Thread: North Korea

I don't know how classified the number of nukes in the US arsenal is US has more than 5,000 nuclear warheads - Telegraph . If those numbers are correct that would still leave the US with about 3400 nukes. Seems to me that with nukes if you can't get the job done with a couple of hundred you are in a world of trouble. Even with a reduction there should still be plenty of spare muscle lying around.

Bob

Yeah, I can't really see a 1/3 reduction in the US nuclear arsenal having much impact on the intimidation leverage of NK, or Iran for that matter.

Hoping he's just flexing his muscles a little as he settles in to dad's shoes.......

Lets face it,look at how japan,germany,Vietnam have prospered since waging war on the U.S. N.Ks only hope at this point to prosper and pull themselves out of a neanderthal exsistance is to declare war on us,than after they lose and millions are dead,we will spend zillions rebuilding N.K and all will be happy/happy
Waging war on Amerika is actually a good thing to do for 3rd world countrys.JMO

Yea, capitalism at it's finest. Waging war and rebuilding former enemies creates lots of opportunities for making huge profits at both ends. Ironic isn't it.

Bob

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Lets face it,look at how japan,germany,Vietnam have prospered since waging war on the U.S. N.Ks only hope at this point to prosper and pull themselves out of a neanderthal exsistance is to declare war on us,than after they lose and millions are dead,we will spend zillions rebuilding N.K and all will be happy/happy
Waging war on Amerika is actually a good thing to do for 3rd world countrys.JMO

this has been done up hilariously by leonard wibberly in his book the mouse that roared. it's also a movie of the same name starring peter sellers. the follow-up was the mouse on the moon. both very enjoyable

+1 on the US reduction of the arsenal.
There are actually a couple of good reasons for such a thing.

As was already pointed out, with 3400 nukes, the US still has the capability to destroy the world a dozen times over.
Maintaining a nuke + everything surrounding it + personell is a significant cost.

And many of the nukes being decommissioned will be the older types. And there are 2 issues with those older nukes. Firstly, there are still several that need to be airdropped. In this day and age, flying a bomb to its destination is not a good idea anymore, because of the risk of interception. And secondly, there are still a large amount of insanely powerful city busters left. Things in the 10 to 20 megaton yield range. These are much too powerful to deploy usefully. The reason they are so strong is that when they were made, delivery was still hit and miss. Even if you missed the city by many miles, you still had to be able to count on the city being gone. A 20 megaton nuke will do that. However, these days they can easily deliver those nukes within an inch of precision. The US will probably still maintain a good number of those, just in case, but you no longer need to maintain enough of them to carpet bomb Russia.

I'd also like to point out that those large bombs would only be good for a target the size of russia or china. If they are dropped on small countries, the neighboring countries are gone as well. With 20 megaton devices, you can do exactly do nothing in the NK issue. Because > 30 million south koreans live close enough the the NK border that they will be wiped out together with whatever it is you are targetting in NK. These are cold war relics that have outlived their purpose, and these days they are only kept around because of the political fallout on the president that got rid of them.

Of course the republican politicions and FOX will whine about it, even though there is not a single good reason to maintain those additional 1600 rather useless nukes. That is also why Obama waited until after the election. But getting rid of them will only be good for the budget, without having any impact at all on the US's defense status. And it will definitely not matter to the NK issue.

NK isn't a threat to the U.S.. They are a threat to China which is why China supports them somewhat. If the regime (NK) becomes too unstable they don't want all those North Koreans "moving" to China.

I don't know how much control Kim Jong Un actually has. I suspect that he still does what he is told to a degree.

In any event NK reminds me of the Iranian rhetoric without any of the power. Cuba is probably a better comparison.

Originally Posted by Bruno;1108889...

It is really a stretch to think that NK is any sort of threat to the US. Threat implies a credible chance to do any real damage to the country...

They're a bit closer to us down here, unfortunately, and we have very little means of defending ourselves. We have one Anti-Aircraft regiment for the entire country, a lot of coastline, a small navy, army and air force and a small population. Australia is probably seen to be very similar to them to the USA, we're just a whole bunch of other westerners, even if we are a bit quaint and cute. I bet there's a lot of countries looking over our fence and thinking, hmmm, that's a nice spot, plenty of food, space and there's water up north. We could move in there and rape that environment for a bit. Isn't it funny that the 'colonists' marched around the world 'better utilising' the 'un-tapped' resources for 'good' and it's just possible that the countries that were 'colonised' (well, not NK but other Asian countries) could plausibly be looking to turn the tables?

Of course the wars these days seem to me to be about religion and oil, but very soon they'll be about water and food production. We can only hope 'they' (the 'baddies') run out of energy and need to resort to sailing ships to get here. We'll bravely ride dolphins out to sea to meet them, with our bronzed Aussie chests bare to the waves, clad only in Rip Curl board shorts, strong hands wielding Lee-Enfield WWII Bolt Action rifles and fight them off the beaches. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender


Just idle rhetoric, no evidence or quotes or articles to refer to :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkTw3_PmKtc