A letter to a friend (North Korea - gaming)

He posed a question to me:

Suppose the North Koreans (NorKs) wanted to really crimp our style in the Pacific, re: Power Projection (hitting Navy and Air Force).

They'd throw a couple of Crude atom bombs in a couple of merchant ships and get them near Guam, Diego Garcia and Yokohama, Japan.

Follow my response down the rabbit hole:


Been following that curve all the way down a very deep and dark rabbit hole.

Two DPRK subs are also unaccounted for.

Also, remember in December when they launched a satellite?  We immediately said it was tumbling, out of control. Fail, DPRK?

Not so fast...
http://n2yo.com/?s=39026

Not bad for a failed satellite, big enough to contain a significant thermonuclear warhead. Polar orbit, it passes over the US 2-3 times a day.  250- 500 kt detonated at 300 miles above Nebraska, it would result in a High-energy ElectroMagnetic Pulse event (Compton Scattering Effect - thanks physics) which would render the US power grid DEAD for months / years (would take a while to replace every transformer, relay and substation in all three of the US's electrical grids).

That, in conjunction with some timely merchant ships spontaneously fissioning in a few pacific ports, Guam, Diego Garcia and Yokohama, Japan (Home port of the USS George Washington), and an all out artillery barrage on Seoul, and the surrounding installations, SF raids on targets deeper in South Korea, you have the makings of a damn depressing 2013.

Hit the bases at Guam, Diego and Yokohama, and you pretty much negate the majority of air and naval capability for a while, at least until you can consolidate advances into SK.

But, going down the rabbit hole a little deeper: lets say that this war is the pretext of something larger, something more sinister, with strings being pulled by the greater power currently massing troops on the border of North Korea?  China wants no refugees, does not want the war to spread into the mainland of the Middle Kingdom.  What if the true goal is for the world to drastically reduce the power and power projection ability of the West (US and allies).  We're broke, in hock to them for trillions, and we'll never, ever be able to repay it.  How do they reduce the debt on their books and not have the Chinese population (Chinese save money and their savings are invested in American debt) rise up in revolt?  How to maintain the Mandate of Heaven?

I started writing a book back in 2002...  I'm about 300 and change pages into it...  deals with this very subject.

There's a bunch of ways this can go - none of them good. 10 April 2013 - the date the NorKs told the embassies all to be cleared out of Pyongyang.

I love history, but I'm realizing I hate living through the "big stuff".

We suffer the Chinese Curse:  We live in "Interesting Times"


Crazed American, out.