Wow. More juvenile posturing, or the beginning of the end for North Korea? Depends on whether anyone takes them seriously. And with a growing nuclear capability, they can't be taken not-seriously. This is suicide for them.
That sucks for the people in the short run, but might change the game for their future.
I also wonder if there is a back channel somewhere where they tell the Chinese, who would then presumably tell the US, that they really are just posturing and there is no real threat.
The more serious threat is the artillery pointed at Soeul...
Seoul is under continuous threat of thousands of artillery guns, basically lobbing enough boulders to level the city (which contains 1/4 the population of South Korea) in about a half-hour. No modern technology is capable of stopping that kind of low-tech assault on that scale.
North Korea is akin to a drunk with a double-barreled shotgun and Tourette Syndrome: acts irrational, says disturbing things, can cause a lot of harm to one person, and will be put down fast once he does - but can't be stopped prior because attempting to will cause him to harm someone. The hope is to keep him just content enough, as long as it takes, that he'll give up or self-destruct on his own.
The artilery that North Korea has pointed at the south could be just slug launchers i.e. imagine a giant sized bullet. Because a slug has not fuel or explosives to detonate you can't really stop it by hitting the round with something else.
The conventional weapons that North Korea could use against Seoul are from the other end of the spectrum. Nearly all of them are patterned after Soviet versions which were designed to fit in a doctrine that favored the deployment and use of large numbers of heavy tube and rocket artillery. North Korea possesses large numbers of 153mm and 170mm guns and 240mm multiple unguided rocket launchers. Many of these are in fortified positions that are within range of Seoul.
Source: http://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-dossiers/north-ko...
Artillery shells contain explosives in the nose.
There's an interesting segment in this psychology lecture about irrationality that seems related:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5IrSEIPdwk#t=44m36s
There is some advantage to being irrational, to having a temper.
Because if you have a temper and you're known to be irrational, people
are forced, by dint of your irrationality, to treat you better. Who am
I going to take from? The person who's extremely reasonable or the
person who has a hair-trigger temper? Well, I'm going to pick on a
reasonable person because the unreasonable person might do unreasonable
things. And this is faintly paradoxical, but often to be irrational, or
at least to have a reputation for mild irrationality, gives you an
edge.When someone calls your bluff, it's game over. Everything changes from that point forward. Either you can never act that way again, because people will know it's a bluff, or you freak out and do something terrible and then one way or another will be dealt with (police called, go to jail, get put on ignore, get an ass kicking, get nuked to complete annihilation, whatever).
The tragedy here is that America has subsidized North Korea's behavior and ability to exist. We're partially responsible for their regime thinking it can keep doing this, and naturally their threats have to escalate. Their bluff should have been called a very long time ago. It's like taking in someone bullying you, clothing him, feeding him, etc.
The key point is that this is really a proxy war between China and the US. North Korea exists only as a proxy of China - they cannot be defeated in war until China allows it, they will continue to exist as they do as long as China allows it, and the regime will collapse about 10 minutes after China stops supporting them. The current state of affairs exists because China likes having a thorn in our side and very much does not like having a close US ally on their border.
The only plausible end that I can see is them doing something so provocative that China gets fed up with them and afraid that they'll be drawn into a shooting war, and forces the Kim dynasty out and somebody who is reasonable and favors Chinese-style reforms in.
If you were just asking to be nice, I have a few old friends in South Korea (in the military, teaching, and local) but no family.
It is probably also worth noting that every single western nuclear power reserves the right to first use of nuclear weapons. In fact, the only countries who have ever adopted a no first use policy are the USSR/Russia (for 2 decades, but not any more), India (this is apparently more ambiguous now) and China (who continue to hold to it).
Wikipedia briefly mentions a North Korean pledge to the same effect, but I think this latest news shows that we should probably not take that too seriously.
The Soviets had always believed that the Americans wanted to attack them, perhaps understandably given that in the 1950s and early 1960s there were senior US military leaders who actually wanted to initiate a full nuclear war with the Soviets while the latter were still strategically weak.
The Soviets thought that the Americans were preparing a first strike during Able Archer and were preparing to preempt it - thankfully the exercise ended and everyone on the Soviet side calmed down and took their fingers off the button.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm...
Nice to know that we came that close to annihilation twice in 1983.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/
NB Threads, although it depicts an absolutely devastating attack on the UK (~90% dead within a few years), actually uses a rather optimistic attack plan - a real attack would actually have been far worse.
Dictator theatre is as much for the population being dominated as it is for the outside world.
Their economy is in the dumps, their people are starving, and they have gulags or worse throughout their country, so its not like the value other human life. Then back this attitude up with a large military which has access to conventional and other weapons, being next door to a rich and vibrant nation. Its not a good situation.
Until China decides North Korea is a danger to China and makes North Korea very aware they will take action to neutralize them North Korea will act with impunity.
The real threat to the US is that we cannot be one hundred percent sure what China will do if North Korea acts and we rush in to help South Korea.
There isn't a chance in hell Russia and China end their entire existence just to defend a war against North Korea that the North also happened to start.
How do I know that? Tons of historical evidence says it would never happen. Vietnam, Cuba, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, the original Korean War. There have been countless proxy skirmishes over the decades. None of the majors are even remotely interested in committing suicide for a proxy.
We invaded Korea with hundreds of thousands of troops, and fought a real war with massive casualties. We even fought a war with China at that time. Nobody launched any nukes at the US. Nobody is going to launch nukes at the US in the parent scenario either.
This isn't a video game. You launch nukes, everyone dies, and your civilization and culture is erased for all time. Russia would see a thousand nukes rain down on it, obliterating every relevant city. Ditto China. North Korea is not even remotely worth it, and they know it.
You're right about Korea being a limited war. Both sides had protected rear areas that were vital to the war, and were careful not to step over the line.
However the USSR had only tested their first a-bomb in 1949, and their strategic delivery systems were .. minimal .. for years after that.
A simple visit to his website, and wikipedia page, convinces me that Joel Skousen is about as non-authoritative a source as one can possibly get on this subject.
> Then there is a nuclear strike on the US from Russia and China in retaliation
This is a huge jump in logic without any explanation.
Classic Mormon survivalist subculture crazytalk.
If those countries wanted to commit nuclear suicide, they could have and would have done it a long time ago. The past had a lot more provocations that could have been used to justify it, than the recent times have.
If China and Russia launch against the US, we know it in seconds and launch against both them. Which means that within an hour, China Russia and the US are basically no longer major international players.
They know it's suicide. They know we can respond and do as much or more damage. They won't do it, neither will we.