OT Can a country with 18 nukes win a nuclear war against a country with 1800 nukes

Nor are they in Burma.

They are still working on their flying carpet nuclear bombers...

Larry, I am sorry that I did not answer sooner, I was over tired from work and there was too much little stuff going on at home.

There is two points that I want to make.

First is that if we lose, say, Chicago and Houston, just as an example, and completely destroy North Korea, the outcome, for us, is more like a loss than a victory. You can easily see why.

Second, winning and losing means different things for us and for North Korea. If, for example, North Korea loses 80% of its people but Kim stays in power, and keeps some nukes and nuclear factories, it is a victory for him. Nuclear weapons are terrifying and powerful, but they do not turn large countries into glowing sand, and they cannot destroy well placed mobile launchers if the launchers are hidden.

Lastly, any nuclear operation that turns NK into "glowing sand" would be extremely damaging for Russia's Khabarovsk and for Japan in terms of nuclear fallout, with obvious repercussions.

Because the above is quite obvious, I would hope that the US leadership recognizes this and is only pretending that it is about to destroy North Korea. What concerns me is that the 28 year old "leader" of NK may not think so.

Well, we never tried to have our cities destroyed, and yes, recently the expense and losses in Iraq, for example, were seen as unbearable.

If the USA lost 18 major cities, it would be almost done for as a world power.

Keep in mind one thing: if hostilities start, delivering nuclear hits to the US and hoping for US surrender, not irrationally, is the ONLY hope Kim has to survive personally.

We can also not start a war and expect North Korea to be just another country with newly acquired nuclear capabilities, just like Pakistan or Israel.

Also, if the US beging a nuclear war in NK and gets bogged down, which is entirely possible, other players can be easily seen beginning conflicts in other parts of the world.

Everyone seems to think that nuclear wars are fought at a fast pace. I personally doubt this will necessarily happen for several reasons, the main of which is that nuclear attacks are moves in negotiations (possibly conducted by means of nuclear strikes) and negotiations take time. Even the only two actual uses of nuclear weapons, both by United States, were purposely conducted days apart to pressure Japan and obtain its surrender.

For example, let's say that we begin a conventional attack on NK. Kim would quickly realize that his life is at stake and that the only way he can make the US stop is to deliver some nuclear blows on it. So he would, hypothetically, destroy a US city.

After that, the US, just like you say, delivers a large nuclear strike on NK, making east Russia uninhabitable and pissing off Russia. 60% of NK population is dead. Kim's mobile launchers mostly survive, as does he, and he strikes another US city.

What do we do now?

i

"Ignoramus13548" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com...

In the early 50's we thought that any major war would inevitably go nuclear and planned accordingly, increasing our strategic capabilities at the expense of our tactical ones.

However the crises that occurred in the Middle East showed that we needed to be able to respond effectively and very rapidly at every level, in order to keep small local disturbances from escalating into large regional or global ones. We didn't always push hard enough to obtain entirely favorable results, Ghaddafi being a good example, but we contained the violence which was enough.

That's why we expanded the aircraft carrier fleet that we knew might not survive the Krasny Flot but could quickly intervene almost anywhere with only the minimum necessary containment level, such as Marines guarding the streets and aircraft overhead.

Even for Britain one visiting US carrier is as or more powerful than the nation's entire Air Force. Significantly though we've never created the political apparatus to dominate and administer another country the way SMERSH did in post-war Berlin, instead we restore their previous democratic institutions such as the Japanese Diet and the Iraqi Parliament. As a US soldier in Germany I quickly leaned that we were no more than guests in their country.

This event set the precedent for the rest of the Cold War. We arrived in hours, the Soviets in weeks. Britain and France had lost their international military influence when Nasser outfoxed them in the Suez Crisis.

I got myself onto the circulation list for private and semi-official critical analyses that passed around the government after major events, a type of Samizdat. The PLA Colonels' report I mentioned previously was one of them, as was this:

A large section of the after-action report on Desert Storm detailed our successes and deficiencies in hastily transporting a large armored ground force to a distant area where we hadn't been expecting a problem. I'm only an amateur historian, not a professional analyst, and don't claim to have answers but I know that some -very- smart and clever people are looking hard for them. BTW we kept reminding ourselves that many chess grand masters are Russian.

We plan for almost anything, including having to invade France. In WW2 we learned the value of being able to invade at a place and in weather the enemy considered impossible.

-rfGuil9

S'alright.

It would be more losing of faith and face than a war, Ig. Agreed, not good at all, but hardly crippling.

I pray that our THAAD and other systems can take down any errant birds from NK. My hope is that if he launches anything, we shoot it down and destroy his military, including him. If anyone in the military escapes and continues, hopefully we can destroy them, too, before they launch anything else. Once large chunk of their military is gone, I hope they decide to kill Kim and de-escalate the war immediately.

Yeah, hopefully that would be a last gasp and all nuclear genies stay neatly and quietly in their bunkers, tubes, and silos.

Yeah, having that crazy Poindexter in charge of potential nuke delivery systems is quite frightening. AFAIC, he needs to go now, =before= he can do any more damage. I don't think anyone wants to nuke NK, but Kim's a real problem for the world. If he doesn't launch at us, he may just decide to sink Japan for S&G. Why haven't his guards and military turned on him yet? What will it take for them to do so?

Only to family members and the media.

It would be bad, but we would only be done if we gave up, and we won't. Trump and at least half of us Americans wouldn't let it happen.

He's probably crazy enough to envision a far-out situation like that, too. Nobody else in their right mind could. MAD is MAD, so please don't start, folks. Why don't you understand that the US could not surrender, ever, to anyone? Obama might have tried, but he's a real different kind of entity, and was the most anti-American SOB who has ever, =somehow=, made it into power here.

Probable.

That's why we need to take out the missile and instantly take out Kim and, probably, most/all of his military.

First, I think prevailing winds take most of it out into the Sea of Japan, not into Russia.

Extremely good question. This just in: North Korea: Kim Jong-un's men 'poisoned by radiation' after collapse | Daily Star

. Hopefully, NK takes care of him right now, before he kills millions.

This is some A-grade horse shit. How many thousand aircraft do you think you can fit on one boat?

Thousand? Britain does not have even two hundred, and nearly half of them are worn out.

"Defence analysis group IHS Jane's said the RAF could be left with 127 combat jets by the end of the decade as 87 Tornados and the first tranche of 53 Typhoon jets are due to be retired."

"Jane's says the RAF currently has 192 frontline fighter aircraft, made up of Tranche 1, 2 and 3A Typhoons and Tornados."

An article printed in the 11 Dec 2017 issue of the Telegraph

Stated that the RAF had:

40 Typhoons, 8 Tornado and 6 Reaper aircraft available, at the time of writing, for use in combat. That is a total of 54 combat ready aircraft.

The Nimitz-class supercarriers can accommodate a maximum of 130 F/A-18 Hornets or 85 aircraft of different types, but current numbers are typically 64 aircraft.

(Reality IS stranger then fiction)

I saw similar numbers in a different, older Telegraph(?) article about a visiting US carrier. The comparison was a British gripe rather than an American boast.

I've always thought that memories of the world encompassing empire was, perhaps, their worst shortcoming.

Thaad cannot even possibly do it.

Nuclear weapons are terrifying, but not very effective against military in sparsely populated or mountainous areas.

I would much prefer.

He is far from crazy, it seems, just inexperienced.

Right and it is not crazy at all.

It is hypothetical and it is difficult to foresee. A lot can be written about this, all speculative, but it could work the way you do not expect.

Don't we wish for that, but even finding Saddam took a very long time.

Search for "nukemap" and do a surface burst of a warhead over Pyongyang.

i

Britain is making a serious effort to resume their share of the load of global peacekeeping,

which is appropriate as many current trouble spots were their former colonies, Iraq, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan for example. The USA had relatively little global influence before WW2 and much of what we did have was spent on trying to restrain European imperialism.

-jsw

That may be a more troubling issue for Russia. While their people can be as capable as anyone they mostly demonstrated their abilities as overseas exiles; the nation has a long history of feeling inferior. The USSR fell back on the respect of fear after failing to inspire love:

-jsw

Not good for you.

What happened to that $85 tax payment that was due today, and you said you'd mailed a couple weeks ago? Still unpaid, what a shock.

"Thanks for the reminder!! Ill send out my payment next week"

"Payment went out last Wed"

Here's a free idea for you - fewer death wishes, more personal responsibility.

Now get off your ass and over to the county office to make that payment. I'm still hoping there's a chance I can take credit for forcing you to make your first contribution in five years.

Tick tock, Wieber. Only a few more hours before the tax office closes and they add on the $8 loser fee.

Lets face it, Russia was inferior to Europe for a very long period. Peter the Great, who reigned from 1682 - 1725 (part of the time jointly with his brother) inherited a feudal country which had no access to the sea.

What appears to be the very first Russian built, ocean going ship was the frigate Shtandart, the first ship of Russia's Baltic fleet. Her keel was laid on April 24, 1703

In contrast the Spanish armada invaded England with a fleet of around

130 vessels, in 1588. And was defeated by and English fleet (and the weather) of approximately 100 vessels.

Doubtfuly Mr. Kim would attack, say, Bakersfield, CA

That crazy bastard would nuke 'Gilligan's Island', if he could find it.

Something has to, if he launches. SAM at high altitude during its descent? It doesn't take much to physically disrupt the tech on a nuke, though they are highly mobile while in flight. :/

Yes, it's much easier when they're out on parade in view of satellites.

We disagree.

Yes, and if you study the other guy's past history, will he continue along the same patterns when he knows you've studied him?

We've had years now...

I'll play with it. So far, a W-76 (100kt) would only hit a small radius with an airburst. Groundbursts put up a lot of fallout. Thinking about it, Pyongyang wouldn't be a good target, and would add to the world hate toward us. Keeping it to the military would likely be the best route. There are lots of westernized folks and foreigners in the capitol.