've played this all out. MAD really does work.
- reissbaker 6y agoIf NK launched a nuke against an American city, and the American president told the world "I am decapitating NK in response," I don't think China would look at a strike against NK as "Oh no but what if it's a strike against us secretly, let's start a nuclear war with America just to be sure." China doesn't want to enter WWIII any more than the US does. And the US response to an NK attack is very predictable.
- chasd00 6y agomy thought too, if NK launched everyone would stand back and let the US extract its pound of flesh. However, I think any country who has every helped NK ( China, Russia, etc ) would be suffer in every way except militarily. Think being cutoff from US financial markets etc.
- t0mas88 6y agoThe US could setup a conventional non-nuclear response that takes Pyongyang off the map, probably within a few days. That would be the safer strategic option and the rest of the world would not criticize such a response, while a nuclear response would not be appreciated by many others.
- goatinaboat 6y agoThe US could setup a conventional non-nuclear response that takes Pyongyang off the map, probably within a few days. Any strike on NK has to decapitate it instantly, or the conventional artillery along the border will pound Seoul into rubble in the meantime. Ballpark figures are 10,000 pieces, some dug in, some mobile, each capable of firing 10kg high explosive and keeping it coming until their ammunition runs out. It's a hard problem for any military planner. If the SK capital was on their south coast and it was only farmland within artillery range of the border than NK would be an easy problem to solve (obviously if that were the case NK would have developed other weapons to compensate). Notwithstanding China of course.
- samus 6y agoA conventional strike would thus have to be two-pronged: (1) overrunning the DMZ to neutralize the artillery and prevent a counterstrike, and (2) attack Pyongyang. Of course, this is probably the scenario war planners on both sides have analysed ad nauseam. Success is thus highly questionable. And if it takes long enough for China to intervene again, WW3 will come and scores will be settled.
- goatinaboat 6y agoAll scenarios boil down to a single question of how much of Seoul are you willing to sacrifice. You would also need to somehow move your DMZ-overrunning force into position without that manoeuvre itself triggering the artillery bombardment.
- medium_burrito 6y agoReally a pity we don't have a space lift system that can launch 100 tons into LEO, figure 25 tons per 20 foot long tungsten rod (or DU). One could imagine a hundred of those things saturating the region beyond the DMZ pretty hard.