Step closer to the unthinkable

ON the face of it, North Korea would quickly succumb to the wrath of the United States, should Donald Trump carry out his vow to rain “fire and fury” on the rogue state.

The US is ranked No.1 in the world for conventional military strength by the analytics group Global Firepower, and is in every way superior to North Korea, ranked at 23.

It has 2875 attack aircraft compared to Pyongyang’s 572; 19 aircraft carriers compared to zero; some 57,000 tanks and armoured vehicles compared to 9125; 10,000 nuclear warheads versus a suspected handful; and vastly greater manpower reserves.

But any cold analysis by the numbers will prompt reminders that the US could not defeat a guerilla army in Vietnam, and nor could it overwhelm the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

President Trump does not want a sustained conventional war. This time, he appears to be hinting that the US would bypass the shock-and-awe type conventional assault and turn directly to nuclear bombardment.

Sadly for the world, reports that the sick-minded Kim Jong-un has achieved the ability to attach nuclear warheads to long-range missiles has forced the US to adjust from a defensive watching position to issuing direct warnings that it will attack.

While the Pacific island military base of Guam has been nominated by Mr Kim as his first preferred target, he is much more likely to initially deliver hell to his South Korean and Japanese neighbours.

If he were insane enough to conduct such strikes, they would almost certainly include nuclear bombs, because Mr Kim would need to unleash everything he had.

The US would respond in kind and obliterate North Korea with nuclear weapons.

What cannot yet be known is whether Trump would conduct a pre-emptive nuclear attack on the North. He might well argue, in the aftermath, that such a strike was necessary to save lives in South Korea, Japan, the US and Australia — and anywhere else within North Korea’s reach.

North Korea’s neighbours have lived through decades of its belligerence, always believing that the threats were just attentiongrabbing stunts by Kim or his despotic father.

That is no longer the case. Kim may play games, but they are deadly games.