South Korean ship fires on a ship

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by joegrundman

and you think teh usa and sk are willing to bet a few ten thousand lives on the ability of these defenses to catch them all?

It only needs to catch the one with the nuke on it. While you've have probably read about mobile nuclear detectors at ports in the US to detect the emissions of neutron or gamma rays from the nuclear material in a warhead it is feasible that an interceptor missile could be equipped with a radiation detecting seeker to differentiate between a nuclear warhead, additional conventional warheads and decoys.

Also the North has to figure that with ground and sea based interceptors there would be a high attrition rate for the IRBMs meaning that if they chose to fire a nuclear missile as part of a strike there is a possibility that is would be shot down, not 100% but enough that the DPRK's few warheads might not reach their targets.

Its a pycological move much like in Desert Storm when the US publicized the [fictional] success of the Patriot.