North Korea Now Making Missile-Ready Nuclear Weapons, US Analysts Say (washingtonpost.com) 338
schwit1 shares a report from The Washington Post: North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded in a confidential assessment. The new analysis completed last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency comes on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country's atomic arsenal. The U.S. calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Some independent experts believe the number of bombs is much smaller. "The IC [intelligence community] assesses North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, to include delivery by ICBM-class missiles," the assessment states, in an excerpt read to The Washington Post. "It is not yet known whether the reclusive regime has successfully tested the smaller design, although North Korea officially last year claimed to have done so," reports The Washington Post.
Thanks, China (Score:2, Informative)
The elephant in the room is that they have been enabled, if not actively assisted, by China for decades. Sure is a good thing the US wasn't dumb enough to outsource a huge chunk of our manufacturing to the totalitarian country silently backing these guys and their nuclear ambitions for the sake of next quarter's corporate profits, huh?
Re: Thanks, China (Score:5, Informative)
why are they not discussed?
Perhaps because Israel isn't in the habit of threatening people with nuclear holocaust every 72 hours.
Re: Thanks, China (Score:5, Insightful)
Brawndo has what plants crave! (Score:2)
When the rapture comes, I'm taking your car.
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And what could Clinton or Obama have done differently? At the end of the day, neither one of them wanted to rain down fire on the Korean Peninsula, and at the end of the day, I have a feeling Trump will be restrained by calmer voices. The price of a military attack on North Korea would have been huge 20 years ago, and it would be huge today. At no point was NK ever going to seriously stop developing nuclear weapons.
Re:Brawndo has what plants crave! (Score:4, Informative)
Lets have some real history here.
The Agreed Framework, negotiated by Clinton, froze the DPRK nuclear program in place. All the facilities were shut down and placed under international inspection. This lasted for 9 years - from 1994 to 2003.
But in 2003 "Dubya" decided to put his swagger on and concocted the "Axis of Evil" in a State Of The Union speech lumping Iraq, Iran and the DPRK together as if they were an alliance, then decided that fall to abrogate the Agreed Framework and also make more blustering remarks.
Result - the DPRK kicked out the IAEA, restarted their nuclear facilities and three years later began testing nuclear weapons.
The Democrats, under Clinton, shut down the NK nuclear program.
The Republicans, under Bush, goaded them into restarting it - and once the genie was out, it could not be put back in.
Re:Brawndo has what plants crave! (Score:5, Informative)
The Democrats, under Clinton, shut down the NK nuclear program.
Even as they immediately started up a separate enrichment program, more or less immediately. Don't lecture about the facts and then leave the important ones out.
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Indeed, part of the deal after the Korean war was to supply NK with crude oil for power and heat. GWB shut that down and NK said they would restart a nuclear program. Which they have.
I remember just before that NK and SK were getting very close to settling their differences.
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We shouldn't even be HAVING this discussion, as this issue should have been dealt with sometime over the last eight years at least.
Err, how?
Responses from President Trump (Score:5, Interesting)
— President Donald Trump, 2017 Aug 8 [cbsnews.com]
— Mr. Donald Trump, 2013 Aug 13 [twitter.com]
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Well, he's not wrong is he?
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What the hell is he meant to do? This is an insane regime building nuclear fucking bombs. Do you want to wait for it to drop some on South Korea, Japan, and California? Well, maybe California...
88 mph (Score:4, Insightful)
A pertinent message from a time traveler:
https://twitter.com/realDonald... [twitter.com]
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Well, I don't want to hear about vi and bash all day, but I come here anyway. Because I believe in duty. There are those here who need me...depend on me. As for Trump? Don't worry. Hold my hand and I will be your rock and get you through this. Especially if you're in "the rest of the world". We know you're scared. You don't have to put on a brave face for us.
I would think you'd be a little more app
"Confidential Assessment"? (Score:3)
U.S. intelligence officials have concluded in a confidential assessment.
You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.
nerd warfare (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a tech website. What are some tech related ways in which we could respond ? Aside from spreading viruses to their centrifuges, maybe we could drop 1000s of satellite communicators down to the NK people, sure some would get lost, others fall into government hands, but if only a few fall into the hands of an internal "resistance" it could help gather intelligence or spread western news.
They would not have to be high bandwidth, I'm thinking something like 2-way twitter (but keep it away from POTUS !)
It Is Fascinating... (Score:2)
The
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What's odd? They bought the tech from Pakistan and are just revising it. Everything they are doing has already been done before. They aren't doing anything groundbreaking. It's all engineering work and not research science.
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I don't think anyone is claiming they have a thermonuclear warhead. At most, they likely have a boosted fission device. Still plenty powerful, but much easier to make. Once you've got a functional implosion-type warhead, it's a pretty obvious move to add a system to inject a bit of tritium just prior to detonation. The tritium fuses due to the initial fission reaction, which in turn produces fast neutrons, which in turn causes additional fission of a U238 tamper, and the other, fissile material.
MASH 2 !!! (Score:2)
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Iraq's faith (Score:2)
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I'm worried (Score:3)
The "puppet masters" are feeding the media publically establishing pretexts for action... like they did b4 Iraq.
Re:More US warmongering (Score:4, Interesting)
No proof of any of this.
NK has a track record of making bold claims ... that turn out to be true. They said they were going to build a nuke. They did. They said they were going to build missiles that could reach Japan. They did. They said they would build an ICBM that could reach America. They did (Hawaii and Alaska so far). Now they say they have built a compact warhead that will fit on a missile. Do be so quick to dismiss their boast.
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They said they would build an ICBM that could reach America. They did (Hawaii and Alaska so far).
Have they? I see these map graphs with range circles associated with certain missiles - which have not flow that far...
Saying something is capable - if they can figure out how to design the missile to withstand reentry, or the missile is capable - if they can perfect complex gyros and navigational hardware / software so the missile can hit a target, or the missile is capable - if they can figure out how to insure it does not explode on launch or break up in flight...
These things are the same as saying that
Re:More US warmongering (Score:5, Insightful)
Have they? I see these map graphs with range circles associated with certain missiles
NK's launch last month reached an altitude of 2700 km. That means it had enough velocity to reach either Anchorage or Oahu if it was in a flatter trajectory. They kept it in a near vertical trajectory to make it easier to monitor.
if they can figure out how to design the missile to withstand reentry
The missile doesn't have to reenter, only the warhead does. They can accomplish that by wrapping in a bundle of asbestos ... or they could skip the reentry and do an EMP burst 200 km above Honolulu / Pearl Harbor.
if they can perfect complex gyros and navigational hardware / software
They kept it in a clean vertical trajectory for 2700 km, so they have already accomplished all of this. Btw, there is a 3 axis "complex gyro" chip in your cellphone. This isn't the 1950s.
if they can figure out how to insure it does not explode on launch or break up in flight...
They have already done this repeatedly.
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NK's launch last month reached an altitude of 2700 km. That means it had enough velocity to reach either Anchorage or Oahu if it was in a flatter trajectory. They kept it in a near vertical trajectory to make it easier to monitor.
Where did you get that, your favorite news anchor? ICBMs use a "high apogee" trajectory because it's the most energy efficient. If you flatten the trajectory, you won't get anywhere near the range you seem to think you will.
if they can perfect complex gyros and navigational hardware / software
They kept it in a clean vertical trajectory for 2700 km, so they have already accomplished all of this. Btw, there is a 3 axis "complex gyro" chip in your cellphone. This isn't the 1950s.
Making it go straight means they have pretty good control software; you don't need great gyros for that. But navigation is a different animal. If you think you can guide a ballistic missile along a 4,600 mile trajectory (NK - Hawaii for example) and come within 100 miles of your target u
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Once they get the range up the continental United States makes a pretty big, hard to miss target. Doesn't matter if it ends up in some remote, unpopulated area. The threat is enough.
That's the point really. A mad man got control of nuclear weapons and a powerful army, but they had the foresight to develop defences that would assure mutual destruction. Remember that if the US were to use nuclear weapons, the Chinese would like do so too, and their's are much more advanced.
Re:More US warmongering (Score:4, Interesting)
Uhhh, GPS chips are required by law to disable for altitudes and velocities common for missiles.
http://gizmodo.com/5824905/you... [gizmodo.com]
The GPS system is also controlled by... the USA. Which can be shut off or reduced accuracy for an area. Which in fact, they actually did for years and only somewhat recently was "military-grade precision" actually given to consumers. Bill Clinton ended it in 2000. It's called "Selective Availability." But they can re-enable it at any time should some dumbasses in North Korea decide to use GPS.
Technically, they said "they would never use SA again." But does anyone really believe that? ONE area where the USA just says "Screw it. We'll tap everyone's phones but we wouldn't dare shut off this gigantic array of satellites WE build, run, and support, if someone was using them to nuke us."
Now, perhaps they might try using the Russian equivalent, GLONASS, system. But Russia knows how to leverage itself. If they knew NK was using GLONASS, they would USE that leverage to bargin. But they (and China) wouldn't just let NK start World War 3. It's about letting assholes get away with "as much as possible" to gain leverage but never letting them "actually do something bad" because then the leverage disappears and the entire political climate changes. (That is, Russia and China don't want WW3 unless they know they can win it and not be crippled for a hundred years afterward.)
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It's called "Selective Availability." But they can re-enable it at any time should some dumbasses in North Korea decide to use GPS.
Actually, they can't. The current block of satellites do not have the capability to enable SA. What they can do is turn the service off for a selected region either through nulling the antennas on the satellite, or outright shutting down the unencrypted signal in various areas.
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Uhhh, GPS chips are required by law to disable for altitudes and velocities common for missiles.
GPS receivers and accelerometers are two different things. Many cellphones have both.
Also most steering of an ICBM occurs during the boost phase.
Or maybe NK will disregard the law requiring them to disable the chip, since they have their own fabs [nti.org].
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China also has a global positioning system called BeiDou-2.
Also it's not like a nuclear weapon needs to be extremely accurate. An inertial navigation system would be more than enough.
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Uhhh, GPS chips are required by law to disable for altitudes and velocities common for missiles.
True, but it's straighforward to demodulate and calculate your 3D position without a canned GPS chip. Anyone building ballistic missile has the technical ability to easily work around these built-in cutoffs by simply doing their own signal processing and math.
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They can accomplish that by wrapping in a bundle of asbestos
Devious. If the warhead fails to go off, the two people the missile hit will die 40 years later from cancer!
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which have not flow that far...
Yet.
These things are the same as saying that the North Koreans *are not* capable of these things.
Are you basing that off conjecture or facts? None of the things you mention, withstanding reentry, perfecting nav hardware/software, withstanding flight, are new things. They have all been done since the 60s. Willing to bet that NK hasn't figured those out in the last 50 years?
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Have they? I see these map graphs with range circles associated with certain missiles - which have not flow that far
You know, it really doesn't matter if they have or they haven't. What they have proven is they are determined to build a nuke. We have valid data that they have did this.
Given all that I would say we have to go on the notion that they have and react with that assumption till otherwise.
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Actually, we have seismic confirmation of North Korea's five nuclear tests, the most recent of which was last September. We can even estimate the yield of each test; last September's test was about 25kt, about 2/3 greater than the Hiroshima bomb.
It was North Korea itself that claimed the warhead from last September was missile launchable.
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Worked out so well when we went into Iraq a second time with proof of WMDs.
The public absolutely needs to be shown proof before the country goes to war.
We haven't had an actual reason to go to actual war since WWII.
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I don't think any one disagrees that NK has the capability for making WMD but now they can put in a missile. So, now they have delivery of that WMD. I think the evidence to suggest as much is much more concrete than the 2nd Iraq war.
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But they don't need to declare war. The Korean War (WWIII) never actually ended. There was only a cease-fire.
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You mean the Korean Conflict.
The U. S. of A. has only declared war formally 5 times after the revolution.
The U. S. of A. has never declared war on Korea. That shitfest was all at the behest of the U.N., with Americans providing nearly all of the meat for the grinder.
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So explain me again, why would the USA intelligence be lying about this?
The largest American intelligence agency is not the CIA, but the DIA [wikipedia.org], which gets its funding from and answers to the DoD. They have a vested interest in inflating threats to ensure generous funding of their parent organization.
I am not accusing them of exaggerating, I am just pointing out that they have a clear incentive to do so.
Re:Good luck California! (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think it's really fair that you refer to our president in that way.
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I actually think that Donald Trump is more dangerous to America than Kim Jong-un. Yes, absolutely. Kim Jong-un is probably more dangerous to South Korea, and Japan and to North Korea, but Donald J. Trump presents a far greater danger to the well-being of the United States of America than Kim Jong-un does. So is he a "more dangerous leader"? I don't know how to measure that. The answer depends in great deal on where you
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I did mean for the US, but neglected to say it.
Kim Jong-un isn't gonna do shit to the US.
Why do you think that?
Re:Good luck California! (Score:5, Insightful)
We've been getting threats from the Kim family forever. That's what they do. It's all internal politics to get North Koreans to forget about how shitty their lives are. In the same manner, Trump has always made threats, from lawsuits against people who don't like him to "fire and fury" against North Korea today. It's what he does. And in the same manner, it's to get people to forget how shitty he is.
Russia has literally thousands of ICBMs pointed at US targets, but anyone who points out their behavior, whether in Ukraine or in messing with US elections via propaganda. is painted as someone who has succumbed to the "Red Scare". Yet we have Kim, who we are told could someday have an ICBM pointed at Alaska and those same people will try to tell you he is an existential threat to the United States. Not long ago, Iran was the existential threat. Or China was the existential threat. Or refugees. Or Mexicans coming to pick vegetables. Or gay people getting married. Or transsexuals. Or college students. Or Obama coming to take yer guns away.
And all of it is theater to get people to forget shitty lives and/or shitty leaders.
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. North Korea is the weak party in the conflict . This is not symmetrical. They have legitimate reasons to be concerned. In the US internal politics plays a larger role in this respect but they also have geostrategic concerns that are relevant.
The problem for the North Koreans is they don't have any real issues with South Korea that can't be
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a madman straight out of an Austin Powers movie.
There is nothing "mad" about NK's behavior. The Kim dynasty has been extremely successful at staying in power. Even more than the Castro dynasty in Cuba, which started later and has yet to manage a generational transition.
Let's look at the track record for "giving up nukes", the supposedly "sensible" action:
1. Saddam Hussein gave up his nukes in 1991
Result: Overthrown by America and executed.
2. Muammar Gaddafi shutdown his nuke program in 2003
Result: Overthrown and murdered by forces backed by America.
3
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a madman straight out of an Austin Powers movie.
There is nothing "mad" about NK's behavior. The Kim dynasty has been...
Is it weird that I legitimately thought he was referring to Trump? ;)
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Is it weird that I legitimately thought he was referring to Trump?
That, sir, is a sign of my linguistic genius at the art of Rorschach wording. :-)
Sadly some moderators (probably on both sides) seem to have an equal sense of humor.
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But how is it that we (the U.S.) or ANYONE ELSE on this planet should put up with them
What's the alternative? War? California may not be nuked, but NK can probably deliver a warhead to downtown Seoul, a city of 10 million people.
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If there's peace, less need for a vast NK army and more labor available to grow food.
By (finally) making peace we will help the people of NK gain a much better life.
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Canada gave up its Nukes (US provided, dual-key arrangement) in 1984, and things have generally worked out pretty well. Canada has also decided not to persue its own program, despite having the nuclear capabilities and infrastructure required to do so.
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If they did then Canadian Provences would be States and they would no longer have Universal Healthcare.
Actually, America might get UHC if they annexed Canada. In polls, the majority in every province but Alberta prefered Hillary over Donald. Canadian annexation would shift the American's political center-of-gravity significantly to the left.
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South Africa gave up their nuke program [wikipedia.org] that actually produced six weapons, and they're doing just fine. No invasions or anything!
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Right, black people like Elon Musk, Mark Shuttleworth, Charlize Theron, J. R. R. Tolkien, and other South Africans.
Re:Good luck California! (Score:5, Interesting)
Saddam Hussein gave up his nukes in 1991
Saddam never had a nuclear weapon. What he did have was French support to build a nuclear plant not controlled by the IAEA in the early/mid 70s, as well as 72kg of 93% uranium. But, the Israelis bombed that plant in 1981 before it was completed. From the Germans, Saddam got several chemical weapons facilities built as well as over 1,000 tons of precursor chemicals for mustard gas, sarin, tabun, and tear gas. He also got German equipment to manufacture botulin toxin and mycotoxin. Over half of his chemical weapons program was of German origin. From the Americans, he got samples of anthrax, West Nile, and botulism up through 1989. He selected one of our strains of anthrax for his biological weapons research program (many years later, Colin Powell would display a vial of anthrax in the UN as a justification for war with Iraq). From the British, Saddam got parts for his "supergun" weapons program, including nuclear triggers. The British government also financed a chlorine factory used to produce mustard gas. He never had a nuclear weapon, but his chemical attacks from 1983 to 1991 using mustard gas, tabun, nerve agents, and CS showed that his Western-provided chemical and biological weapon programs were coming along fine. That Israeli strike against the Osiraq reactor put his nuclear plans on hold though. I'm not sure how many parallels there are between Iraq and North Korea, unless Russia and China are playing the role that Western nations played in Iraq, in which case fine, let them go in and deal with the problem they created, like we did.
Muammar Gaddafi shutdown his nuke program in 2003
While you didn't claim that Gaddafi "gave up his nukes" like you did with Saddam, again Libya never had nuclear weapons. They did have a covert nuclear program, which they claimed was to counter the Israeli nuclear program. While after 2003 Libya was in the process of eliminating the remnants of their nuclear and chemical programs, it wasn't the US that brought Gaddafi down, it was his own people. He was an authoritarian dictator, and his people saw an opportunity to rise up and get rid of him. The only thing the US did was that we didn't stop them from doing that. If you want to draw a comparison with North Korea, Libya is a much better example than Iraq. Maybe Kim can look at Libya as a cautionary case-study and figure out that treating his people better instead of dumping money into nuclear weapons may end up with a better result for him. Nuclear weapons aren't going to save him if the North Korean people and military decide that they're better off without him. There are plenty of parallels between Kim and Gaddafi though, from being authoritarian dictators, to human rights abuses of their own people, to the personality cult, clandestine support for terrorist actions overseas, etc. But the lesson that Kim should take away from Gaddafi's tale should not be that nuclear weapons could have saved Gaddafi from his own people. There's no reason to think that.
Ukraine gave up their nukes after being given an American guarantee of their borders and sovereignty.
First off, Ukraine had a bunch of ICBMs with a range of 5,000 to 10,000 km. What were they going to do, threaten to nuke Vladivostok or Kamchatka if Moscow invaded? Those weapons were a threat to the US, not Russia. Not to mention the fact that Russia still maintained operational control of those weapons, similar to the American "nuclear codes". And even if they did use them to attack Russia, then they get met with Russia's 7,000 other nuclear weapons. Also, what's this "American guarantee of their borders and sovereignty" that you're talking about? Are you referring to the Budapest Memorandum? [wikipedia.org] Go ahead and read the list of items there, find the one that says that America guarantees Ukranian borders. We accused Russi
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Given America's track record of betrayal, NK would be nuts to give up their deterrent.
This whole 'thing' about NK is a cover while the US deploy's Anti-Ballistic-Missile installations around the world, especially around China and Russia.
It's name is THAAD [wikipedia.org] a system that enables first strike capability. American "leaders" must think that everything will be ok if they have first strike capability and can nuke the rest of the world.
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Completely incorrect. THAAD is missile defense. It doesn't even carry a payload. You clearly didn't read your own link as it contradicts your other statements.
It doesn't need a payload, its kinetic energy destroys the missile as it is being launched. There is nothing contradictory about the US deploying an Anti Ballistic Missile system to garner a first strike capability. That is what THAAD is for and that is what the beat up about NK is all about, press cover as they deploy it.
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Isn't that one of the states that love him, bigly ?
On the flip side, the rest of the world will be watching to see how the US handles this, NK , a country that can not only shoot back but WILL shoot back. Worse though is that if the US shoots first, China may join in the shooting back.
I am not so sure that:
Trump is capable of accepting he is only the president, not god
The US is capable of accepting it is NOT in charge.
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I doubt very much that China is going to defend NK if it comes down to it. It's been a useful regime for preventing US dominance over the Korean Peninsula, but even China over the last year or so has been making some show of public annoyance with Pyongyang. China's chief concern at this point is likely the serious regional destabilization of North Korean collapse, in particular the likelihood of millions of North Korean refugees trying to get into China.
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Isn't that one of the states that love him, bigly ?
You're very obviously not a U.S. citizen. California is a Blue state (Democrat).
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Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good luck California! (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem of making an atmospheric reenter vehicle for the warhead is trivial in comparison to making a multi-stage rocket. Or the nuclear device itself.
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North Korea's entire military strategy is the exposed position of Seoul.
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The only deterrent they have is being able to strike South Korea with thousands of conventional artillery pieces. Seoul is close enough to the border that it would be devastated by such a barrage.
Everyone keeps saying that, but it's not really true. The outskirts of Soul are within range of their 170mm Koksan, but that's only if they fire Soviet-era rocket assisted projectiles from as close as the DMZ. And if the shit does hit the fan, good luck deploying them there. The gun itself is unwieldy and can only fire one to two rounds every five minutes.
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Why would Trump nuke California ?
Vandenberg Airforce Base.
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Which one?
Not Just California (Score:2)
NK after the juiciest targets (Score:2)
The flight paths from NK to the US pass over Canada.
Although it's a pretty good reminder of what they could potentially effect, if NK is going to nuke anyone they are not going to go from Canada for sure, nor some small bean (pun intended) like Chicago.
No sir if NK were going to hit anything it would be a big flashy target like California. People have noted they can't really aim but why does anyone think that maters in the least? Even just turning a 20 square miles of CA to glass would be mission accompli
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As long as that empire has nuclear capable ICBM's, NK has the right to develop the same in order to defend themselves against infractions by this empire of world bullies.
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That or I would have thought we'd have infiltrated, sabotaged or blown up some important places covertly making it look like an accident by now.
I guess our intelligence agencies are too busy spying inland on the citizens these days?
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Do you have any idea how mountainous it is? Nukes don't go through mountains, so you'd have to drop a hell of a lot of them.
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Maybe you'd like to read the https://www.un.org/disarmament... [un.org]
But don't let the facts get in the way of you're bashing of the U.S.
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Jokes on you, my account was actually purchased and is operated by a group of indolent unemployed barbers who own a gas station in Topeka.
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Re: Why are you lot so paranoid? (Score:2)
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NK isn't going to launch an attack on anyone, as it would be utter mass suicide and they know it.
Deterrents only work when you have reasonably rational people making the decisions on both sides. Here I'm not sure you have that on either side.
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+1. We have two completely unfit leaders playing chicken with nuclear weapons here.
*sigh* At least the fireworks will be awesome this Christmas.
NK final farewell may just be launch all (Score:2)
NK final farewell may just be launch all.
What about when a test go off course and hits something?
What happens when there is a coup or a collapse??
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They are unaware of the US's prodigious array of counter-ICBM defense weaponry, which rarely gets a good mention. If anything, a launch (or several launches) from NK would finally let the GAO know what, exactly, we've all been paying for for the last thirty-forty years since we've seen something come out of the ledger item marked "Secret."
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Lets be blunt, you do not go to an insane asylum to establish normal relations. The NK government is nuts, you simply contain it under threat of extreme retaliation and leave it alone. In fact use it as a model for permanent, well at least until the change, isolation. Rather than expending resources and lives on destroying resources and lives, it is far smarter to invest limited resources of containing the situation. Right now North Korea is pretty much China's problem and China after a fashion is dealing w
Re:Insanity... will we really test MAD? (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is that, for the moment, Japan has no nukes, and its military power, by and large, is defensive in nature (due to the confines of the post-war constitution). Japan, and to a lesser extent South Korea, both rely upon the United States to serve as their primary guarantor of security.
Now there's certainly a growing movement in Japan towards amending the constitution, and some view a nuclear-armed Japan as a possibility, and this is why it has long been in the US's interest to act as Japan's primary defense, so as to prevent nuclear proliferation.
If North Korea is allowed to continue its nuclear program, then it makes the possibility of other Asian states, in particular Japan and South Korea, becoming nuclear armed states more likely. Thus Pyongyang's program is likely to lead nuclear proliferation in the Asia-Pacific. This certainly doesn't serve China's interests, and for many in the region, a nuclear-capable Japan is going to raise some rather longstanding concerns over Japanese militarism.
The real problem here isn't whether NK should be allowed to continue working towards functional ICBMs. As the unity of purpose in the Security Council demonstrates, the one thing that everyone can agree on, even if they can't agree on anything else, is that North Korea gaining ICBM delivery of nuclear warheads. The problem is what to do about it. China seems prepared to back up its displeasure with sanctions, but NK is a master of evading sanctions. Further, it is a regime that seems to have no problem allowing large numbers of its citizens to suffer, so in the short, and possibly the medium term, I doubt the sanctions will impact its weapons program at all.
But a military attack against NK is going to have significant ramifications. Even with its conventional weapons, NK has spent six decades arming its border with SK to the teeth. While there is some debate over how much damage it could do to South Korea, there's no doubt that the regime, even as a death spasm, could cause tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of deaths. It could even do damage to Japan as well. Such an event would create heavy casualties, not to mention the significant blow to the global economy; South Korea and Japan are among the most economically important nations in the world.
There simply appears to be no good answer to this problem. An out and out attack could destroy the regime, but the costs would be very high. Allowing NK to pursue its nuclear weapons ambitions, which I view anything but absolute economic isolation enforced by a blockade (which is really a declaration of war anyways), is not going to stop those ambitions. We've been on this course for over a decade. NK has made no secret of its ambitions, and now doesn't even seem to want to use it as a pretext for aid from South Korea and the US, and fear over the consequences of outright military intervention has stayed the US's hand.
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And that's pretty much what the Obama Administration was working towards; Containment.
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If Herr Hitler had had nukes, that may have been the ultimate deal. That is precisely what happened during the Cold War; the West had to accept Soviet control of the Warsaw Pact countries, even when the people of Czechoslovakia rose up to try to toss out the Communists (the Prague Spring).
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There's no good way to "refine" plutonium once you have it. Just because you have large amounts of plutonium doesn't mean that you have the right isotope mix to build a functional nuclear weapon. It's virtually impossible to enrich Plutonium the same way that you can with Uranium. Most of what Japan has will be reactor grade Plutonium, which is far too reactive to use in a warhead; it's simply impossible to assemble the critical mass fast enough to produce anything other than a fizzle.
I wouldn't doubt, thou
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It will be a good test of the Swiss bunker idea.
Lots of 1950's shell fire from hidden bunkers. Ammo arrives, keep firing from the bunker.
No electronic networks to track as the range of fire has been set for decades. Just lots of bunkers for the US to find.
The US will have to roll out a system that keeps SK safe and can go deep into every bunker.
The real win is nice supply and restocking contract for most of Asia. Lots of buying and contractors selling
Re:Not to worry (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it amusing that NK and the US leaders now basically indistinguishable:
Kim: We give you All Out Nuclear War
Trump: You are Looking for Trouble
Kim: The US will End in Catastrophe
Trump: We will be Very Severe
Kim: The Final Doom is Upon You
Trump: We will bring Fire and Fury
Kim: You shall be Made Into To Ashes
(all appear in headlines recently)
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I, for one, have made my time.
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A plaza full of stunted Koreans marching around with 50 year old weapons. Very admirable.
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So what's your solution? How many South Koreans are you prepared to sacrifice?
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You didn't answer the question.
How many South Korean (and maybe even Japanese) lives are you prepared to sacrifice?
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None of this answers the question. How many South Koreans are willing to sacrifice to take on North Korea?