War in Korea? The scenarios are sobering

This is the way a nuclear war begins.

Simulations of a war on the Korean peninsula usually start with a relatively minor incident at the demilitarized zone between South Korea and its hostile northern neighbor, or a provocation that develops into a conventional war and then escalates.

President Donald Trump's threatening posture toward North Korea - most recently exhibited at the United Nations, where he warned that the U.S. could "totally destroy" the country - has prompted military strategists to examine what would actually happen if a war broke out.

The scenarios are a sobering corrective to the notion that North Korea's nuclear capacity could be taken out in a single strike, or that the government would prove as fragile as that of Saddam Hussein in Iraq or Moammar Gadhafi in Libya.

"Too many Americans have the view that it would be like the invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan, or like combat