With the recent nonsense coming out of North Korea I felt like I had something to say on the matter. I was an AMMO troop, a 2W071 in terms of my Air Force Specialty Code. I was not a Nuke Troop, as they are a separate branch of the weapons field denoted as 2W2X1s, The X being the skill level. The skill level starts at 1 and increases by odd numbers ending at 9.

When I was stationed at Minot AFB I worked with nuke troops on occasion, and helped move non nuclear components on occasion. I cannot go into detail because of OPSEC (Operational Security), but I did want to write about my feelings on nuclear war, and in order to do that I felt like I should tell you where I am coming from in that debate.

So to get started I wanted to say there is no ‘red button‘. It’s easy to imagine a nuclear armed leader sitting in a darkened room brooding over a big red button, but this is fiction. The nuclear chain of command is long, and it starts with the Leaders, but it has to go through dozens of people prior to a launch. At any step in that chain an officer can refuse to follow the order. They risk arrest by disobeying this order, but know that if Donald Trump issued an order for an unprovoked nuclear strike there would be plenty of level headed sober people to stop him.

The other thing to keep in mind is the PRP program. This is the Personal Reliability Program, and you are required to be certified under it to work with nukes. I went through the process because I was assumed to have a chance of encountering nuclear weapons in my duties in the Nuclear Storage Area. I never had to interact with this actual fissile material but I got a good enough look at the process to certify me. Some of the things that surprised me most is you need a doctors order to take over the counter medication. You cannot be certified if you have ever been hypnotized at a fair ground or show. This may sound silly, but it speaks to how seriously nuclear weapons are taken in the forces.

The people I met who would be preparing the launch or turning the launch keys were not silly people. Although we would joke that we could deliver killing nuclear death anywhere on earth in 45 minutes or less, that was merely to cover for the overwhelming responsibility that comes from being the guy who actually launches doomsday weapons.

Having experienced both the process of preparing for nuclear war, and actually participating in conventional war I would have to say Nuclear Warfare is basically useless. Think of what a nuclear weapon actually does. A high air bust will indiscriminately wreck any unhardened electronics components in the area of effect. If you plan on occupying the area after the war this is a huge problem. Most cars, every power transmission line, all of the very basic things that cities and towns need to function like sewage pumps and traffic light will be wrecked and need replacement parts before they can function again.

Let us now look at North Korea in particular. An air bust would be ineffective because the government of North Korea has been preparing for a US nuclear attack since the end of the Korean War. We must assume all mission critical services have been hardened against an EMP burst. This leaves the US only with ground burst options.

A ground bust is a detonation that occurs just above ground level. Because of the extremes of heat and pressure at initiation tones of dust is irradiated and sucked up into the upper atmosphere. Most of this dust and soot turns to fallout as it cools, collects water and falls again as the infamous ‘Black Rain’. Lighter irradiated particles climb higher, enter the jet stream and circle the globe, falling as they go.

Considering that North Korea is ‘up wind‘ of the United States as far as most global wind patters go the US would experience some fallout from any strike on NK, in addition to our allies in the pacific and relatively hostile nations in terms of war like Russia and China. They would not tolerate a nuclear strike so close to their own nations, and so will have already warned Trump about this.

Then we must consider the possibility that North Korea has tested tactical nuclear devices in it’s underground bunkers. This has the potential to be like a irradiated pandora’s box. I misaimed strike which cracks one of these bunkers open could release decades worth of nuclear material into the air. This material can be assumed to be quite heavy in comparison, so it may not travel high enough to reach the US, but it would certainly spread out to effect people in China and South Korea. This risk alone should be enough to prevent any preemptive nuclear strike against North Korea.

Now let’s consider the alternative. A conventional war on the Korean peninsula would be devastating to the Korean people as a whole. The city of Seoul is under the sights of thousands of fixed artillery positions to the north. They know this and have taken steps to prepare for a potential first strike, but in order to sustain an attack the DPRK would have to preposition it’s stocks of artillery munitions in advance. We would see this pretty clearly and a few heavy carpet bombing runs across the border would clear that up pretty quickly. It’s important to note that this potential eventuality is why the US never signed up to the cluster bomb treaty. We would need them to achieve the sheer volume of fire needed to prevent the NK army from turning Seoul into a smoking ruin. The air defence of North Korea would have to be demolished mear minutes prior to the bombing runs to limit the loss of air craft, but I do not believe at this point the North Koreans have the intelligence capability to be able to identify the movements we would make in terms of sea born assets to prepare for the initial strike against their air defences. Saddam didn’t see it coming when it happened in the first Iraq war, and I have no reason to believe that the North Korean Army has any capabilities beyond what the Iraqi army had.

After the initial strike if any movement was seen on the NK ballistic missile pads sea based assets could launch counter strikes on those positions to eliminate their ability to launch. At this point the only thing we have not put into check is a subterranean launch site. If we had accurate data on locations we could bomb the area around it to cover the launch tubes. In the event we are surprised and a missile gets into the air we have a few anti missile systems in theater to attempt an interception.

If all of these measures fail then we have to look at the possibility of receiving a nuclear strike. At this point in the potential war, this nuclear strike would be last desperate act of revenge of the Kim dynasty. They would have already fallen as an effective government, as it is my opinion that the NK army will turn on Kim in the face of such an overwhelming defeat.

The real problems at this point become search and rescue at the nuclear strike location, and the humanitarian crisis in North Korea. Should the missile get to it’s target without being intercepted or breaking up it still needs to initiate, which is actually a very complex process which requires absolute perfection in particular critical components. Just a micrometer of misalignment will cause the nuclear device to fizzle out. It would still be dangerous, but not loss of a city dangerous.

Given the lack of food in North Korea, and the fact that the soldiers in the NK Army still are living in a repressive incompetent dictatorship, it can reasonably be assumed that the men and women doing the actual maintenance on the missile and fissile material are more likely to make mistakes, or hide failures in order to avoid punishment by the authorities over them. Unlike in the US nuclear force, if you mess up in North Korea you are looking at execution if you are lucky, or you and three generations of your family being sent to a death camp if you are not. It is because of this I do not think the DPRK has the technical base from which to launch an effective nuclear strike.

The real issue is going to be around twenty million starving and suddenly free North Koreans. They will spread out to the north looking for food and safety in China, or south to reunite with family in South Korea. China will not have the ability to support the influx of refugees, nor will it be happy with it’s southern boarder suddenly being that of a US friendly military ally. For this reason alone we must expect that China will do everything in its power to stop the sudden collapse of the North Korean Government.

It is clear to me that a preemptive nuclear strike by the US against the DPRK is not only a dumb idea on its face, but it would actually be a strategic mistake over all. It would cause vast areas of the combat zone to be dangerous for non NBC (Nuclear Biological and Chemical) equipped troops to operate in, it would not even achieve any military objectives that we cannot handle with conventional weapons. In fact, it is my opinion that a nuclear strike would actually make our conventional operations harder by denying us ground, sea and air space in which to operate in. If the DPRK struck first, it would be an evil last act of an evil government, and thus would not require a nuclear response.

No matter how you slice it, actual nuclear war with North Korea is unlikely in the extreme. This is not to say that we should not prepare for such a threat, but we have to keep in mind that nuclear weapons are actually pretty useless beyond scaring a nation into doing what you want.

EDITED at 0214 local time for spelling mistakes.

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