"I am coming, and bringing hell with me!"

 

 

                  

 

"Be careful for what you wish for - you might get it..."

  

One of my favorite movies is Tombstone. In that movie, one of my favorite lines was when Wyatt Earp surprised the Cowboys at the train station and said, "You tell them Wyatt Earp is coming, and I am bringing hell with me!" And he did. A classic line from a classic movie.

 

It seems that the good old US of A has had a fill of the little dictator from North Korea. It was time to open the toy chest and show him a fraction of what we have. First, a flyover by a couple of B-2 bombers. These are the "first you don't see them and next you are on fire" aircraft. Then the decision was made to park the USS John McCain off the coast. Finally, lets base a few F-22 Raptors in South Korea.

 

The USS McCain (named after Senator McCain's father who was a four star admiral) is pound for pound as tough as you can get for a ship. And it is coming to Korea armed to the teeth. First off, for years now, the AEGIS system has been testing an ABM (anti ballistic missile) that can be fired from the ship's VLS (vertical launching system). Just in case "junior" decides to launch one of his missiles, the McCain should be able to knock it down. Then all hell will break loose. Even though one AEGIS ship cannot defeat an entire county, it sure can give it a black eye. It also has the Tomahawk land attack missile which can be fired from the VLS. These missiles can be tipped with a very high explosive, or worse. The new Block IV version of this missile is a drone on steroids. It can loiter, it can circle, it can take pictures, and then when the time comes, it can defeat many stout defenses. It is absolute death from above.

 

Then we have the F-22 Raptor fighter jets which will be deployed to South Korea. This new fighter was been in development for years and was made to compete with and dominate the

world's most advanced aircraft (that does not include North Korea). Even though the specifics are probably highly classified, this is what the Raptor website has to say about its performance:

 

The F-22's characteristics provide a synergistic effect ensuring F-22A lethality against all advanced air threats. The combination of stealth, integrated avionics and supercruise drastically shrinks surface-to-air missile engagement envelopes and minimizes enemy capabilities to track and engage the F-22 . The combination of reduced observability and supercruise accentuates the advantage of surprise in a tactical environment.

 

Putting this jargon in layman's terms - we will own the skies not only over the South, but also the North. Nothing can touch these planes. They can not only neutralize any air threats, but they can also bomb land targets with state of the art munitions.

 

With one AEGIS class ship and a hand full of high tech fighters, we can put the genie back in the bottle. However, if one of the North's nukes goes off anywhere, the fate of North Korea will go from black eye to total elimination. We now have assets in theater to spank him if he misbehaves - if we pops a nuke, we can deploy other assets designed to kill the entire country.

 

The best play North Korea can do right now? Honor the cease fire with the South, stand down militarily, abandon its nuclear program, apologize to the United Nations for recent behavior, and to the South for recent incursions. At that point in time, we can take our toys and go home.