How North Korea Can Win A War With The United States

 
Believe it or not, North Korea can win a war with the United States. They can’t take over the United States, but they can make demands, and use military force to obtain them without serious risk of being counter-attacked.

America’s nuclear option:

The United States has thousands of nuclear warheads. About 1000-2000 of them are deployed or can be in a few minutes. However, they are useless, and they have been for decades. Every American President since FDR has threatened to use nuclear weapons, and has held the special code card, the metaphorical trigger in their hands for years. Certainly the weapons will work if given the order. There have been plenty of opportunities to use them, but no President ever has (thankfully), and that’s not because they’ve all been peaceniks or cowards. It’s just that regular bombers and regular bombs as well as advanced precision-guided bombs and missiles can do the job without international outcry, without fallout, without all the civilian casualties.

Most of all, the American public has shown that they’ve become extremely comfortable with conventional airstrikes. Rarely do any of the airstrikes that happen every day get mentioned on the news. On the other hand, given popular opposition to the devastation of ground war, it’s equally clear that destroying cities would be an outrage. The US military is also constrained in that using nuclear weapons against North Korea would be an overt act of war on Japan (the fallout from an attack on North Korea could kill tens of thousands-even millions of Japanese civilians.

Ultimately, it would be extremely unlikely for the US to wage a nuclear war on North Korea and Japan even if an American city (cities) were destroyed by North Korea. Conventional weapons can have the same effect of devastation. North Korea surely knows this. They might be belligerent and crazy, but that doesn’t mean they’re not capable of conceiving military scenarios or seeing the power of the conventional US military.

Crazy communists would still have to consider facing a retaliatory strike from conventional forces. If there’s one thing that the United States has shown since 1990, it’s that it can bring about regime change with air power and an occupying army in just a few weeks. The list of regimes taken down in the past 27 years is long, and notorious. For North Korea to win a war/get demands from the United States without facing the massive military retaliation would require a military strike against the United States so devastating that the American people would be willing to accept North Korean demands rather than retaliate and risk even more destruction.

Japan tried this in 1941, and everyone knows they failed, but every history teacher will tell you that they came very close to succeeding. If the Japanese had waited until after they declared war on the United States, then the sneak attack aspect would have been removed; less call for vengeance. If they had not decided to hold back the third wave of attack aircraft, then they would have destroyed the oil and repair facilities forcing the United States to withdraw entirely from the Pacific, surrender Hawaii, and retreat to San Diego. If the American aircraft carriers had been at Pearl Harbor, the war would have been lost on December 7th. Most of all, if the Japanese had offered to end the war if the United States accelerated Philippine sovereignty as well as lift the oil embargo, then the American people might have settled on those terms. Well, maybe not the American people of 1941; the Greatest Generation, but if the American people of 1941 had the current anti-war sentiments as the post-Vietnam American people have, those terms would have been far more acceptable.

So one need only imagine a different December 7th. The Japanese declare war on the United States formally in the morning. An hour later, the Japanese fleet attacks Pearl Harbor. All of the battleships are destroyed, sunk, or too badly damaged to repair in less than a few years. The carriers are sunk or burning. The oil and repair facilities are destroyed by a third wave. The remnants of the Pacific Fleet are forced to flee to San Diego on December 8th. The American people who had accepted defeat in Vietnam, Lebanon, Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan were offered simple terms, it’s clear today’s Americans would accept that defeat.

What terms would North Korea seek in a war with the United States? No doubt they’d demand the withdrawal of all American military units from South Korea, Japan, and at least as far back as Guam. They’d also likely demand that South Korea be cut off economically, and they could even demand cash or goods. Light demands from North Korea would be easily accepted by most Americans-certainly those on the left. An attack from North Korea big enough to make the American people fearful of continued war would also allow them to make bigger demands. They could demand the United States get rid of its nuclear weapons, withdraw from the Middle East.

What kind of North Korean attack could be so devastating to the United States? There are several. North Korea has at least 15-20 atomic bombs. President Clinton wrote in his book, My Life, that in 1994, if he hadn’t halted the North Korean nuclear program, then they could have been making as many as 50 bombs a year (they restarted that nuclear program in 1998; 20 years ago).

They only need one.

If North Korea put an atomic bomb in a container, shipped it to different ports to disguise its origin, and had the bomb shipped to Long Beach, California, then they could win a war with the United States. Long Beach is America’s primary West Coast port. A bomb detonated there would surely cause an economic recession or worse just based on the loss of the port. The shock of the attack would cause a recession or worse-as the 911 attacks did. The shock would also horrify the world far more than Hiroshima or Nagasaki did given today’s global communications, 24hr news, and social networking.

That shock is the key. A city can be destroyed by conventional bombers with conventional bombs, or it can be done with a nuclear weapon. The advantage of using a nuclear weapon is that the devastation happens faster/causes more shock; fear. Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined weren’t as destructive as the conventional bombing of Tokyo months earlier.

That fear would be increased 1000x if North Korea put out a statement immediately after destroying Long Beach (or any other American port really). The statement would be a reiteration of their acceptable demands. It would also claim that there were other bombs in 50 other cities-one to be detonated every week for the next year if the terms weren’t met, or if there was an American retaliation. It would specifically name San Francisco or Los Angeles or some other city as the next to be destroyed. Even if a bomb wasn’t there, who would stay in Los Angeles or any other city on a North Korean destruction list?

America’s cities would dramatically reduce in population. The economy-already devastated by the attack-would crash. What countries would still send their goods to American ports? Who would go to work in a city on the destruction list?

If North Korea threatened to blow up Charleston unless the US withdrew forces from South Korea and Japan, would Black Lives Matter support President Trump, or North Korea?

If North Korea threatened to blow up New York City unless the US stopped trading with South Korea, would Democrats in Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Youngstown support President Trump or North Korea?

Would ANTIFA support President Trump or North Korea?

If North Korea threatened to blow up North Platte, Nebraska would the people of Boston support President Trump, or accept terms from North Korea?

Does North Korea even need to detonate a bomb, or would the American people accept North Korean terms with just a threat, or even without one?

What if North Korea did use an atomic bomb on the United States-or a demonstration off the coast? Would that scare enough Americans to accept their terms?

What if North Korea really does have 50 bombs and decided to use them? What if they have 100 bombs, 1000 bombs? What if they give those bombs to terrorist groups as they said they would back in 2005?

What demands would be too great for the American people to accept? Obviously occupation would be too much for most people, but if North Korea demanded the closure of all overseas bases, or face war, would the American left support President Trump or North Korea?

Serious question, what would the American left actually stand for, actually support President Trump over North Korea?

Or is it a rhetorical question?

The only way to win a war with North Korea is not through JDAM bombs and cruise missiles, definitely not with nuclear weapons, and not with US Marines storming a beach. The only way to win a war is to have the will to stand up against threats rather than accept terms; demands. Ironically, if the American people have the will, and show the world there is the will to stand up to terms/demands/blackmail, then there is a chance for deterrence, diplomacy, and peace. Otherwise, we get what we deserve….which is whatever they want.