Good day all. Yesterday I belittled North Korea’s claim that they had just tested a thermonuclear device. The claim has been pretty much debunked as nothing more than another small A-bomb, and not even as powerful as the one we dropped on Nagasaki.
However, the South Korean government is clearly getting very worried about North Korea’s nuclear ambitions and with good reason. North Korea is run by a nut who would probably launch a first strike. Now South Korea wants the United States to deploy strategic nuclear weapons on South Korean soil. Here are the details from Yahoo News:
South Korea is in talks with the United States to deploy U.S. strategic weapons on the Korean peninsula, a South Korean military official said on Thursday, a day after North Korea said it successfully tested a hydrogen nuclear device.
Now for a little explanation of nukes. A strategic weapon is really big, in the 100+ kiloton range, up to multi-megaton weapons. They are generally used to destroy cities. Tactical nuclear weapons are much smaller and are usually about 10KT or smaller in yield. The story might be confusing the two systems. I don’t see the United States deploying strategic weapons outside of the United States, other than on submarines.
A South Korean military official told Reuters the two countries had discussed the deployment of U.S. strategic assets on the divided Korean peninsula, but declined to give further details.
Well of course he isn’t going to discuss this further. The whole idea is to keep North Korea guessing. Now I can’t be certain, but I think the United States did deploy nuclear weapons in Korea in the past, but they’ve long since been removed. Those would have been meant for tactical, battlefield use on the NK army, not to blast Pyongyang into radioactive ash.
Obama also spoke to President Park Geun-hye of South Korea to discuss options.
Well that will be a complete waste of time. Obama won’t deploy the weapons and frankly, even if San Francisco was nuked by North Korea, he wouldn’t retaliate.
The underground explosion angered China, which was not given prior notice although it is North Korea’s main ally, pointing to a strain in their ties.
Oh good thinking Bucket Head! Tick off the Chinese. Anger them enough and Kim Jung-un, aka Bucket Head, will be invited to a meeting with his father and grandfather.
“Any escalation in this region, any over-reaction can easily lead to not only a conflict between South and North Korea, but drag China and the United States and Japan into a confrontation,” Anthony Cordesman, a defense policy expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, said.
The last time North Korea attacked South Korea, it wrecked the Korean peninsula and killed millions of people. This time, if Bucket Head starts something, there is an even chance that China might just decide to come down and clean out the idiots in Pyongyang themselves.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman called for a resumption of so-called six-party talks between the two Koreas, China, the United States, Japan and Russia aimed at curbing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. “We are worried about how things are developing,” the spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, told a briefing.
As well you should be. Those whack jobs might just be stupid enough to flip a nuclear tipped missile into China, and I don’t think China has any real strategic missile defense system in place. Blowing away Beijing would pretty much guarantee the depopulation of North Korea by China. Hopefully they would remember to stop at the 38th parallel.
I don’t know if deploying nuclear weapons to South Korea will happen or even if it’s a good idea. If North Korea were to launch a nuclear strike on the South, or try and hit the United States, well, it would be bad. I do see installing some Anti-missile defenses into South Korea as well as a guided missile cruiser or two nearby. (The missiles on board are designed to go after ballistic missiles) I’m also not to sure how the general public in South Korea might feel about American nukes on their soil. We shall see what happens next.
Thatisall
~The Angry Webmaster~
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