atomic war: a real possibility?

Umbreon Dan

Umbreon Dan

is a CAP Contributor Alumnus
As many of you must know already, relations between the U.S. and North Korea may be at an all-time low. It started about a month ago when North Korea tested a nuclear bomb and the United Nations took action. North Korea has already made several bomb threats, and although the United States government is trying to hide their concern, you can tell the heat is building up. The Navy/Coast Guard have been keeping their eyes on every Korean ship, and the North Koreans have warned that any interference would be taken as a declaration of an all-out nuclear war. In particular, they have threatened to launch a ballistic missile at Hawaii in early July.

thoughts/concerns/opinions/etc.
 
While I think Kim Jong Il is crazy, I also don't think he's stupid. He can say goodbye to his country if he pulls a stunt like attacking Hawaii. Look at what happened the last time someone attacked Hawaii. We as Americans like to surf. A lot. We don't like it when our awesome surfing spot gets attacked. Japan learned that the hard way.

The difference this time in comparison to WWII is that the United States has even more weapons and power than before, and has way more allies than North Korea does. I highly doubt this will spill over into nuclear conflict. Call me an optimist, but honestly, fucking with America at this stage in the game is just incredibly dumb, and not in North Korea's interests. It seems to just be idle threats, from my view.
 
Being a Canadian kid means I'm never affected by these things. But yeah, I'm concerned that something will escalate and by the time I'm old enough to have to worry about this it'll be a huge problem.

wildfire393 said:
Last time I checked Canada was pretty close to the US. You're still at a major risk for radioactive drift, or even just the regular radiation if you're close enough to the border (particularly near a large, target city like Chicago or New York).
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Yes, yes, the first statement is quite true.

But I didn't mean I was physically far away from this incident, just far away from it having effect on me right now I guess. But no, I'm not worried about radiation.
 
diinbong said:
Being a Canadian kid means I'm never affected by these things. But yeah, I'm concerned that something will escalate and by the time I'm old enough to have to worry about this it'll be a huge problem.
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Last time I checked Canada was pretty close to the US. You're still at a major risk for radioactive drift, or even just the regular radiation if you're close enough to the border (particularly near a large, target city like Chicago or New York).
 
Kim Jung Il has threatened to "wipe out the United States," but whatever. Unlike Iran, I do think that North Korea might be suicidal, but I doubt it. I don't think that they're that stupid to attack the US, which could flatten their entire country with even a modest return attack. Though I do think that they'll launch a missile of some sorts on July 4th.
 
North Korea is a loony bin with a dictator that the world could do without but can't be the cause for a World War. The resources and alliances just aren't there. If they managed to hit US/US-allied territory with a missile then we'd have an Iraq-situation on our hands but the only way that becomes a World War is if China or Russia is willing to take us on over it, and they won't be. And so long as the Koreans don't attack America/America's allies, there won't be any war because Obama doesn't want another war to deal with on top of the ton of problems (including two wars) he's already got to manage.

How can a country with no food to feed their soldiers and no gas to fuel their weapons wipe my ass, let a lone a country off the map?

desperate cries from a desperate state.

The end of NK is near.
 
You do realize that that won't happen, right pai? That statement is a ridiculous fallacy. NK fires off an atomic bomb (however, I'm still hesitant whether they'll do that or not; and i'm leaning towards not), America retaliates and that's it. Unless of course, NK gets some sort of allies; but I can't think of any right now.
 
It is not going to happen. NK won't want their whole country and communist government destroyed, by firing off a. atomic bomb, which wouldn't even work.
 
North Korea will never attack any country. Those bomb threats are just the way Kim Jong tries to negociate economic sanctions. For Kim Jong, having an atomic bomb can force US to rediscuss some economic sanctions. It's the same thing he did in 2006.
 
You never can be too careful when it comes to North Korea. Kim Jong Il is basically readying the children of his country for war with America. Does anyone remember that 60 minutes segment about how North Korean schools were using the Diary of Anne Frank to teach that Americans are all Nazis, and that Bush was the equivalent of Hitler (yeah I hated him , but thats to far)?

On a less serious note, I always thought that Kim Jong Il looked like a Ferbie.
 
I really doubt that NK will even try to nuke anyone, let alone the United States, as they would be desrtoyed completely in retaliation. As Pirika said, Kim Jong Il wants to gain some economical benefits so badly that he is willing to go as far as that. I don't think there is a real threat of nuclear war but then again with such a dictator you never know.
 
It's always a "possibility", but I highly doubt North Korea would ever engage us like that. It's debatable whether they even have the technology to reach Hawaii (let alone mainland) and we know that the precision of their missiles is pathetic (and unlikely to get through our missile defense).

There was a doctrine termed "mutual assured destruction" - the difference is that if North Korea ever engaged us on a nuclear level; it would mostly just be them that would be destroyed.

The larger concern isn't a missile coming from NK (at least for now), the concern is a terrorist organization get ahold of nuclear material and creating an RDD, because then we don't have a return address for that nuclear weapon.
 
Caelum said:
It's always a "possibility", but I highly doubt North Korea would ever engage us like that. It's debatable whether they even have the technology to reach Hawaii (let alone mainland) and we know that the precision of their missiles is pathetic (and unlikely to get through our missile defense).

There was a doctrine termed "mutual assured destruction" - the difference is that if North Korea ever engaged us on a nuclear level; it would mostly just be them that would be destroyed.

The larger concern isn't a missile coming from NK (at least for now), the concern is a terrorist organization get ahold of nuclear material and creating an RDD, because then we don't have a return address for that nuclear weapon.
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My teacher had told me this, almost word for word... Explaining "mutual assured destruction" and the terrorist aspects. If there is another war, it is certainly not going to be global though. North Korea does not have the allies to do so. These are dry threats that Kim Jung Il sees fit to gain some economical advantages.
 
Honestly, I think this will happen. Especially with the 2012 World Ending Shit being spread around. Even a movie is coming out! NKoreans might just say Fuck it and bomb everywhere.
 
BoozeVGC said:
Honestly, I think this will happen. Especially with the 2012 World Ending Shit being spread around. Even a movie is coming out! NKoreans might just say Fuck it and bomb everywhere.
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Uh, they aren't as unsophisticated as believing a myth that was from ancient Mayans. If they were going to " Koreans might just say Fuck it and bomb everywhere" then that is not even probable, they wouldn't even be a government if they were that dumb and not logic.
 
Their technology is eons behind the rest of the world,which has been shown in their previous missile tests so they would have to come pretty close to the US resulting in their demise. NK also used up all of their fuel rods to produce around 13 pounds of uranium, which is a grand total of 3 atomic bombs, a very small number compared to the rest of the world.
 
Kim Jong Il might be crazy to enough to launch an attack on army much larger than what he could ever hope to muster, but he's not completey stupid. He'd only even dream of attacking America on such a large scale if he had the backing of other large anti-West powers such as Russia. Only then will we even have the mild prospect of a world nuclear war on our hands.
 
BoozeVGC said:
Honestly, I think this will happen. Especially with the 2012 World Ending Shit being spread around. Even a movie is coming out! NKoreans might just say Fuck it and bomb everywhere.
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You my friend are an idiot, yeah but I severely doubt Nk will do this.
 
Kim Jong Il is a fat, drunken despot flailing around like the spoiled brat he has lived his life as. His "people" live in starvation and can barely move, let alone constitute any form of recruitable army as replacements for his small vanguard on thugs. His danger isn't really what he can do to the US (zip), but what he could do to Japan or South Korea.

That's his only real bargaining chip, and he's such a lousy, self-absorbed leader that if he really declares flanking his ships is an act of war, he'll be wiped out in a fortnight. North Korea's forces make Saddam's Revolutionary Guard look like the Third Reich's Army in comparative competence. His only remaining advantage is that there's really nothing critical to target because of how he's choked the citizens dry.
 
Me and some friends (which included an ex-sergeant-major in the canadian special forces and an LT from the Ozzie army) were discussing this the other day, and we came to the conclusion that although North Korea could attack, and probably take South Korea, due to the South's army being one of the worst on the planet, they would never be able to hold it for more than about a week, so would have to be completely insane to try it (which is unfortunately looking true). There is also pretty much no chance of them seriously attacking America, as they wouldn't want to waste precious resources to not attack South Korea... Also, apparently although the North has nuclear capabilities and missiles, they don't yet have the technology to reduce the size of the nuclear weapons to a small enough size to put into one of the missiles, so everyone is safe for a while yet
 
BoozeVGC said:
Yo chill, If I found out the world was ending and I was a leader of a country, I'd fucking Nuke Everywhere.
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Except if you were in control of a country it would be such a shithole that you wouldn't even be able to obtain a single nuke.

If you found out that you and a group of ten people had only 24 hours to live would you murder them? These 10 people also happen to be innocent children. Based on your post it seems your answer to this question would be yes. I hope you aren't religious because your god would surely send you to hell.
 
Honestly, think about it. The only reason why Kim Jong Il is fucking around is obviously because he doesn't want people screwing around with his country during the political turmoil of getting his youngest son in power. I'm not worried that he'll actually launch one. I think that this is a message to "Back Off" to all the nations trying to cash in on Kim Jong Il's sickness and the political unrest there.

@Canadian kid. I live in Canada too. You don't see me going "OMFG ITS NOT GONNA AFFECT ME". Radioactive drift etc etc. If Seattle gets bombed, I'm fucked cause i live in Vancouver. We all live south of the border and if America's fucked, then we're going down. Stupid kids these days.

Edit: To the person below me, when you said 2012, it was kinda obvious lol
 
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