Is the US powerful enough to destroy NK if they successfully landed a nuke?

[Stormspark]

Yes regardless of what you think of him Trump is not one to shy away from conflict his response to any attack would be swift and devastating any attack would be answered in an hour or two.

NK ability to wage a conventional war would be completely destroyed in 48 hours. Their artillery, air force, navy, and mechanized (tanks) forces would be destroyed in less than a day. Unfortunately in that time many South Koreans may be killed at Nk fires on the South.

Insurgency would be less of a problem as guns are not wide spread among the civilians as it was in Vietnam and they are more isolated with no real remaining allies.

China and Russia will not intervene on NK side instead they are more likely to join American forces to ensure some part in the formation of the new NK after the war.

NK doesn't pose a threat to the US, they only pose a regional threat (mainly to SK). The pride of their air force is a few Mig-13's from 1950 or so. Nukes wouldn't be necessary, we would have complete air superiority within 24 hours at most, and the only thing they would be able to do is destroy Seoul with artillery before we could stop them (they can easily do that, also no nukes required, and even old artillery is still artillery).

[Rafoel]

One of our nuclear submarines is enough to wipe out all of North Korea, so yes. War with NK would be similar to Mike Tyson in a fight to do the death with a baby. Even if they landed multiple nukes on the US, we would have enough firepower to takeout any nation with our submarines alone.

Interesting claim. Care to present any calculations?

[SinR]

if Un starts throwing Nukes our way, I'm pretty sure we can intercept them and shoot them down LONG before they reach land, and retaliate with our own weapons (not necessarily nukes) before he even knows what happened

[Zmaniac17]

I'm just wondering if North Korea were to ever be successful somehow in landing a nuclear WMD on US soil, could we actually muster the strength after such an attack to fight back?

Their doomsday threats of October 9th seem so ominous I just hope if they do pull anything off, we could respond than be frozen in terror.

This is the wrong question. It should be obvious that the DPRK doesn't pose a legitimate military threat to the United States. The more difficult and more appropriate question is how does the U.S. respond appropriately to an attack.

I think it's obvious that even if the attack was nuclear in nature the response should not be. Nukes are a weapon of deterrence designed to be so terrible that no one would ever want to use them. Attacking civilians is not an appropriate response when you don't face total annihilation.

So they challenge would be to find a way to not create another endless war like Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan while removing their government or disabling their ability to fire anymore missiles.

With that said I have serious concerns about the U.S. ability to have a measured response in the face of such a tragedy. Especially with the Republicans controlling most of the government. Let's just hope the DPRK isn't dumb enough to do something like this.

This thread is very scary if you read it from the perspective of a North Korean. I can understand why they want nukes as deterrence.

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if Un starts throwing Nukes our way, I'm pretty sure we can intercept them and shoot them down LONG before they reach land, and retaliate with our own weapons (not necessarily nukes) before he even knows what happened

It is incredibly difficult to shoot down missiles. Unless the missile is coming down almost directly on top of the missile defense system it probably isn't going to work most of the time. Since ICBM's fly so high (hundreds of miles high) it's basically impossible to get them at launch or in mid flight. They are only vulnerable when they re-enter to hit their target. To get them at launch you would need to know when they're launching and be positioned very close to the launch.

"THAAD, Patriot and especially Aegis, have done fairly well in tests, but these have been tests designed for success, simplified, carefully staged and using mostly short-range targets. Aegis has only been tested once against an intermediate-range target says Reif, one of the leading experts on U.S. missile defense programs.

What about our long-range defenses, the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense, or GMD, interceptors based in Alaska and California? There the test record is even worse. Even under ideal conditions, where the defenders knew the time, direction and trajectory of the test target and all the details of its shape, temperature, etc., this system has only hit its target half of the time.

“The success rate of the GMD systems in flight intercept tests has been dismal,” says former director of operational testing for the Pentagon, Philip Coyle. Our chances of intercepting a threat missile, even under ideal conditions, are basically “at least as good as a coin toss,” says the former head of the Missile Defense Agency, retired Lt. Gen. Trey Obering."

http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017...ssiles/141070/

[Ghostpanther]

Putin is not stupid he wouldn't even consider such an action. Forget the logistics it would take to invade and hold the US main land which would be 100 times more difficult than D-Day and forget our own nukes which are scattered all over the world.

The American Citizen represents the largest armed group in the world 70% of Americans have used a gun we have no idea how many Americans even own a gun but its estimated at 88 million Americans own a gun legally in the US. China has the largest army in the world and its only 2.3 million strong.

As Yamamoto said "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass."

Well said. And Putin was being honest when he said the only Super Power in the world is the US. It is not just about how many warheads you have , but your capabilities to deliver them.

[Haven]

Putin is not stupid he wouldn't even consider such an action. Forget the logistics it would take to invade and hold the US main land which would be 100 times more difficult than D-Day and forget our own nukes which are scattered all over the world.

The American Citizen represents the largest armed group in the world 70% of Americans have used a gun we have no idea how many Americans even own a gun but its estimated at 88 million Americans own a gun legally in the US. China has the largest army in the world and its only 2.3 million strong.

As Yamamoto said "You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass."

Now imagine all of those rifle and pistol-wielding people panicking and looting shit when the first blackouts and food shortages start.

On topic, of course US can obliterate North Korea, no question about that. What US can't do, however, is predict or handle the consequences and casualties, pretty much as always, leaving the problem to burn somewhere across the safe distance of the Pacific ocean.

[Kellhound]

NK doesn't pose a threat to the US, they only pose a regional threat (mainly to SK). The pride of their air force is a few Mig-13's from 1950 or so. Nukes wouldn't be necessary, we would have complete air superiority within 24 hours at most, and the only thing they would be able to do is destroy Seoul with artillery before we could stop them (they can easily do that, also no nukes required, and even old artillery is still artillery).

NK has MiG-29s. The MiG-13 was never a production aircraft.

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Interesting claim. Care to present any calculations?

1X24X8(START I limit)= 192 475kt warheads from one SSBN in max legal setup (336 if we ignore START I). In a strict theoretical numbers game, 1 475kt airburst bomb can cause destruction of most buildings in an area of ~93sq-km, and NK is 120,500sq-km, so total destruction of every inch of the country would take over 1300 such warheads. However, 27 cities in NK hold 10 million of its 25 million residents, so it is conceivable that one sub could cut NK's population in half without issue.

[Flutterguy]

People greatly overvalue the power of a nuclear weapon. One nuke from North Korea wouldn't be enough to weaken the US to the point of not responding. It would devastate the target which would stretch out roughly 40 miles from its center, depending on the power of the weapon. It's not a planet destroying event. How it's actually gotten into the imagination that it is is pretty hilarious.

[TheFirstOnes]

The US would SLAUGHTER them with 1 nuke. They only gave 1 source of Energy, and shit in their country. Blow that up, and NK is pretty much a wasteland.

[Deleted]

guys, this is a very dangerous topic