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"Thanks to the Americans" posted to Youtube by North Korea’s official media shows scenes of U.S. soldiers and President Obama in flames. 　

By Lee Hyung-sub, staff reporter

On Feb. 12, the day that North Korea conducted its third nuclear test, the US military conducted a war game in preparation for activities including dealing with nuclear weapons in the hypothetical event that the North Korean government collapses, reports say.

According to the AOL Defense webzine, an online magazine dedicated to US security, a hypothetical wartime simulation involving a scenario of this sort was carried out as part of the 2013 Unified Quest war game, held at the US Army War College located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. This war game, which is held each year and brings together people from the military, academia, and think tanks, is designed to devise contingency plans for crisis situations that can break out in various parts of the world.

This year, changes in the strategic objectives of the US Army led to the focus being placed on Asia instead of the Middle East, including a scenario related to the collapse of the North Korean regime.

The participants discussed wartime strategies related to how the US military would land on the coast of North Korea in the event of a crisis on the Korean peninsula and how they would dispose of weapons of mass destruction, including chemical, biological, and radioactive weapons. They also discussed how China might get involved.

It is also being reported that, when the fact that North Korea had conducted a nuclear test became known during the middle of the war game, further animated discussion took place.

“Hours before Pyongyang conducted its latest nuclear test, military officers here at the Army War College began waging a war game whose classified scenario is transparently concerned with North Korea,” said Sydney Freedberg, deputy editor for AOL Defense. “That is not just a coincidence.”

In a situation where the nuclear test had already been announced, the US military forces had prepared a scenario responding to such a test. The test took place during that scenario.

Freedberg added that the majority of the scenario was classified and so could not be confirmed, but that a war game related to North Korea probably took place last year as well.

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