And the Rest... The rest of World politics thread.

[Disciple of Fate]

World ending always makes it sound very dramatic. Even during the Cold War, plenty of locations would have been spared. Large parts of Asia, Africa and South America would not necessarily be touched, but it sort of collapses the world as we know it.

South Korea, Japan and the US would likely suffer the brunt of North Korean strikes, what the long term results would look like for those countries and the wider world is anyone's guess.

[Haighus]

As it currently stands, I suspect the US would not suffer greatly from a strike by NK. I doubt they wish to test that though.

Japan and especially SK would suffer heavily. I think Seoul is within range of conventional tube artillery from NK. It could be hit with nuclear shells. The US would require much more sophisticated weapons systems that then have to evade three tiers of missile defences.

[Disciple of Fate]

We simply don't know the exact extent of their arsenal (at least in the dozens), but even hitting a handful of the largest US cities is a devastating event. No defense is fool proof and it's a numbers game, that NK is expanding as we speak.

They simply make an attack on NK even more unlikely, because there was never much incentive for the US to finish the war in the first place, even before nuclear weapons.

[Haighus]

I agree with that. It only takes one success to leave a Los Angeles-sized hole in the US economy and kill a bunch of people (how many depends on the size of the warhead and I have no idea about that).

[mdgv2]

I’m interested in postulation as to what would happen if NK, or anyone, had a nuclear attack on the US completely intercepted by missile defences.

Not interested in seeing it put into practice, natch.

But if a missile defence screen proved 100% effective, where would that leave the country that launched the Nukes?

[pacific]

We've had this discussion before Haighus - I don't think it's a case of 'world ending' in terms of a 1950s sci-fi style image of the Earth cracking in two and all of humanity destroyed, but more a case of existing human civilisation existing on a bit of a knife-edge in terms of feeding our billions, the economy enduring, low levels of civil war/strife etc and how easy it is to push us off down that path. The use of relatively few high-yield bombs (and the bombs which exist now make the Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like fire-crackers by comparison) would lead to the collapse of areas of agriculture and the food chain, global shipping, and the global economy would nose-dive. From what I have read on the subject, things would turn ugly very quickly.

Perhaps not a case of World War 4 being fought with sticks and stones (which would be the result of a mass nuclear exchange between powers) but there are steps in-between I think.

As for Korea, I used to live there and spent some time reading up on the subject. I was living in the South when the Cheonan was sunk - a number of American colleagues quickly left the country at the time, I tried to do enough research to check if that was a good idea and as I had been advised, eventually the old men stopped sabre-rattling and things calmed down. Haighus think you are correct on the artillery front, I did read that apparently the North has enough (the largest contingent in the world) to turn Seoul into a firepit if a war did ever start. It's an extremely poor country, but a significant part of their GDP has been spent on their military since the Korean war. No doubt that eventually they would lose, but it would be no 'Operation Desert Storm' and race to Baghdad/Pyongyang, and I think it's likely that the Korean peninsula would be horribly damaged as part of it. The South's hard-won prosperity lost, and I think it fairly likely Japan would be hit badly too when the US bases were targeted.

[Haighus]

Mar 8, 2024 10:46:38 GMT -5 pacific said:

We've had this discussion before Haighus - I don't think it's a case of 'world ending' in terms of a 1950s sci-fi style image of the Earth cracking in two and all of humanity destroyed, but more a case of existing human civilisation existing on a bit of a knife-edge in terms of feeding our billions, the economy enduring, low levels of civil war/strife etc and how easy it is to push us off down that path. The use of relatively few high-yield bombs (and the bombs which exist now make the Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like fire-crackers by comparison) would lead to the collapse of areas of agriculture and the food chain, global shipping, and the global economy would nose-dive. From what I have read on the subject, things would turn ugly very quickly.

Perhaps not a case of World War 4 being fought with sticks and stones (which would be the result of a mass nuclear exchange between powers) but there are steps in-between I think.

As for Korea, I used to live there and spent some time reading up on the subject. I was living in the South when the Cheonan was sunk - a number of American colleagues quickly left the country at the time, I tried to do enough research to check if that was a good idea and as I had been advised, eventually the old men stopped sabre-rattling and things calmed down. Haighus think you are correct on the artillery front, I did read that apparently the North has enough (the largest contingent in the world) to turn Seoul into a firepit if a war did ever start. It's an extremely poor country, but a significant part of their GDP has been spent on their military since the Korean war. No doubt that eventually they would lose, but it would be no 'Operation Desert Storm' and race to Baghdad/Pyongyang, and I think it's likely that the Korean peninsula would be horribly damaged as part of it. The South's hard-won prosperity lost, and I think it fairly likely Japan would be hit badly too when the US bases were targeted.

We have had that discussion but I wasn't talking about that. Even with the baseline that a major nuclear exchange between global powers leads to the collapse of the current world order (which I think we both happily agree on), I only meant that I don't think North Korea using nukes would lead to a global nuclear war.

Essentially, I don't think China and Russia care enough about North Korea to risk their own destruction, so if North Korea fires off nukes it would be as a lone rogue state. Absolutely devastating in its own right to South Korea in particular, probably much of Japan, and maybe some of the US, but probably not a "collapse of the world order" level event where the major powers start slinging large numbers of nukes at each other.

Obviously would still have wide-ranging effects on the global economy as one major economy would effectively be deleted, another severely affected, and maybe the world's largest economy significantly dented.

Again, no one should want this to happen, it would be mass murder and disruption on a huge scale, and the US has no interest in risking that outcome. But it isn't likely to be the same as an exchange commencing between NATO and Russia or China or similar.

[Haighus]

Mar 8, 2024 10:39:37 GMT -5 mdgv2 said:

I’m interested in postulation as to what would happen if NK, or anyone, had a nuclear attack on the US completely intercepted by missile defences.

Not interested in seeing it put into practice, natch.

But if a missile defence screen proved 100% effective, where would that leave the country that launched the Nukes?

Probably with a large number of carrier battlegroups making a beeline for the offending nation and a huge deployment of NATO military force (in the case of an attack on the US).

[Disciple of Fate]

We imagine it would not be a race to Baghdad. However, we have to wonder if the North Koreans are able to put up effective resistance though. Beyond their nuclear weapons and artillery, they have an army running on 90% extremely old equipment and an almost permanently close to starving population staffing that military.

You have to question if their army is even capable of going up against very well equipped and modern SK and US forces. The Russians had a much more modern force and look what happened against a much weaker opponent on paper. NK survived by virtue of a Seoul hostage situation and China lurking in the background. In a scenario where nuclear weapons were used but not effective, NK is done for, you would likely not even need (or want) nuclear retaliation right next door to a close ally and China

[Haighus]

North Korea has a huge amount of coastline and the whole nation is in easy reach of naval strike craft. The US could probably do a number on its conventional military forces without even landing troops, which would then be going in against NK troops with severely-depleted heavy equipment.

Pretty much all conventional weaponry gloves would be off, the aging NK artillery emplacements are going to be hit hard by all manner of bunker-busting and thermobaric weaponry in the US and NATO arsenal.

I highly doubt NK would put up much real fight in a conventional war against NATO forces. Any effective resistance would need to be a guerilla insurgency to survive the overwhelming firepower disparity. The appearance of a few modern long-range Western artillery pieces in the Ukraine war made a huge impact on Russian tactics, logistics, and deployment, and their military is way more modern than NK.

[herzlos]

Would many of the NK soldiers want to continue a guerilla insurgency, or would they surrender to the West at their first opportunity? It'd hopefully get them fed and away to safety, though the US at least doesn't have a great track record of being nice to POWs.

[mdgv2]

But what of the military dynamic of the world? M.A.D., but one party now has an amendment to the theory which reads “except for us”. Because I’m fairly certain any such successful system would be rapidly reinforced?

[Disciple of Fate]

Its highly unlikely that someone develops a catch all system that is 100% risk free. Nuclear subs were developed in response to the first strike risk. Current missile defenses led to the development of hypersonic missiles. Other defenses might be found, but other weapons might be developed that rival nuclear weapons in response. It's always a race, but it has never created an absolute advantage post 1949 for either side.

But even if you have a 100% risk free defense, most countries won't just go around nuking people, because that gains nothing on paper and obviously hurts you internationally. Wars would still have to be fought by armies to achieve objectives, which can still be very costly in lives. The defensive deterrence value improves, but what country is going to risk attacking the guy with consequence free nukes?

It's a bit like Afghanistan, Iraq or Ukraine. All opponents without nuclear weapons, but nuclear weapons weren't deployed by the attacker because it gains nothing.

[mdgv2]

But that’s kind of what I’m (incompetently) getting at.

Let’s say the US or Europe develops an effective interception shield. And proves its effectiveness.

What next for countries like Russia? Or North Korea, arguably China.

How do you sabre rattle or worse when the answer is “come on then, I think you’ll find we’re well prepared”, because your final threat is now nothing?

[Disciple of Fate]

They just do what they always do, spend a lot on their military and nibble at the edges to see how far they can go. The risk of escalation is always there, because the nuclear response is more of a final grasp when you're losing and being invaded.

US military might is what is basically keeping them in check, because it's highly unlikely the US will invoke MAD over SK, Taiwan or Europe, that's why they have troops here.