Pentagon: securing Nork nukes would require ground invasion
The Stars & Stripes reports that the Pentagon responded to a Congressional inquiry with a letter which explained that the only way to secure North Korean nuclear weapons is to send in ground forces led by special warfare assets;
The only way to locate and secure all of North Korea’s nuclear weapons sites “with complete certainty” is through an invasion of U.S. ground forces, and in the event of conflict, Pyongyang could use biological and chemical weapons, the Pentagon told lawmakers in a new, blunt assessment of what war on the Korean Peninsula might look like.
The Pentagon, in a letter to lawmakers, said that a full discussion of U.S. capabilities to “counter North Korea’s ability to respond with a nuclear weapon and to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear weapons located in deeply buried, underground facilities” is best suited for a classified briefing.
For their part, the Department of Defense urges that the State Department come to a resolution before the military is forced into the picture with their unique set of skills requiring them to kill people and break things in North Korea, but that they are ready to do just that.
Category: North Korea
Hmm. So Air Power alone won’t do it and we’d have to put boots on the ground? Never heard of that before. /s
But air power could do it with a big enough nuke. True there would be a touch of collateral damage.
North Korea is highly mountainous, much of it granite.
We could expend the entire strategic inventory and not get all the possible caves and tunnels. The fallout from such an attempt, limited or all-out, would be massively devastating to friends in the region, as well as adversaries.
No, we would have to go dig them out the hard way.
Not necessarily.
I read that during the Korean War, the Norks would seal people off in caves, then let them suffocate.
So…why not just have the USMC use explosives to cave in the entrances to these underground military facilities? Whatever’s down there can stay down there.
I think we did that on Iwo Jima as well, collapsing a cave entrance with enemy combatants inside.
Or, instead of a nuke, use some of those thermobaric bombs to suck the O2 out of the area of the caves – didn’t we do that a time or two?
We have been finding caves we missed for decades afterwards.
The mop-up operations took -months-, of on the ground searching.
Remember, miss one Nork cave, and we might lose a port city, and 2 million americans, to a freighter-delivered nuke.
Find them all? Requires searching them all. You can’t do that effectively from high altitude.
Plenty of natural caves and potential hides.
Ground search, of -years- required.
I think I will sit this one out.
The real problem with Nork’s nukes is that if they continue to do underground testing of H-bombs, China has already told ND:tBF that the mountain where these tests take place will collapse. And China does not want the radiation from that kind of event spreading into its AO.
http://metro.co.uk/2017/09/05/mountain-on-verge-of-collapse-after-north-koreas-nuclear-missile-tests-6903878/
Hi Ex,
I say a few hundred cruise missiles shot up NDtBF’s ass would soften things up for the ground forces a little bit? They should get this thing over with soon before he really does some real damage? What do you think??
Hi, Willy
I think the Chinese have just about had it with Fatty Kim da T’ird, if they’ve warned him about ending testing. Also, as I indicated last week, the Russians tested a long-range Topol-M missile successfully, and I believe their “deal” with Norkiland was brought to and abrupt end.
So I’d say it’s about time the Big Three Cold War governments got together and put and end to the nonsense in Norkiland, starting with an ultimatum and following up the consequences.
I’m sure we’d get any assistance needed from the South, too, and probably Japan.
Just my view.
I have a feeling Japan will not be invited to actively participate. Just maintain current base infrastructure for refuel/rearm.
I had that thought, too, after I hit the ‘post’ button.
I am just hoping we finally put an end to that nutball and his cronies!
Given Japan’s track record of abominable barbarism in WW2, there are lots of folks that would frown upon their setting foot anywhere else.
Sure’ that sort of thing has been common in regional history there. But the memories are fresh, and Gina can well and truly exploit them.
Payback is a blood sport in that region. And memories go back a -very- long time.
In other words…send in the Marines.
Send in all the combat claiming phonies ever posted on TAH!That ought to confuse the shit out of the norks.
Faker Assholes, from the sky.
These damn fools, who boast and lie…….
Nice.
There are like 100,000 phony SEALS. Statistically, we could conquer NK if just 1/10,000 fakes can shoot. If not, add in the fake Green Berets and we have a metric shit ton of bullet sponges.
I can recommend several infamous Stolen Valor Floridians for front line decoy duty.
I will be the first to volunteer my pos lying brother, David “Doc” Shrum for door gunner duty. I’m sure with all of his medals and awards he will scare them off just by his presence!
Or they may accept him as one of their own…
What member of Congress is so extremely dumb they would have to ask this common sense question?
There are too many that come to mind, so I can’t really narrow it down much.
Dah prrrhroooblhem eees I ahm ahhs-hoe!
Ah, yes, The myth of the “surgical strike” that will take out the bad guys without any need for ground troops or collateral damage lives on.
Somebody’s been watching too many movies. Might as well wish for Superman or Captain America while you’re at it.
War is messy, nasty, and dirty. Always has been and always will be.
Ask the old boys who landed at various islands like Tarawa how well things can be completely destroyed from the air.
“…the military is forced into the picture with their unique set of skills requiring them to kill people and break things in North Korea, but that they are ready to do just that.”
Well, Yeah!
However, I suppose the the S.Koreans would be invaluable with the occupation and repatriation of millions of the greatly deprived N.Koreans
As someone who has a special attachment to the this little peninsula , I’ve often wondered about the fighting capability of the average KPA grunt. In addition will all the alleged 20 bazillion-ty artillery tubes that the Norks have just on the other side of the “Z” be able to fire if ordered to. And if they do/can, how long before US/ROK counter battery fire sends the Nork gun bunnies to the big kimchi pot in the sky?
Can we counter and suppress? Sure. Look at what we did to Iraq.
Except
-harder in non-flat terrain.
-Norks have 20x the tubes
-Norks will use the old/low-accuracy stuff on cities and civilians.
So their first strike could kill a million people or more, and wreck the Korean economy.
We have to destroy 80-90 percent of their arty -unfired- to prevent a massacre.
-then- we and our allies have to feed 20 million starving Norks as we decapitate their regime.
The first problem of hostages keeps the South in check.
The flood of starving folks who could go -north- keeps China in check.
This mess has been building for decades. -no- clean exit exists. How much awful will we accept to end it, and how do we get -China- on board to make it work?
So…you’re banking on starving soldiers manning a chunk of rust that used to be an artillery piece?