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[10ebbor10]

China has no benefit in exploiting North Korea's rare Earth's. After all, they do have a monopoly on Rare Earth's themselves. No point in destroying that.

[Strife26]

Except that if their were huge reserves China would just make a joint deal with NK, where China would extract the minerals/oil and keep most of the oil/minerals that came out of the ground.
Plus, I don't think even China would invade NK for that given the potential risk involved. Even if there is a 90% chance that they take out ALL of NK's nukes before they can hit China, thats a 10% chance that millions of Chinese citizens would die.

It's much less than that. Nuclear weapons on North Korea's scale aren't of the size, nor with the delivery systems to be city busters

[MaximumZero]

How about twisting the words? Assume North Korea attacked first. Then there's some very nice parallels to the original Korean War, a bit of moral and geostrategic issues on the side... It works, and you get around the justification problem.

You could also cite their aggressive behavior toward the west. Halting the constant saber rattling and exploiting the US/UN for aid would lower the cost of working in the international markets, and make the world a little bit safer all around.

[Chaoswizkid]

China has no benefit in exploiting North Korea's rare Earth's. After all, they do have a monopoly on Rare Earth's themselves. No point in destroying that.

... I don't understand how this makes any sense. If they have a monopoly, wouldn't they want to exploit the potential competition, especially before it gets started? Just acquire it all so they can maintain that monopoly? Why would a monopoly leave (guaranteed) potential competition alone?

[LordSlowpoke]

they might have the resources but have no capital to develop them, therefore they pose no serious threat to the chinese monopoly

[Helgoland]

Also that Chinese monopoly has a very limited lifespan - rare earths aren't that rare, and mines around the world are being re-opened now that they're profitable again.

[Sheb]

A thing I was wondering, what about delivering NK nukes to Seoul? Sure, their ICBMs are a joke, but Seoul is only ~40 km from the border. Even if their nukes are Fat-Man-sized, launching it with a huge Schwere Gustav-style gun (or even a multi-stage supergun) wouldn't be too hard.

[Helgoland]

A giant nuclear catapult.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

A thing I was wondering, what about delivering NK nukes to Seoul? Sure, their ICBMs are a joke, but Seoul is only ~40 km from the border. Even if their nukes are Fat-Man-sized, launching it with a huge Schwere Gustav-style gun (or even a multi-stage supergun) wouldn't be too hard.

Not impossible, but even more suicidal than the usual use of nuclear weapons. The normal winds of Seoul travel north. All that fallout would be carried back to NK.

[Sheb]

True enough, but a) the NK leadership can easily suppress than info in their population, and don't care much about this anyway. and b) this would be a deterrent. It's not mean to be used.

[Sirus]

A thing I was wondering, what about delivering NK nukes to Seoul? Sure, their ICBMs are a joke, but Seoul is only ~40 km from the border. Even if their nukes are Fat-Man-sized, launching it with a huge Schwere Gustav-style gun (or even a multi-stage supergun) wouldn't be too hard.

Not impossible, but even more suicidal than the usual use of nuclear weapons. The normal winds of Seoul travel north. All that fallout would be carried back to NK.

Still a possibility though, if this theoretical invasion happens and Kim realizes in time that he's losing. Dictators aren't exactly known for being graceful losers and there's always the chance that he might decide to hit the big red button out of spite.

Again, hypothetical.

[Sheb]

Still, if they had such a weapon, we'd probably now about it. There is no point in a secret deterrent.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

We do know about it. The thermal signatures of three or so nuclear tests have been measured as coming from within NK.

[Sheb]

We know they have nukes, although AFAIK all their tests were underground so we only have seismic data. I'm not sure we can differentiate between a nuke and a large pile of TNT.

However; whenever we are talking about invading NK, we always bring up the artillery deterrent, not the nuclear one. I assume it is because we widely assume they don't have rockets capable of being fitted with a nuke. (However, the Rodong-1 can carry a 1000 kg warhead, so I wouldn't be surprised if they have a few of those ready*)

But even if they're still stuck with multi-tonnes warheads, propelling one by gun would be easy enough, and would make any invasion even more costly than previously though.

For the guy that is looking for argument: we need to invade before they get a viable nuclear deterrent.

*The US had tactical nukes weighting less than 1000 kg by 1952, so it's not exactly high-tech.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

A thing I was wondering, what about delivering NK nukes to Seoul? Sure, their ICBMs are a joke, but Seoul is only ~40 km from the border. Even if their nukes are Fat-Man-sized, launching it with a huge Schwere Gustav-style gun (or even a multi-stage supergun) wouldn't be too hard.

Not impossible, but even more suicidal than the usual use of nuclear weapons. The normal winds of Seoul travel north. All that fallout would be carried back to NK.

Still a possibility though, if this theoretical invasion happens and Kim realizes in time that he's losing. Dictators aren't exactly known for being graceful losers and there's always the chance that he might decide to hit the big red button out of spite.

Again, hypothetical.

This totally makes sense to me. "Don't kill me, because when I die I will take you with me" seems like a sensible safeguard. You think if, say, Germany invaded the US with conventional forces, the US would fail to nuke Germany before collapsing?