DPRK possibly mobilizing for war...

[mrstickball]

mai said:

mrstickball said:

@Farsala - the US would get in far more trouble if we didn't nuke the DPRK if they in fact nuked South Korea. They are underneath of our nuclear umbrella. If we didn't retaliate, it'd send a clear message to every country that America simply will not respond to a nuclear attack on any other nation. This would do far more harm than good (it'd promote probably a dozen countries to develop nuclear weapons, and encourage them to deploy nuclear weapons against eachother, as we wouldn't intervene). Additionally, the US wouldn't have to hit the DPRK with a huge nuke to send a message. A small, tactical weapon against a DPRK research site or nuclear base would be more than enough, and have no long-term effects.

The question is... do you still have tactical nuclear weapons? W85 equipped Pershings are out of service, nuclear AGM-86s of unkown quantity aren't produced anymore and must be near end of their life-cycle now. So unless you count as free falling nuclear bombs as a threat (AGM-86s aren't smth indestructible either, since they're subsonic), I'm afriad you need to go with full >100kt over the DPRK. The US nuclear umbrella wasn't designed against this kind of threats.

This is an excelent question.

We still have tactical nuclear weapons. However, I am unsure if they're (secretly) deployed to Korea, or could be shipped in quickly.

So you're right. We'd have to go with a larger yield weapon if it had to be a quick-response weapon - likely a 475kt sub-launched Trident. However, we do maintain a large stock of B61 tactical nuclear bombs, that are free-fall and can be deployed on stealth bombers. They're either dial-a-yield, or we at least have a few in the tactical range.

This is one area where the Russians have it right. Good on them to keep developing a proper nuclear deterrent. I think the last thing America has built is the Trident... And that was ~25 years ago.