North Korea considering preemptive strike on Guam

[Camelfilter]

It's a tough one. Can't back him into a corner, where he thinks he has nothing to lose on a first strike against Seoul.

Also can't let him launch one against any populated area, even if a low likely hood of accuracy.

If anyone uses a nuke, then everyone would figure its acceptable to do so. China vs Paki. Paki vs India. Iran vs anyone (they don't have any, wink wink nudge nudge). France vs Lichtenstein...etc etc

 

[Oregonhunter5]

My opinion? Trump's best response would be to publicly demand a sit down meeting with the fat kid and negotiate some terms. Didn't he once say he could outnegotiate anyone because he is the best businessman on the planet? It's time to prove that, Mr. President. Don't belly up to the bar and start a war this planet may not recover from.

Maybe. But what's to negotiate? We have nothing to do with this crap fat boy is talking about. Zero. Why pay him mo why like all country's do to keep poeple happy. We could though just kill him, and take there warheads away.
We have nothing to offer them.

 

[Sstrand]

You likely are too young to remember when Truman fired MacArthur who wanted to cross the Yalu river into china.
As it turns out Truman blundered. If Mac had crossed there would be peace in the region today . . . Although there would be a lot fewer people in the world.

Fire and Fury
Sheldon

 

[Diamondback]

A friend who's a retired Army officer and spent time in Korea had this writeup on busting the "leveled-Seoul" myth:
At Least Eight Reasons Why the Talk of North Korea Leveling Seoul Is Simply Wrong

 

[Goosebrown]

Been saying that same thing for a couple years. No one wants to believe that because they NYT says it's going to be armageddon.

The North is very strong in artillery and prepared positions, but that means they are pinned down from the instant the balloon goes up. They can't manouver and they mostly cannot range Seoul. They are in bunkers that we have had many years to spot and target. They can't move forward from their prepared positions to move their artillery closer or they run into their own choke points which become our kill zones,

ROK is highly mountainous as any Korea vet will tell you whether or not you want to listen. It is not armor country. NK troops are going to be on foot or will dismount before coming into contact if they do decide to come south. All that time they are going to be at the edge of the NK air defense zone and the Norks only have 40 MiG 29s. 40... the rest are MiG 21 clones and MiG 17 and 19s (Yep... 1950 vintage fighters.) and a hundred or so MiG 23s for ground attack.

Outside their ADZ, we are going to have absolute control of the air so anyone coming south is going to get plastered.

Really the only thing to worry about is their special forces which will cause a fair amount of chaos and their rocket forces and many of them are liquid fueled meaning they need to set up while our drones and aircraft are out searching for them.

And through all of this how are they going to get more ammo? The only thing we really KNOW about modern war is that we use about 300% the munitions we thought we would before hand. What are they going to do? Roads under air attack. Lack of motor transport to start with. And as the article notes, if they are using their artillery to pound Seoul, they aren't using it to support their ground forces or attacking our ground forces.

It is all bluster from the Norks and the wheels would come off hours after the start of conflict.

That does NOT mean we would win, but it would mean that all their teeth would be pulled at the very beginning. They would be fighting WWI in a matter of hours really. Prepared positions and a couple million infantrymen stuck behind wire, mines and a horrifically accurate artillery bombardment from US/ROK troops that COULD re-supply and are guided by drones and advanced radar. The result would be a stalemate with Nork stuck along most of the front, starving for resupply.

Honestly, the sooner we do this the less chance we have of them having or launching nukes.

 

[Diamondback]

Too bad we can't somehow resurrect MacArthur so he could go along to share in the victory that should have been rightfully his...

 

[bolus]

Fun fact, there are 7 Taco bells in Guam. People fly from the neighboring islands just to get Taco bell. That would be pretty devastating to the Taco bell community in the North Mariana Islands

 

[CoastRange57]

A friend who's a retired Army officer and spent time in Korea had this writeup on busting the "leveled-Seoul" myth:
At Least Eight Reasons Why the Talk of North Korea Leveling Seoul Is Simply Wrong

Good read. It does not even bring into play the huge number of submarine launched cruise missiles that would launched after such an attack.

 

[CoastRange57]

A preemptive strike against a nuclear weapons facility is not unheard of.

Operation Opera - Wikipedia