Trumps Options for North Korea Include Placing Nukes in South Korea

[herding cats]

Source: NBC



The National Security Council has presented President Trump with options to respond to North Korea's nuclear program — including putting American nukes in South Korea or killing dictator Kim Jong-un, multiple top-ranking intelligence and military officials told NBC News.

Both scenarios are part of an accelerated review of North Korea policy prepared in advance of President Donald Trump's meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week.

The White House hopes the Chinese will do more to influence Pyongyang through diplomacy and enhanced sanctions. But if that fails, and North Korea continues its development of nuclear weapons, there are other options on the table that would significantly alter U.S. policy.

The first and most controversial course of action under consideration is placing U.S. nuclear weapons in South Korea. The U.S. withdrew all nuclear weapons from South Korea 25 years ago. Bringing back bombs — likely to Osan Air Base, less than 50 miles south of the capital of Seoul — would mark the first overseas nuclear deployment since the end of the Cold War, an unquestionably provocative move.

Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-s-options-north-korea-include-placing-nukes-south-korea-n743571?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

[louis-t]

1. Dumpy is all about provocative.

And he loves him some nukes.

[riversedge]

2. That is not even an option!!

[MattP]

3. Is South Korea going to be ok with that?

[Brother Buzz]

6. They weren't to happy when 'W' pulled them.

[KewlKat]

4. why the hell is ANYONE covering what options we have regarding NK in the media..........JebusHChrist

If the nut in NK has to have any more reason to keep shooting missiles.........Do we have NO secrets anymore! What are they thinking. Tell the National Security Council to keep their thoughts to "needs to know" basis.

Sorry, but this is really stupid. Placing nukes in SK or killing the guy.................let's just broadcast this around the shaking world.

I can't believe we're running the government like this.

[Ligyron]

5. I guess they want to project the threat for some reason?

Whether those nucs were land based in the south or fired from a submarine, they're still nucs and they're ours.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

7. He was just impressed with how the "nuclear option" worked so well in the Senate

It made him get his way there, so why not try the same thing in Korea?

[miyazaki]

8. The nukes are already there, running silent, running deep. n/t

[virtualobserver]

9. seoul to pyongyang - 121 miles - a little closer than tel-aviv to damascus at 133

they better be small tactical nukes - I personally wouldn't want them exploding in my neighborhood

[ColemanMaskell]

10. I wouldn't want ICBMs in any part of Korea, imho

Small short-range missiles are a different question. But if South Korea gets a land-based installation of nuclear ICBMs, then all North Korea has to do is infiltrate the base and take control of the missiles. Mission accomplished for them. I'd prefer that if we need any nukes in the area, we just keep them on our submarines, or install them in some definitely friendly country where we have a base already, say on Okinawa or at a secret site elsewhere in Japan, which is very close to Korea and under substantial threat themselves from NK now. In any case, if we have to do it, they should be short range definitely. Long range missiles are too risky. Look what happened in the Philippines - they used to love us, now the gov't there hates us; we wouldn't want them to have long-range weapons.

[qwlauren35]

11. Since when...

did we start broadcasting that we're thinking of assassinating a Head of State? Didn't we learn anything with Castro? Can't we let the NK people do it, as they did in Libya and Iraq?