Dave Majumdar Security, Stealth F-22s, F-35s and B-2s vs. North Korea: Who Wins in a War? Any sort of attack on North…
Dave Majumdar
Security,
Stealth F-22s, F-35s and B-2s vs. North Korea: Who Wins in a War?
Any sort of attack on North Korea would be a gamble with the lives of thousands if not millions of South Korean and Japanese lives. As such, a diplomatic solution is far more preferable to a war than might end poorly.
In the event a war were to break out on the Korean peninsula, American airpower would play a key role.
(This first appeared last year.)
Initially, the burden would likely fall to the Pentagon’s fleet of stealth aircraft including the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber.
The U. S. Navy, too, would likely have to play a role using its surface warships and submarines to launch waves of Tomahawk cruise missiles to target North Korean air defenses and command and control assets. However, American forces would have to move quickly to take out North Korea’s retaliatory strike capability—both its nuclear forces and its conventional artillery forces that could lay waste to Seoul.
That’s ultimately the problem for American military planners during any potential pre-emptive strike against North Korea. How does one eliminate Pyongyang’s nuclear forces without risking a retaliatory strike that would leave thousands of South Korean and Japanese civilians dead? Indeed, if some of the worst case scenarios play out, North Korea could potentially even strike back at the American homeland with an nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile.
