It is true, most scenario’s do not go well for anyone within 50 miles of the border.
NorK artillery really is the problem. Missiles are significantly more easily dealt with.
However, while no battle or war goes as planned (in reality chaotic), there are a couple of non-nuclear tools we could use, which I believe could be successful in neutralizing the several thousand artillery pieces and rapid fire rocket launchers. It would also absolutely require a preemptive lightning quick action.
It would necessarily need to be highly coordinated, overwhelmingly redundant (overlapping), and use both very substantial ordinance designed for depth, as well as some very large volume oxygen removing ordinance. It would be quite expensive, but it would likely be quite decisive. This being said however, we have not ever done something quite like the scale required here. However, we are capable.
There is another option which really would work, but in this day and age, would be hard to justify preemptively.
Recall, the Soviets had so many tanks in East Germany, it was determined the only way to keep the communist from an annihilating westward “blitzkrieg”, was the knowledge we had low yield nuclear artillery, which was more than capable of removing the threat. So the moral of the story is, we could use the coordinated low yield nuclear option. Today, we can accomplish the same outcome with vastly more accurate and high speed airborne delivery systems. This would work decisively. However, even though this option could save up to millions of lives, left wing socialist organizations (like China, Russia, UN, France, Vatican, etc...), would likely go total uncontrollably ape insane!
The only other option would not need to be so coordinated, and it would definitely vaporize biology and remove all oxygen quite efficiently. In this scenario, people would find it kind of hard to work in temperatures hotter than the surface of the sun. The only problem here would be the jet stream would take radiation east toward Japan. Although there is another weapon in our arsenal which would not.
Whatever we decide, should be overwhelming to whatever level of threat exist when possible, period. This is basic ROTC or OCS doctrine stuff.
When Trump says we are capable, we are! The question is how decisive are we willing to be? If the General officers in charge are not on the same page, or acting in response to politics, we are in trouble.
It should be reiterated, no matter what we do, there will be loss of life.
The point is, we do have weapons and systems capable of ending things rather quickly.
“Recall, the Soviets had so many tanks in East Germany, it was determined the only way to keep the communist from an annihilating westward “blitzkrieg”, was the knowledge we had low yield nuclear artillery, which was more than capable of removing the threat.”
—
not true.
The Soviets had something like 30,000 tanks - mostly older T-34s - and four Shock Armies (400,000 troops mostly mechanized) on the East German border ready at a moments notice to pour through the Fulda Gap. The troops were the first wave of over a million to come, as were the tanks. NATO would be out-manned and overwhelmed, and the US nuclear arty would be among the first targets to be obliterated on the crossing; they were only ‘more that adequate’ on paper ...
US Intel at the time estimated that their first rest stop would be 60 klicks behind our position (4k from the border). We (our position) were a strategic nuclear target for the Russian and a tactical nuclear target for US forces (we could not be allowed to fall into Soviet hands, and the Soviets could not allow us to function).
At the first troops crossed through the Gap, all hell would have been unleashed. We would have been obliterated immediately by the Soviets and, if they missed or just to be sure, the US would have not missed. After that, it was all downhill for NATO forces. US radio discipline was nearly nonexistent in practice - we often heard tankers describe their position down to the apple tree they were hiding under, while the Soviets continued to use 5-day pads in all cases - that or be shot on the spot. The other NATO forces were a public joke.
After the initial tactical nuclear exchanges - Intel said - and even localized strategic nuclear strikes, the Russian forces would arrive at the English Channel in 72 hours from start to finish.
No, the Russians did not cross for other reasons (mostly internal) that had nothing to do with some NATO capability. If they had wanted to cross, there was nothing we could have done to stop them at that time.
If the General officers in charge are not on the same page, or acting in response to politics, we are in trouble.
And therein lies the greatest potential problem. After Obama, I would greatly fear some flag officer pulling a Sally Yates. That is, opposing a direct or indirect order on the grounds of stopping Trump while considering himself, or herself, a leftist folk hero. Yeah, IMO, that is a stark reality.
MOP GBU-57s were built with Norks in mind. MOABs would find a use too. Norks can’t see the stealth aircraft that will take out their radar and otherwise blind them in the first minute. We have conventional ordnance that is sufficient, there won’t be any radiation floating around.