Any new Korean war could quickly escalate to catastrophe

[webfact]

Any new Korean war could quickly escalate to catastrophe

By David Brunnstrom

 

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un watches a military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the establishment of the Korean People's Army (KPA) in this handout photo by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) made available on April 26, 2017. KCNA/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Any new military conflict with North Korea would likely escalate quickly to the use of nuclear weapons, bringing catastrophic casualties not seen since World War Two and an untold economic impact worldwide, former U.S. defence officials and experts say.

 

While the United States has maintained an uneasy calm with North Korea for more than six decades and spikes in tensions are not new, recent supercharged rhetoric between the unpredictable U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have heightened the risk of miscalculation that could make that nightmare a reality, they say.

 

On Thursday, North Korea upped the ante by saying it would complete plans by mid-August to fire four intermediate-range missiles over Japan to land near the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam, after Trump said that any threats by Pyongyang would be "met with fire and fury like the world has never seen."

 

The exchange followed a United Nations resolution tightening sanctions on North Korea after it tested two intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads to the United States.

 

Trump said on Thursday his fire and fury comment was not tough enough.

 

Despite the war of words, for now the U.S. military says there has been no change in its readiness posture in South Korea or elsewhere in Asia. Analysts say they have seen no evidence of any increased alert in North Korea.

 

But they warned the bluster could raise the risk of miscalculation that could result in conflict far beyond the scale of the 1950-53 Korean War, which claimed the lives of more than 50,000 Americans and millions of Koreans and ended in an armed truce, not a peace treaty.

 

"The major thing people are talking about is miscalculation - we could easily stumble into something with the rhetoric being so heated," said Philip Yun, a Korea expert who was an Asia adviser under former President Bill Clinton.

 

Yun, now executive director of the Ploughshares Fund, an anti-proliferation initiative, said the risks were exacerbated by the "credibility problem" Trump has acquired due to his frequent off-the-cuff remarks that often appear to go counter to the more measured remarks of his officials.

 

"In nuclear deterrence, credibility is everything and there's a situation that if no-one takes you seriously, you have to do something to make sure you are taken seriously, and that's where the miscalculation can happen," Yun said.

 

With hundreds of thousands of troops and huge arsenals arrayed on both sides of a tense demilitarized zone, the Korean peninsula has long been a tinder box.

 

North Korea's acquisition of nuclear weapons and its hell-for-leather development of an array of missiles to deliver them, have raised the stakes further.

 

CATASTROPHIC CASUALTIES

 

Even a conventional clash could cause catastrophic casualties, given the thousands of North Korean artillery pieces ranged along the border, at least 1,000 of which are capable of reaching the densely populated South Korean capital Seoul and its metropolitan area, home to some 25 million people.

 

"It would be very difficult to eliminate that threat before the artillery fire could create a lot of damage on the southern side," David Shear, who served as the senior U.S. defence official for east Asia under former president Barack Obama, told Reuters.

 

"I take projections of casualties of thousands to tens of thousands quite seriously and that's just in South Korea - it's possible North Korea could attack Japan as well."

 

The real danger of any preemptive U.S. strikes against North Korea's weapons sites would be that Pyongyang, whose conventional forces are considered no match for those of the United States and its allies, might resort to using its chemical and biological weapons and ultimately its nuclear arsenal.

 

Then there is the potential for casualties running into the millions.

 

"If they did launch they could potentially wipe out cities in South Korea and Japan, and in the longer term maybe reach the U.S. West Coast and even further inland," said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Program at the Federation of American Scientists.

 

Even if everything went right for the Pentagon, a U.S. strike campaign against North Korea would take up to a week to be effective, said Kristensen.

 

A former U.S. military officer who served multiple tours in South Korea and Japan said that to succeed completely, it would take at least a month, given how well protected and dispersed North Korean targets were.

 

"And it would provoke a massive North Korean reaction, even when they spotted preparation for such a strike, or the instant one began."

Yun said the catastrophe would not just be human.

 

"If we had a war, think about what it means. You are talking South Korea, the 11th largest economy in the world, Japan, the third largest economy, and you are talking about ground troops on the Korean peninsula.

 

"Donald Trump's agenda would be consumed by this. Nothing else would get done. It's against his interest and it's not really an option."

 

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom and John Walcott; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and James Dalgleish)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-08-11

[gummy]

So all in all a pretty good outcome,  more so if there is a strong westerly if Trump nukes NK. With Japan gone it would open up further possibilities for China and Russia claiming  more of the oceans resources.  Assuming of course this did happen then Trump would go down as the most obscene muppet ever, assuming any one is still alive in the world.

Edited August 11, 2017 by gummy

[Thian]

Strange that the South Korean Won stays so strong under these threats.

 

[mtls2005]

Historical perspective...

 

Gen. MacArthur witnessed Trump-style ‘fire and fury’ in Korea, and it sickened him

 

Having just been fired as commander of allied forces in Korea, a defiant Douglas MacArthur appeared before Congress and spoke of human suffering so horrifying that his parting glimpse of it caused him to vomit.

 

“I have never seen such devastation,” the general told members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. At that time, in May 1951, the Korean War was less than a year old. Casualties, he estimated, were already north of 1 million.

 

“I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man,” he added, “and it just curdled my stomach.”

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/08/10/what-president-trump-can-learn-about-fire-and-fury-from-gen-macarthurs-korean-war-horror/?utm_term=.b8ba6c49fcb4

[binjalin]

If China or Russia or anyone else had these threats do we think they would sit there and say 'mai pen rai'? This is a Loon in N.Korea who subjugates his people to enslavement but that has never been enough. Now he fires missiles and threatens to fire at, or near, Guam. I don't like Trump, he's a megalomaniac, but he's right it's time for someone with BALLS. Take Kim out swiftly and cleanly with limited Nuke strike then clean-up if you don't Kim will, one day, get in a hussy fit and fire at Guam or S.Korea and it will be a lot, lot more messy. 

[gummy]

6 minutes ago, binjalin said:

If China or Russia or anyone else had these threats do we think they would sit there and say 'mai pen rai'? This is a Loon in N.Korea who subjugates his people to enslavement but that has never been enough. Now he fires missiles and threatens to fire at, or near, Guam. I don't like Trump, he's a megalomaniac, but he's right it's time for someone with BALLS. Take Kim out swiftly and cleanly with limited Nuke strike then clean-up if you don't Kim will, one day, get in a hussy fit and fire at Guam or S.Korea and it will be a lot, lot more messy. 

Clean up ?  do you have any idea of the half life of U-235 ?  Well  uranium 235 has a half-life of 'only' 700 million years. Depending on weather patterns at the time the fall-out from this could easily effect half the globe including the United States.

[Nowisee]

 

The potential for serious destruction to S.Korea, Seoul in particular and possibly Japan is real.  Just artillery damage to Seoul would be serious...add chemical weapons and it would be very ugly... and any country using "limited" Nuke strike, it would rock the world.  Not something I want to see.    

This needs to be solved another way... there needs to be a gunman on the grassy knoll.   

 

I'd like to believe that at any possible sign, the majority of N.Korean civilians and possibly a large portion of the military would raise white flags and want to get out of there...or, at the very least accept a coup against Kim.
I have nothing to back this up... 555, just a cup of coffee.

[binjalin]

11 minutes ago, gummy said:

Clean up ?  do you have any idea of the half life of U-235 ?  Well  uranium 235 has a half-life of 'only' 700 million years. Depending on weather patterns at the time the fall-out from this could easily effect half the globe including the United States.

Not the new nukes they have which 'bury' into the ground. What's your alternative? a little 'chat'?  he's a monster 

[maewang99]

we know.  it's why the Football... the black bag.... that follows Trump and all of them since Nixon...  maybe LBJ too?

has cartoon pictures... literally, we are told...

because it would take too long to pick out an option reading text and since 1968 or earlier a sub can launch off an H bomb and land on DC in less than 5 minutes. so it uses cartoon pictures.

any question on command and control..... and not the Mini Me guy.... that is what is dangerous.  and it's Trump doing that. Trumpie to his base for whom Un is the nutter. the USA looks really awful in this. and more of this can't be good.




 

Edited August 11, 2017 by maewang99

[boomerangutang]

41 minutes ago, binjalin said:

If China or Russia or anyone else had these threats do we think they would sit there and say 'mai pen rai'? This is a Loon in N.Korea who subjugates his people to enslavement but that has never been enough. Now he fires missiles and threatens to fire at, or near, Guam. I don't like Trump, he's a megalomaniac, but he's right it's time for someone with BALLS. Take Kim out swiftly and cleanly with limited Nuke strike then clean-up if you don't Kim will, one day, get in a hussy fit and fire at Guam or S.Korea and it will be a lot, lot more messy. 

No.  Balls in a ball sack with testosterone juice, aren't what's needed.   Cool heads are needed.

 

It's interesting that, whenever Trump is stacked up against any other 'leader,'  Trump always comes out looking worse, and the other person looks better.  It happened with Merkel, with Pena, with the Pope, and Putin.   It's hard to imagine Kim looking better than a polished toad, but he does (to some of us) after saber-rattling with dufus Trump.

 

 

[darksidedog]

While I hope for an albeit unlikely diplomatic solution, I have been wondering what would happen if a tactical strike was able to take Kim and his top generals out, what the reaction in the country would be. I cannot believe that the whole country approve of the poverty they are forced to endure, to allow his crazed military ambitions.

[boomerangutang]

24 minutes ago, binjalin said:

Not the new nukes they have which 'bury' into the ground. What's your alternative? a little 'chat'?  he's a monster 

Kim is not a monster.  He's an overgrown kid who drinks a lot of Hennessy, likes basketball, likes American movies, and loves to press the red button for missile launches. 

He hasn't attacked anyone.  He's farting out his mouth and his anus.  

If there's a war, it will probably be the red-faced ding dong inside the Beltway who initiates it.

[boomerangutang]

2 minutes ago, darksidedog said:

While I hope for an albeit unlikely diplomatic solution, I have been wondering what would happen if a tactical strike was able to take Kim and his top generals out, what the reaction in the country would be. I cannot believe that the whole country approve of the poverty they are forced to endure, to allow his crazed military ambitions.

I too wouldn't mind seeing a tactical strike which takes out Kim and his top generals.  Yet, such things are tough.   The US (I think it was during Clinton's terms) sent two top-echelon fighter jets to take out Kadhafi.  The old man didn't get a scratch, but his granddaughter was blown up.   

 

Plus, N.Korea's military activates, whether there are living generals at the command center, or not.  It's like an automatic door opening.  There doesn't need to be people pressing the buttons, not initially anyway.  For a sustained war, it's a different story - yet N.Korea probably doesn't have enough ammo and resources to sustain a war for more than 3 weeks.

 

[binjalin]

24 minutes ago, boomerangutang said:

Kim is not a monster.  He's an overgrown kid who drinks a lot of Hennessy, likes basketball, likes American movies, and loves to press the red button for missile launches. 

He hasn't attacked anyone.  He's farting out his mouth and his anus.  

If there's a war, it will probably be the red-faced ding dong inside the Beltway who initiates it.

I think his Uncle might differ on your assessment. 

[Golgota]

It's a bit late now but I would have flood North Korea with tourism.

When tourism come in masses in a country it brings news/culture/exchange

It would have take time but it seems a cultural war and forced news/opinion infltration would have worked better and turned the population against Kim.

When for three generations you were told the KiM are Gods, you believe it.

[binjalin]

3 minutes ago, Golgota said:

It's a bit late now but I would have flood North Korea with tourism.

When tourism come in masses in a country it brings news/culture/exchange

It would have take time but it seems a cultural war and forced news/opinion infltration would have worked better and turned the population against Kim.

When for three generations you were told the KiM are Gods, you believe it.

They don't allow it and sent one home recently who is now dead but I take your point about isolationism. 

[baboon]

16 minutes ago, binjalin said:

They don't allow it and sent one home recently who is now dead but I take your point about isolationism. 

Well I went there as a tourist years ago...

[binjalin]

Just now, baboon said:

Well I went there as a tourist years ago...

And you're still here, thankfully, but young Otto was not so lucky.

[baboon]

3 minutes ago, binjalin said:

And you're still here, thankfully, but young Otto was not so lucky.

I bet there are a fair few posters who are taking umbrage at your use of the word "thankfully", above...

[Dave67]

Even my Missus knows about Trump, she asked me what I was reading when I told her She said "Trump, North Korea, Same " Bless her

[Somtamnication]

With America preoccupied with a North Korean battle, this will happen:

China will enter Taiwan and completely take over Hong Kong

Russia will enter the Balkans again and take over the 3 countries there

India and Pakistan will press buttons

Nato countries will be left to defend Europe.

Turkey will join the Russian faction

The internet will be shut down completely to avoid information and leads

ZERO tourists will come to Thailand

The world economy will collapse

 

Seriously folks, it looks pretty dire to me.

[Rancid]

2 hours ago, mtls2005 said:

Historical perspective...

 

Gen. MacArthur witnessed Trump-style ‘fire and fury’ in Korea, and it sickened him

 

Having just been fired as commander of allied forces in Korea, a defiant Douglas MacArthur appeared before Congress and spoke of human suffering so horrifying that his parting glimpse of it caused him to vomit.

 

“I have never seen such devastation,” the general told members of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees. At that time, in May 1951, the Korean War was less than a year old. Casualties, he estimated, were already north of 1 million.

 

“I have seen, I guess, as much blood and disaster as any living man,” he added, “and it just curdled my stomach.”

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/08/10/what-president-trump-can-learn-about-fire-and-fury-from-gen-macarthurs-korean-war-horror/?utm_term=.b8ba6c49fcb4

Channeling a phrase once attributed to General Douglas MacArthur during an address at West Point former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said: “any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia… should ‘have his head examined’…” Surely the US has learned no war is winnable from the air only, only civilian genocide.

 

It was also said that there wasn't a building over 2 stories still left standing in N Korea. We get our reality of the Korean war from TV, the truth, easily googled, is that they completely flattened the place and left a third of the 10 million population dead. Another great victory for democracy...

 

Expect this is all political bluster, the ramifications if the idiot went ahead is too horrendous and easily apparent.

[baboon]

12 minutes ago, Somtamnication said:

With America preoccupied with a North Korean battle, this will happen:

China will enter Taiwan and completely take over Hong Kong

Russia will enter the Balkans again and take over the 3 countries there

India and Pakistan will press buttons

Nato countries will be left to defend Europe.

Turkey will join the Russian faction

The internet will be shut down completely to avoid information and leads

ZERO tourists will come to Thailand

The world economy will collapse

 

Seriously folks, it looks pretty dire to me.

Better get some beers in while the shops are still open, then...

[gummy]

3 hours ago, binjalin said:

Not the new nukes they have which 'bury' into the ground. What's your alternative? a little 'chat'?  he's a monster 

So no fall out and/or contamination - are you for real or a member of Trumps goon brigade ?

Edited August 11, 2017 by gummy

[champers]

3 hours ago, Nowisee said:

 

This needs to be solved another way... there needs to be a gunman on the grassy knoll.   

Two well placed bullets and this could be all over.

[Yann55]

4 hours ago, binjalin said:

Not the new nukes they have which 'bury' into the ground. What's your alternative? a little 'chat'?  he's a monster 

 

Problem # 1 :  Trump is also a monster. An elected monster, because monsters can be elected. Hitler certainly was, as well as many others.

 

Problem # 2 : If monsters can be elected, then the monstrosity that put Trump in charge of the most powerful country in the world is inside us. All of us. How do we adress that ? Normally with education, and I mean real education, not brain-washing of course, even of the subtle kind. Real education is supposed to make us see the monstrosity in us, understand it, and keep it in check. It's the very basis of civilization.

 

The question is : how real is the education now provided in the West ?

 

It is delivered, voluntarily or not, by parents and the school system, but also by many other sources, especially the media environment, the importance of which has grown so fast in the past 20 years or so that I now believe it to be the primary actor, way ahead of family and school.

 

Keeping that in mind, are we really taught how to think rather than what to think ? We sure like to believe so, but is it a fact or just wishful thinking ? I personnally believe that if kids did receive a real education, there would be no extreme right, no xenophobia, no religious extremism, no nationalism, no racism, and in general a considerably lesser amount of these toxic isms.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 11, 2017 by Yann55

[Golgota]

4 minutes ago, Yann55 said:

 

The problem is that Trump is also a monster. An elected monster, because monsters can be elected. Hitler certainly was, as well as many others.

 

The monstrosity that put Trump in charge of the most powerful country in the world is inside us. All of us.

 

Real education is supposed to make us see that risk, understand it, and keep it in check. It's the very basis of civilization.

 

The question is : how real is the education now dispensed in the West ? Education is delivered, voluntarily or not, by parents and the school system, but also by many other sources, especially the media environment, the importance of which has grown so fast in the past 20 years or so that I now believe it to be the primary actor.

 

Keeping that in mind, are we really taught how to think rather than what to think ? We sure like to believe so, but is it a fact or just wishful thinking ? I personnally believe that if kids did receive a real education, there would be no extreme right, no xenophobia, no religious extremism, no nationalism, no racism, and in general a considerably lesser amount of isms.

 

 

 

 

I bet the South Korean would sleep much better if Trump had a couple of Hotels in Seoul

[Tchooptip]

Any new Korean war could quickly escalate to catastrophe

I can hardly believe Kim Jong Un so stupid as to not understand that,  also he is not alone he has advisers.

Like this idea to send missiles 40 km to Guam Island, no sane head of state would think of such a madness,  regardless it is a U S territory.  

Maybe this Kim Jong Un is completely mad medically speaking?

[boomerangutang]

13 minutes ago, Tchooptip said:

Maybe this Kim Jong Un is completely mad medically speaking?

maybe yes, maybe no.  He's doing what his dad and grandad did.  It worked for them, well enough to keep them in the top spot, and thus far it's working for Fat Boy Kim.  His #1 priority is staying on top of the heap.  His tactics are beyond weird, but in a sick way, they're working thus far.  

Meanwhile, Trump is getting sucked into Kim's game.  Kim is setting the rules, similar to how Putin sets the music that Trump dances to, though it's different than the N.Korea tune.   Trump is a reactionary bully punk, scared of his own shadow, and it's showing.

 

 

[Caps]

2 hours ago, Somtamnication said:

With America preoccupied with a North Korean battle, this will happen:

China will enter Taiwan and completely take over Hong Kong

Russia will enter the Balkans again and take over the 3 countries there

India and Pakistan will press buttons

Nato countries will be left to defend Europe.

Turkey will join the Russian faction

The internet will be shut down completely to avoid information and leads

ZERO tourists will come to Thailand

The world economy will collapse

 

Seriously folks, it looks pretty dire to me.

But on the bright side at least the remoaners will be happy because Brexit wont happen as there wont be many people left to do it