Washington – Pre-emptive US Strike On North Korea Could Be ‘Catastrophic’

    10

    Soldiers gather in Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, North Korea,Thursday, July 6, 2017, to celebrate the test launch of North Korea's first intercontinental ballistic missile two days earlier. The North's ICBM launch, its most successful missile test to date, has stoked security worries in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo as it showed the country could eventually perfect a reliable nuclear missile capable of reaching anywhere in the United States. Analysts say the missile tested Tuesday could reach Alaska if launched at a normal trajectory. (AP Photo/Jon Chol Jin)Washington – A pre-emptive military strike may be among the “pretty severe things” President Donald Trump says he is considering for North Korea, but it’s a step so fraught with risk that it ranks as among the unlikeliest options.

    Join our WhatsApp group

    Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email


    Even a so-called surgical strike aimed at the North’s partially hidden nuclear and missile force is unlikely to destroy the arsenal or stop its leader, Kim Jong Un, from swiftly retaliating with long-range artillery that could kill stunning numbers in South Korea within minutes.

    An all-out conflict could then ensue. And while Trump’s Pentagon chief, Jim Mattis, says the U.S. would prevail, he believes it would be “a catastrophic war.”

    In Poland on Thursday, Trump said the time has arrived to confront North Korea.

    “I don’t like to talk about what I have planned, but I have some pretty severe things that we’re thinking about,” the president said. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to do them.”

    Trump didn’t mention which “severe” options he is weighing following North Korea’s July 4 test-launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile. The administration has been reviewing its overall North Korea policy for months, having declared earlier attempts at “strategic patience” with the North to have failed. The administration has spoken about starving North Korea of cash for its nuclear program and getting other countries to add diplomatic and economic pressure.

    But Trump and his aides have not have ruled out the possibility of war with an adversary that is openly defying U.N. Security Council resolutions and threatening the United States.

    “It’s a shame that they’re behaving this way,” Trump said, “but they are behaving in a very, very dangerous manner and something will have to be done about it.”

    Trump was referring to North Korea’s test-launch Tuesday of an unarmed ballistic missile that for the first time demonstrated the range needed to reach U.S. soil. The ICBM was launched on a lofted trajectory so that it fell short of Japan. U.S. analysts calculated that if it is launched on a standard attack trajectory, the missile could reach Alaska. With further testing, they say, North Korea will achieve even longer ranges.

    The missile launch created a new reality for the U.S. and its South Korean and Japanese allies, which already are in range of the North’s missiles. With a population of more than 20 million, Seoul is in easy range of North Korea’s massive array of artillery guns north of the Demilitarized Zone that forms a buffer between North and South. Japan could also be a target. Beyond the nuclear threat, the North also is believed to have chemical and biological weapons.

    The U.S. has about 28,000 troops in South Korea, and tens of thousands of American civilians live there.

    Mattis told a House committee last month that if it came to a fight, the U.S. and its allies would prevail, but at a cost that is difficult to imagine.

    “It will be a war more serious in terms of human suffering than anything we’ve seen since 1953,” he said, referring to the final year of the Korean War. Then, U.S. forces siding with South Korea fought North Korea to a stalemate. It was an era when the North had no nuclear or chemical weapons.

    Trump has said he will not allow North Korea to achieve what it calls its ultimate objective: a nuclear-armed missile capable of reaching the United States. Although the North has now shown it can reach U.S. soil, it probably isn’t capable yet of arming such a missile with a nuclear warhead. If allowed to stay on its current course, analysts say, the North probably will reach its goal within a few years.

    In an impromptu encounter at the Pentagon on Thursday, Mattis told reporters that this week’s missile launch didn’t threaten the U.S. He said it doesn’t change the administration’s determination to pursue diplomacy to resolve the nuclear threat, but he suggested North Korea might eventually push too hard.

    “Any effort by North Korea to start a war would lead to severe consequences” for that country, he said.

    Mattis said the North’s intercontinental missile capability doesn’t “in itself bring us closer to war.”

    Trump, he said, has been clear “we are leading with diplomatic and economic efforts.”

    As of Thursday there were no outward signs of U.S. moves to put more air, ground or naval forces in South Korea.

    Bruce Bennett, a North Korea expert at the Rand Corp., a federally funded think tank, said a fully effective U.S.-led bombing campaign would require precise intelligence about the locations of the North’s nuclear and missile storage and launch sites, a number of which are dug into mountainsides.

    “We don’t know where they all are,” he said. “Even if you knew where they all are, you’re going to take potentially weeks of bombing to take those things all down.”

    In the meantime, the North would certainly respond with its large and well-armed military, he said.

    “North Korea has been very clear that if you (attacked) even one of those facilities, they are going to significantly escalate in response,” Bennett said. “They have threatened to turn Seoul into a sea of fire.”


    Listen to the VINnews podcast on:

    iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | Podbean | Amazon

    Follow VINnews for Breaking News Updates


    Connect with VINnews

    Join our WhatsApp group


    10 Comments
    Most Voted
    Newest Oldest
    Inline Feedbacks
    View all comments
    AlbertEinstein
    AlbertEinstein
    6 years ago

    AP bloviating. The strike could be catastrophic – or not. It depends on how well the President’s military leaders plan and execute the operation.

    PaulinSaudi
    PaulinSaudi
    6 years ago

    OK, let me run you guy through this again.

    The PDRK cannot win a war against the United Nations Command. At the end, Kim will be dead, their cities will be wrecked and their government destroyed. They know this. They have seen what happened elsewhere.

    So they have taken countermeasures. Even one air strike on the PDRK will be treated as the first sign of a general attack the North Koreans will immediately react with everything they got.

    You see, they are in a “Use it or lose it” situation. They cannot and will not reply moderately to a small attack.

    OK, so what would a spasm by the PDRK look like? Well, maybe they will be able to pop one or two nukes on the RoK or Japan. We might be able to prevent that. They will also open up with thousands of artillery tube on Seoul. The barrage will continue for days until we can blast each cave. Figure a hundred thousand South Koreans dead. Picture Stalingrad, but with nerve gas.

    The North Koreans will also activate “terror” cells already in place in the US, Japan, South Korea and China. These are highly-trained people, not like the idiots we have grown used to. Figure twenty such attacks, figure an average of a hundred dead in each.

    PaulinSaudi
    PaulinSaudi
    6 years ago

    Then remember the PDRK has cyber teams operating out of China, Thailand and Malaysia. These teams will release some really nasty trick on the internet. We have to presume they will be able to damage power, banking and other systems in a away that will require months of repair.

    And then of course we have to plan on things we do not know.

    If you want to attack North Korea, I am all up for it. I am a (retired) soldier. But please do not tell me it will be fun and easy. Why do you think Nixon never attacked after the Pueblo Incident? Why has no American president dropped a single bomb on North Korea since the fifties?

    When this is all over, the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese will all hate us. Northeast Asia will be as broken as Southwest Asia is now.

    Be careful what you wish for.

    6 years ago

    This is a tricky waiting game. All previous presidents have contributed to this impending catastrophe.

    hashomer
    hashomer
    6 years ago

    The slightest attack on N Korea will result in the destruction of S Korea and massive damage to Japan. This could be resolved with serious negotiations by the U.S., offering a formal end to the Korean War, pullout of U.S. troops and full normalization of relationship. Trumpf can’t think that fast.