On 2017-12-04, Larry Jaques wrote:
On Sun, 03 Dec 2017 10:03:34 -0600, Ignoramus7946
wrote:

On 2017-12-01, Jim Wilkins wrote:

Japan's Army leadership made a similar judgement in 1941. They soon
discovered that their military couldn't prevent our submarines from
sinking all their shipping and our bombers from burning their cities.
By the end there wasn't much left to nuke.

Like the Norks the Japanese dug in deep and prepared for a long
resistance. My father told me the surviving defenders on Okinawa would
come up from their bunkers to watch and cheer his Air Corps unit's
baseball games. They knew they had lost but were too indoctrinated
with Bushido to surrender.


World War II was different because there was no nuclear weapons (until
the end). Nuclear weapons actually did what I was alluding to,
specifically, raising the level of pain for Japan so much as to force
immediate surrender.

Now there are nuclear weapons and North Korea can inflict pain on USA
remotely, outside of the theater of operations.

If NK's arsenal and operational control is survivable, and half way
accurate, then NK can win the war by inflicting too much pain on the
US (nuking several cities) and forcing it to surrender, despite our
obvious military superiority.

The question facing our decision makers, may come to "we lost Chicago
and Houston, is it worth it to continue destroying North Korea".

WHAT? If we lost two cities, SK would be an island shortly
thereafter, whether China liked it or not. Talk about waking sleeping
giants...

Larry, I am sorry that I did not answer sooner, I was over tired from
work and there was too much little stuff going on at home.

There is two points that I want to make.

First is that if we lose, say, Chicago and Houston, just as an
example, and completely destroy North Korea, the outcome, for us, is
more like a loss than a victory. You can easily see why.

Second, winning and losing means different things for us and for North
Korea. If, for example, North Korea loses 80% of its people but Kim
stays in power, and keeps some nukes and nuclear factories, it is a
victory for him. Nuclear weapons are terrifying and powerful, but they
do not turn large countries into glowing sand, and they cannot destroy
well placed mobile launchers if the launchers are hidden.

Lastly, any nuclear operation that turns NK into "glowing sand" would
be extremely damaging for Russia's Khabarovsk and for Japan in terms
of nuclear fallout, with obvious repercussions.

Because the above is quite obvious, I would hope that the US
leadership recognizes this and is only pretending that it is about to
destroy North Korea. What concerns me is that the 28 year old "leader"
of NK may not think so.

It may sound crazy, but it is not. North Korea can lose 80% of its
population, but force the US to surrender, pay reparations, and so on,
in case IF it is able to inflict unbearable pain on us.

No, it cannot. Our military and our people do not know the word
"unbearable".

Well, we never tried to have our cities destroyed, and yes, recently
the expense and losses in Iraq, for example, were seen as unbearable.


Now if the US actually loses that war, the terms of surrender will be
atrocious, and it will not be an honorable surrender.

I am surprised that these quite simple issues are not even discussed
publicly, even though it could easily come to just this scenario.

Evidently, we think totally differently than you, Ig. The USA cannot
lose to Korea, even if it lost =eighteen= cities to NK nukes.

If the USA lost 18 major cities, it would be almost done for as a
world power.

As soon as a single hit was scored on a US city, Trump would be on
the horn to neighboring countries telling them to move their
populations away from the border which would be glowing sand from
the 40th to the 45th latitude and the 125th to the 128th longitude.
Or possibly just hot from several hundred neutron bombs. He might
even use tactical nukes to blow down any further launches if he saw
a trajectory for the mainland USA.

Keep in mind one thing: if hostilities start, delivering nuclear hits
to the US and hoping for US surrender, not irrationally, is the ONLY
hope Kim has to survive personally.

This is no longer a game, Ig. He'd have to make most of the million+
NK troops go away before landing anyone, depending on what he'd used
to bomb them. This is for all the marbles, since for the US to lose
yet another war would be curtains for any power we maintain in the
world today. For the world's sake, we can't lose.

We can also not start a war and expect North Korea to be just another
country with newly acquired nuclear capabilities, just like Pakistan
or Israel.

Also, if the US beging a nuclear war in NK and gets bogged down, which
is entirely possible, other players can be easily seen beginning
conflicts in other parts of the world.

Everyone seems to think that nuclear wars are fought at a fast pace. I
personally doubt this will necessarily happen for several reasons, the
main of which is that nuclear attacks are moves in negotiations
(possibly conducted by means of nuclear strikes) and negotiations take
time. Even the only two actual uses of nuclear weapons, both by United
States, were purposely conducted days apart to pressure Japan and
obtain its surrender.

For example, let's say that we begin a conventional attack on NK. Kim
would quickly realize that his life is at stake and that the only way
he can make the US stop is to deliver some nuclear blows on it. So he
would, hypothetically, destroy a US city.

After that, the US, just like you say, delivers a large nuclear strike
on NK, making east Russia uninhabitable and ****ing off Russia. 60% of
NK population is dead. Kim's mobile launchers mostly survive, as does
he, and he strikes another US city.

What do we do now?

i