[The Red Zone]

How many nukes will NK have if it manages to turn all 8000 rods into nukes? A handful? Can't we handle a small number of land launched nukes in such a confined area just fine with a thicket of Patriots staged in SK? Some race....

[Brian S]

I don't think the nukes are the problem at this timn, its the other 24,000 missiles sitting at the DMZ, cocked, aimed and ready to launch at Seoul.

Half of Seoul, and 2-3 million people could be eradicated before it ever made the wire services that an attack had begun.

Would take one hell of a lot of Patriots to knock those down.

[BaghdadBarney]

There's another side of the equation to this "arms" race. It's called PROLIFERATION. Sure we could park a few subs off the coast of South Korea armed with anti-ballistic missile batteries but that's not going to solve the problem. Hell we could let Japan go nuclear - but it still doesn't solve the problem. A nuclear flea market hosted by Kim Jong Il and featuring such star-stellar customers as the mullahs in Iran, Assad in Syria and your friendly neighborhood Islamist Osama bin Laden is a problem that won't be solved with Cold War--style deterence.