North Korea: The Aftermath Of A Sophisticated Conventional Or Nuclear Attack To Eliminate Their Nuclear Weapons

North Korea: The Aftermath of A Sophisticated Conventional Or Nuclear Attack To Eliminate Their Nuclear Weapons

Stratfor offered no estimate on the number of casualties (people killed and wounded) in their hypothetical conventional attack to eliminate the North Korean nuclear capability. One could look back to attacks against Iraq, etc. over the years for some guidance. In a precision nuclear attack using low-yield weapons, one might be able to get a computer simulation. No one has experience with such an attack. No discussion was put forth as to the number of possible casualties in South Korea as North Korea fires artillery and launches air strikes in response to the attack.

I do not have the capability to give good estimates but I would guess that 100,000 is a good estimate of the casualties in this phase of the battle.

What comes after is where it gets really ugly. Under the best of circumstances, North Korea is a fragile country living right on the edge of disaster. Any serious conventional or nuclear attack will disrupt this fragile infrastructure. People will start to die due to the cold, lack of medicine, and lack of food.

Aid from other countries will be delayed for a long time. We will have what is called 
“A Mexican standoff.” China and South Korea will hold long and careful negotiations before sending any troops to help with humanitarian efforts. There will be a large fear of troops of the People’s Liberation Army meeting South Korean troops with firefights starting due to mistakes and miscalculations. Another saying comes into play here as follows:

“Nero fiddled while Rome burned.”

If we have a nuclear attack, even with very low-yield weapons, there will be the added problem of radioactivity left on the ground and in the air.

In this phase of the war you could literally have hundreds of thousands of casualties due to freezing to death, starvation, and death from diseases that simple medications can stop.