Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: Hutch on May 26, 2010, 10:17:22 AM
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How many times are they (the Norks) going to bluff and bluster and push their belly-buttons right up against the starting gate before things actually go rodeo, if they ever do? This latest poop-storm makes me want to add that peninsula to my "ignore" list. And I really love to fret such things.
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How many times are they (the Norks) going to bluff and bluster and push their belly-buttons right up against the starting gate before things actually go rodeo, if they ever do? This latest poop-storm makes me want to add that peninsula to my "ignore" list. And I really love to fret such things.
What's that? Haven't heard anything new from them lately.
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What's that? Haven't heard anything new from them lately.
Sank a South Korean corvette last month. Making noises now about militarization.
One theory is that since Il is on his last legs he's creating tensions to ensure the passage of leadership to one of his sons.
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No one wants to deal with millions of new welfare cases/unskilled workers. PDRK will be ignored until/unless they get antsy with their nukes, or somehow pose more of a threat than randomly sinking a ship.
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All they need is a new Obama-sponsored refugee and resettlement program. Problem solved.
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IMO, it'll be a nasty mess if the balloon goes up with DRPK vs. ROK/U.S.
My gut tells me their huge army and artillery assets will make the opening of such a conflict insanely bloody. Casualties (American alone) will probably be far greater than Afghanistan and Iraq in the first day. Seoul will be a burning mess. Nasty surprises like sapper tunnels will be common.
However, in the long-run, I think the "paper tiger" effect that pre-collapse USSR and Iraq had, born of the DRPK's poverty will begin to play out, primitive command, communications & control, and logistics/mobility issues too. The tactical and strategic inflexibility that the militaries of paranoid authoritarian regimes tend to have will lead entire divisions into killing zones of modern ROK and U.S. weapons.
We would win, and it'll be a damned mess, but not as bad as some would think.
But yeah, DRPK and Kim Jong have a vested interest in the status-quo as is. This is still a long shot. A DRPK provocation escalating beyond control is more likely than them going into full-scale war with premeditation IMO.
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Would we really get into a shooting war with a nuke power? Or would we just nuke them before they can nuke us?
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The ability of NK to actually deliver a nuclear weapon is spotty at best. It would probably have to be transported via truck or ship. I don't think they have a theater or intercontinental nuclear missile capability. I would think that Seoul would have more to worry about a nuclear detonation than the continental US.
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I know there is a difference between a rocket and one with a pay load, but it seems to me that if NK can reach the sea of japan, then they could probably put a nuke next to US military bases in SK or close enough to Okinawa.
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Lots of NK arty would fall on Seoul. But by all accounts the ROK military is tough and not likely to fold up as if they were French or something, and so long as China doesn't intervene (AGAIN!) I would be surprised if NK could sustain an offensive.
As for nukes . . . what kind of aircraft has NK got? Anything fast that will carry a nuke? (They don't need many . . . =( )
Pretty hard to stop a supersonic kamikaze with a nuke on board, especially if it's attacking a "soft" target like a city rather than an alert American naval battle group . . .
Or what if they have a commercial-type of jetliner, repaint it, and broadcast China Air transponder codes?
And if they DID use a nuke on us or our allies . . . would BHO respond in kind?
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It's not certain if the DRPK actually has a nuke or not. (Granted the safe bet is to ASSUME they do.)
AFAIK, both their underground tests were "fizzles" with a sub-kT yield. Unless they were very large conventional explosive-only tests to give them other data/information etc.
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IIRC, AJ, the seismic "signature" of a conventional explosion is different from that of even a fizzled nuke, so we should know pretty definitively which sort of detonations theirs were.
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If a nuke was used against us or an ally, I do not think BHO would respond in kind.
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i would expect him to change his pants, and then give a speech about how we all need to love one another, and send the attacking nation a few trillion dollars. :facepalm:
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Even if NK can build a nuke, delivering it is the issue. I have serious doubts if they could even build something they could load into a truck or plane and deliver without destroying it in the process.
It would suck, and the damage would be huge. Not huge in the traditional sense, but certainly huge to the modern mind.
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I've seen estimates that Little Kim has 3-12 nukes. In what stage and size I have no idea.
They can about flatten Seoul with their big guns but what they have to deliver a nuke -missile, plane, boat, sub, truck, ect. The little guy is nuts after all.
I see three things that could blow this up. If China and Japan somehow get tangled up on opposite sides in this. If China just thinks it can get enough out of it to make up for the huge amount of money the west pumps into the economy. If the PDRK could somehow get Iran to start up a multifront offensive to bog the US and allies down in the Middle East.
I remember when the cold war ended. It didn't end it changed to several smaller players.
jim
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Remember the Cheonan!!!
China is the 800lb gorrilla in the room over there.
It is my opinion that Il is pretty much a sock puppet for Beijing anyway and China just plays his insanity for whatever benefit they can get out of it.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?sid=awElM7vM4Vq4&pid=20601087 (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?sid=awElM7vM4Vq4&pid=20601087)
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I know there is a difference between a rocket and one with a pay load, but it seems to me that if NK can reach the sea of japan, then they could probably put a nuke next to US military bases in SK or close enough to Okinawa.
The sticky wicket is that the NKs are probably years away from being able to weaponize a nuclear warhead such that it can be a missile payload. They have the missile lift capability, but a static nuclear bomb is a long way from a nuclear warhead that can survive and function after a dynamic ride hither and yon.
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Even if NK can build a nuke, delivering it is the issue. I have serious doubts if they could even build something they could load into a truck or plane and deliver without destroying it in the process.
It would suck, and the damage would be huge. Not huge in the traditional sense, but certainly huge to the modern mind.
The Norks have proven they can get within torpedo distance of a South Korean warship. I don't think it's inconceivable that they might find a way to get close enough to do some real carnage with a nuke.