I hadn't thought of that until now.
While not technically accurate — the North Korean elites do use electricity and computers, and not all of them are in hardened underground cave facilities, and as KarlinOhio posted at #34, they do have “one light” in Pyongyang — it is certainly a clue to the psychology of why North Koreans might be willing to try something like this.
North Korea's technology is at such a primitive level that it might well survive an EMP attack with minimal problems. Of course, this is only theoretical since any EMP attack on Pyongyang would wreck Seoul and Inchon, so nobody would actually try one. Any effective response to North Korean aggression would have to use more traditional military methods, and that's not easy because the North Korean military is still one of the largest in the world. Raw numbers and tough discipline do count when fighting a land war in one’s own back yard.
6 posted on Thu Dec 27 2012 22:20:09 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time) by Gasshog: “Yes, and as soon as they pull that little trick Im sure we have an off-shore submarine or two that will retaliate and blast all the Norks to Kingdom Come. So such a move is not without risk.”
15 posted on Thu Dec 27 2012 23:08:41 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time) by Forward the Light Brigade: “OK—They hit the USA and—no one knows how bad such an attack will be or if it will do all the damage they expect. The people in North Korea will know that out Boomer submarines will survive and let loose with all they have on North Korea and turn it into a radioactive waste land—none of their leaders, peasants, slaves, cities, towns, bases will survive the massive blasts. They know this and that will keep any attack from happening. We might toss in any nation that helped them in the boot—Iran, China, etc... We would have nothing to lose.”
I wish I could agree, Light Brigade and Gasshog, but I can't.
As OldExPat posted (#18 on Thu Dec 27 2012 23:17:17 GMT-0600): “Much of NOK is so close to Seoul that the use of nuclear weapons would destroy much of the city. The leadership of NOK knows where to hide and they have massive underground protection from nuclear weapons. They ain’t an easy target.”
The North Korean leadership seem perfectly willing to sacrifice large percentages of their people as long as their own military capability to personally survive is not impaired.
The problems with using nuclear weapons on North Korea include spread of fallout to Seoul and Japan, as well as possible issues with China. Conventional weapons are much more likely in a scenario like that since they can do comparable damage without collateral damage to South Korea and without greatly antagonizing Japan and China.
The problem is that I'm not sure the North Korean leadership cares about the damage done by any conventional attack short of a full-scale invasion. Their military is still one of the largest in the world and I doubt anyone except South Korea and China is realistically able to mount a ground war in North Korea. Because millions of South Korean citizens would die in a ground war as ordinary weapon rounds landed on Seoul and Inchon and longer-range missiles landed on Pusan and Taegu, I am quite sure South Korea wants to avoid an all-out war with North Korea at virtually any cost, and the Chinese would be more likely to issue a direct threat to the North Korean military coupled with a surgical strike to assassinate the top North Korean leadership and replace them with more compliant generals willing to follow Chinese orders.
Bottom line — if North Korea actually did launch an EMP attack I am not convinced the United States would be militarily or politically able to do much of anything about it, and that's even assuming bad actors in the Middle East, Russia and China don't try to step into the power vacuum and start trouble elsewhere.
Good points for sure. You would think though our intelligence guys would know the origin of country of assault. But the USA is becoming the US of S more and more ...see tagline. So who knows.
A response to an attack on South Korea/US must be pre-planned and coordinated. Attacking their military will be useless because we won’t and SK won’t do it.
Cruise missiles preprogrammed to strike communist party and government buildings in Pyongyang, including their TV-Radio buildings (even if they just knock down the facades) and those radio jamming towers and palaces of the Kims will be much more effective at destabalizing the regime than any attack on their military.
Once their broadcasts and jamming goes down, South Korea should be prepared to launch their own programming on NorK frequencies for as long a chance as they get.