Doesn’t matter. They should know better
Guam’s a nice place I’ll be pretty pissed if he nukes it… But, Saipan is tied with Bora Bora for my favorite island (and I"ve been to 2 dozen), Saipan and Guam are close and I’ll be really royally pissed off if Kim nukes the wrong.
That CNBC report is… suspect.
If we believed everything DPRK state media has said, missiles would have it all over the US years ago.
Why try to bait Trump into a pre-emptive strike? Even if the world turns on the US after, Kim is still dead. I don’t think he is like an Osama that is willing to die to spite the US.
So what is the point of these threats?
Sounds like what would happen if two manipulators were to get into a pissing contest.
Yeah, I don’t see what attacking Guam gets NK other than giving the US a pretext for war ultimately leading to the end of North Korea. I can see how NK gaining Nuclear Weapons is a rational act, but if they actually were to attack Guam, that’s not rational at all.
My concern is that once NK gets nukes that can reach the US, there’s a decent chance that they’re going to get used. Sooner or later the North Korean regime is going to collapse and Kim Jong Un or one of his successors is going to end up captured by a mob and strung up on a lamppost or taken before a firing squad like any tinpot dictator (see Romania’s Ceaușescu or Libya’s Gaddafi). If Kim Jong Un or some descendent of his sees his regime collapsing and he’s going to end up dead, what are the odds of him deciding to push the button and make sure that whatever mob or coup is taking him down doesn’t end up with anything except ashes.
This exactly. I felt like we were beyond that “Day After” mentality but now my kids get to enjoy a little taste. My oldest just turned 18 too so all this dick waving carries some bonus worry.
I’ve decided to look on the bright side. At least when we die in a fiery apocalypse, I won’t have to get up for the work the next day.
Which means with my luck the world will end at 5pm on a Friday.
And don’t forget, we probably wont die in atomic fire. We’ll just lose a few million people and have to deal with what is left.
NK likely doesn’t have enough firepower to destroy Rhode Island, but they could nuke LA or the like.
Even if you lived in LA you’d probably live. At least until the radiation sickness/burns finished you off.
It’s amazing how much more coherent Trump was back then. Really makes me think he has severe dementia.
If Trump is gonna doubt climate change, I sure hope he won’t try to solve it with one of those mild nuclear winters projections!
What’s crazy is that Trump totally could start a nuclear war to try and stop the Russia investigations.
That’s not even a joke. That’s literally a plausible series of events.
In that case we can only pray that some heroic aide has secretly rewired the Football button to send forth the Diet Coke Signal instead.
So damn angry over the people who so callously rolled the dice with Trump:
This memo seems timely. If Trump orders a pre-emptive nuclear strike, will Mattis refuse to follow the order?
Legally and procedurally he isn’t even involved beyond affirming that the President is who he says he is if required.
Great.
The report upthread about readiness is something people really need to consider. The USA has enormous military power, but comparatively little of it is actually available for immediate use anywhere in the world. This is especially true once you get beyond the doomsday stuff; sure, ICMBs and SLBMs and what not can hit anywhere on short notice but that isn’t terribly useful. And I have no idea if re targeting strategic assets takes long these days, or not. But in terms of conventional forces, other than air and sub-launched cruise missile attacks, which have limited usefulness in many situations, we simply do not have the resources to project vast amounts of conventional power hither thither and yon at the drop of a hat.
A lot of the limitations are logistical. Some are personnel related. Others are a function of the types of forces available versus the necessary tasks to perform. Korea is a bit different, as we have a cubic buttload of stuff sitting there or nearby, but I’m pretty sure the majority of our posture there is geared towards defending against any NK push south, rather than for offensive action per se.
There’s a real good reason Bush took six months to build up before the ground war in Desert Storm. Though one could argue that we showed an excess of caution in our desire to avoid even the slightest chance of failure, we needed that time to redeploy meaningful forces and their logistical support train to the region. I’m not sure at all that our situation is any better now, and it’s probably worse, given the drain of sixteen years in Afghanistan.