This is ultimately China's problem to answer. I wonder geopolitically why the Chinese are running the same playbook in 2010 that they were in 1960. What do they see here that we don't?

As for the NoKo situation, the best analysis I read compared the whole thing to The Sopranos. The country has been passed from Uncle Junior to Tony to AJ. AJ, of course, had no business anywhere near the business.

Supposedly there was a regent nominated along with the kid to handle this stuff during the transition and make sure things didn't get too out of hand. I wonder where that cat is.

Most experts believe that NK has 3-4 crude nuclear bombs that are unreliable and too large to be mounted on a missile. Without a traditional delivery mechanism (no missiles, no credible air force), they would be forced to try and float it into a harbor in SK or Japan (likely on a sub), then detonate it by suicide trigger.

The worst case scenario would be if they've already floated it to Hawaii or the L.A. harbor. It makes more sense to confront them now, and suffer as many as 500k South Korean/American casualties, than wait until they have a dozen nuclear tipped ICBM's aimed at California, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

I've always had the idea that China loves having NK there to drive us nuts. China is not going to sit on their hands if we invade and the US knows it. Kind of a perfect scenario for them. I just hope they know when to reign in the kids and give them a spanking. That regime is getting scarier and scarier, I hope China sees it the same way.

We don't need to invade to neutralize NK. We just need to nuke their forward deployed artillery/tank positions, and then pound their reserve positions with conventional weapons.

China isn't going to risk WWIII over North Korea. Even if they do, we would be better off fighting them now than 20 years from now.

Better yet, just ask China to help us open decontamination centers and triage units on their border with NK, and watch their jaws drop. China's leaders don't want to give up their Rolls Royce lifestyles for Li'l Kim.

Obama has few options at this point, but new military excercises will move the possibility for a real battle forward. NK has made themselves impossible to ignore. Up to Sec Clinton now to work some magic with the Chinese.

Did we spend all of our military bank fighting a country not considered a global threat, only to lack the ablility to defeat the one that is?

The NK sturm and drang is about galvanizing internal political support for the ruling regime and its military components through the transition of power, which if the US response will be no more than what has been announced, makes that response the right call, because NK won't have to ratchet up its provocations further to make out the US as the boogey man.

The long-term outside-in strategy that will work in NK is that which worked in the USSR and Eastern Europe and which is performing miracles in China and developing nations throughout the world. That strategy is one of economic freedom, though given what is happening in the US these days our country is hardly the best messenger of the same.

I broke my promise never to watch public television again (out of solidarity with Juan Williams and every other free-speaking figure under PC-attack) and watched the news last night.

Hey, the footage of the marching toy soldiers. I mean, these folks don't just MARCH, they really sort of throb, writhe, and stab with their legs in really creepy jaggy unison. Kinda like watching a kniving exhibit. And then the gal in shocking pink silk shrieking and yowling at the news camera..seriously strange.

I've always felt frustration that the global conversation never deals with the question of how to handle mentally ill people at the helms of governments, especially the ones who get millions of people to crowd in their sick mental pocket with them...

I guess there's too many of them, and so Americans vote in a mild mannered idiot hijab-promoter-in-chief, hoping somehow he will keep all the crazies from slitting our throats.

Can't the Israelis just send their virus over to NoKo like they did to Iran.

Mr. T -

Nuking forward deployed DPRK weapons has a nice comic book appeal.

You do understand the concepts of fallout, prevailing winds, etc.

And you have a grasp of just how many weapons (conventiolan, esp. artillery( the bad guys have deployed along the 38th parallel?

We can continue to play footsie with NK until they detonate a live one in Tokyo, or we can use our own to beat them to the punch.

If the Chinese believed Obama was truly willing to use force, then force wouldn't be required: they would jerk on Lil Kim's chain and put him back in his cage.

We are more likely to use force because the threat of force is no longer credible: offensive nukes are the only effective method to chop off the NK threat in one fell swoop.

It doesn't matter which way the wind is blowing: people are already dying by the millions on the peninsula.

Which way the wind is bowing matters greatly to the folks living in Tokyo, about whom you seem so concerned, as well as to the folks living in Portland, about whom you appear to espress no concern.

Being downwind of the DMZ post tactical nuclear victory will result in an increased risk of cancer within 200 miles. Japan and Oregon are most certainly safe, with the exception of food imported from the region including many fish/seafood products.

If NK detonates a live one in Seoul or Tokyo, radiation sickness and increased risk of cancers will pale in comparison to the direct loss of life. Would you rather use our nukes, or theirs, is the root of the question.

According to the below article, the North Koreans are only a few months away from mounting a nuke on an ICBM.
http://www.mysinchew.com/node/48519

Seoul, Mr. T, is 24 miles from the 38th parallel.

DPRK can level Seoul in 12 hours without any use of nuclear weapons. They can occupy the rubble in 24 hours.

"Tactical nukes" you say?

Hmmm.

Gonna' be real interesting world for you when you find out that the cupboard is essentially bare.

Tactical nukes can be launched by many of our aircraft, most guided missile destroyers, and a few submarines. You don't need nuclear artillery shells to use tactical nukes against NK. Their primary advantage is the large killing zone, which would render NK's offensive artillery unmanned in relatively short order. Would South Koreans die? Most certainly. But they would die in much smaller numbers than if they suffered a direct nuclear attack by NK.

If NK detonates a nuke first (especially if they do so beyond the peninsula), we would almost certainly retaliate with nukes: with or without SK's permission

You do understand that TLAM(N) was withdrawn from naval service 20 plus years ago, right? There is no tac nuke capability by missile from naval vessels.

Nor is there such a capability by aircraft from carriers. Indeed, there aren't even magazine facilities for nukes on any Nimitz class carrier.

Refittiing such facilities aboard naval vessels, whether Flight II or Flight III Burkes, Ticonderogas, Los Angelesclas 688s, converted Ohio class SSGNss' of Virginias is a years long proposition.

If you insist upon talking about weapons systems and playing with nuclear warfare, Please operate in the real world.

(Mister Tee, mainly, and) folks with itchy trigger fingers swinging some belligerent barrel in all directions, better wise up to see the barrel is pointing back at ourself. (Notice, for instance, LIARS has STFU, realizing he is gagged into impotent irrelevance.) We can't save anyone else when we do not -- or can't -- save ourselves.

Stand back, stand down, leave NoKo and SoKo fighting it out among themselves; NoKo might 'win,' or whatever, and SoKo should see we are not coming to save them. Nor Iraq. Nor Afghanistan. Nor Somalia. Nor Honduras. Call off our 'global policeman' charade, put away the uniform, bring home the expeditionaries, eat some crow, stick to our knitting -- we can't help others unless we can help ourselves.

It's not a case of 'retreat.' It is a case of stop acting like a jerk and poking our nose in everyone else's business because we are going to get our nose broke. Repeatedly. And it's our own fault.

Perhaps this video induces a stronger sense for the 'cable TV tunnelvision' generation, of the danger of belligerence getting stretched so thin, so over-extended and over-committed -- bragging we're # 1 -- being self-defeated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psf-1wifAUE&feature=player_embedded

You're simply misinformed, Nonny Mouse.

We have ALCM's, ACM's, and gravity bombs, all with nuclear yields below 200 Kilotons. We can launch nukes from F-16's, B-52's, submarines, destroyers, and B-2s. Many of our "strategic warheads" have "dial-a-bomb" yields and may be repurposed if necessary.

If we decide to use nuclear weapons against North Korea, we are only limited lby our political will.

Mister Tee, maybe you're NOT "misinformed" of what "we have" or not, (leaving aside questions and issues about Pentagoners misstating what there is, or even if it works -- e.g., the Star Wars 'directed beam' is a physics impossibility if you do the physics, billion$ wasted for a Raygun fantasy that can never work -- yet 'they say' it's going to work and maybe some of it does already, with a bluff at 'enemies' for the intimidation that it might work), however, like Santa Claus, fantasy just feels so good to believe it's on your side and working for you. The actual situation kinda really doesn't matter as long as believing makes it so, uh, makes it seem like it's so ... Barbie-blather deep.

But what "we have" or not, what any of us is informed or misinformed about by the Pentagoners, has nothing to do with the competitive battling contest going on ... 'going on,' that is, for competitors going on into the future.

Rep. Inslee Attacks Anti-Innovation GOP: Move To Clean Energy ‘Or China Is Going To Eat Our Lunch’, by Ben Armbruster, ThinkProgress.org, on Nov 26th, 2010.

In an interview that aired last night on Fox News, Sarah Palin pushed the GOP’s anti-innovation meme and attacked those in Congress who oppose drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Palin called them “extreme politicians over on the left who want to buy into” arguments against drilling from “extreme environmentalists.” The former GOP half-term Alaska governor argued that the U.S. needs “to drill and fill up the pipeline again.”

But in a separate interview later in the program, Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) noted that drilling in the Arctic refuge really won’t solve America’s energy problems, won’t have much impact on the price of gasoline, and most importantly, moves the United States away from the direction of moving to a clean energy economy. Then, appearing to borrow a phrase from his GOP colleague Rep. Bob Inglis (SC), Inslee noted that China will outpace the U.S. if it doesn’t focus more on a clean energy economy:

INSLEE: The fact of the matter is, if we’re going to grow our economy, if we are going to seize the jobs of the next century, we have to get busy focusing our national debate and our national investment on the new clean energy technologies, or China is going to eat our lunch.

China right now is preparing to roll out electric cars, lithium ion batteries, solar cells, cellulosic ethanol. This is where the future of energy is. We’ve a finite resource in oil, just like we had a finite resource in whale oil, and we made a transition. And we have to really focus our national energies in a bipartisan way, I would hope, on finding our way to compete with China to really build new energy sources of the future.

www.OilPoster.org

Mr. T -

No, not from destroyers nor most submarines, nor from naval aircraft off carriers. The sub ones are MIRVs, 20 to a missile, carried by D-5 Tridents (look it upo) from the late series Ohio boats not converted to SSGN platforms. But those SSBN launched MIRVed D-5s are city busters, not tac nukes.

Your list of potential Air Force launch platforms is also mostly wrong. B1s, yes, in strategic, not tac nuke, sizes. not B2s. Never F 16s. Some, but very few B52s, but again think multimegaton city busters, not the tac nukes about which you initially fantasized.

Wanna' deliver a tac nuke on an Air Force platform? It can be done. See if you can figure out the platform. Its staring you in the face in the above paragraph. I suspect though, that you are so enthused with comic book information that you can't figure it out.

I can't believe the comments concerning the use of nuclear weapons. There is no way this situation calls for such an over-the-top reaction. If "bring it on" Bush was president, I might be worried. But President Obama is much smarter and cooler and I believe he understands what is going on behind the headlines.