North Korea Threatens pre-emptive nuclear strike.

[generator_g1]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I live in California, near LA. I take this NK business seriously.

If NK really do have nukes and missiles capable of delivering them, what could be the maximum range of said missles...I live in the Phil and it is looks like NK is getting pretty closer by the day...

[Crayz9000]

Our parents didn't go and tell us how the world would end any moment, you know....

Then again, that WAS the late 1980s. Wong grew up in the 70s... when the Soviets were far more active.

[TrailerParkJawa]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I live in California, near LA. I take this NK business seriously.

If NK really do have nukes and missiles capable of delivering them, what could be the maximum range of said missles...I live in the Phil and it is looks like NK is getting pretty closer by the day...

The current missiles can reach South Korea, China, and Japan for sure. I believe they might be able to reach Alaska and Hawaii but Im not certain. Eventually they will be able to reach the West Coast. You will be last to be reached but that is a while off. Im sure Sea Skimmer knows.

[Crayz9000]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I live in California, near LA. I take this NK business seriously.

I'd be more worried if I was living in Hawaii; the Koreans haven't built full ICBMs yet, which is what they'd need if they were to hit the West Coast.

Of course, China seems to have plenty of stuff for sale and Russia's had a few security failures in the past...

[generator_g1]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I live in California, near LA. I take this NK business seriously.

If NK really do have nukes and missiles capable of delivering them, what could be the maximum range of said missles...I live in the Phil and it is looks like NK is getting pretty closer by the day...

The current missiles can reach South Korea, China, and Japan for sure. I believe they might be able to reach Alaska and Hawaii but Im not certain. Eventually they will be able to reach the West Coast. You will be last to be reached but that is a while off. Im sure Sea Skimmer knows.

I should have completed the country name, I meant Philippines not Philadelphia(spelling?) which is pretty close to Hong Kong...

[PeZook]

Well, so much for the "peaceful nuclear program", eh?

They are playing the normal communist game, whose rules were established by the Soviets. They did the exact same thing - lied, cheated and misguided the West, sometimes to the point that the UN sincerely believed that they wanted to "change". Then, of course, they did something nice, like invading Afghanistan...

I just hope that the West learned from the Cold War.

About the question of retaliation, I agree with tarkun. If the US doesn't retaliate, the purpose of MAD will be lost, and every fuckhead will see this as a sign of weakness.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Believe him people, I and a few others of us on the board(Bear, Rob Wilson, others Im sure) are old enough to remember when Armageddon was just 30mins away. Despite the fact that no one wanted to think about it, it was this omni-present shadow that lurked just at the corner of your vision. As a child I knew that something was wrong when the news would be on and my folks would start talking in hushed tones and look scared because something was happening. I didn't know what it was ,but it made my Dad scared , and my Dad worked for US Steel on the hot strip line, and he didn't scare easily. Even today my blood runs cold every time I hear people bandying about the phrase 'first strike' and 'retaliation'. Nuclear weapons should never be taken for granted , for many of you the after effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are glossed over in school and since they are both healthy cties today , it seems to trivialize the risk in a way. However before you speak further I suggest you read "The Atomic Bomb:Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki" by Kyoko Selden , it will have you in tears to read these survivors accounts. Modern bombs , even the ones the Koreans may have are 100 to 1,000 times as powerful as the crude bombs we dropped on Japan. Any city hit by one with an air or ground burst , DEAD for the next 100,000 years, every one for 50+ miles DEAD , wounded or BLIND from the flash and hundreds of thousands more rapidly dying of radiation poisioning. When Oppenheimer succeded in '45 , he let the most horrific Djinn ever out of the lamp, and we can't figure out how to put him back.
I pray its all saber rattling, and that faced with US power , Kim will be reasonable and back off, because after Sept 11 and now Columbia , I dont think my empathy and horror circuits could take seeing Seoul or Tokyo or Osaka a smoking necropolis.

You're utterly wrong about the effects from a nuclear device. Simply because the yield is 1,000 times greater does not mean it will cause 1,000 times the damage; I suggest you do some research from non-biased sources on the matter. Furthermore, air bursts will not cause severe radiation beyond two weeks at the site of detonation.

Hiroshima, in case you've not noticed, is a vibrant and entirely habitable city today, with in fact lower than average rates of cancer for the Japanese standard. Nagasaki is about average.

Ground bursts do have long term contaminates but they're nothing like "uninhabitable for 100,000 years." The long-term radiation of that duration is largely an effect of reactor meltdowns, and even that is overstated.

In a major city like New York where the skyscrapers would block and channel the detonation on Manhattan, the zone where higher percentages of fatalities occur would be limited to a few miles in diameter from a single device, and radiation effects would be comparatively negligible.

You target cities with multiple kT-range devices for precisely this reason; even one MT-range device won't destroy a modern urban concentration.

As for the DPRK's threat, first use claims must be considered as a very severe sort of threat indeed. If Kim Jong-il is irrational he may believe that he could attack U.S. military installations (he wouldn't waste a nuke on a lone ship, and his missiles are not accurate enough to target one moving at sea), such as on Okinawa, or Yokohama, or in South Korea, or possibly Guam - though I do believe the Tae'o-dong I has the range to hit Guam, and the DPRK's other missiles are only experimental, not deployed - and avoid retaliation.

That would mean tens of thousands of U.S. citizens would be killed, including dependents, not just servicepeople. It would demand a full retaliatory response. Anything else would be to negate the credibility of our deterrence, which without a missile defence shield is the centrepoint of American defensive strategy against WMDs.

The exact nature could vary. We could attack military installations, industrial facilities, support infrastructure for the state, WMD production facilities only, the political infrastructure (P'yongyang), or a combination of the above. There are no U.S. military plans involving population counterstrikes with nuclear devices, though in many the populace is collateral damage.

The calculation of Nuclear War can only be called moral because in some circumstances it may be good for the State. Certainly on the tally of the individuals slaughtered or maimed it becomes a horror to rival most of the other greatest horrors of human history, and one that can be condensed into a day, or in the case of the two blocs, had they clashed, a few weeks of nuclear exchanges.

The recognition of the sheer cost involved in nuclear warfare has deterred every regime in history from risking it. Theoretically Kim Jong-il should be like all others, if for his own personal survival should nothing else move him. It is precisely, then, because of that rational calculus that nuclear war has never broken out.

Even some of the most evil men in the world have calculated the cost and backed away from the potential horror therein.

But if Kim Jong-il proves mad enough to ignore the potential? Then a chain of terrible inevitabilities will follow, if for no other reason than to prevent greater horrors that would follow should the weakness of the hegemon be perceived and seized upon.

It is for precisely this reason that we must eliminate Saddam Hussein before he gains nuclear weapons. Once he does, he may operate with impunity, and cannot be removed, no matter who he supports, or what he does -- That is, as long as he maintains the balance, does not skirt the limits, to open war.

If he exceeds them, and as a man who has invaded countries without provocation and used chemical weapons, both on his foes and his own people, he is the most likely of all dictators in the world today to do so, then the world will face the terrible prospect of nuclear conflict. Precisely the same that we hope Kim Jong-il is rational enough to avoid.

That is why we have peace with the DPRK, while we prepare for war with Iraq. Since the DPRK already has nukes, we must wait until Kim Jong-il proves his insanity by attacking, praying he is not insane, and never attacks, while containing him to the best of our ability until his regime collapses from the inside.

Since Saddam is already proven to be quite mad, and does not yet have nukes, he must be removed from power before he gets them. The alternative is exceptionally unpleasant.

And all of this, of course, is the same reason why we are developing ABM systems, both strategic and tactical. More choices means that the terrible calculus has less of a sinister hold upon the world, and that there is less chance of one madman plunging us into the holocaust.

Hardly the end of civilization, it would be, but still a place where - taking the spectre of a worldwide exchange as the example - we would watch human society in an instant transformed from the 21st century, to the 18th, with pockets of the 19th technologically.

A place where the struggle to survive in a world suddenly overpopulated for its technological ability to sustain that populace, where the average person is to ignorant to do the jobs required, as the modern technological infrastructure's productions, the base nuked to oblivion, rusts hopelessly around them.... Well, to quote Herman Kahn in On Thermonuclear War:

The survivors will envy the dead.

Of course, the fear of large-scale nuclear exchanges is largely gone; but the threat of small ones causing massive damage, enough to make 9/11 seem nothing, even in the western world, and forcing retaliations that would kill tens or hundreds of thousands in States ruled by madmen, are hardly implausible in this tumultuous age.

Preferably, that threat should be negated.

[Sea Skimmer]

I don't know about the rest of you, but I live in California, near LA. I take this NK business seriously.

If NK really do have nukes and missiles capable of delivering them, what could be the maximum range of said missles...I live in the Phil and it is looks like NK is getting pretty closer by the day...

2020 is about when there expected have to ICBM's. For now they have some IRBM's and an IRBM, which may or may not be operational and could reach Alaska and Hawaii. Thats the weapon they voluntarily stopped testing in the early 90's. They also have some bridge systems in the works, between your average IRBM and a ICBM with total reach across the USA.

[Sea Skimmer]

This chart is a bit dated, No Dong is now operational. And the Taepo Dong's may be. It’s a big image, but small in terms of bandwidth.

http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/prolif97/pg7.gif

[CyberianKnight]

I find the fact that people are actually commenting flippantly on carpet bombing countries back to the stone ages to be quite disturbing if not outright tragic.

[HemlockGrey]

I've had a rather morbid fear/fascination with nuclear weapons ever since I was in Hiroshima. I can attest to it being a vibrant city, with no radiation left over-at least, I hope there's no radiation left over.

[salm]

a question about the "cantaminated for the next [insert number] years".

isn´t there something called a neuteron bomb which kills everybody within the radius of [insert high number] but doesnt contaminate the soil or destroy the buildings?

in case i´m right, why would the us use nukes for strikes on NK and not neuteron bombs?

nukes kill and destroy an entire city whereas one of the NBs would "only" kill the the city which is still a horrible thing but still better than killing the city and making it uninhabitable for the next x years.

[jegs2]

http://www.msnbc.com/news/850567.asp?0cv=CB10

Feb. 6 — North Korea could launch pre-emptive strikes against U.S. forces rather than wait for a U.S. attack after a war with Iraq, a spokesman for the nation told a British daily newspaper Thursday. While the White House responded by saying the United States was ready to deal with “any contingencies,” defense officials told NBC News that the decision has been made to send an aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, to within a few hundred miles of the Korean coast.

North Korea is all bluster and saber-rattling. They well know that such a move would meet with the regime's demise, and the regime's survival is all that matters. They've been threatening to re-invade South Korea since the 1950's, only they sound more scary now that they've the nuclear card to play...

[Admiral Valdemar]

a question about the "cantaminated for the next [insert number] years".

isn´t there something called a neuteron bomb which kills everybody within the radius of [insert high number] but doesnt contaminate the soil or destroy the buildings?

in case i´m right, why would the us use nukes for strikes on NK and not neuteron bombs?

nukes kill and destroy an entire city whereas one of the NBs would "only" kill the the city which is still a horrible thing but still better than killing the city and making it uninhabitable for the next x years.

There are supposed devices that emit high levels of neutron radiation at the expense of explosive power (like a car bomb level suitcase bomb).

The range varies, but I believe one could go off 500m from the White House and kill the presidential staff in seconds.

[Sea Skimmer]

a question about the "cantaminated for the next [insert number] years".

isn´t there something called a neuteron bomb which kills everybody within the radius of [insert high number] but doesnt contaminate the soil or destroy the buildings?

in case i´m right, why would the us use nukes for strikes on NK and not neuteron bombs?

nukes kill and destroy an entire city whereas one of the NBs would "only" kill the the city which is still a horrible thing but still better than killing the city and making it uninhabitable for the next x years.

Neutron bombs have a very low yield; the US W-66 version is only one kiloton. They released a large pulse of neutron radiation, thus the name. The W-70 mod 3 is also a Neutron bomb, and yields 1 kiloton, but the same warhead in a normal configuration can yield over 100 kilotons.

The idea was to destroy very hard targets, Soviet tanks, without blasting a huge crater or flattening every tree in the area, which would make it very difficult to maneuvered your own forces. It also allows for using the weapon closer to your own troops.

There's no reason to use these against cities. If the US was specifically attacking cities to destroy them we'd use normal nukes airbursted. Those create minimal contamination, Hiroshima had very little contamination because the bomb's fireball never touched the ground. And what it did get left with was soon washed away.

. Against hardened commander bunkers are the like, far more likely US targets, the B-61-11 penatraitor would be used.

[Sea Skimmer]

a question about the "cantaminated for the next [insert number] years".

isn´t there something called a neuteron bomb which kills everybody within the radius of [insert high number] but doesnt contaminate the soil or destroy the buildings?

in case i´m right, why would the us use nukes for strikes on NK and not neuteron bombs?

nukes kill and destroy an entire city whereas one of the NBs would "only" kill the the city which is still a horrible thing but still better than killing the city and making it uninhabitable for the next x years.

There are supposed devices that emit high levels of neutron radiation at the expense of explosive power (like a car bomb level suitcase bomb).

The range varies, but I believe one could go off 500m from the White House and kill the presidential staff in seconds.

Less the one seconds more like it. Most any nuke ever built would be lethal to the Whitehouse and everyone inside at 500 meters. A Neutron bomb would not vaporize it; a 1-kiloton bombs fireball is quite small. But the heat pulse would explode it into flames and the pressure wave would crush it quickly after.

Neutron bombs use radiation normally used to activate another stage of the bomb as there main weapon. But the first stage is still quite big, since its normally used to trigger a 100+ kiloton weapon.

Thinking of the blast as car bomb sized is incorrect

[Admiral Valdemar]

a question about the "cantaminated for the next [insert number] years".

isn´t there something called a neuteron bomb which kills everybody within the radius of [insert high number] but doesnt contaminate the soil or destroy the buildings?

in case i´m right, why would the us use nukes for strikes on NK and not neuteron bombs?

nukes kill and destroy an entire city whereas one of the NBs would "only" kill the the city which is still a horrible thing but still better than killing the city and making it uninhabitable for the next x years.

There are supposed devices that emit high levels of neutron radiation at the expense of explosive power (like a car bomb level suitcase bomb).

The range varies, but I believe one could go off 500m from the White House and kill the presidential staff in seconds.

Less the one seconds more like it. Most any nuke ever built would be lethal to the Whitehouse and everyone inside at 500 meters. A Neutron bomb would not vaporize it; a 1-kiloton bombs fireball is quite small. But the heat pulse would explode it into flames and the pressure wave would crush it quickly after.

Neutron bombs use radiation normally used to activate another stage of the bomb as there main weapon. But the first stage is still quite big, since its normally used to trigger a 100+ kiloton weapon.

Thinking of the blast as car bomb sized is incorrect

I had heard a few years back that there were devices that maximised the effects of the neutrons without the added explosion to the point of it being like a big slab of C4.

I doubted it but I hear that nukes can be extremely compact when needed, however a 1kt nuke would easily do what you said, I was thinking something smaller though.

[Sokar]

Hiroshima, in case you've not noticed, is a vibrant and entirely habitable city today, with in fact lower than average rates of cancer for the Japanese standard. Nagasaki is about average

Um , I in fact did note this in my post , and is part of my argument for the marginialization of the effects of nuclear warfare.

I find you dispassionate tone in your post amazing.....were not talking about just another weapon here Duchess, were talking nuclear fire here! Tell me you can look at pictures of Hiroshima on August 7th 1945 and keep that tone in your voice. As to the power and effects , were all estimating. No one has used a bomb outside of a test since Nagasaki(May it continue to be so) and no one , not my , nor your sources really know what would happen. You feel compled to minimalize the damage and effects , I take a far more pessimistic view.

[Sea Skimmer]

There are supposed devices that emit high levels of neutron radiation at the expense of explosive power (like a car bomb level suitcase bomb).

The range varies, but I believe one could go off 500m from the White House and kill the presidential staff in seconds.

Less the one seconds more like it. Most any nuke ever built would be lethal to the Whitehouse and everyone inside at 500 meters. A Neutron bomb would not vaporize it; a 1-kiloton bombs fireball is quite small. But the heat pulse would explode it into flames and the pressure wave would crush it quickly after.

Neutron bombs use radiation normally used to activate another stage of the bomb as there main weapon. But the first stage is still quite big, since its normally used to trigger a 100+ kiloton weapon.

Thinking of the blast as car bomb sized is incorrect

I had heard a few years back that there were devices that maximised the effects of the neutrons without the added explosion to the point of it being like a big slab of C4.

I doubted it but I hear that nukes can be extremely compact when needed, however a 1kt nuke would easily do what you said, I was thinking something smaller though.

I've never hread of such a device. Sounds like someone was getting confused with Neutron bombs and various non explosive directional EMP devices.

[Sea Skimmer]

Hiroshima, in case you've not noticed, is a vibrant and entirely habitable city today, with in fact lower than average rates of cancer for the Japanese standard. Nagasaki is about average

Um , I in fact did note this in my post , and is part of my argument for the marginialization of the effects of nuclear warfare.

I find you dispassionate tone in your post amazing.....were not talking about just another weapon here Duchess, were talking nuclear fire here! Tell me you can look at pictures of Hiroshima on August 7th 1945 and keep that tone in your voice. As to the power and effects , were all estimating. No one has used a bomb outside of a test since Nagasaki(May it continue to be so) and no one , not my , nor your sources really know what would happen. You feel compled to minimalize the damage and effects , I take a far more pessimistic view.

Conventional firebombing killed as many and destroyed more, just within the city of Tokyo. Going to theo ther side of the world, Dresden's death toll may have been over 130,000. It might take a few hours rather then seconds, but the people are just as dead and the building just as crushed and burned.

When you use a modern highly efficient device and airburst it, fallout and ground contamination become almost non existence simple because there's almost nothing left of the bomb to fall back to earth and nothing for it to attach too.

You claime of "we don't really know what would happen" is groundless. Or do you wish to argue that the vast amounts of data gathered from over a 1000 US nuclear weapons tests, something like 800 Soviet tests plus a number of operational uses for civilian purposes, doesn't exist?

[MKSheppard]

Then again, that WAS the late 1980s. Wong grew up in the 70s... when the Soviets were far more active.

Ever hear of Detente, and all that other stuff?

[TrailerParkJawa]

Conventional firebombing killed as many and destroyed more, just within the city of Tokyo. Going to theo ther side of the world, Dresden's death toll may have been over 130,000. It might take a few hours rather then seconds, but the people are just as dead and the building just as crushed and burned.

When you use a modern highly efficient device and airburst it, fallout and ground contamination become almost non existence simple because there's almost nothing left of the bomb to fall back to earth and nothing for it to attach too.

You claime of "we don't really know what would happen" is groundless. Or do you wish to argue that the vast amounts of data gathered from over a 1000 US nuclear weapons tests, something like 800 Soviet tests plus a number of operational uses for civilian purposes, doesn't exist?

A person is just as dead wether its from a bullet, mortar round, or atomic bomb. I think people attach a strong emotional signifigance to nuclear weapons and thats why they center on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Kamakazie Sith]

How again is the blood on Saddam's hands?

He could have played nice and not shot at our planes, and not attempted to
develop chemical weapons...

You guys could have not broken UN conventions and established the "no fly zones" which impede on Iraqi sovereign territory everyday.

Are you telling me that the US wouldn't try and shoot down Iraqi jets flying missions over US soil?

Hmm IIRC the "no fly zones" are there to enforce UN-R 688.

[weemadando]

Hiroshima, in case you've not noticed, is a vibrant and entirely habitable city today, with in fact lower than average rates of cancer for the Japanese standard. Nagasaki is about average

Um , I in fact did note this in my post , and is part of my argument for the marginialization of the effects of nuclear warfare.

I find you dispassionate tone in your post amazing.....were not talking about just another weapon here Duchess, were talking nuclear fire here! Tell me you can look at pictures of Hiroshima on August 7th 1945 and keep that tone in your voice. As to the power and effects , were all estimating. No one has used a bomb outside of a test since Nagasaki(May it continue to be so) and no one , not my , nor your sources really know what would happen. You feel compled to minimalize the damage and effects , I take a far more pessimistic view.

The effects go far beyond the physical. Have you ever been to Hiroshima?

When I was there in '96 you wouldn't get served in stores or restaurants, people would actively avoid you in the streets - until you clarified that your were Australian and not American.

Even then some of the older generations would still react similarly.

[Admiral Piett]

I find you dispassionate tone in your post amazing.....were not talking about just another weapon here Duchess, were talking nuclear fire here! Tell me you can look at pictures of Hiroshima on August 7th 1945 and keep that tone in your voice. As to the power and effects , were all estimating. No one has used a bomb outside of a test since Nagasaki(May it continue to be so) and no one , not my , nor your sources really know what would happen. You feel compled to minimalize the damage and effects , I take a far more pessimistic view.

The power of nuclear weapons is being overestimated by some people here.
Japanese cities were torches awaiting someone throwing a match on them.
They were litterally built with wood and paper.
Take a picture of Tokio after the firebombing and one of Hiroshima.
You will not be able to see the difference.
Do you remember that lone building in Hiroshima which was left by the bomb? That was one of the few solid building in the cities.It was not razed to ground despite being near to ground zero.That was not for a fortunate case, but precisely because it was not a box of wood awaiting to burn unlike everything else around.
One Hiroshima style weapon would not be able to destroy a big modern city like New York or Paris.This is the reason for why H bombs were developed an nukes in general were built in large numbers, it was not a whim.By the way, Nagasaki/Hiroshima style devices would be the only ones available to countries like NK or Iraq for a long time.
The effects of nuclear in terms of blast,crater,damage that can be caused to buildings and so on are fairly well know,from actual use, multiple experiments,calculations etc.They are predictable.Appalling but predictable.