If North Korea nukes the US or its allies, what realistically happens?

[muto]

As others have said it would probably turn into the Iraq war except bigger. We’d basically bomb all their military factories and facilities and then hunt for Kim.

[Justank]

I refuse to believe someone could be this stupid. Seriously.

I mean, I want to believe it's just a troll, but honestly these days it gets really hard to tell.

North Korea would be occupied, but likely not united with South Korea. The cost and complexity of uniting East and West Germany was great enough that doing it on a vastly larger scale with the Koreas is unthinkable. Let me put it this way: Germany Unification cost about $4 trillion that Germany, Europe and the US paid for. Korean Unification would cost well over double, and maybe even triple that. And nobody is going to foot that bill.

post-Kim dynasty North Korea will almost certainly remain an independent state.

People forget this pretty regularly with NK/SK. Modernizing NK alone would be insanely expensive, and the gap between North and South at this point is huge. Nobody over there even remotely wants to pay for that.

[Skroe]

I mean, I want to believe it's just a troll, but honestly these days it gets really hard to tell.



People forget this pretty regularly with NK/SK. Modernizing NK alone would be insanely expensive, and the gap between North and South at this point is huge. Nobody over there even remotely wants to pay for that.

Yup.

East Germany and West Germany didn't really merge. It's more accurate to say West Germany ate East Germany. Every East German institution went away and the money and energy was spent moving East Germany up to West German standards. This meant changing the military and civil society. Retraining the work force. Changing infrastructure. Changing public services. Countless, countless things. And it was all tremendously expensive. And East Germany was on a far higher "starting point" than North Korea would be. East Germany was behind West Germany, but it was not what North Korea is, which didn't share with the public that man landed on the Moon until 1999. And even decades later, there still remains substantial gaps between the old West German and old East Germany. Unification was hugely successful, but also hugely expensive and incomplete to this day.

Integrating North Korea into South Korea in the manner in which Germany was integrated would be, beyond just ungodly expensive, incredibly difficult at the people level. It would involve the re-education and reorganization of an entire society of millions of people on a scale perhaps not attempted since the US occupation of Japan after World War II.

The more likely scenario would be a lot of civilian international assistance and tolerance of an independent North Korea as a single party state without real democracy that is not a threat to its neighbors, is denuclearized and at best middle income (as opposed to South Korea, one of the world's wealthiest countries). More akin to modern day Vietnam or even Myanmar (albeit there are still gross human rights abuses within the country).

[Doctor Amadeus]

A lot of people make the joking conclusion the US would retaliate by removing North Korea from the face of the planet, but in all seriousness, what happens? I hear China would intervene to protect North Korea from consequences and that the US nuking anyone in response would incite WW3 from the civilian crisis

Here is the thing, the talk of "Wiping NK from the face of the Map" is like all other discussions of the like. The reality is NO it is not likely. However if it should happen.


Eh it depends, it wouldn't be good, and for sure if a NUKE went off, it would have a dramatically different reaction than say killing a military general, who for many reasons might already be on the way out. Especially politically.


So to answer your question in my life time I can't say because nothing has ever happened like that, however uncles and relatives who lived before like say WW2 and arguably North Korea and Vietnam, it's very much believed likely.

The best reference in modern age I think would be

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

Again arguably ARGUABLY this literally could have lead to another major world event. With the preponderance of evidence being that it was.


Fast forward to now. Eh we live in a different time, human beings have become a lot more accustomed to no war, as opposed to war save a few exceptions, none on a major global level including Iraq or Afghanistan.


So to answer the question with all the above considered, if the U.S Nuked North Korea what would happen and would China respond.


1. If the U.S Nuked North Korea it would get an Immediate global response, meaning military basis would likely be attacked or moved on by the international community.

2. China would NOT launch Nukes for North Korea in the End, but they would attack and My guess is they would likely focus on U.S bases in the region and our Allies.


The U.S would also likely face sanctions from the international community and condemnation. Basically it would Mirror what is happening to Russia. by the International Community.

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This is the most likely and better educated result. I do NOT think the U.S would ever Nuke Korea either for the reasons I said, but considering the moron in Office, IF that happened, what I said is the likely outcome.

North Korea is tolerated for a lot of reasons, but mostly because any unprovoked specific attack on them would literally leave the U.S Alone.

The US would almost certainly not nuke North Korea.

It's far more likely the US would engage in a massive conventional campaign to destroy the North Korean regime - easily the largest war since the Korean War and dwarfing Vietnam, Desert Storm, Afghanistan and the Iraq War.

But there isn't a scenario where it nukes North Korea. Not really.

And China would not intervene if North Korea fired first, except to remove the North Korean leadership in a bid to prevent a US intervention, which would probably not work.

It would not be World War III either.


North Korea would be occupied, but likely not united with South Korea. The cost and complexity of uniting East and West Germany was great enough that doing it on a vastly larger scale with the Koreas is unthinkable. Let me put it this way: Germany Unification cost about $4 trillion that Germany, Europe and the US paid for. Korean Unification would cost well over double, and maybe even triple that. And nobody is going to foot that bill.

post-Kim dynasty North Korea will almost certainly remain an independent state.

[Flarelaine]

You can't "go conventional" with NK if you want Seoul to continue existing also.

Once things go that far, Seoul is cooked. NK would have time to fire their artillery as soon as they detect a launch.

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Yup.

East Germany and West Germany didn't really merge. It's more accurate to say West Germany ate East Germany. Every East German institution went away and the money and energy was spent moving East Germany up to West German standards. This meant changing the military and civil society. Retraining the work force. Changing infrastructure. Changing public services. Countless, countless things. And it was all tremendously expensive. And East Germany was on a far higher "starting point" than North Korea would be. East Germany was behind West Germany, but it was not what North Korea is, which didn't share with the public that man landed on the Moon until 1999. And even decades later, there still remains substantial gaps between the old West German and old East Germany. Unification was hugely successful, but also hugely expensive and incomplete to this day.

Integrating North Korea into South Korea in the manner in which Germany was integrated would be, beyond just ungodly expensive, incredibly difficult at the people level. It would involve the re-education and reorganization of an entire society of millions of people on a scale perhaps not attempted since the US occupation of Japan after World War II.

Let's also note that East Germany still isn't level with the West thirty years later. Uniting Korea is possible, of course, but everyone would have to face that it would take two generations at best, beyond the mind-boggling financial considerations.

[Mormolyce]

We would all laugh at how amusing this utterly fictional scenario is.

They maybe have the capability to hit Japan? If they did that, they'd be toast. They know it, the US knows it, everyone knows it. So it's never going to happen.

[Freighter]

Uniting Korea is possible, of course, but everyone would have to face that it would take two generations at best, beyond the mind-boggling financial considerations.

Every generation has been more and more negative to unification. We younger people don't want it because it will cost us too much. Minjoo would be committing political suicide and hand over the voters to the conservatives in a heart beat if they tried to push it through.

Their language is also increasingly diverging from ours due to loanwords and their culture diverged a long time ago. Like some decades ago, you could speak without any need of additional education but to talk with someone from the north today? Unless they've received education, there's a lot of things they won't understand when we talk.

[Rennadrel]

Any attempt to nuke America or any other country will be shot down fairly easily. If an attempt is even made, a country like NK would probably be bombed to hell and back.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

The Korean Peninsula gets completely fucked.

[Easo]

Once things go that far, Seoul is cooked. NK would have time to fire their artillery as soon as they detect a launch.

Detect launch with what? How would they detect ICBM launched in USA or a B-2 coming to give them a present?
But once again, no one would go nuclear on NK. Conventional is more than enough.