North Korea 2nd Nuke Test

[Kuya]

Ok but seriously, you haven't put forth a real plan for dealing with NK.

You don't need an alternative to hold the position that nuking civilians is highly unethical.

[Kiro]

Teach them all how to cook and assimilate them into "western" countries as chefs. Give a few their own cooking shows on PBS and KCTS, maybe put a pretty one on the Food Network.

I just solved the problem. Next?

[Kisamoo]

NK is just a liability to the rest of the world at this point. Sorry but when your leader is a bat shit insane and the citizens are as brainwashed as they are, it shouldn't be our responsibility to do shit. They should have overthrown him decades ago and caught up with the rest of the world. That said, nuke em.

I know i'll probably get a lot of fire for that comment, but it's their country- their problems- they should have done somthing but they chose to eat up all his shit. It's not hard to see your leader is an epic failure when you're god damned starving.

[Meian]

And don't forget NK has the 2nd largest land army in the world, right behind china. Basically half of country are trained assassins. You really don't want to land there.

Was watching CNN a few hours ago and they said it was like this:

China
USA
India
North Korea
___ (forgot this one)

in order of army size. But it was still huge considering their country size and how poor they are in regards to food etc

[Beckwin]

I actually have mentioned a course of action to take, but I guess since it doesn't involve using missiles first to "protect American interests" it doesn't count.

[0ni0n]

I actually have mentioned a course of action to take, but I guess since it doesn't involve using missiles first to "protect American interests" it doesn't count.

The only course of action you should be taking is either packing up provisions and head to a bomb shelter or polishing some skills at the shooting range.

Was watching CNN a few hours ago and they said it was like this:

China
USA
India
North Korea
___ (forgot this one)

in order of army size. But it was still huge considering their country size and how poor they are in regards to food etc

yea I confirmed that on wiki. It's still a clusterfuck in there though, a land war is a last resort.

[Vuitton]

Its too bad NK is not Guatemala. Then we could train freedom fighters to overthrow the government...

Why hasn't the US tried to assassinate this guy yet? They're so keen to use this strategy in central and south america.

[Beckwin]

The only course of action you should be taking is either packing up provisions and head to a bomb shelter or polishing some skills at the shooting range.

there's apparently designated safe zones the embassy tells you to go to. idk, honestly I'm not that realistically concerned. best bet would just be to head south and away from population centers.

[Despain]

You are no fun.

My initial reaction was to get really mad, but lol, its whatever. I can't really get mad at things that are true :/

[Melchiah]

Beckwin... brah... I get it. You're an idealist. And that's cool. And you're correct that nuking civilians should be an absolute last resort.

That being said, you have to realize at this point that the mental state of the North Korean leadership is going downhill and gaining speed. While they might be satisfied rattling sabers right now, it won't stay that way forever.

You can ignore a child throwing a tantrum for attention and get the desired result in the long run, because you know the child's limitations and eventually he will get tired of screaming.

You cannot apply this same strategy to an unhinged dictator who willfully disobeys the UN. For a historical example, and I really hate to Godwin this thread up, but during WWII the European powers used a strategy of appeasement with Hitler and the Reichstag, and if you recall, it ended with Nazi Germany almost overrunning Europe.

While I don't think North Korea has that potential, I do forsee problems with them producing thermonuclear weapons regardless of their ability to deliver them to outside targets. You don't want a desperate Third World government building those types of weapons because they either cannot or will not keep them secure.

Allowing continued nuclear research/activity in North Korea will lead to long term problems, be it with those weapons being distributed to hostile groups or worse pointed at other countries. No one wants that.

You keep saying there is a diplomatic solution, but you don't elaborate. I believe there is a diplomatic solution, but it doesn't involve Kim Jong Il or the remnants of his authoritarian regime.

[Xno Kappa]

/em packs up his TA 50 for deployment.

[Mugekuge]

Well if you see pakistan-india kashmir conflict, they both have nuclear weapons and are third world countries, pakistan has had a few militar governments lately and so far i dont see any of them thinking to use those to solve that problem, Beckwin lives in the zone and wow i didn't know Seoul was so close to NK border, he and everybody there last thing will want is a military strat, also NK government is a militar old style stalinist type, hate they say they are socialism when a lot of people there are starving, that socialism bs they say they are (same goes to myanmar).

One form of pressure on them would be china and russia start blocking any type of help to them, besides more sanctions until they decide to let UN to enter and inspect their nuclear factories.

[Beckwin]

Working with Russia, China, and of course SK to put economic pressures on NK is the best course of action. We pretty much have to accept that they have nuclear potential now and change our preparation accordingly; Iran will be in the same boat soon tbh.

Of course I don't have a precise plan- I'm not a diplomat or nuclear weapons expert. But it's not like "well uh we should uh totally take out that evil regime cuz they are not listening to us" is really a precise plan either. I do feel that it's pretty safe to say that aggression by either side would result in a lot of civilian casualties no matter what, so the ethical position is not to be the asshole throwing the first punch and make all the preparations and defenses you can to minimize any possible attack that gets through.

Any attempt to subvert the NK regime would be acceptible, be it by official economic sanctions/deals to let foreign inspectors in the country or by subterfuge/fomenting resistance movements. "turning NK into a glass parking lot" is not an acceptible response.

China and Russia are frankly the keys to this, and I've commented earlier on how good relations with the US are much, much more important to China than KJI's Juche.

[Plow]

NK will lose the war for sure, but nothing can stop it from leveling seoul.

This, and Beckwin's post, have for the most part already been responded to, but I'm tossing it in here because my response is directly to this belief.

Look I realize that the US military is still insanely powerful and proficient at knocking down third-world regimes, but your button scenario changes when you consider that plain ol' (long range) artillery is constantly trained on Seoul, not to mention the potential for nukes that we apparently don't know where they were and that they were so close to a finished product.


Seno: "blockade" is definitely a change of tune from "glass 'em", so I'm glad that you're exiting trollville and starting to be more reasonable.




And above all, even accepting the possibility of super-awesome Team America fuckyeah 0 allied casualties going on, N. Koreans are people too and it's only a small handful of them that deserve a bomb to the face. We should take that into the foremost consideration when talking about "putting them in their place" or whatever machismo laden phrases you want to throw around just because yet another non-friendly country has nukes.

As a side note: I've notice increased fighter jet activity in the past couple days >_> there's an air base in my town, then some in Seoul and another major one about 20 minutes south of me (Osan Air Base in Pyongtaek).

You're just so far off on understanding our military capability.

Look at the first gulf war, prior to 15+ years of the greatest technology advances in the history of mankind.

Iraq was IN Kuwait. Not just pointing and threatening, their military was there. They actively declared it a part of Iraq. We had waited, and when Iraq went on the offensive within 2 days the entirety of the Kuwait military was either dead, captive, or fled from the country. It was utterly defenseless.

Russia convinced them to stop, basically. But the U.S. demanded that they not only stop, they become a non-threat. At this point, Hussein started talking shit to Saudia Arabia. (ringing any bells here?)

At this point, basically everything that has happened now happened there (with the invasion of kuwait and SA threat being the equivalent of the missile testing and SK threat, main difference being if Iraq got SA under control they'd be the richest and most powerful country in the world instead of just a slightly stronger crazy asshole with nukes)-- the world banded together, the diplomacy attempts were intensified to the strongest possible point, with very clear military support implications, and Hussein kept flipping us all the bird.

We then proceeded to just fucking destroy their military capacity in a matter of minutes to hours, while causing less than 2300 Iraqi civilian casualties in the entire war. This in spite of the fact that while it was by far the most technological war ever up to that point, the vast, vast majority of strikes were not smart weaponry.

Iraq then started shooting at Israel in attempt to get them involved by killing civilians. They managed to kill 2. No, that's not a typo, Iraq shot 30 some odd missiles at Israel, aiming for cities, and killed 2 people. They later tried to overrun the Saudi city that would be the key to controlling the money/power, and killed around 25 total Coalition troops and I don't think any civilians at all.

Now, fast forward about 10 years to the 2nd.

The CIA and JSOC entered Iraq in July of 02, "perfecting" (yes, I'm aware of the major lols inc at the end of this sentence) American intelligence on Iraq's military capabilities at the time. Finding the key positions of command and who was in charge of them, finding the locals that weren't batshit and might be useful, getting essentially preemptive surrenders from key parts, etc. All of this is already solidly in place in NK.

When we struck, Iraq was entirely debilitated in moments. They wanted to attack Israel, but their capabilities were utterly eliminated before it was possible for them to react. Within hours, the entire capability of the Iraq army had been reduced to shooting as they ran away, hiding in civilian guise for ambushes, etc. While it took a couple weeks for the ground troops to gain full control of Baghdad, any offensive threat was eliminated within minutes.


Now, we've got years more advancements, and far more support, against a weaker enemy that may or may not be capable of getting a major strike off against anything even if we didn't execute a flawless infrastructure elimination.

We really can do to NK what we've now done to Iraq twice, except executed even better.

Basically, look at it this way: If Iraq actually had the potential for WMD, and had been a legitimate continuing threat to their neighbors on a massive scale, the Iraq war would have been widely accepted, because it would have been extremely justified.

In this case, it really is.


Honestly, this is really one of the worst things about the Iraq war, the crying wolf syndrome. Now we're in a situation where the reality is in front of our faces, and appears to be about to get shoved down our throats, and we have to look at it through an entirely different glass because of the horrible realities of the "last time."

[Beckwin]

I don't really think I'm that off-base on what NK could potentially do in a conflict. Keep in mind that in the Gulf War, Saddam got off 40 or so SCUDs. Yes, tech has advanced considerably, but the problem is, even 1 nuke getting through on the peninsula or Japan would be catastrophic, not to mention the constantly trained artillery (talking shells here, not missiles that can be intercepted) aimed at Seoul.

you also have to consider the NK army; I'd see them as closer to VC than the Iraqi Army. I'm not saying NK would have a chance at winning a war, but they have a lot of options for a lot of bloodshed.

[noblemountain]

I don't really think I'm that off-base on what NK could potentially do in a conflict. Keep in mind that in the Gulf War, Saddam got off 40 or so SCUDs. Yes, tech has advanced considerably, but the problem is, even 1 nuke getting through on the peninsula or Japan would be catastrophic, not to mention the constantly trained artillery (talking shells here, not missiles that can be intercepted) aimed at Seoul.

you also have to consider the NK army; I'd see them as closer to VC than the Iraqi Army. I'm not saying NK would have a chance at winning a war, but they have a lot of options for a lot of bloodshed.

Having trained with quite a few ROK's and talking to them about the NK army, I'll agree with you on this point. They are very much like the VC army and would be BAD to fight straight up with an invasion. The ROK soldiers were badass themselves and if it weren't for the nukes I'd be all for just letting them deal with NK with just our support. I think you're totally correct that they'd get some of the artillery off and there would be quite a few civilian deaths...but I don't think they would completely level Seoul. There is no way to win a war there without a lot of innocent people dying.

[Plow]

I don't really think I'm that off-base on what NK could potentially do in a conflict. Keep in mind that in the Gulf War, Saddam got off 40 or so SCUDs. Yes, tech has advanced considerably, but the problem is, even 1 nuke getting through on the peninsula or Japan would be catastrophic, not to mention the constantly trained artillery (talking shells here, not missiles that can be intercepted) aimed at Seoul.

you also have to consider the NK army; I'd see them as closer to VC than the Iraqi Army. I'm not saying NK would have a chance at winning a war, but they have a lot of options for a lot of bloodshed.

You said 20 million, I assure you if that's what you're thinking, you're waaaaaay off base.

And the artillery banks trained on Seoul would be destroyed near instantly, not to mention the communication avenues that would've alerted them to go active.

For lack of a better way to put it, and since this is still a video game forum after all, Iraq turned out to be like playing Command and Conquer against someone playing Age of Empires (insert bad saboteur joke nobody would get here), NK would be like playing Starcraft against someone playing 1942.


The problem is, if we let them keep trying, they might get to the point where they can actually get a nuke off.

[Abandon]

My Master Chief briefed us this morning. Well, not really briefed, but whatever. Anyhow, he's expecting for the fleet to start yanking Gunner's Mates from my command and sending to the Pacific Fleet, to ensure our Detroyers and whatnot are ready to uh... say hello.

[Rammses]

For lack of a better way to put it, and since this is still a video game forum after all, Iraq turned out to be like playing Command and Conquer against someone playing Age of Empires

Too bad this Iraq is in the Imperial Age, and a trebuchet is all it takes to deliver their unique unit to the enemy base.

[dejet]

Why does it seem people like to just keep giving to nuts?

I know it failed somewhere in the past but I just cant think of where.. HMMMM where did talking fail in the past? Man oh well guess it did not turn out to be a big thing in the end. right?

longer you wait the more likely you are to WWIII

edit: Before someone says I think we should start the war. No I do not. There are other ways, what they are I have no clue. Just have to do something. Doing the same things over and over and telling them "You do this and we will give you a slap on the wrist" and not doing anything wont work. Guy is set in his ways no matter what we do it wont change his mind unless he thinks someone will take action if it comes to that.