Based on the current flock of mandarins, North Korean (Nork) missiles can reach Hawaii and maybe as far inland as Chicago. There is no comment on whether or not they could actually ‘hit’ Hawaii (or Illinois). Notwithstanding, the State of Hawaii issued an official advisory that people there should prepare for a nuclear attack from NorkLand. 
Also omitted is the range issue with a nuclear weapons payload vs an empty ICBM. There is a difference. 
Kim Jong Un says “hi”.

However, the Norks are making progress with the new People’s missile and if given sufficient time and resources, purchased with Chinese money (for coal), they will be able to develop a targeted weapon that could at least get in the general vicinity of a city in North America with a nuclear payload.

The US and Japan are talking about what to do as are the South Koreans, who are concerned what will happen to Seoul if the US decides that Kim Jong Un’s country needs to be turned into a sea of radioactive glass. They’re buying THAADs in the hope that they can restrict the damage to rocket and cannon artillery.

China’s reaction to launches is consistent. China is much more concerned about THAAD than about the North Korean missile program. The North Korean program serves Chinese strategic interests. The THAAD commitment cements the US-South Korean relationship more firmly than ever. That is more threatening to China than North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction programs.
China is misreading the signals. There is a clear and present threat to the US. The North Koreans have stated their intentions to use nuclear weapons to conduct a preemptive attack on the United States as soon as they can get a missile warhead that will fly that far. President Trump is not the feckless Barack Hussein Obama and he takes that just as seriously as a heart attack.
I expect to see kinetic war in North Korea during the course of the Trump Administration.
Some things to keep in mind: A Korean War is a winter war scenario. Anyone who has studied the matter knows this. A lot of access for ground troops and heavy equipment (tanks) requires that the ground be frozen. North Korea is more mountainous than South Korea and anyone who has climbed over those mountains knows that they’re steep – and the valleys are all under irrigation and cultivation (flooded for rice). It’s easier for tanks to get around in the winter.
SEAL Team Five was the designated cold weather team for the Pacific (which is why Team Five deployed to the desert in Operation Desert Storm…), for example and it has trained in the past with the ROK SEALs (Squadron 56) for joint winter operations. I don’t know if that’s still the case. I’ve been gone for a while. I use this as an example of the likely timing of a war scenario absent some sort of Nork action that provokes an attack outside of the US preferred operational environment. We fight best in Korea in the winter and at night.

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20 COMMENTS

  1. I expect to see kinetic war in North Korea during the course of the Trump Administration.

    I think you're right.

    My question: if the Chicoms hate THAAD missiles on their border, how do they feel about a sea of radioactive glass on their border? Or maybe spilling over the border a little bit? Do they hate the idea of Korean refugees that much?

    It seems like a game of chicken. Neither the Norks nor the Chicoms think we'd really go kinetic. Are they so-conditioned by the last 8 years that they really think they could strike, say, Chicago and we won't do anything? (It would reduce the murder and crime rates in Chicago – so there is that.)

    The nasty part of this is that Seoul will probably have millions of casualties, if those stories are true about them having enough conventional artillery to reduce the whole city to dust.

  2. LL,

    Why boots on the ground when total destruction of infrastructure by bombing with satellite monitoring for any sign of life. wash, rinse, repeat.

  5. Nobody thinks that we have the balls to do it. The inept wrangling by Congress over which side of the egg to open, the pandering to the gender confused, the pussy hat marches, and all that has convinced them that America is just a paper tiger.

    And they're wrong. The Japs were on the wrong side of history once and they recall – and they are more threatened by the feckless norks than the US is.

    Seoul will suffer greatly and the US will initiate a Marshall Plan of sorts as will the Chinese — but Korea will be united. The Chinese plan is to sweep in and clean up the mess that America made, playing on racial hatred to try and claw Korea into their orbit. It's not a bad plan. And the ten or twenty million refugees who make it to China will work as slaves there as they did in Norkland.

  6. DRJIM wrote it below. Somebody needs to mop up AFTER the bombing. We didn't just bomb Nazi Germany and leave. Eventually we'll spend billions to fix the place as best we can. (see Chinese plan above in exchange with Silicon Graybeard)

  10. I sense war but, and I'm no expert, why would the Dear Leader want to commit suicide. Perhaps he thinks we're nothing more than a nation of pussy hats, Chelsea Handler and Cait?

  12. Congress is a shambles – but the dems have a "better deal" – trust them after 8 miserable years of Obamanation. Listening to the media blaggard the President would leave any Nork with the impression that impeachment is imminent. Maxine Waters (D-CA) may be our next leader… So why worry about the USA?

  14. LL,

    Who is talking about war?

    I am just suggesting regime change, wholesale.

    Let them clean it up.

    The military is great at breaking it down, building it up, That's Trump.

    But seriously, the ROK and the Chinese would take care of that job. Why the US? I know, because the Chinese want to lend us the money to do it, then "win" the contract to get the work, take the money we borrowed from them and loan it to US again to buy products from their new Official satellite in NorKo

  15. In past remarks you indicated we keep troops in Korea to keep the South from going North. Boots on the ground? Ready made resource, no?

  16. Lately I've been having an odd thought. What do you think of the possibility China is sacrificing North Korea to see what we do? It would give them intelligence on how we'd plan and execute the attacks.

    If some of the reports are to be trusted, there was Chinese hardware involved in the most recent test. That's either stupid (it assumes we don't have the intelligence ability and never know) or peculiar to do it knowing we'd know they were involved.

    It almost looks like China is using them to learn how to fight us.

  17. We did Viet Nam wrong. We did Iraq and Afghanistan wrong. I just hope that if we do this one, we do it right.

  19. The people in charge have seen a lot done wrong and they've been whipping ISIS like an unwanted stepchild. I have faith and confidence in their capacity to lead and execute a workable strategy.

    As to the Norks, any strategy is by its very nature, bloody.

  20. ROK doesn't have the capacity to conduct ultra accurate strikes very quickly on hardened enemy positions in the North. China won't. It falls to the US. And you know that Kim and buddies will be dug in deep. We need to decapitate the regime with the first weapon.

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