Here's how a preemptive strike on North Korea would go down

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made it official on Friday: The US is considering a preemptive military strike on North Korea. Recent missile tests show that North Korea really is practicing a so-called saturation attack that would seek to fire ballistic missiles with such volume that they defeat missile defenses and slaughter US and allied forces in Japan and South Korea.

US President Donald Trump has apparently identified North Korea as his most serious external challenge, and he has reportedly declared the country the single greatest threat to the US. On Friday, Trump tweeted: "North Korea is behaving very badly. They have been 'playing' the United States for years." He also blamed China, the North's biggest ally, for not doing more to help.

In reality, taking out North Korea's nuclear capabilities, or toppling the Kim regime, would pose serious risks to even the US military's best platforms.

Business Insider spoke with Stratfor's Sim Tack, a senior analyst who is an expert on North Korea, to determine exactly how the US could carry out a crippling strike against the Hermit Kingdom.

SEE ALSO: Here's how the US military is sticking it to Beijing in the South China Sea

First, a decision would need to be made.

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Military action against North Korea wouldn't be pretty. Civilians in South Korea, and possibly Japan, and US forces stationed in the Pacific would be likely to die in the undertaking no matter how smoothly things went.

In short, it's not a decision any US commander in chief would make lightly.

But the US would have to choose between a full-scale destruction of North Korea's nuclear facilities and ground forces or a quicker attack on only the most important nuclear facilities. The second option would focus more on crippling North Korea's nuclear program and destroying key threats to the US and its allies.

Since a full-scale attack could lead to "mission creep that could pull the US into a longterm conflict in East Asia," according to Tack of Stratfor, the US would most likely focus on a quick, surgical strike that would wipe out the bulk of North Korea's nuclear forces.

Then, the opening salvo: A stealth air blitz and cruise missiles rock North Korea's nuclear facilities.

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The best tools the US could use against North Korea would be stealth aircraft like the F-22 and the B-2 bomber, Tack said.

The US would gradually position submarines, Navy ships, and stealth aircraft at bases near North Korea in ways that avoid provoking the Hermit Kingdom's suspicions.

Then, when the time is right, bombers would rip across the sky and ships would let loose with an awesome volley of firepower. The US already has considerable combat capability amassed in the region.

"Suddenly you'd read on the news that the US has conducted these airstrikes," Tack said.

While the F-22 and the F-35 would certainly operate over North Korean missile-production sites, it really is a job for the B-2.

As a long-range stealth bomber with a huge ordnance capacity, the B-2 could drop 30,000-pound bombs on deep underground bunkers in North Korea — and it could do it from as far away as Guam or the continental US.

The first targets ...

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The initial targets would include nuclear reactors, missile-production facilities, and launching pads for intercontinental ballistic missiles, Tack said.

Cruise missiles would pour in from the sea, F-22s would target North Korea's rudimentary air defenses, and B-2s would pound every known missile site.

Planes like the F-35 and the F-22 would frantically hunt down mobile missile launchers, which can hide all over North Korea's mountainous terrain. In the event that North Korea does get off a missile, the US and South Korea have layered missile defenses that would attempt to shoot it out of the sky.