Would You Support A U.S. Nuclear First Strike Against North Korea?

Two different terrains. Neither of us can prove anything, but it's more likely that the fallout would be REALLY contained given the areas we'd drop it (mountainous cover, water running north - japan was the opposite). You should talk to your lefty friends. They're the ones that showed me the light on this subject.

 

No, I wouldn't support it. It would be an unnecessary waste of life.

 

Global Radiation Patterns
http://users.owt.com/smsrpm/Chernobyl/glbrad.html

 

Can you show that a nuclear strike by North Korea is imminent?

 

No I don't think they have that capability.

The fact that the U.S. has been flying B-1B bombers along the DMZ might give some indication as to what the Pentagon is thinking if it comes to military action against the North Koreans.

While B-1 can carry over 100,000 lbs. of ordnance their more typical maximum load out is IIRC about 48,000 lbs. of bombs. Or 24 Mk-84 2,000 pound weapons are their equivalent. Each more than adequate to destroy artillery in hardened emplacements.

More than 100,000 tons of ordnance are stored at Andersen Air Base on Guam. A single flight of 40 of the 67 B-1B bombers could thus destroy nearly 1,000 of the 6,000 artillery pieces threatening Seoul. So combined with short range U.S. and ROK warplanes in South Korea and aboard U.S. carriers it would with a single massive coordinated air strike be possible to decisively take out most of the weapons that are a direct threat to Seoul.

As for the nuclear facilities further north I would assume the U.S. would use a dozen or so of the B-2A Spirit bombers each carrying eight weapons each.

All of these are nonnuclear weapons of course.

Would anyone support a NONNUCLEAR preemptive attack on North Korea?

 

A first strike. Why would some advance that a first strike by the US must be nuclear? It would seem to me that those who are advancing this option are only doing so to paint the conversation as opposed to answering the fundamental risk which is what will NK do, and how should we respond?

The question is valid. What can the US do is irrelevant at this point. We can do so many things. The real question is what should we do. The NKs as a people aren't the problem. So any solution that puts them at risk seems fraught with gratuitous libsplaining on how this would be a form of genocide. And yet, most of the folks advancing the nuclear option are the liberal folk. Funny how that works, huh? So the question still remains, what should the US do.

There are probably two options at this point that lead to any positive outcomes. First, US led economic isoloationism of NK. Forget the threats, time for actual effective sanctions. Choke all foreign investment and capital into NK. Second, press both China and Russia for a trilateral military response team to create effective disarmament of NK invoking the safety of the planet as justification for the immediate occupation of and dismantling of the NK military state. The world cannot and should no longer continue to tolerate the NK model of oppression and destabilization.

Step one should send the right message. If the NK junta fail to change course, step two takes them out.

 

LOL. How does this have to do with the North Korean mountain kingdom containing a nuclear blast?

 

Except the millions in the South who would be sickened by radiation.

 

You do know that a nuclear reactor leak and a nuclear explosion are radically DIFFERENT don't you?

Not to mention that some radiation spreading around the world in no way means it effects the health or life of most people around the world.

 

What makes you think that would happen.

 

not too bright are you, radiation goes into the atmosphere cletus

 

A hundred ground bursts (probably a lot more given the amount of North Korean artillery) along the South Korean border would cause billions of tons of radioactive fallout to fall on South Korea.

 

MRO forms aren't strong enough. Have to be a massive nuclear bomb to have the affects you're claiming.

 

Good to know. So we were right to attack Poland and to start world war 2. Better answer: A preemptive strike is absolutely the same as a first strike. It was also a crime what the USA was doing with the war against the Iraq. One result of this war is today the terror organisation ISIS and a completely destroyed Syria. Even in former Yugoslavia and in Ruanda happend not such a gigantic amount of inhuman crimes as in Syria - as well from the government in Syria and from the opposition in Syria - and not only from ISIS. The war in Iraq made the USA not great again and it made the USA not to be a new #1. It's a waste of ... everything.

 

Tough question. The key aspect is whether I believe the US government claim that NK has that kind of nuclear capability and that a first strike is required. There are a lot of people in the govt who for purely political reasons want a war with Russia, maybe they would settle for a war with NK.

I'm not convinced that the approach of "nuke the US and the US will turn your entire nation into a parking lot" won't work. The key to that deterrent is believability. If Trump said it, I think the world would believe him. If someone like obama said it, nobody would believe him.

 

North Korean artillery outnumbers ours on the peninsula by more than 200 to 1. We cannot kill their artillery with our artillery.

And yes, they can destroy Seoul if they decide to load those rockets and shells with nerve gas.

 

So what imminent attack is coming from North Korea?

 

You can use airburst to kill the artillery crews with neutron pulses. At 5 kilotons or smaller, every nuclear device becomes a neutron bomb.

 

Capability + threat + motive = imminent

 

We no longer have any neutron weapons. And even moderate cover can neutralize the effect of an airburst unless its close to a direct hit with a nuke that small.

To clear out all of NK's artillery that can hit Seoul would require hundreds of ground bursts with out current arsenal.

 

Once again, any nuclear weapon detonated at less than 5 kilotons yield becomes effectively a neutron bomb as the lethal radius of the neutron pulse exceeds the radius of the blast damage.

 

That's not how imminent threat is defined by militaries or the UN.

An imminent threat would be if you have evidence that North Korea was fueling their missiles and mobilizing their army. Do you have any evidence like that?

 

No. I think nuclear war should be avoided at all costs. The effects would be devastating not just on the people (the innocent ones too, and little babies and small children - these bombs don't discriminate), but the future of these people who were exposed to the radiation and their children could be affected too, not to mention the environmental impact and the nuclear fall out. A terrible idea. Launching a nuke should be an absolute last resort option and I'm not sure WHAT would be a qualifier, but certainly not that little dweeb that is running North Korea. He just needs to be bitch slapped a few dozen times until he cries.

 

I'm not saying yes or no to that question at this point. If I were the POTUS, I would listen to my military professionals.

It could be that a conventional strike along with the threat of a nuclear strike if NK tries to harm SK in retaliation would be enough. I certainly wouldn't put a first strike off the table, but again, I would listen to my military professionals.

 

The current versions of the B-61 tactical bombs used by the US cannot deliver a yield lower than 10kt.

And the area of effect of such a small nuke would require hundreds of them be deployed to eliminate be more than 10,000 dispersed dug-in artillery pieces North Korea possesses.