you could fire nukes and wipe out NK very easily, but i think the fallout (no pun) would be extremely bad for you, i think you would loose a lot of international respect for resorting ot nuclear weapons, as a lot of other coutnries are not as afraid of the potential in NK as you are.
no offense, thanks for those stats but do you have more up to date ones, 1997 is very out of date!
do you really thing that if push came ot shove that the USA would invade NK on its own? and would it matter? i mean, its not like the UN is going to do anything, they once had a chance of being a great org, but now they are faded and almost irrelevant.
i think more countires would voice opinions (both for and against) than did when the coallition invaded Iraq the second time and there would be a lot of back room deals, like if you invade with us we will do this for you, or if you dont, say good by to that export contract

I think you're honing in on the part where I said we'd win and ignoring the part where I said that that's the last thing we'd want to do. We would have to exhaust every diplomatic means first and even then it would require a serious threat or act such as firing missles into South Korea or Japan. I only mentioned nukes as retaliatory and that I'm sure Kim knows we vastly outnumber his. That was my point.

yeah sorry my bad.
and i highly respect you for pointing out that it is a last resort many people do not do so and with some people it is not assumed that they think it is a last resort (i hope that comes out right, not feeling great so my mind is loco)

the number of warheads doesn't necessarily matter, though, its the power in them, you only need one if it is strong enough

Well let's see about that.

North Korea is 120,540 sq km in size

United States is 9,629,091 sq km in size

That means you could fit 80 North Koreas into one United States. In otherwords, they are a much smaller target and thus they'd need a nuke larger than any exists on earth whereas a single 500 megaton nuke has a radiation radius of appx. 150 km. Wouldn't take that many dropped on North Korea to take them out.

i know what you are saying but still, if there was a bomb big enough......

i imagine NK has a much higher poplation density as well


http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/referen...opulation.html
wow, NK is 179.9, australia is 2.5 lol a whole lotta space with nothing on it!!

THE WORLD'S TEN LARGEST ARMIES

1. China - 1,700,000
2. India - 1,200,000
3. North Korea - 900,000
4. South Korea - 560,000
5. Pakistan - 520,000
6. United States - 475,000
7. Iraq - 360,000 - Pre-2003, of course.
8. Myanmar - 325,000
9. Russia - 320,000
10. Iran - 320,000


Apart from that do you remember what happened in Vietnam?, what makes you feel so sure that the same thing wouldn't happen to the US in N.Korea

Originally Posted by RankIt

The US is scared of North Korea. Their picking on the countries they are sure they can defeat.

Are you kinding us man you actually thing a country like North Korea can defeat the only superpower in the world!?!?! But bavk on subject, the only reason we went to Iraq is for the oil! That is it thats the only reason. You know why Japan attacked America back in WW2? Its because of the oil we cut off their oil supply and the effect was death. Heh tells yea something dont it?

Originally Posted by Xion

THE WORLD'S TEN LARGEST ARMIES

1. China - 1,700,000
2. India - 1,200,000
3. North Korea - 900,000
4. South Korea - 560,000
5. Pakistan - 520,000
6. United States - 475,000
7. Iraq - 360,000 - Pre-2003, of course.
8. Myanmar - 325,000
9. Russia - 320,000
10. Iran - 320,000


Apart from that do you remember what happened in Vietnam?, what makes you feel so sure that the same thing wouldn't happen to the US in N.Korea

Numbers have nothing to do with it. It all depends on training and technology. Which America has both.

Someone in the above posts were speaking of N.Korea as a very weak nation with a small military force, I wanted to point out how thats not the case.
And numbers do matter, 900 thousand ppl defending such a small area as North Korea is a potent force against any invading armies.
America has the technology that others do not, but it doesn't mean that others are not well trained

Remember Vietnam?

Since you keep citing Vietnam, Xion, you should be aware that military doctrine has changed just a tad since then. There will be no short sorties, no re-taking hills, no limited engagements and any other political limitations. We don't fight that way anymore and haven't in 30 years.

So North Korea has twice as many troops. I'll cite you another war America fought. Remember WWII? We started the war 17th in the world for war powers. Right behind Portugal. Just a scant 100,000 or so troops. It didn't take long though before our force numbered in the millions. If called up in a grave emergency we could do the same again. And you can bet they'd be well trained and packing the latest technology.

We have the means to bomb them into oblivion if it came to that, and nobody hopes it does. I'm not saber rattling, I'm talking known facts. War with the North Koreans is, as I've already said more than one, the last thing we want to do. The costs would be extremely high and there are many things politically to try before we come to that and again as I said, even then it would take a serious threat from them such as a missle attack for us to go to war. But if war comes, never doubt our resolve to win it and with a comprehensive plan to do so. There will be no more Vietnams.