Brace Yourselves: Retaliation Against North Korea Possible With New Nuclear Test…If South Korea Signs Off

It’s the 105^th anniversary of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-sung, which means there will be the usual celebration and bluster from one of the world’s last communist states. There is a rumored nuclear denotation that is planned, which the United States is said to be on the alert to launch preemptive military strikes, according to NBC News. Sources told the news organization that Special Forces ground operations, cyber attacks, or missile and bombs could be hurled towards North Korea should they proceed with their nuclear test.

The U.S. is prepared to launch a preemptive strike with conventional weapons against North Korea should officials become convinced that North Korea is about to follow through with a nuclear weapons test, multiple senior U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.

[…]

The U.S. strike could include missiles and bombs, cyber and special operations on the ground.

The danger of such an attack by the U.S. is that it could provoke the volatile and unpredictable North Korean regime to launch its own blistering attack on its southern neighbor.

"The leadership in North Korea has shown absolutely no sign or interest in diplomacy or dialogue with any of the countries involved in this issue," Victor Cha, the Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies told NBC News Thursday.

Yet, Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin spoke with Pentagon officials, who said the NBC report was “wildly wrong” and “extremely dangerous.” Yet, the pushback seems to be on the preemption portion on the story. Steve Herman of Voice of America News and Anna Fifield, Tokyo bureau chief for The Washington Post, both said their sources said that preemption is off the table, but retaliatory action could occur if North Korea conducts the test.

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After all, yesterday we dropped for the first time the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) on ISIS fighters in Afghanistan. It’s a 22,600-lb bomb, one of the largest non-nuclear ordnances we have in our arsenal. Gordon Chang, an expert on North Korea who wrote “Nuclear Showdown, North Korea Takes On The World,” told CNN’s Brooke Baldwin that this was definitely done to unnerve Kim Jong-un. Chang added that his late father, Kim Jong-il, actually spent six weeks underground during the Iraq War because he was worried about George W. Bush. He feels Kim Jong-un might feel the same way about Trump. Yet, before we get ahead of ourselves, the main course of action is hoping that China puts enough pressure on North Korea to back off. We’ll see what happens this weekend. Moreover, any military action will need to be signed off by South Korea.