North Korea News

[Smitty-48]

Curious what our reaction would be if fat boy lost his mind and actually nuked something as a "warning".

Do we pave the entire north, or do cooler heads prevail? My guess is a Seal Team double-taps the back of his head in the palace...

I wouldn't think a SEAL team is getting anywhere near him, you send a SEAL team in there and the next time you see them it will be when they are being paraded as prisoners in front of the cameras, Pyongyang is way too deep into indian country to risk a SEAL team, and NK security is way too tight.

In terms of nuking something? Define "something"? It would all depend on what the something was.

Like they float a barge out into the Yellow Sea and pop a nuke off it, or like they nuke Yongpyeong Island?

[jseymour]

There certainly is an angle that the Royal Navy must maintain timber production in case of a war with France.

That has nothing to do with sunglasses.

Oh, it's far, far worse than that. Our basic supplies beyond food would be completely cut off, in a trade war with China. Probably with a 10-20 year delay on getting everything back in stock. That's a long time to go without disposable sunglasses, let alone everything that modern life depends on.

China isn't the only game in town, just the largest at the moment. Plenty of other countries would happily take their place and sacrifice their first born to make it happen.

[DBTrek]

I wouldn't think a SEAL team is getting anywhere near him, you send a SEAL team in there and the next time you see them it will be when they are being paraded as prisoners in front of the cameras, Pyongyang is way too deep into indian country to risk a SEAL team, and NK security is way too tight.

HALO drop off west coast parallel to Pyongyang, wingsuits. That'll get them pretty close, if not into the actual city, no?

[SuburbanFarmer]

I wouldn't think a SEAL team is getting anywhere near him, you send a SEAL team in there and the next time you see them it will be when they are being paraded as prisoners in front of the cameras, Pyongyang is way too deep into indian country to risk a SEAL team, and NK security is way too tight.

HALO drop off west coast parallel to Pyongyang, wingsuits. That'll get them pretty close, if not into the actual city, no?

This.

If not the SEALs, then probably an airstrike on his compounds. Followed by a wet team to confirm the kill.

Curious what people think would really, actually happen though. Say he nukes a South Korean island, or low-population area in a neighboring country... Hell, say he pops off a nuke in the waters off Guam, as he planned to...

We certainly don't sit and do nothing, but what's the reaction?

[The Conservative]

Curious what our reaction would be if fat boy lost his mind and actually nuked something as a "warning".

Do we pave the entire north, or do cooler heads prevail? My guess is a Seal Team double-taps the back of his head in the palace...

I wouldn't think a SEAL team is getting anywhere near him, you send a SEAL team in there and the next time you see them it will be when they are being paraded as prisoners in front of the cameras, Pyongyang is way too deep into indian country to risk a SEAL team, and NK security is way too tight.

In terms of nuking something? Define "something"? It would all depend on what the something was.

Like they float a barge out into the Yellow Sea and pop a nuke off it, or like they nuke Yongpyeong Island?

If they openly nuke anything as a "warning" like you suggest, then I would suggest "testing" a MOAB on the palace and see what they think... of course, I personally think a HALO mixed special forces team would be ideal for this kind of incursion, something to give the world notice in where if it succeeds, we can say we can get you anywhere at any time.

I mean it's not like we don't have remote control bullets right?

[Smitty-48]

I wouldn't think a SEAL team is getting anywhere near him, you send a SEAL team in there and the next time you see them it will be when they are being paraded as prisoners in front of the cameras, Pyongyang is way too deep into indian country to risk a SEAL team, and NK security is way too tight.

HALO drop off west coast parallel to Pyongyang, wingsuits. That'll get them pretty close, if not into the actual city, no?

This.

If not the SEALs, then probably an airstrike on his compounds. Followed by a wet team to confirm the kill.

Curious what people think would really, actually happen though. Say he nukes a South Korean island, or low-population area in a neighboring country... Hell, say he pops off a nuke in the waters off Guam, as he planned to...

We certainly don't sit and do nothing, but what's the reaction?

Well, first of all, Tom Clancy, I don't think MOE is the issue, if you want SOF in there, you could probably just fly them in with helicopters, North Korea is not indian country because they have invincible air defenses.

It's more an issue that the regime has its loyalists, and they will fight, and Americans stick out like sore thumbs, so there is no covert option in Pyongyang, and so a small force in there would just get swarmed and overrun.

Moreover, Kim Jong Un is not Napoleon Bonaparte, so I don't think killing him causes the regime to spontanously collapse without the light of his genius to lead them.

In terms of nuking South Korea or Guam or immediate vicinity of, I'd say the Pentagon would keep it pretty simple stupid, it would be ye olde massive air campaign, bomb them into the stone age all over again, plausibly using some B61's on the low yield setting for counterforce against the NK nuclear capabilities.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Hereditary monarchies don't tend to do well when the head is cut off... Why would NK be any different?

[Smitty-48]

Hereditary monarchies don't tend to do well when the head is cut off... Why would NK be any different?

Well, it's a similar situation to Saddam Hussein, except American intelligence on the location of the key regime elements is nowhere near as good on North Korea as it was on the Baathists, so my guess is you would miss, and then he would pull a Saddam Hussien and just stay on the move, hiding in amongst the population.

In terms of spontaneous collapse, you're talking about a nuclear threat, so rather time sensitive, took you some time to bring the Baathists down, capture Saddam Hussien and secure the "WMD" sites, with a massive invasion force, if you're talking about nuclear ballistic missile threat, you don't have that sort of time, because once they nuke something, they're unlikey to stop there, in for a penny in for a pound.

So your window of opportunity for counterforce against nuclear weapons, is hours at best, but at worst, it's minutes, so, time to warm up them B-2's and B61's, because the next target is going to get nuked, long before the Navy SEAL's could have any effects.

[DBTrek]

Iraq collapsed pretty quickly when the head was removed.
I don't know that I'd point to Saddam Hussein as an example of head-of-state decapitation not working.
Worked pretty damn well.
It's what arose from the chaos that followed that vexed us.

[Smitty-48]

Iraq collapsed pretty quickly when the head was removed.
I don't know that I'd point to Saddam Hussein as an example of head-of-state decapitation not working.
Worked pretty damn well.
It's what arose from the chaos that followed that vexed us.

They didn't have nuclear weapons, if they had had nuclear weapons, you wouldn't have invaded Iraq, and if they had used a nuclear weapon, you would have just bombed them with B61's, because once the nuclear weapons start flying around, regime change is no longer the issue.