A Surprise Nuclear Attack is Our Only Chance

May 13, 2003 | Adam Yoshida

[AntiGuv]

I think I might unhappily agree with you. I'm not sure though. Good work nonetheless.

[RetiredArmy]

Dream on dreamer, ain't gonna happen.

[Gunslingr3]

Do you write for The Onion?

[Rebelbase]

Vote for Lyndon LaRouche and he'll make you one of his top advisors.

[KantianBurke]

Bush will not use nukes right when a re-election is on the horizon. Also with so many of our troops bogged down in Iraq, where will we find US forces to occupy North Korea?

[Spruce]

The North Koreans are bluffing.

They are NOT a nuclear power.

• Never detonated an atomic device.
• Never fired a missile with inter-continental range.
• Never demonstrated the ability to place an atomic warhead atop a long range missile

They are full of sh*t.

[dead]

Most of the weapons used would be small, in the range of little more than ten kilotons…

Wimp.

[aShepard]

OK, it's time to take your meds!

[Wolfie]

I was just saying the same thing. But then I was talking about the 4-hour Bachelorette wedding special on ABC.

[strela]

I have to wonder if the North Korean leadership junta is using "The Mouse That Roared" as a basis for their foreign policy? The parallels are too striking to ignore:

1. A small country having hard financial times (Duchy of Fenwick/N. Korea).

2. The small country's leader (Peter Sellers/Kim Jong Il) gets the bright idea to declare war on America, hoping to be "humanely" conquered in retaliation by the US, foreign aid and Hershey Bars pour into the country, the farm is saved, yadda yadda.

Where we lose the thread from movie to real life is in the recent response of the US to N. Korea's provocations. We've essentially ignored them, so they will continue to escalate to larger and larger provocations until we pay attention to them, hopefully bringing our big fat checkbooks with us when we do invade.

When the N. Koreans surface-test a nuclear device, then I will start to sweat. But until then, pass the popcorn.

[b4its2late]

Don't think so as far as the nuke option goes.

But I do agree they are a thorn in our side.

IMHO, we have so American trained So Koreans poking around in the country, and have been for quite some time, to see if they are bluffing which I believe they are. If we decided to attack, it would be so shocking to the little weasals, they wouldn't be around long enough to awe anything.....

[Fishing-guy]

Agree. N Koreans are bluffing. Besides, the Chinese and Russians will be very unhappy with N. Koreans, if they go nuclear.

Personally, I am more worried Iran and Pakistan. Iran is only few years from developing nuclear bombs. If Pakistan is taken over by Muslim radicals, then we will need a surgical strike against their nuclear facilities.

[discostu]

Yeah that's happening.

[bullseye1911]

Therefore, there is only a single option: a surprise attack. And, because of the need to make sure that key targets are destroyed in the opening minutes of the conflict, that attack would need to include nuclear weapons.

One word, friend.....Prozac.

[Arkinsaw]

Maybe we can get some peace negotiations going and then right in the middle of those launch the surprise attack. I would suggest December 7th as the date for this honorable operation.

[BooBoo1000]

I wonder why people who publish their Doctorate Thesis, seem to never learn how to use the paragraph. This may be a good article, but who can keep their eyes straight that long to read it??

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Nothing happens in Pyongyang unless its been considered and approved by the PRC. The Red Chinese want the US out of the Pacific (at least as far back as Hawaii) and they're using the NKs to do the heavy lifting. If there is a bluff anywhere in this gambit, its the PRC's bet that they can talk Japan out of renoucing its Peace Constitution. That way, they call the shots in both Koreas and Japan and, within 20 years, the rest of Asia, including Taiwan.

[AndrewSshi]

Uhh... I really don't know where to begin on this one, Adam. First off, our intelligence about North Korea has a huge element of guesswork to it; there is no guarantee we could even find the location of every nuke, and for a nuke, it only takes one. A nuke would be great if your not sure where in a particular site a nuke is; if you don't even know in what site it's being kept, then you're taking a rather large gamble. Hell, our intel as to the activities of conventional NK units is madly spotty, to the point that we really don't know where most of the tunnels under the DMZ are.

Moreover, crippling the NK army would take quite a few nukes, many being used about a half hour's drive from Seoul. Are we going, then, to hope that we obliterate every last artillery unit? The DPRK has more artillery pieces than the U.S. military did before the drawdown of the 1990's. It's going to take a good bit of atomic fission to make sure that all of these are accounted for.

What your plan would involve is effectively killing millions of South Koreans without the South Korean Government's permission. I would say that even a red-blooded Canadian who would like to be an American Republican should look rather askance on such a gross violation of the sovreignty of an ally. No, let's not set off a nuclear holocaust in the Pacific rim.

[dead]