We Should Attack North Korea's Nukes!!!

Sounds reasonable.  No one wants to see North Korea with weaponized nukes on an ICBM pointed towards South Korea, Japan, Hawaii, or the American mainland...But we need to be VERY AWARE OF REALITY!

North Korea is not Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan, Libya, Jihadis in caves, etc.  This is a nation which has devoted 60-years towards its defense.  60-years of being supplied by the Russians and Chinese (and probably Pakistan) with advanced defense-systems, as well as creating their own...I don't want to over-inflate their capabilities, but it would be equally ignorant not to admit attacking North Korea would be a much more difficult task than we've taken on since Vietnam.

Someone is going to have to pay a big price for attacking North Korea.  We don't have nearly enough missiles to take out their artillery on the DMZ, nor do we have enough stealth planes to evade being detected by their anti-aircraft systems - similar to the Russian S-300's...Which means, either we are going to have to accept losing quite a few pilots and planes, or we are going to have to sacrifice a lot of South Korean lives (mainly in Seoul - a very dense city with over 10 million people) when the North counter-attacks.  There is one other option, and that is using nuclear weapons to do the job.  This is possible, and would work, but I can't imagine anyone has the inclination to use nukes to take out North Korea's nukes.

Another reality about attacking North Korea:  We better be damn sure the Chinese are on board with this idea...They jumped into the last Korean War and were willing to suffer around 500,000 casualties, with around 100,000 deaths to keep the U.S. from taking North Korea.  It's hard to believe they'd peacefully allow us to come swooping in now - and their response wouldn't necessarily have to be military.  They have plenty of other options:  Economic and cyber being the most likely.

Personally, I wouldn't attack North Korea.  I'd line South Korea and Japan with anti-missile technology, and go with the Admiral Harry Harris Jr. Doctrine:  "If it flies, it will die"...In other words, anything North Korea puts in the air we should take out - including planes and satellites, which are nothing but experiments for their missile technology.

But maybe I'm very wrong and North Korea's toys have to be eliminated...We all have to be prepared for reality if this choice is made.

Everyone should read this entire article, but for those who won't I've listed some key quotes below.

What a War with North Korea Looks Like
By:  George Friedman  (one of the best and most steely-eyed, realist geopolitical commentators there is)

The problem with a U.S. strike is five-fold. First, does U.S. intelligence have clarity on the locations of critical North Korean facilities? Second, are the president and his staff confident in their intelligence? Third, can the facilities be destroyed with non-nuclear weapons? Fourth, is battle damage assessment possible (in other words, can we know with confidence whether the facilities were destroyed)? Finally, if only a nuclear weapon – or multiple nuclear weapons – can destroy the facilities, does stripping North Korea of nuclear weapons justify the significant political fallout the U.S. would face in launching such an attack a second time? And does it justify the risk that it might legitimize the use of nuclear weapons by others?

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The U.S. either accepts the possibility of extreme aircraft losses or the destruction of large parts of Seoul...Trading Seoul for North Korea’s nuclear program is not an option.

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It is possible that North Korean artillery is less formidable than most think. It also is possible that U.S. military planners have defined a solution that is less dangerous than I have. But the fact is that on the surface, North Korea could give up its nuclear capability, still win a decisive victory against the Americans by destroying Seoul, and inflict severe losses on the American Air Force. It would emerge with the regime intact and even more credibility than before.