Forgot to add an observation about North Korea’s ability to cause mass devastation to Seoul in South Korea. This is real and they can do it via their massive artillery on the border. This threat in the event of hostilities in the past could have been eliminated with the Neutron Bomb.
These are air burst weapons with little physical destructive power but insane amounts of neutrons that kill the combatants quickly. It must be noted it is a most gruesome death but war is gruesome. These weapons also have minimal fallout to effect South Korea. These weapons will also penetrate many inches of armor and many many feet of earth. Neutrons are neutral and just keep on going unless they hit the nucleus of an atom and at that time give off more killing x-rays and gamma.
A few hundred of these would wipe out North Korea’s ability to target South Korea with Artillery. Jimmy Carter, the stupid one, killed this program. We have the designs and know how to make them. We should make them.
If hostilities every broke out we would need to take out North Korea’s potential nuclear arsenal. This would require conventional nuclear weapons as you must be sure you get them all.
If one is ready to “Cry Havoc and let slip the Dogs of War” you may not need to go to war.
I hope that not one artillery shell or bomb from North Korea or South Korea lands on either nation. If this does happen it is my hope that most the bombs and artillery is ours landing on North Korea.
That would seem unlikely.
In the event of hostilities, the Norks have enough ranged artillery to destroy Seoul in the first 20 minutes of fire. Their very first salvo would kill several hundred thousand people in a few moments.
Neutron weapons have very short range and the effects on living creatures are not immediate. Even with direct hits on their positions, the Nork artillery crews might survive for 20 minutes.
The most effective counter-measure is a simultaneous pre-emptive strike on all known enemy positions. This would probably require "ordinary" nuclear weapons to permanently seal the bunkers.
Another effective counter-measure is a decapitation strike on the North Korean Government.
Another effective action is to convince the Chinese Government that it is their best interests to make the North Koreans back off. Everything the Norks are doing is at Chinese instigation.
I see little sign that our Government can do any of these things. Of course, we should not be displaying any indicators if we have such capabilities.
I guess I will wait for the news reports, like everybody else.
Only China is known to have and have ‘tested’ neutron bombs; NOKO got nuclear bomb from China; China can give neutron bomb to NOKO.