South Korea would obviously wants support from the US and the rest of the world, but I'm pretty sure they can flatten North Korea right back if they're fired upon.

A deterrent is not very effective if the thing it's intended to deter actually happens.

- NK has a LOT of artillery, but the majority of this artillery doesn't actually have the range to target Seoul from within NK.

- To significantly damage Seoul, NK would have to concentrate most of the necessary artillery into a rather small area. That would make the artillery easy for the south to target, and difficult for the north to mobilise away quickly (say if they needed to retreate for whatever reason). It would also leave this force more vulnerable to something like an encirclement.

- Assuming hostilities are unavoidable, there would be little military benefit to NK doing this. It would leave military assets in the south free to retaliate in any way they see fit rather than having to recoup from damage a bombardment would bring. It would also further jeapordise any attempts for a peace settlement, or international aid (which NK would surely need due to its military inferiority when compared with the south).

- It is likely that the north would be unable to hold the border for that long, and would be pushed back, so any potential artillery barrage wouldn't last for long.

- NK has a very weak airforce compared to the south, so the amount of functional artillery it could field would drop quite quickly due to airstrikes.

That said, Seoul being targeted is a terrifying prospect, and it would likely happen in a conflict, but I think you are slightly overstating this scenario.

Also, any attack on Seoul would also hurt the economy of SK yes, but a war with the north probably wouldn't last long enough for that to be a factor (although admittedly this is hard to predict with any certainty). And even if the souths economy contracted, say, 50%, it is still larger than the north by an order of magnitude).

If we assume Seoul is largely destroyed, the economic damage I'm thinking of comes from a few different places, not from the war going on but from the aftermath. Many people could die, causing both a loss of expertise and simple manpower. Housing would be destroyed, such that those that did survive would need emergency housing. The massive destruction of property would burn up trillions of dollars in real estate investment. And lastly, specialized commercial and industrial properties would be destroyed. I don't know to what degree Seoul is an industrial capital, but there's likely some of this at least.

This can definitely be done in both directions.

There are, of course, other considerations, but Seoul would be very difficult to defend from 'simple' weapons like artillery. The US is very proud of it's ability to fire artillery 40 miles (64km), but Pyongyang is much further than that.

Everything I've read suggests the Seoul is a casualty of any conflict. Regardless of the eventual 'winner'.

Once someone on either side has been killed in war, both sides permanently lose. There are no take-backs, only damaged soldiers on both sides and casualties.

Both Seoul and Pyongyang are within range of their adversaries' weapons.

The point oblio is maintaining upthread is that because SK and her allies have much more advanced weaponry NK doesn't have a chance of standing against them in a conventional conflict. That's true, but misses the point.

Before NK had nuclear weapons one of their main deterrents was that they'd had years/decades to fortify conventional artillery at the border pointed at Seul. So even if their military couldn't stand a chance in a conventional war they could plausibly threaten MAD by holding Seul hostage.

That's the context in which the border proximity is brought up. Replying to that by saying that Pyongyang is 150 km from the border or whatever is irrelevant.

Yes of course the US could win an all-out conventional war with an enemy 50, 150 or 1500 km from its border. That was never in question.

The question was whether a relatively weaker enemy could present an outsized threat due to some strategic geographic position.

That's been the case with NK precisely because mid-century artillery technology can be dug-in close enough to the border to matter.

Whereas if the border happened to be 150 km away those assets could be taken out by missiles once they tried to move in position to shoot on a major target like Seul.

Whether the NK artillery actually poses a strategic threat is another matter. I wouldn't be surprised if it's all mapped out be the US/SK and would be taken out in the first 5 minutes of a conflict by targeted missile attacks.

But it's not just a strategic question, but whether e.g. NK can make threats that are taken seriously by the SK population for it to pressure its government to make some concessions to NK.

Sadly no. There are so many UGFs (underground facilities) on the JIPTL (Joint Integrated Prioritized Target List) and we don't have anywhere near enough ordnance of the right types staged to hit them all before Seoul is a smoking crater. I've participated in 5 or 6 of the big Korean Theater exercises[1][2], working at a Corps-level HQ. The entire country is a reinforced underground fortress. Remember how we shelled Iwo Jima for several days and still barely scratched the defences on Mt Suribachi? NK is like that, but worse. They've had 60 years to dig in, and instead of a small island a few miles wide, the fortress is the size of Indiana.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Resolve [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulchi-Freedom_Guardian

This is not 1945.

Thats why diplomacy is the way forward. Our species cant go through a global war with countries outdoing each other to kill civilians.

I think we are in agreement here.

You are right that they might not use the same weapons, but long-range precision guided artillery is expensive. Because the shells are expensive, not all countries have enough to use them without limit as was the case in WW2 - where in the last few months of the Western Front the allies preferred to expend munitions rather than their own soldiers' lives.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/mapping-t...

NK has enough completely conventional artillery in range of Seoul to deliver a Hiroshima level attack. Their WMD programme is about deterring outsiders.

As crazy as North Korea is, if they fire first, South Korea isn't just a sitting duck.

North Korea would probably be obliterated just from South Korea hitting back, let alone if anyone else allied to South Korea jumps in.

Micro scale MAD. North Korea is just grandstanding for food, it doesn't really mean that they will follow through. I mean, they're a dictatorship, so who knows.

There's no doubt the US and allies will be victorious, barring massive strategic blunders, but there's also no way to prevent horrific levels of destruction.

To say nothing of China stepping in and kicking off WWIII.

It’s not clear the regime is prioritizing this aspect of their military beyond paper tiger levels.

People actually have to keep loading and firing those guns. And not run out of ammo. And the guns have to not break down.

Then, maybe North Korea can get to millions of casualties.

That, combined with how quickly and effectively the US and South Korea can start firing counterbattery missions and establish air superiority to attack the Northern batteries from the air.

The idea is to deploy, fire a few shots and the GTFO as quickly as possible, as the other side has detected your projectiles via counter battery radar and likely sent their own, all possibly within seconds of your first round being fired & often in an automatic manner.

Its reportedly even crazier for mortars - mortars shells move much more slowly than artillery shells, yet you can platform the origin of their trajectory just as well.

This can theoretically result in the mortar being destroyed by a counter battery artilery shell before the first mortars shell it fired even impacts.

So no wonder fixed artilery emplacements might be considered less viable when cutting edge artillery tech is considered.

Hardly. NK nukes don't really change SK's MAD vulnerability calculus; it's more of a factor for the US. I worked with a guy who was present in 2010 during that year's Key Resolve....when the "exercise" suddenly became very real due to the sinking of the Cheonan.[1] He was dialed into the video teleconferences that were held by the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said the ROK military leadership was absolutely furious and was legitimately ready to basically re-start the war, and that it was the USFK Commander (the US military 4-star who would command the fight) who had to talk the ROK generals down from the ledge.

It came up in conversation I think during 2016's Ulchi Freedom Guardian because the NKs were launching ballistic missiles during the exercise and we all experienced a "pucker factor" for a moment because we weren't sure if they were escalating the conflict or not. Then the missile trajectories indicated they'd land in the ocean and we could breathe again. Fun times.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROKS_Cheonan_sinking

I have no idea how you could read what I wrote and conclude "see nobody was serious". Seems like the worst case of normalcy bias I've ever witnessed on HN.

With the caveat that I wasn't the one there, so this is second-hand: Yes, that's how it was communicated to me. The Korean 4-stars were advising restarting the war, and the sole American 4-star to have any say in the matter was the only voice of sanity. I dunno how much of that conversation made it to the South Korean President, so I don't know if he fired anyone afterwards. I'm not sure what the formal process is for the ROK-JCS, USFK, CFC, etc... to make a recommendation to the Korean President, as well as the US President, as well as the United Nations Command. All I know is that if left to their own devices in 2010, the ROK JCS would have invaded the North, knowing full-well what the consequences would be.

Things coming down to only one, single, yet influential person saying "that's a bad idea" should highlight that maybe we don't have sufficiently robust institutional controls in place to avoid a bloody conflict indefinitely.

>>>The worst thing that could realistically happen in Korea is a collapse of North Korean regime.

I'll absolutely agree with this though. There is a very poor understanding of the morale and motivations of most of the NK flag officers. We don't know which ones will outright surrender. We don't know which ones will say "Fuck it, attack the Imperialists!" We do have a reasonable understanding of the Kim regime's priorities: regime survival. So the status quo is preferable to the almost-guaranteed chaos that will ensue should the NK commanders suddenly find themselves in a power vacuum, especially if caused by a hostile foreign actor.

No-one is going to start an actual war.

It's naïve to say "we were just trying to make the point X, we didn't think it would escalate" when the actors involved have the resources and incentive to react with interest.

If anything North Korea developing its own nuclear arsenal took war off the table. That was the point, although full-scale war was probably already off the table, but a more limited action to topple the regime probably wasn't.

It's borderline madness to suggest otherwise.

so far, MAD has kept that from happening again. But it's not borderline madness to observe something that definitely actually happened.

A war on the Korean peninsula already happened in the past and it went quite badly for all involved.

Now it is 2020, with very interconnected economies between all involved and with the US, China, Russia, and North Korea having nuclear arsenals. Therefore it is indeed borderline madness to suggest that anyone might decide to start a full out war on the Korean peninsula, it is even more ridiculous to suggest that this might happen "by accident" (like it is ridiculous to suggest that WWI started by accident).

In the real world of today one might look at Chinese-Indian relations. Probably 10s of soldiers on both sides died recently. Are the nukes flying yet? Of course not, no-one is suicidal and both sides won't attempt anything beyond their skirmishes in one or 2 remote valleys.

It's only sensationalist news channels that peddle the risk of war with North Korea.

If China will say "jump" to Kim, he will, for as long as the physical security of Kim's family is provided (which is pretty much the one, and only carrot China been using with them)

Humans don't reason, they rationalize.

The US had already effectively declared war on the US at that point from the point of view of Japan. They'd demanded an unconditional withdrawal from China.

There's some alternate history where Russia never sold Alaska and Japan military bases there. What do you think if the US had done in 1941 if Japan demanded it withdraw from the "occupied" territory West of the Mississippi and return it to native control, while amassing a fleet in Russian/Japanese Alaska?

Furthermore, maybe Japan just wanted the US withdrawn from New Mexico & Nevada[2] (post 1937 occupied territories), but left the demand delibirately ambiguous so as to suggest everything west of the Mississippi (Manchuria)[2] (search for "was later deleted").

I'm not suggesting those are morally equivalent, but merely that Japan at the time pretty much saw it that way. Manchuria was around half of the empire's territory.

So suggesting that Perl Harbor wasn't reasonable is a pretty big stretch. Unless one of your options is to effectively become a vassal state of the US (unconditionally abandon >50% of your territory) war was inevitable.

At that point they could either take the initiative at Perl Harbor, or wait until the US attacked them at its leisure.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor#Diploma...

2. http://www.sdh-fact.com/CL02_1/56_S4.pdf

There's no way to paint the conflict in the region as justified. The Japanese were clearly seeking to expand their empire, after having tasted victory defeating Imperial Russia. Just because countries stood in their way doesn't justify their actions, and simplifying it down to fighting Mike Tyson isn't very critical thinking.

I'm not suggesting anything about Japan's moral right to engage in those campaigns.

I'm replying to fatbird's upthread comment to the effect that a general in the Empire of Japan could realistically decide on either of "how about we let them attack first?" or "how about we just do what they're suggesting for nothing in return, and stop being such dicks to everyone?".

Which is essentially what the suggestion that the attack on Perl Harbor wasn't "rational" from the Japanese perspective amounts to.

The whole problem of how they ended up in the situation that culminated with their defeat in WWII is pretty much that no one person could steer them off the course of inevitable destruction.

So a general deciding to attack Perl Harbor is making the best and most rational decision he can make and has power to make, within a framework of decision making that amounts to steering the country into the iceberg.

I do take back that they would have become a "vassal state of the US". Vassal states get something tangible in return, the US wasn't offering anything except implied war and destruction in return for unconditional demands. I think "puppet state" or "satellite state" is a more apt description in that context.

The Japanese military establishment in the 1930's was hellbent on expanding their influence. They had defeated Imperial Russia, and felt like it was their time in the sun. They had complete dominance over the government, and chose, yes chose to undertake a path of aggression towards their neighbors. First they started with Manchuria, and installed a puppet government. Then they moved on China.

Unsurprisingly, this provoked concern amongst other countries that had interests in the region. The Dutch (Indonesia), the British (Singapore and Malaysia), and the US (Philippines) realized the threat posed by the expanding Japanese empire. At the time the US was still in the midst of the Great Depression and was in no state to challenge Japan militarily, so they used an oil embargo to try and persuade the Japanese to adhere to international agreements.

It wasn't until 1941 that the US cut off oil to Japan. At this point, Japan had already invaded and controlled Manchuria, invaded and controlled a majority of China. When Japan seized control of Indochina, the US and allies attempted to influence Japan to leave Indochina by seizing US held assets, and embargoing oil. Japan had anticipated this and began a regional war attacking both the US, Dutch and UK territories.

You seem to imply that these things just "happen" and that no one is in control or making decisions. While history often seems to have an impetus of its own, it's the result of choices leaders and people make. Tojo and his warmongers sought out conflict in the region, dismissed counsel from wiser heads, and set Japan on a course to ruin.

Hirohito made a choice to continue to allow the militarist factions in the Japanese government to hold sway. But to point to the day the go ahead was given to Isoroku Yamamoto as the crux of the issue is to miss the point; he holds responsibility, as did the other military leaders and the Emperor. They knew the risks when they invaded Indochina; they knew the latent power of the US, but they underestimated their foes, and overestimated their own ability to wage war.

Attacking Pearl Harbor was irrational, both in hindsight, but also in terms of what the Japanese knew at the time. It was less than a year before the IJN began to experience catastrophic losses, and after Guadalcanal, there IJN was on its back foot for the rest of the war.

What could Japan have done differently? They could have restrained themselves from invading Indochina and prompting the expect oil embargo. If that wasn't feasible, they could have relinquished control of Indochina, though that would have caused a tremendous loss of face. They could have attacked and invaded the Dutch East Indies to gain oil, and odds are the US wouldn't have gotten involved. Great Britain was pretty busy with fighting Germany at the time and wouldn't have been able to help the Dutch much. If they did, the Japanese would easily defeat them in Singapore, as they did on Dec 8th.

The isolationist sentiment in the US at the time wouldn't have allowed the US to intervene. We weren't intervening in the European war, despite Lend-Lease, and sure wouldn't have intervened in Asia unless directly attacked.

Uh, no, I did not imply that in the least.

I think you're just on some rant against a strawman view that the Empire of Japan wasn't militaristic or an aggressor nation in Manchuria or Pearl Harbor / WWII.

I didn't suggest anything of the sort, I was merely replying to the narrow question of whether an admiral on Isoroku Yamamoto's staff could be considered irrational for going along with the Pearl Harbor attack.

I don't think that's the case for exactly the reasons you seem to agree with and are arguing for.

What options do you think an admiral who's not in a senior role has in the Empire of Japan at the time when, as you've noted, his boss's-boss's and boss's-boss's-boss's etc. are clearly in favor of that general strategy?

The idea that the Hull note was perceived as a casus belli isn't some fringe conspiracy theory. If you e.g. read the Wikipedia articles involved such as [1] and [2] they cite scholars who agree (and others who disagree) with that view.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_note#Interpretations

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Events_leading_to_the_attack_o...

<demanded unconditional withdrawal from China.>

This is factually incorrect. The goal of the oil embargo was to get Japan out of Indochina, not China or Manchuria. Japan could have finessed this by installing a puppet regime (ala Manchuko), but their arrogance wouldn't allow that.

Now you move from

<a general deciding to attack Perl(sic) Harbor is making the best and most rational decision>

to

<an admiral who's not in a senior role has in the Empire of Japan>

Yamato is the architect of both the tactical plan of attacking Pearl Harbor, as well as the strategy of reducing American seapower (by attacking PH) and then defeating them in a decisive battle (Midway). He's not some lower ranking officer, he's the intellectual and martial spirit of the IJN.

This also shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the power and influence of Yamamoto. Yamamoto was the most powerful officer in the IJN, and also had tremendous influence with the Imperial Family. Yamamoto could have used this influence earlier, to moderate Tojo's ambitions, and to avoid conflict with the US. He knew that Japan could never defeat the US over time, but still acted irrationally in a way that failed Japan.

You're also confused about the timing of the oil embargo, and the Hull note. The oil embargo (along with other trade restrictions and confiscation of Japanese assets) began immediately in July 41 after the Japanese began to make obvious preparations to attack either the British in Malaya, or the Dutch in the East Indies.

The Hull note was a last ditch attempt in late November to forestall war. At this point, war was inevitable; the attack on Pearl Harbor had been planned since Spring of 41, and the Kido Butai had already departed before the Hull note was sent.

Where did I mention anything about the oil embargo? You're the one who brought that up, and now you're arguing with yourself.

The historians who are of the opinion that the Hull note amounts to a declaration of war aren't talking about the aspect of it that relates to oil.

Nobody thinks a refusal to trade goods amounts to a declaration of war, rather the part where the US implicitly threatens "or else" if Japan doesn't sign on to some version of a wide ranging policy agreement it didn't find palatable.

> Yamamoto was the most powerful officer in the IJN, and also had tremendous influence with the Imperial Family.

It sounds like you're in agreement with my point then.

This whole thread is about the supposed irrationality of Japanese admirals subservient to Yamamoto. Not about what Yamamoto could have done.

I invite you to re-read fatbird's upthreads comment while you're looking for some place where I directly or indirectly mentioned anything about oil (I didn't), I.e.:

> "The Japanese generals and admirals agreed to the attack on Pearl Harbour despite the admiral leading it[...]"

Easy to claim what "a sane person" would do from the arrogant POV of a western average citizen, but reality looks very different.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1995/06/19/the-general-an...

I've even had people on HN arguing with me that such a war was the "rational" thing to do - which I found rather disturbing, to say the least.

On the other hand, it does feel threatened, and having a dangerous weapon and acting reckless keeps possible attackers at bay.

But if an all-out war between NK and the US started, it would be started by the only ones who can possibly think of winning it, that is the US.

This is, after all, what American presidents have been doing for the past few decades.

1. NK is not expansionary.

2. NK has nukes. US does not want anyone to use nukes, even a little one.

3. Any attack on NK means many deaths in SK.

4. Bad press.

War was desired by all parties - at least in the beginning. People celebrated when war started - look up archive photos and movies. Everybody thought that they'll have a nice fight, down a beer at the pub afterwards and be home by Christmas - effectively rehashing the last Prussian war 30 years before.

What nobody perceived at that time is technology changed enough to make the war catastrophic, and it took 2 world wars for that perception to sink in.

I"m pretty sure though that a determined effort to overthrow NK by sneakier means would move the needle a lot.

E.g. making small scale incursions, or military maneuvers that 'mistakenly'cross the border by about 10 km, but now we refuse to budge.

oops we landed on this small shoreline here, but we'd like to stay.

What, You're all starving? We sent a massive peace mission backed by unarmed troops, and lots of food - win hearts and minds.

Basically play a constant game of chicken with them, call their bluff and needle the regime whilst taking chunks of territory at the same time.

It might soften the border enough and cause so much stress to the regime that it collapses by itself.

Yes, winning at politics requires some skill and intellect, but it doesn't mean that the winning actor is intellectual or rational.

You lost me here.

The broad framework of Communist states at the time was establishing world dominance through force and persuasion, although they couldn't agree on the exact pace and methods. NK was in this respect not an outlier, the Kim v1 likely seeing his role in the new world order less marginal than ruling half a peninsula. In particular, anti-Japan sentiment was and still is cultivated throughout society. In 2020 it can not be ascribed to realistic self-preservation interest.

And in either case, the very fact they do have ideology means a lot. Certain decisions are going to be made not due to strategic and personal interest but to an abstract rulebook not necessarily in sync with reality. Therein lies a huge danger not covered by assumptions of rational actor model.

Without anything motivating themselves besides just trying to survive, the motivation of everyone to fight is very low. That doesn’t make for a good dedicated army. Most NK soldiers would surrender as soon as they could.

The one where a million Chinese soldiers turn up at high speed, just like last time, leaps to mind.

MAD works because everyone knows that starting or joining a nuclear firefight is literally suicide. What would compel them to fire if they're clearly not being targeted?

The book The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States: A Speculative Novel describes such a scenario.

Chilling.

https://www.amazon.de/-/en/Jeffrey-Lewis/dp/1328573915/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arc_Light_(novel)

And, of course, for cases of a war starting because of a false belief that they were about to be attacked there is the real life case of Able Archer 83:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83

A thinking that they can win: Tojikistan, Karabag, Transnistria, Georgia, Donbas, Crimea, Syria, Libya — all set a very damning precedent of the West conceding to use of force.

If China decides to shoot back, all bets are off. It would be exactly the error the Japanese made when they attacked Pearl Harbor and thought they can get away with it. That would directly affect the West and our leaders could not say anymore "will be fine, we're taking the high road here" unless they want to be lynched by a mob.

Also everyone knows that the US is both highly militaristic and highly jingoistic.

That was certainly true up through the early 2000s, but this stereotype is by now out of date. On the left, America is self-loathing, and on the right it's become quite isolationist.

Terrorist attacks like 9/11 leave doubt about who to go after and at what scale to retaliate but a clear attack on a city by a foreign state as an act of war is a different thing. Gloves would come off and the complete full force of every resource ( military, political, economic, etc ) would be brought to bear.

It depends on the specifics, of course. If a specific country directly attacked the US, of course I'd expect (and even demand) a military response. But these days, I wouldn't expect a non-state's terrorist attack to lead to the sort of misguided, ill-informed adventurism that ultimately led us to invade Iraq.

Also ++ for the use of jingoistic. :)

See also: Korean War, where Chinese intervened to stop the US-allied South from winning against the North.

You remember Kim's brother VXed in Malaysia? He was China's bid on NK throne. China was trying to launch a coup in NK.

China been trying to seize power in NK for decades.

NK-China relations are complicated ones. China wants NK, but is afraid of losing NK if their machinations flop, and push the NK towards the West.

>A thinking that they can win

The only way to talk about war is to be prepared to understand 'the other side' of your argument. In this case, you're setting yourself up to have to answer the question: in the 21st century, which nation state has started the most wars, committed violent hostilities, and murdered innocent citizens at massive scales, the most?

That's unlikely to be the scenario. The big problem for China is that they're responsible for the current North Korea regime existing. China has been directly, intentionally propping up and protecting North Korea from day one. The American people will not find it acceptable to exchange Pyongyang for Los Angeles or New York, much less trade several of North Korea's cities for several major US cities.

The American public would demand a nuclear strike against China in retaliation, a more equitable outcome - Shanghai for Los Angeles, Beijing for New York - for those ultimately responsible for what North Korea is today.

That's where hundreds of millions of people could die from a North Korean strike. It's why China should have never enabled and tolerated the Kim regime in the first place, and now it's too late to fix that historic blunder. Any nuclear strike from North Korea will likely result in a nuclear strike against China.

This is equivalent to the Israeli Samson option (which is why you don't want Iran getting nukes).

If the US goes down - eg loses its top 30 cities - why shouldn't it take every Chinese and Russian city with it? Try convincing the American public to not want revenge against anyone that has ever assisted North Korea.

It's also notable that the USA has also tolerated the Kim regime, because it gives them an excuse to be present in force in South Korea. It's not like the CIA couldn't have the Kims removed if they put some effort into it. PRC would have to pretend to be angry about it, but it would also get them out of the awkward situation.

Which part of this is the President "trying" and the Iranians "declining"?

https://www.npr.org/2019/06/21/734683701/trump-reportedly-or...

He's probably the only Commander-in-Chief I've had so far to say "I don't think it's proportionate to bomb a bunch of people because we lost a drone."

This... doesn't seem likely.

> If the US goes down - eg loses its top 30 cities - why shouldn't it take every Chinese and Russian city with it? Try convincing the American public to not want revenge against anyone that has ever assisted North Korea.

Okay, I see where you're coming from, but this was not the scenario being discussed. The scenario presented was "NK lobs a single nuke at Los Angeles." The expected response is closer to "US decapitates NK before they can fire any more, everybody shits their pants, but no additional nukes are fired."

Decapitating NK in one fell swoop might be possible... decapitating China is highly unlikely. 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?

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.

China doesn't want to enter WWIII any more than the US does. And the US response to an NK attack is very predictable.

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.

You would also need to somehow move your DMZ-overrunning force into position without that manoeuvre itself triggering the artillery bombardment.

A prospect of USA trying to win a land war in China is mind boggling, and equally so for China launching a land operation in the USA.

It’s my understanding that they have designed and produced only fission weapons. I’ve never heard a single piece of information ever that suggests that they can, could, or would produce a fusion bomb.

“possible, even likely” in the context of a DPRK fusion bomb, given what I have seen and read thus far, seems like complete fantasy to me. Do you know something I don’t?

The first ever (and presumably smallest?) one the US ever did ("Ivy Mike") was two orders of magnitude larger than that (~10MT).

There is no question that the DPRK has fission weapons, but ojbyrne asserted a thermonuclear attack, which I have never seen any indication is within the present or predictable future capabilities of the DPRK.

Oh, hang on. It would appear the DPRK has actually made this claim, according to WP, but it seems to be disputed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon#North_Kor...

Yes, and in fact most thermonuclear devices nowadays are in that range as its more efficient than a smaller number of megaton range bombs. Eg the most common US warhead (fitted to Trident) is the 100 kiloton W76 and each Trident missile can carry 14 of them, each independently targeted.

That doesn't seem smart at all. I think that a nuclear explosion on the ocean, right in front of a major city (NY, LA) but at safe distance, would be a better start. It provides the same amount of threat with no victims and no pressing need for blind retaliation.

What NK needs is to make clear that the cost of attacking it can be unsustainably high, while provoking the least possible response.

NK doesn't need to fire anywhere close to the US in order to do this. We're already watching them, and for the most part, they've already made it clear that attacking them might cost us a city or two.

Putting on a nuclear waterworks in front of Los Angeles would be psychotically risky, because the US would need to decide whether or not to return fire before the US target is known. "Vaguely near Los Angeles" might as well be Los Angeles because of measurement uncertainties, late-stage course corrections, and MIRVs.

As usual, the winning move is not to fire anything that might be construed as a nuke towards any of your enemies, unless you are prepared to die.

I’m pointing out the silliness of thinking they would do it when they have the most to lose.

The type of leaders with such disdain for their own countries are like those well known African tinpot dictators who effectively live in Europe (and to the great delight of their European hosts...) most of the time, while their henchmen plunder their countries back home.

If it comes to him looking for amnesty, they're going to let him burn.

2. I don't have numbers, but say NK starts 40 ICMBs, the US shoots down 95% then 2 ICBMs would reach the US, at least California and NYC wouldn't be livable for decades.

3. I don't think this balances out "decapitation of military capacity"

I have no detail knowledge of the fallout radius or radioactive decay, I would assume an ICBM hit would render the valley and Manhattan unliveable, but I haven't been in both places for more than five years so I might be wrong.

https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

The times make the people.

Whenever I see someone do this, I generally stop talking immediately, but I am sticking up for GP on this one.

The comment you are replying to in no way made a statement about what is or isn't awful. Simply a comment about the size of various things.

Besides that, please don't do the dumb US jingoism, it is just so tiring overall

Hold on, it didn't "almost work." The carriers being out of port made the attack much worse for Japan, but the operation was a fairly dramatic strategic failure. Japan knew that the US industrial capacity at the time could produce new ships quickly, so the main aim was to buy time to gain a larger foothold in Asia that could withstand a total US war (especially because US strategy clearly regarded Germany as the bigger threat).

The US Atlantic Fleet had four carriers at the time (Yorktown, Ranger, Wasp and Hornet); the Pacific Fleet had three (Enterprise, Lexington, Saratoga). Notice something about those names? Shortly after the US was attacked, the Yorktown and Hornet were transferred to the Pacific Fleet. After the Lexington was sunk in the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Wasp was also transferred. At the same time, new carriers were entering service in the US at a fairly quick rate. The Essex was commissioned in December 1942, and then the Essex-class Wasp, Yorktown and Hornet were all commissioned in 1943 (after the aforementioned were sunk in battle).

Also, if you look at the tactical situation at Pearl Harbor, the Japanese bombers and torpedo aircraft were heavily biased in targeting lower-value battleships instead of the high-value cruisers and destroyers. Battleships had the prestige at the time, however, and pilots who knocked one out would receive greater glory than those who knocked out a more pedestrian destroyer or cruiser or even submarine.

Finally, one of the aims of Japan was to undermine US morale. It may not have been the main strategic aim, but it was an explicit goal. In fact, that's often an aim of "decapitation" operations: sow chaos and prevent your enemy from organizing.

So, no, it's not "US jingoism" to point out these fairly obvious facts. The US was simply better prepared for a conflict. It probably is today, too.

There are few circumstances where this refrain, so often repeated, would be so stupidly ignored by any of USA's enemies.

Presumably, a feeble opening shot such as this would be a precursor for a counter-, counter-attack, for which USA is not prepared. Because, after all, the USA is sure it will obliterate its enemies - and thus, the 'eye for eye' response would have to be something USA is really, really not prepared for.

Such proclamations as are allowed here, lend me to the thought: I wonder what that is?

You can't win a guerrilla war against a motivated foe (which is what the situation in Afghanistan is), without a long-term total occupation and cultural cleansing.

The US could take out the Taliban - it would require a 300,000 to 500,000 occupying force and total cultural change to what Afghanistan is, which would require brutal, horrific crimes against humanity, to strip Afghanistan of many of its current beliefs and culture. The US hasn't primarily been trying to destroy the Taliban (the US can't do it without that mass force and it knows that), it has been primarily trying to hold the Taliban at bay while trying to build up the central government of Afghanistan. This is sort of a replay of the same failed strategy in Vietnam (when the US left Vietnam the south held the extreme majority of territory and population; the south folded rapidly regardless, which is exactly what is going to happen to the government of Afghanistan, unfortunately).

The Northern Alliance was able to very rapidly smash the Taliban with the help of the US (the Taliban can't easily hold Afghanistan as a military force, so chaos and civil war is guaranteed in the near future). The challenge now and in the future is how to make any positive progress stick. The various powerful groups there, and their perma foreign sponsors (eg Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Turkey, etc), are not going to stop trying to topple eachother. The only thing giving Iraq a shot at being an independent, functional nation is their oil resource providing considerable funding to support a central government; Afghanistan of course lacks anything comparable. I don't know where the economy is going to come from to fund a potent central government in Afghanistan (while the Taliban operates on the cheap in comparison). It obviously takes a very long time to build up an economy from scratch in a location like Afghanistan.

The Afghans have a saying, "you have watches, but we have time". No American or Western electorate was or is willing to commit to a permanent presence. So here we are!

Afghanistan is only about 25% urban. The Cold War era led to a couple of decades of countries trying to figure out their alignment and less internal strife, but by the 70s the internal rumblings were becoming clear.

We could keep Cairo, Tehran and Kabul groovy as long as we're comfy keeping the boot on the majorities necks.

Imagine thinking you have a coherent picture of what the culture in Afghanistan and Iran was like in the 1970s just because you saw those half-dozen photos people post over and over on reddit.

Imagine thinking you have something to contribute to this discussion, if you’re not going to enlighten us...?

You seem to think that a small number of photographs showing young people in popular western attire from a largely rural country's capitol in 1970s implies that the country at large had something approaching a liberal western mindset on culture and religion at the time. You also seem to be incorrectly conflating the Afghan Mujahideen, the Taliban, and the Northern Alliance.

I'm not going to write a dissertation on the topic on HN, but I'll just say that it's very clear that you don't know as much about it as you think you do, and I implore you and anyone reading the thread to go and read on this 40-year conflict in some detail if they want to gain a meaningful understanding of it.

Thanks for your valuable insights.

That's one way to look at it. Another (and IMO more correct) way to look at it is that the US lost there once (hence the second invasion), and will lose again in 10-20 years as the Iraqi elites wait it out and things revert to the mean. Oh, and we lost in Syria as well, although not funding and not arming ISIS did help to alleviate some of the problems in the last few years. Assad is still right where he was, and he will remain there for decades to come.

This is much like Napoleon "winning" the war against Russia in 1812. Captured Moscow. Pissed on the floor in the Kremlin. And then he got chased back all the way to Paris and exiled.

Except in the Middle East it's even worse than that. The US tends to forget that those folks represent much older civilizations and they live on a different time scale. They can literally sit it out for 20-30 years while we sink trillions of taxpayer dollars there and while our soldiers are torn apart with an occasional IED. They also culturally don't give a flying fuck about "democracy" or whatever. There's really not a hell of a lot that can be done about that, and there's no way to "win" under such circumstances.

If you wait by the river long enough, the bodies of your enemies will float by.

That's why there won't be a permanent "victory" there, in any sense of the word.

Your history is badly mixed up. There wasn't a first invasion, so your premise is wrong from the start. The first Iraq war wasn't meant to topple Saddam at all, which is why George HW Bush wisely didn't attempt to invade Iraq with an occupation force. The first Iraq war was to push Iraq out of Kuwait and smash the Iraqi military to reduce them as a regional threat (eg to Saudi Arabia). It was a huge concerted success (the US was joined by a very strong, diverse coalition). Saddam's once vaunted military was left in shambles, their hardware and capabilities were dramatically reduced. And then aggressive sactions prevented Saddam from rebuilding the military effectively.

> Oh, and we lost in Syria as well

The US didn't lose in Syria. From the position of the warmongers in DC, it was a stellar victory. On the cheap Syria was reduced to rubble and is a non-actor now, they've been almost completely destroyed. Russia is still the dominant big political-military ally of Syria, so nothing changed about that. At worst the US neither gained nor lost, at best - again, from the perspective of the hawks in the Pentagon - Syria is crippled as a regional power. Israel and several other regional powers are also thrilled with Syria's situation, to say the least. It'll take decades for Syria to just get back to where they were before. As a player in the Middle East, they got almost entirely neutralized.

That's like saying we "won" in Afghanistan just because the Taliban temporarily moved elsewhere. As long you don't have permanent control of the country, you haven't really "won" anything there. And I don't think you will argue that we have any kind of permanent control there, then or now, or can realistically get it in the future.

At least the Gulf War achieved something worthwhile. Later Iraqi and Afghan wars achieved nothing whatsoever.

In North Korea, on the other hand, the endgame is clear: the downfall of the Kim regime, mostly likely followed by integration into South Korea (if China allows, and that's a mighty big if). You're not going to have ordinary North Koreans head for the hills and turn into partisan guerrillas fighting for Juche.

Maybe, but they might be willing to fight invaders. The Korean War that killed 2-3 million civilians doesn't make the US seem like the good guy. The US will be seen as imperialist invaders by the ordinary citizen of the DPRK.

The fall of East Germany is instructive: while that imploded internally instead of being triggered from the outside, there was absolutely zero violent resistance to West Germany coming in and essentially taking over. North Korea isn't going to be same level of cakewalk, but it's closer to this end of the spectrum than Afghanistan or Iraq.

Famous last words preceding every single failed US military intervention. In fact, preceding most other military interventions in other countries. Probably what Hitler thought as he was invading the USSR. Or what the USSR thought when invading Afghanistan (where, by the way, one of my uncles served, and got his right arm blown off).

Truly, those who have not studied history are doomed to repeat it.

The most realistic, and highest success chance scenario is that North Korea will coordinate attack with China.

In all conceivable scenarios, NATO will have more resources even after 100% one sided nuclear attack on it (3000-4000 warheads,) and be able to subdue both China, and NK with conventional forces, and standing armies alone.

Not to say, China's neighbours will not stand still too.

Even a whatever pyrrhic victory will likely be the end of political regimes in both NK, and China.

If they will attack, they will weight in that price first.

If China does support NK in such a situation, that support would be limited to things which are entirely deniable- material and perhaps some light cyberwarfare. Certainly no extra ICBMs, and nothing that would stop the U.S. from rolling over NK in short order (for all that it certainly increase the cost for the U.S.)

It would be extremely disruptive to the region which would result in opportunities to use the Chinese army to make gains on disputed territories while the world was occupied with the big war elsewhere. I did not say this was likely.

In all scenarios I see, it will work the other way around. I doubt that NK military would move a centimetre without Beijing's explicit authorisation.

In any big war, China will use NK as a cannon fodder.

To all outside observers, this looks like North Korea did it. But Beijing is now turned to glass, and the Chinese command is transferred to the military division in Chengdu. The world is tense, as it awaits China’s retaliation.

However, China doesn’t fall for the bait. They begin their investigations in earnest, and discover the true mastermind behind the nuclear attack: The United States.

World War 3 begins. China launches 1000 ICBM missiles at the United States. Thus ending all known life as we know it on American soil. The American military counterattacks and launches all their nukes at China. Both sides are turned to glass.

The world gasps at what just happened. Russia now proceeds to take over the world. Well played.

Chauschesku was bas a bastard, bit it was their bastard, unlike Enver Hoxha.

The most realistic scenario is that the nukes are not used to initiate an attack. They are there for defense, not to start a war.

You don't need to defend your ballistic missiles if you already fired them.

Ballistic missiles are an inherently offensive weapon.

By making the chance that someone would even be willing to attack you a lot lower. MAD is a defensive strategy, not offensive.