Thread: Iran and the Bomb

So let me get this straight, you're claiming that without Chinese support, the U.S. would invade North Korea, even though they would almost certainly nuke Seoul in retaliation?

Originally Posted by sponge

that's rather speculative, they'd certainly like to nuke Seoul, but given their generally shit state as a nation, I doubt their launching platforms are as redundant and sophisticated as those of the West and Russia. It's plausible that a preliminary (stealth) invasion force could knock out their infrastructure in very little time.

See that's the problem - the idea that they CAN'T or WON'T nuke Seoul is the really speculative point of view. Maybe they will, maybe they won't, but we don't know for sure. They certainly have the technology, capacity and motivation to do so.

All they need is to put in place and protect a few warheads, fired from mobile missile launchers with a range of only 100km or less. The South Korean capital is only 40km from the DMZ. Bury these in amongst several hundred other 'dummy' launchers and the chances of getting them all is fairly minimal.

The prospect of a "stealth" invasion, by a force small enough to be undetectable, of actually succeeding in completely destroying all the right ones is again minimal. You're right, it's plausible that it might work, but not remotely guaranteed. Without this step succeeding the rest of the plan falls down immediately.

Even if you plan on only going ahead if that last step does work, the planned follow up invasion would need a minimum of several weeks to be organised and forces put in place. And if the North Koreans turn on CNN, they will have at least 6 months warning of a major invasion coming while the political debate require to authorise an invasion goes on. This further makes a mockery of the idea of a stealth invasion - if hardly stealth if they know you are coming 6 months or a year in advance and are expecting prelimary infiltrations.

Alternatively, if the U.S. sneak attacked first, then give the DPRK 6 months to recover from any damage done, while they arrange the follow up invasion, that gives them North Koreans more than enough to time to fix the damage done.

So what you've got is a whole bunch of possible, but fairly slim chances to complete each necessary step in the right order and at the right time, each of which if it fails or the timing is wrong, can potentially end in the immediate death for several million people.

Who's going to sign the order to put this plan into action?