Posted on 05/04/2017 6:01:28 AM PDT by kevcol
President Trump's tough talk on North Korea has apparently emboldened Americans into supporting a preemptive U.S. attack on the communist nation's nuclear weapons.
A new Zogby Analytics poll provided to Secrets found that 52 percent back a U.S. first strike.
"A majority (52 percent) of voters agree that the U.S. must deal with North Korea's nuclear threat and are willing to even support a preemptive strike, as opposed to 36 percent of voters who disagree," said the survey.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Oops....Little Kimmie pooped in his pants again.
The majority had its expectations shaped by idiotic movies.
They need to shut up, sit down, and let the grown ups figure out how to fix this mess they inherited.
Right. Because you’re so much smarter than both the president and the majority of Americans, and thus must lecture them.
You’ve confused “having illusions about what war means” with “being content to watch a country go from minimally nuclear and with unreliable, easy to intercept, insufficient range missiles to having the power to realistically take out all of the US’s major cities if the US doesn’t cede to its blackmail, something of which the nation has repeatedly and consistently demanded.”
These are the same pollsters that predicted hillarys win, so I see them as invalid. Fave movie alert!
“Poll: Majority back preemptive strike on North Korea nukes”
This is an excellent demonstration of why some decisions should not be arrived at democratically.
I wonder how many of that 52% realize that a conflict with NK would result in millions of casualties - and that is without a single nuke being detonated... If things escalate to nuclear war, all bets are off.
Pop quiz: how many artillery pieces does the DPRK have that can reach Seoul, and how many shells could they shoot in the first hour?
“52 percent back a U.S. first strike.”
Good enough. Airstrikes should start immediately.
“to having the power to realistically take out all of the US’s major cities if the US doesn’t cede to its blackmail, something of which the nation has repeatedly and consistently demanded.”
NK is a very long way from having that kind of nuclear force. Even if it did, I don’t believe Kim is stupid or insane enough to do such a thing. The result would be the removal of NK as a country, with many millions of casualties. It could also very well result in a nuclear WW3, which would be catastrophic.
If the US military were able to quickly defeat the NK military with very limited friendly casualties while neutralizing the artillery and missiles aimed at Seoul and Japan, I might support military action. The reality is none of those conditions is currently possible.
War with NK would be both very dangerous in terms of nuclear escalation, and extremely costly in terms of blood and treasure. It would very likely also disrupt the world economy to an enormous degree.
Horse hockey
That’s easy to say when you’re thousands of miles away. However, South Korea is probably getting a bit anxious. Still, not sure it gets any better from here.
From Stratfor:
If every one of Pyongyang's 300-mm multiple rocket launcher systems were directed against Seoul, their range would be sufficient to rain fire across the city and beyond. A single volley could deliver more than 350 metric tons of explosives across the South Korean capital, roughly the same amount of ordnance dropped by 11 B-52 bombers.How many casualties in Seoul would result from 11 full B-52 bombloads alone?
My tendency, if I were in charge in NK, would be to use the shorter range artillery against military targets close to the DMZ - where 30,000 US troops are stationed among other things. That way there'd be some chance of initial counter-battery success. Taking out as many military assets as possible early should pay big dividends as the conflict develops.
I would probably split my longer range artillery and ballistic missiles between military targets and civilian targets in SK.
I expect there would be over 100,000 seriously wounded or killed in Seoul within the first hour - possibly many more than that.
“NK is a very long way from having that kind of nuclear force”
No, they’re not, and that’s what has been repeatedly testified to by top military and intelligence figures. Your wanting it to not be true doesn’t make it not true. Eventually they will get their ICBMs to work. Eventually they will get nuclear weapon miniaturization down. And eventually they will get fusion weaponry. The timelines aren’t several decades on these things, they’re several years.
“Even if it did, I don’t believe Kim is stupid or insane enough to do such a thing.”
Except for the fact that through their entire history they’ve used military blackmail to get what they want? And you don’t have to guess at what they want, because they outright proclaim it regularly in their domestic propaganda: the reunification of the Korean peninsula under the rule of the Kims. One of their most common pieces of domestic propaganda is an image of their leaders pointing forward (to the south) while troops advance and missiles arc overhead. They __will__ blackmail the US, not just for imports, but to get US troops out of the ROK - and if the US doesn’t listen to their blackmail, they’ll make it increasingly forceful. And when US troops are gone, they’ll overrun the ROK, using nuclear weapons as needed. Again, you don’t have to guess on this sort of stuff, they don’t hide their objectives in their propaganda.
Why do you think they build invasion tunnels? Do you think they’re defensive? What good is an invasion tunnel across the DMZ if the ROK and US attacked first and pushed them back (and thus they would no longer have access to their tunnel entrances)? Invasion tunnels are for one thing: invasion.
“It could also very well result in a nuclear WW3, which would be catastrophic.”
Do you really think the Kims would blink first? They absolutely are willing to risk attack, and have repeatedly shown a willingness to risk attack, to get what they want because they know that the other side will always fold first. They will always be more willing to risk massive annihilation than the US. And massive annihilation of the US is exactly what is being talked about.
“If the US military were able to quickly defeat the NK military with very limited friendly casualties while neutralizing the artillery and missiles aimed at Seoul and Japan, I might support military action.”
Too bad the US hasn’t been preparing plans for exactly that for the decades. Oh wait, they __have__ been doing exactly that for decades.
Some of the people here sound like the Democrats in the leadup to the first Gulf War. “Oh no, look at Saddam’s almighty army, and his terrible weapons of mass destruction, it’s going to be World War III”. If Saddam had been left unchecked for decades, it very well might have been. But large numbers of ancient pieces of military hardware are no match for a modern military. And most of the DPRK’s hardware is even more obsolete than Saddam’s was in the first Gulf War.
The DPRK has only a small number of nuclear weapons. They’re small nuclear weapons at that - at present. Most likely none have yet been properly miniaturized - aka, too heavy to put on a missile (although they’re actively working on it). And their ability to deliver them at optimal height even if they were (nuclear weapons do the most damage when detonated in the air, not at the surface - on the surface they waste a lot of their blast energy digging a crater into the ground which causes a lot of the energy to be directed upward), even if they were miniaturized, first means getting past their (currently) terrible reliability, then getting past up to three layers of BMD - Aegis, THAAD and Patriot PAC-3s. Most of their missiles are liquid fueled, which means slow, sequential firings, with significant vulnerability between firings. Their sub-launched program is in-development, while their subs are ancient noisy things and would be among the first targets in a preemptive strike.
All of the above weaknesses will be remedied by the DPRK with time. There is a window. That window is closing. The DPRK will actually become the huge threat that they pretend to be today if not stopped.
With first strike, at least a thousand, potentially several thousand, targets will all be hit at once, followed by continuous followup until all threats are neutralized. Assuming the ROK tries to sit this out (which they probably will), then the DPRK will face another decision, which is try to simply weather the US air / naval / special forces attacks only, or open up a brand new front that will unleash the entire ROK armed forces at them, as well as bringing in US ground troops. And if the ROK doesn’t sit it out, then the ROK and US push across the DMZ and push the DPRK out of range of even their longest-range artillery pieces from hitting the south.
Exactly. I guess you didn’t notice this part, which is what I was getting at:
“The biggest anticipated cost of a North Korean artillery barrage in response to an attack would be the at least partial destruction of Seoul. But the volume of fire that the North can direct against the South Korean capital is limited by some important factors. Of the vast artillery force deployed by the North along the border, only a small portion — Koksan 170-mm self-propelled guns, as well as 240-mm and 300-mm multiple launch rocket systems — are capable of actually reaching Seoul. Broadly speaking, the bulk of Pyongyang’s artillery can reach only into the northern border area of South Korea or the northern outskirts of Seoul.”
As for the only part that you quoted: 350 metric tons is frankly not much when you have a CEP measured in miles. And with the high CEPs, the most likely hits are not densely packed locations, but single-family homes, streets, rail lines, vegetation, and the Han river. You’re talking a terror attack, nothing more - particularly if people are properly evacuated to the shelters (the ROK uses their subways as shelters). Now you may be thinking “the DPRK will justkeep shelling, and artillery pieces fire quickly”. Except, no. As soon as they fire, there’s going to be counterfire coming their way. If they don’t move, they’re destroyed. If they do move, they’re not firing. Either way, you don’t have continuous fire. And if someone’s shelling you, you need to direct your fire at __them__, or you’re in trouble.
Furthermore, the systems that can reach Seoul are capable of rapid firing times. The Koksans are faster than the MRLS hardware, but it’s still only one shot every 2 1/2 minutes. And the DPRK ammunition is notoriously unreliable. During the shelling of Yeonpyeong, half of the shells didn’t even reach the island, and of those that did, a quarter didn’t explode. So you can expect jams and other failures in their guns at regular intervals.
Correction, that should be “aren’t capable of rapid firing times”
Trump does nothing and what happens next if anything on our side goes boom?
“It’s on your watch, you golfed, you should have done something!”
Trump does something and what happens next if anything on their side goes boom?
“You’re a warmonger, murderer, you should have used more sanctions!”
Us or them, I choose us, even the liberals and crypto-liberal libertarians
I am smarter than the majority of Americans. That ain’t very hard.
The President is the guy who has to make decisions and doesn’t need our input.
Remember Scud hunting? Finding and destroying missiles, launchers, and destroying bunkers is not easy, it is an act of war, and I suspect that North Korea is a bit more intense of an air defense environment than Iraq. And some of those bunkers are nuke proof.
Not to mention all that artillery in range of Seoul.
Wars, like science, don’t run on consensus.
That’s exactly why we should not strike.
The 52% apparently don’t know that Seoul and half the population of South Korea get pummeled within seconds of the first bomb dropping.
Yeah and any damage NK inflicts also will affect the world economy especially places weve invested and still invest much blood and treasure in.
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