We’re just a blind man and an 11 year-old boy, but Fallon and I have been learning a lot about North Korean ballistic missiles and the news is sobering for a world already in crisis. Not only does North Korea have missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, that has been a well known fact in intelligence circles (not just at our house) since early 2016. The North Koreans probably have a 10-20 kiloton nuclear device of deliverable size and even if they don’t it’s easy to send a dirty bomb instead. Our capability for monitoring such activity from space isn’t as good as we’d like or even as good as we already claim. Oh, and we have a reckless President who likes to make threats and might see war as a useful distraction at this point in his Presidency.
Uh-oh.
Yes, there was an impressive North Korean ICBM test last Friday but the news that has been flying overhead since February 2016 comes in the form of two North Korean satellites, each weighing approximately 100 kg. The rockets that launched those satellites were based on an ICBM. They add a third stage to reach orbit. The weight of that third stage and the 100 kg satellite is likely the same or more than the reputed 500 kg North Korean warhead that would be normally delivered by a two-stage ICBM. So the evidence has been with us for more than a year, which suggests that U.S. estimates that North Korea was a decade away from such capability were most likely diplomatic bluster.
There have been several reports that North Korea has a 500 kg nuclear device that would fit on its ICBM. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t, but the truth is that it probably doesn’t matter under the current circumstances. This Nagasaki-scale device, if it exists, would be capable of taking the heart out of a pretty big city. But North Korea could build, say, a 300 kg dirty bomb — a conventional explosive in a radioactive casing intended to kill people through radiation exposure and fallout. Such a dirty bomb could also take out the heart of a city, doing comparable damage to lives, if not to infrastructure.
North Korea is reputed to have at most 20 nukes, but they could build dirty bombs in far greater numbers. And by making them weigh less (say 300 kg instead of 500 kg) they could hit deeper into the U.S. mainland.
The North Korean ICBMs have mobile launchers (made in China!) so they can be dispersed around the country. Let’s say between real nukes, dirty bombs, and conventional explosive decoys there are eventually 100 ICBMs in more or less continuous motion on North Korean roads. What are the chances that all 100 devices could be neutralized with cruise missiles or some other advanced U.S. weapons? A few would avoid detection or intervention and the anti-missile batteries in South Korea and Japan might miss some or be simply overwhelmed by numbers.
Three weeks ago there was a New York Times story that explained pretty well the difficulties involved in detecting and killing such mobile ICBMs. That wasn’t fake news. But it also wasn’t completely correct. The very hopeful idea that cubesats will shortly be using radar to detect mobile launchers is just plain wrong according to experts I know who tell me that Capella Space is unlikely to launch their first radar cubesat this year (the first launch was originally scheduled for 2016) and has no viable plan for the hourly observations required for the system to be effective.
There will always be readers who prefer shared ignorance to knowledge. They’ll say I’m wrong or that I shouldn’t be sharing these conclusions for reasons of national security. But if a blind man and an 11 year-old boy can figure this out, how many intelligence agencies and nations are still in the dark? None of them. If Fallon and I can Google our way to these conclusions so can anyone else.
The 38 North web site brings us an analysis of last Friday’s launch that says North Korea may know how to launch an ICBM but that doesn’t mean they can hit a target, since Friday’s device seems to have come apart in the air shortly before landing in the sea according to analysis of NHK weather camera footage that happened to catch the last seconds of the flight. This report feels false to Fallon and me. It’s not that the payload didn’t disintegrate (that may well have been the case) but it doesn’t follow from this that North Korea can’t put an intact warhead near the target.
In order to demonstrate its missile capability without hitting Japan or any other country, the parabolic trajectory in Friday’s test was very high, reaching 1741 miles above the Earth. At that point the missile and its presumed dummy warhead headed back to Earth, accelerating with gravity in a vacuum to a speed far greater than they would ever reach on the way to a military target. ICBMs coast most of their way to the target, which means they are decelerating from rocket flameout on a much shallower arc until the final pitch-down acceleration which takes place about 750 miles above the Earth. This apples-and-oranges comparison proves the ICBM had enough performance to reach the U.S. mainland but says nothing at all meaningful about its reentry heat shielding capability.
Which brings us to policy implications and both diplomatic and military options. North Korea has plausible strike capability. No military defense is 100 percent effective. If the situation comes down to a North Korean attack at least one of those ICBMs is likely to sneak through, which is one more than any American President will tolerate. So we have not just a crisis, but a crisis that is almost assured to lead to some kind of military engagement.
President Trump is said to have asked his intelligence briefers during the campaign why America would have nuclear weapon and not use them? I am not making this up. We can hope he is better informed today, but I think we can generally say the President is not above occasional back-sliding and rash behavior.
Maybe he’ll conduct a preemptive strike, sending cruise missiles against likely launcher locations. He won’t get them all and to think that North Korea will be cowed by such a show of force is naive. More likely, once the cruise missiles start hitting their targets, they’ll just launch the remaining ICBMs toward the USA.
There has to be a better solution. What are your ideas?
Bomb the families of the enablers in Pakistan. THEN watch it all unfurl.
Tell China if they invade and overthrow Kim, they can annex the country as their own. If they won’t:
recognize Taiwan as an independent nation
high import tariffs (should do this anyway to bring back jobs)
siege on fake islands — nothing in or out
good thoughts but you don’t discuss the deterrant value of a retaliatory strike – it wouldn’t be pretty, I assume, given our capabilities. Not a wished for scenario, but it has to have some weight in the equation….
Yes. In matters of technology Bob often refers to Moore’s law. Yet there’s another principle that dates back to the 50s, called M.A.D.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction . That principle assumes a “fair fight”, that both sides can destroy each other. But in the case of North Korea, the balance of power strongly favors the US, based on things like geographical area and defense capabilities, so North Korea’s motivation to avoid war should be much stronger than ours.
MAD assumes that the combatants value their nations equally highly. the way little Kim of Nut Korea slaughters his own relatives and starves his people while he drinks Napoleon brandy, this is not necessarily the case. similar to the cult of “me-me-me” underway in our own executive branch, I’m not sure the balance is there on either side to weigh our damage /vs/ their damage. in other words, it’s a pyssing match between mercuric leaderships. by curious coincidence, a child care improvement operation took some money usually used for grants in our state, and used it to buy short-term survival packages for the providers that suspiciously looks like a home-bound civil defense kit from the 60s. well, we got ours…..
I agree. I feel that little Kim doesn’t care what happens if he can’t “win”.
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Welcome back Bob – good luck!!
For that matter, neither does Trump. He’s already demonstrated that he’ll escalate after any taunt.
What did these home bound civil defense survival kits include? What state was this?
Yes I think MAD will work with North Korea, although I do see North Korea continuing its belligerence — meaning it might abduct a person here or there, seize a ship, etc. That reckless strategy is a microscopic mirror of U.S. overseas interference.
“That reckless strategy is a microscopic mirror of U.S. overseas interference.”
Yes, I am also tired of seeing hundreds of stories about US military and police abducting foreign people and throwing them into death camps for stealing government sanctioned posters from walls praising the wisdom of our recent leaders, Obama and Trump. Not to mention all the stealing of other counties warships here and there. NK may do these things microscopically less, but that is because they just do not have the reach and capital to do it large.
Not to mention North Korea could always sell a bomb to Iran. If Iran were to bomb Israel, Netanyahu would undoubtedly retaliate and it would be all over.
the Paks already made that deal with Nut Korea and have a few bombs. the delivery method appears to be either camels or compact Toyota pickups. Iran has been close to Russia for their nuclear program. but frankly, a little lend-lease among Islamic allies is not to be ruled out, and Iran could trade for a little more U-235, treaty or not.
Well fudge, way to take the wind out of my sails… Just as humanity gets closer to some of the biggest breakthroughs imaginable, the spoiled brats with the big toys are going to ruin it for the rest of us.
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I’d say “Why don’t we get a say in the matter?” but apparently we had a say back in November…and we failed! Nice knowing you all.
We had our say far earlier, when Hillary was not yet the de facto choice. Against Trump, with a pool of maybe 100 million left-leaning A,ericans, she was really the best the USA had to offer? Hell no.
Read this: https://chimericana.blogspot.ca/2017/08/how-to-deal-with-north-korea.html
How about swapping Taiwan for North Korea?
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If we (the US) told the Chinese we’d let them invade Taiwan and we’d whistle into the wind while they did it, then maybe they could really help us on North Korea — with maybe even a joint Sino-US invasion.
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I think the Chinese really want to reunify their country and would be if not content, at least diffident about a unified Korea without a US troop presence. Of course this would require a really big deal. Is our deal-maker President up for it?
wipe our tails with treaties? that’s going to go down real well with our other allies.
We’re the big bad U.S. We do what WE want. Who cares about treaties? We launch wars against Middle Eastern countries whenever we feel like it, we have no restraint.
Swap Taiwan for North Korea? Dumb – that’s like “solving” our immigration issues by returning Texas to Mexico.
Well, heck. I guess, in the grand scheme of things, whether or not the Mineservers ever see the light of day doesn’t really matter if we’re all going to be blown to smithereens.
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Actually, I’m beginning to wonder if this whole article might not be a clever ploy by Crookely to get North Korea to launch a missile at Northern California, thus eliminating any rational expectation that the Mineservers ever actually be produced!
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Well played, Bob, well played.
Hey Everyone, over here, it’s Roger.
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You mention that the mobile launcher is from China. I believe most of the tech is from China. In fact, China is using N Korea as a cover for their military testing. This is really all about China.
Close, but I think China sees North Korea as a buffer between themselves and the United States, in a way like the United States used to think a war between it and Russia could be confined to Europe. Hey, let’s hope that coming war with Russia can stay on the European battlefield!
The launch stand looks a lot like the launch stand used by Germany to launch V2s from the Low Countries in 1944.
A. Trump secretly rescinds the executive order barring assassination or removal of foreign leaders.
B. Sympathetic North Korean military leaders are recruited to issue stand down orders in the event of an order to launch an attack against the U.S., South Korea or other U.S.allies.
C. Special forces infiltrate to create choke points around the North Korean capital to prevent reinforcements from coming to the rescue.
D. Employing cyber warfare techniques and airborne electronic jamming measures, the North Korean capitol complex is cut off from all communications with the outside world.
E. Special forces units are airlifted to the capitol complex to seize or kill Kim Jong-un and his cronies.
F. A sympathetic military commander is installed as the new leader as part of a “coup by the North Korean army” and takes to the airwaves to deliver the news.
Hey, if James Franco and Seth Rogen can infiltrate to interview the guy in the movie, why can’t our Navy Seals?
B and E are more Tom Clancy than War College. Nut Korea is a very closed society. easier to infiltrate ISIS than the Norks military, and white Christian southern officers don’t cut it in either case.
I’m with @swschrad on this one. I don’t see the military “going Hollywood” in fact they strive to avoid just that.
Welcome to the world the military lives in. While sentiments like ‘There has to be a better solution’ usually make for happy endings in the movies, that’s not how realpolitik works. Sometimes all you can do it pick from a set of unpleasant options, and try to make it the least bad one.
We aren’t going to use Special Forces in this scenario, unless we’re willing to write off entire teams – and it would be pointless, as they can’t hit targets we don’t know about. Mobile ICBM launchers are protected via security by obscurity, and we simply don’t know enough about North Korea for surveillance to be effective.
In this case, unless we can get China to take responsibility for the technology they’ve sold, a preemptive strike may be the best option we have, simply to demonstrate that we have the will to do so. Taking the top off NK’s tallest mountain would make for nice video. If that fails to have a substantive effect, gutting all of their port cities would make an effective follow up. The only acceptable outcome here is the agreement of North Korea to allow US – NOT UN – inspectors into the country, anywhere they choose to go. If that requires the decimation of half the population of the country – possibly that will constitute reason for ‘regime change’ by their population.
And we have to act now. It’s clear that their leader is delusional enough to think that he can threaten superpowers and get away with it. What if the actual payload is biological, rather than nuclear? That’s a scenario to worry about. The president has a duty to act here, and based on 50+ years of experience, the only solution that North Korea will actually pay attention to is force.
Please don’t bleat at me about casualties, or the Nork’s rights. We have a rogue state which has demonstrated for decades a lack of interest in the welfare of anyone parading the capability to deliver a nuclear weapon to our doorstep.Anything that we do at this point is self defense on a national level.
Having studied what WMDs actually do, I suspect I dislike this option far more than anyone reading this does. The suffering will be horrifyingly catastrophic. But this is literally their own doing. I cannot muster sympathy for a state that has been performing nuclear blackmail on the free world for three decades.
How can you talk so casually about killing 20 million people? I’m feeling the pre-Iraq war collective insanity in these comments.
The best thing at this point with North Korea is to do nothing more than sanctions. If Kim Jong-Stupid did launch any of his missiles at the US, China will have to abandon their support (it would help things if they did so now). If there is not support from China and the US is mad as a hornet, NK goes bye bye.
Giving China the country of Taiwan is not something the US can or should do. It isn’t our sovereign land to do that with. Yeah yeah, politics aside, the world would see us as the big bad trading poor innocents for our security. What wussie-pants tactics are those?
Give the leadership of NK enough rope and they will hang themselves. Have you seen any night time images of their country from space? It is almost unbelievable. Strangle their support, increase sanctions, and drop all humanitarian aid to the country. It will fall.
I would also like to add that rocket engineering is really hard. Getting a rocket to go up is one thing. Getting it to come back down (in a manor that you want) is even harder. Putting that rocket down in a very specific place is tougher still. If they have 100 missiles, 30 of them will disintegrate on the way up. 35 more will easily be shot down from South Korea and Japan. At least 25 more will hit the water, coming up short. That leaves 10 for US land based systems to take out. If only 5 make landfall, at least three will not detonate in any meaningful way (just crash). Maybe, maybe one hits the target and does the intended damage. Chances are 1 in three that it contains a nuke.
Would anyone sane (well there’s your problem) risk the annihilation of their country for one chance to hit the US? This will not end well for NK, no matter how you count it.
how, then, did we and Russia and India and Iran and lots of other nations manage to get reliable repeatable launches time after time? spectacular failures, assuming you have engineers and not crackheads in the program, will stop. and meticulous controls and repeatable production will make them all fly, and almost all target. the death toll for astro/cosmo/nauts remains 14 for 67 years of space flight. most of them ours, and those from three incidents in a hundred-odd launches.
North Korea will be around for a very long time because China will keep propping them up, knowing that North Korea annoys the U.S.
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As for Taiwan why should we defend it? It’s not giving it away to say no U.S. soldier should fight to defend it. China will still have to pay the price to take it and I believe they would readily do just that except for the U.S. soldier lives you seem willing to put in their way.
This is obviously a complex situation involving many nations including not only North Korea and the USA, but South Korea, Japan, China, Russia, etc. NK’s bellicose rhetoric is usually a bluff to gain attention, but not always, and these latest threats of nuclear missile attacks cannot be ignored. Isn’t any missile exiting NK air space whether on launch or re-entry a potential existential threat? Wouldn’t it be an excellent opportunity to exercise the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System? Repeated practice is good – it leads to perfection, and that’s what might be needed in the future. Defense is the high road, but with a message to Kim Jong-un: Do the wrong thing and you personally will be vaporized.
NK is not a country which can be negotiated with. So “normal” diplomatic processes don’t apply.
Why aren’t the Chinese worried about nukes on their doorstep? Or Russia? If the NK ICBMS can reach the US can’t they also reach Russia?
Yes very true, but it also shows how our (U.S.) reckless foreign policy has made the world so afraid of us, they’ll put up with a neighbor with nukes.
An important point seems to have been missed by Bob (and Fallon) and by all the posters so far.
North Korea is acting out of fear and weakness, not strength.
Kim is trying to to ensure his own security by deterring any attempts by the US or any other country to overthrow or undermine him. His threat is, ‘You try to take me down and I can do some damage before you destroy me’.
The US narrative that he is some kind of madman, some kind of unpredictable comic-book villain, is patently false, but many seem to have bought into this idea unquestioningly.
By becoming a nuclear power and developing ICBMs, North Korea has ensured its own security. They can now feel reasonably safe from suffering the fate of Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam. They can feel safe from aggression by the large US forces stationed on their doorstep in South Korea.
Nothing is going to happen. The same as nothing has happened for all the decades that Russia and China have had nuclear ICBMs pointed at the US. Kim has developed nuclear weapons as security, and won’t use them first without very serious provocation. He is not insane, and neither are his henchmen. And they are into self-preservation above all. Kim has acted intelligently and rationally by developing ICBMs.
Trump, on the other hand, is an idiot and a sociopath, and he may well want to start a war as a distraction. However, the US military will not passively go along with that, even if Trump is technically C-in-C. The military will insist on Congressional approval before starting a war, and they have every constitutional justification for doing so. And Congress isn’t capable of agreeing on anything. They couldn’t agree about what pizza to order, never mind attacking North Korea.
Engaging with North Korea and trying to integrate them more into the world economy would be far more effective than posturing and threats by the United States. The North Korean regime will collapse of it’s own accord sooner rather than later. But excessive pressure, and stoking up fear in North Korea, will only extend the life of the regime.
I mostly agree, but am not very sanguine about integrating North Korea into the world economy would cause their regime to collapse. I suspect the added wealth would actually prop it up more, so far that has been the case for China which also has an authoritarian regime.
The silver lining here is that the amount of money being spent to support N. Korea’s nuclear program presents a long-term threat to the very existence of its regime; there’s a minimum expenditure for preventing N. Korea’s citizenry from revolting and when its funds are diverted to the nuclear program it’s game over.
One strategy for accelerating that process would be for the U.S. to regularly demonstrate ICBM counter-measures because it would force the N. Korean regime to spend even more money devising ways to defeat them.
Hmm. Congress has no power here as the Congress of 1951 ??? already declared war on North Korea. The war is currently ceased through an agreement. That war can be restarted at any moment by any current President.
BTW, South Korea has been foolish to allow the buildup of the city of Seoul so close to the DMZ. They built their capital less than 20 miles away from an active military zone ? If I was the SKs, I would start the evacuation of Seoul.
Nope. Congress did not declare war on North Korea. Congress has not declared war since WWII.
“Oh, and we have a reckless President who likes to make threats and might see war as a useful distraction at this point in his Presidency.”
Bob, is your obtuseness intentional or simply naive?
This is not about Trump, who is hardly being reckless. China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea are all highly agitated by North Korea’s actions and unclear intent about its nuclear ambitions.
“Why aren’t the Chinese worried about nukes on their doorstep? Or Russia?” Harold West, why yes, they are worried. China is now dealing with the prospect of a client state chafing at its client status. Perhaps you in the US (am I correct?) are not aware of their concerns.
I hope you’re right and certainly Xi Jinping must have plenty of disgust for Kim Jong-un, but North Korea serves China’s interest as a distracter of the U.S. and a kind of buffer country. I don’t see China pushing over this apple cart and they are even giving the missile launchers to the North.
NK has capabilities, but I do not think they will be provoked not even by the Lucky Stumblefuck in the White House. The real conflict that is getting ready to unroll (probably this month and into September) will be in Europe (one more time), this time with Putin taking on Ukraine, Poland, The Baltics and NATO, and he’s counting on his boy in Washington to sit idly by and do little or nothing. If Lucky Stumblefuck is section 4’d via 25th Amendment or overruled by his JCS, I’m sure Vlad The Bad will explode one 50MT – 100MT device high enough in atmosphere over Lebanon KS , EMPing our electrical grid and communication (not too mention transportation in air and on ground) reducing Southern Canada, Continental US and Northern Mexico to conditions around 1836 A.D. (Thank heaven for bicycles and any remaining horses) to ensure keeping us from frustrating his game plan.
I’d rather be wrong, and I’d rather not have downtown Dallas exploding and dissolving away during morning rush hour because of a stray NK nuke initially aimed at Lawrence KS going way off course because somebody back in CENTRAL COMMAND didn’t use a minus sign in their co-ordinates, i’d rather sane, rational, strong people took command and sorted everybody out before millions of people get needlessly killed and /or injured.
That’s an entertaining fantasy, I’m sure.
Again, it boils down to not imagining how the situation looks from the other side.
Russia didn’t act in the Ukraine from a policy of aggression. Rather Russia felt greatly threatened by events in the Ukraine.
A government hostile to Russia took over in the Ukraine – with strong and overt US support – and Russia saw its fundamental security as being at stake. They saw the possibility of Ukraine joining NATO, and NATO troops, missiles and anti-missile systems installed right on the Ukraine-Russian border.
The Russians have had a naval base in the Crimea for more than 200 years, which is strategically vital to them. They saw that this base would suddenly be lost, even though the population of Crimea is mainly Russian and supports Russia.
Crimea was a part of Russia up to to 1954, when it was made part of Ukraine for administrative convenience only. It has always been seen as part of Russia, so from a Russian point of view it wasn’t ‘annexing’ part a foreign country, but preventing Russian territory from being lost to a hostile power.
They weren’t going to sit back quietly and let that happen, so they took rational and proportional measures to stop it. They have fully succeeded.
Ukraine will not be joining NATO any time soon, due to the ongoing low-intensity conflict with Russia in the Donbas. That conflict means that NATO would face an Article 5 contingency against Russia on day one of Ukraine’s NATO membership – which NATO is not even willing to contemplate. And Crimea is now fully Russian again.
This is a satisfactory situation for Russia. They have no motive for any aggression against NATO, no need for it, and no prospect of gaining anything from it.
I agree with your analysis. Nicely put.
Kevin, the Russians aren’t stupid, the North Koreans? we don’t know so much.
The Russians would never bomb the US with a Nuke unless it was end-of-the-world time…
The Koreans, that’s yet to be seen…
Bob – first off, how’s the cataracts? Your first sentence of ‘a blind man and an 11 year old boy’ leads me to believe you’re still waiting on surgery. Hope that gets taken care of soon. We (I) miss your more frequent writings, and I’m looking forward to your next book. :^)
As to NK, USA, and the rest… I think I read a post that North Korea is in a no-win situation if they decide to launch an attack – against anyone. The rain of retaliatory missiles would end the nation to the point that South Korea wouldn’t want reunification. I agree with that position.
My opinion is to wait them out. I also agree with another previous comment that NK’s leadership will fail, at some point, all by themselves. So far it’s been all words and a few test firings to “thump their chest”. No real foul and no real harm. Now if they (NK) get stupid then yes, counter with an attack of our own. But in a measured, tactical way that ends the problem and allows the world to move on.
China is the bigger concern in all of this. Just as Russia is using eastern Europe as a pawn against the U.S., so is China allowing NK to be played as their pawn. Pawns can be dangerous if you let them advance too far, but that hasn’t happened yet so let’s not lose focus of who the real opponent is.
My ideal solution would be to find a way to play China against Russia. We sit back and whistle Dixie while the Asian continent destroys itself. Then we can move in and play ‘the good neighbor on the planet’, helping with medical and infrastructure rebuilding. Selfish, I know. But it keeps my family out of harm’s way. I don’t want my kids (or eventual grand kids) dying on foreign soil in a war that does nothing but line the pockets of the war machine moguls.
Well said!
I lived in South Korea more than 6 years, roughly speaking. Younger Koreans really don’t have much in the way of aspirations for reunification, especially if it might jeopardize their fragile prosperity and peaceful society, even though reunification is still an official goal of the South Korean government. The countries have been separated a long time now. As time drags on their ties wither, and North Korea becomes to them as sentimental as Canada is to Americans: yes the speak the same language (for the most part), yes they are the same basic ethnic make up, but they don’t need to be one country.
Such sympathy for the innocents of Asia. My God.
I am on board with the posts of GreenWyvern. They are the most insightful regarding North Korea’s regime. The regime is interested in maintaining its rule and the viability of its country. It has determined that developing a credible retaliatory force that will really put a pause to any US or South Korean attacks is critical, to the extent that all else for the time being, including population well-being, must be sacrificed.
The regime knows that any first use will invite overwhelming retaliatory force and the end of their regime. Why would they do that? I don’t buy the “crazy man” theory as being real.
We have to recognize that there is really nothing we can do to stop North Korean nuclear development that wouldn’t cost tens of thousands of lives and $trillions in damage. The Chinese are going to be limited in their help because they don’t want a unified Korea friendly to the west and with perhaps US troops on their doorstep. Nor do they want a North Korea in chaos on their doorstep.
The best strategy seems to be that since there’s nothing we can really do (more sanctions will be useless and any “limited” military action will quickly go unlimited), we should just back off and stop placing unenforceable, and unreasonable to them, demands on them.
The nuclear genie is long out of the bottle. Many countries will have them and we can’t force any of them to abstain. The only way to prevent use is to make sure they have more of a reason to keep them in their boxes than to launch them on missiles. This may involve retaliatory threat (so far successful with Russia and China) but mostly economic engagement and benefit.
This is simply NOT a crisis. The likelihood of even an irrational state initiating total self-destruction, via retaliation, is zero to nil. Don’t forget that North Korea is the client state of it’s neighbor, China. China allows North Korea to exist, as a buffer against Japan. No state, least of all China, want a global escalation of hostilities. This crisis dialog only serves to justify the unnecessary expense of trillions on defense.
Well said. North Korea has had the ability to hit Seoul or Tokyo for decades, yet they’re still standing. We need to stop wetting our pants and work with the international community to get NK to put reasonable restrictions on their nuclear and missile programs. Won’t be easy, but I don’t see a viable alternative.
I will preface this by saying IF this is war, then all options are on the table.
Since NK is an isolated country a biological agent would be the most effective weapon and it could be delivered covertly. Casualties would be mostly confined to NK with some leakage to China which would most likely immediately and FINALLY secure the border.
It’s cruel but so is nuclear war.
“Maybe he’ll conduct a preemptive strike, sending cruise missiles against likely launcher locations.”
He definitely wouldn’t do that. If anything he would send in some smart bombs or tomahawks targeted at the sites were they are building/storing the missiles. This would only be done when intelligence pinpoints their locations. The Korea issue has been sidelined by multiple administrations and this is what Trump has to deal with. I don’t think the Korean dictator cares at all about the U.S., but he needs a strong adversary such as the U.S. so he can flex his power to intimidate the Korean citizens. The idea is that if he shows he can take on the most powerful country in the world, his citizens have not a prayer of challenging him and his regime.
Thanks for that reasoned return to common sense. I find it interesting that many of us, with our limited levels of personal success, have no problem calling leaders like Trump and Kim crazy, often justified with psychobabble, so it’s nice to see you refrained from doing that.
There would be no North Korea without China. Asking China to intervene is like asking the U.S. to reign in Israel from its provocative involvement with its Arab neighbors – it’s not going to happen because it doesn’t serve the Chinese and U.S. interests.
And as China is being surrounded by the U.S. and its allies, North Korea as a buffer and Mad Dog becomes more precious and necessary to China’s defense. Imaging how secure China feels with a possible nuclear Taiwan, Japan and South Korea and with U.S. bases in those countries plus troops and bases in Afghanistan near its southern border.
North Korea serves China and a nuclear exchange would bring China and the U.S. into nuclear war with Russia looking to be the winner and the new world super power. However radiated that world might be.
I think the North Koreans are demonstrating rationality. They want independence, they don’t want to be conquered, they don’t want to be pushed around by America and its allies: the only solution is a nuclear deterrent.
This all began with Bush. Clinton had an agreement brokered by Carter that got North Korea to credibly freeze their nuclear program. Bush ended that. Then he made a list of potential enemies, called the axis of evil. Then he proceeded to invade one of those countries, despite all rationality not to. That meant, if you were one of the other countries on that list, you might be invaded too. What to do? Get nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons, so far, with the possible exception of Pakistan, is an offensive defensive weapon. If you have it, people will not destroy you because you can destroy them. Israel (having them) and Saudi Arabia are getting along pretty good these days.
The one thing we should be happy about is, with the exception of Pakistan, none of the nuclear nations have an ideology that promises paradise in exchange for fighting and dying for the ideology. Nuclear weapons in the hands of a plethora of muslim nations is a problem because it increases the likelihood that a regime not afraid of dying gets it hands on the weapons.
That then leaves us, with Trump, one of the most inherently unstable nuclear power. The guy is a malignant narcissist with a public persona of a sociopath and is literally capable of anything if you so much as call him fat, stupid or ugly. The longer Trump is in office the more likely his tenure will not end well. As it is, he’s turned the White House into a branch office of the Russian Mafia. I keep expecting people in high office will some how take the keys away from him. We went from no drama Obama to constant drama Trump. American politics has developed a manic characteristic to it. And one of the major parties is incapable of governing (getting anything constructive for the whole of the country done), unless it involves tax cuts for the rich which according to the theory of the doom continuum, makes society even less stable.
I hope you really suffer before niggers kill you, leftoid scum.
I used to come to this blog to read about technology and related issues. There is an obsession in this country with Trump news, every TV station is Trump news all the time now, even my stupid local news is half about Trump. Will you people get on with your lives and talk about something else already? !
I would love to talk about President Franken, but it’s not time yet.
I agree
If h1b were mentioned and how this affects tech workers, at least it would be tech
Even trump avoids h1b
https://www.rense.com/general75/skilled.htm
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/07/zuckerberg-and-musk-are-both-wrong-about-ai/
Instead of critical thinking like the ars article cringeley just follows the msm h1b AI tow line, instead of pointing out H1b is being passed as AI just claims AI is taking jobs instead of h1b like the rest of the press
Last MindServer updated: Update #25
Nov 10, 2016
AMP is finally ready!!!!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/583591444/mineservertm-a-99-home-minecraft-server/posts/1734026
The real threat of a nuclear attack from North Korea is the explosion of a nuclear weapon at an altitude of between 100 and 320 miles. The NK satellite launched February 2016 flies over mainland US at 280-305 miles with a footprint that completely covers the lower 48, southern Canada, & northern Mexico. An EMP (electromagnetic pulse) generated by such explosion could range that far. Coincidentally, US-South Korea war games start August 21, same day as the Great 2017 Eclipse that will cover from Oregon to the Carolina coast. Consider also that NK has a submarine fleet capable of missile launches. A high altitude nuke does not have to be big to generate a grid-crippling event that could send this nation into a devastating collapse of all major systems, as depicted by William Forstchen in One Second After. Pray for peace; prepare for war.
JC, you have hit the proverbial nail on the head. North Korea does not need a warhead entry system to plunge the United States into chaos. EMP will do the trick. This is why we will not let them get off a shot at us. This is a very dangerous crisis.
Hi Bob, I understand that Fallon is you version of Siri, because of your operation, but honestly… having your 11 year old son even think about these issues is BAD! This subject is not what an 11 year old should have on his mind. That’s my opinion which is outside of my usual type of response to the subject matter, but I’ve been through this stuff with my boys 17 and 20 and it’s not developmentally a good move. Other than that, I hope your recovery is going well. We all look forward to your successful recovery.
I was 11 in the mid fifties, the height of the cold war. We were all aware of WWII and how it ended. There was, and is, no escape from reality at that age.
H1b outsouc9ng has a bigger affect on his kid and people in tech than missiles or terrorisum
Syrian refugee h1b imported apartheid guest workers and outsourced jobs to India have a bigger impact
Nobody cares about a blog-commenters political ideas. No one. But if you are brief, if you’re concise or, miraculously, witty, you might at least get heard.
If your comment is longer than a paragraph, or than a paragraph ought to be, nobody’s reading you.
PSA — you may re-post this on every Comment Section everywhere.
PSA — you may want to avoid blog-commenters named Ed.
Bob, I hope you are doing great! I just read Michael Lewis’s article in Vanity Fair. Terrifying!
Best Wishes.
North Korea- pretend to act crazy, and the world will give you whatever you demand.
Trump is trying to beat that by acting crazier. He wrote that the person with the most leverage is the one who is willing to walk away.
Meanwhile, the goals for the two sides are different- US wants no nukes in North Korea, North Korea wants to keep its regime in place of ruling over tens of millions with total cruelty.
There isn’t a better option, so there’s no option. North Korea has nuclear weapons and a credible delivery vehicle. They also have thousands of artillery pieces in hardened sites (resistant to bombing) within range of the capital of South Korea. Their conventional missiles can reach every point in South Korea and most points in Japan. In normal circumstances the US would be considering the impact to South Korea and Japan in any military response. Does anyone think Trump’s America First puts a lot of consideration on South Korea and Japan? Then you have China which has two considerations. China does not want a collapse of the North Korean regime because that will result in a refugee wave they can’t handle crossing into Manchuria, plus they don’t want the US to control North Korea and have land based troops on their border.
How did we get here? The US invaded Iraq and overthrew Saddam Hussein claiming they had weapons of mass destruction even though UN inspectors said that Iraq had no WMD. What was the lesson learned in North Korea? The US will invade you if you don’t have nuclear weapons. So once you start on that path you better finish it because the only way to keep the US out is to have nuclear weapons. Let us remember the evidence is that the US has never attacked or invaded a nation that actually has nuclear weapons. And Trump’s attitude about treaties means that no guarantee the US provides is worth its weight in paper.
Re: “UN inspectors said that Iraq had no WMD”. Not true. They were not allowed to inspect.
“Up until they were withdrawn from Iraq on 18 March –- the day before armed action began — United Nations inspectors had found no evidence of the continuation or resumption of programmes of weapons of mass destruction, Hans Blix told the Security Council this morning, as he briefed them for a final time before stepping down at the end of June as head of the inspection team.
Introducing the thirteenth quarterly report of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), Mr. Blix, the Commission’s Executive Chairman, said significant quantities of proscribed items had also not been found, apart from the Al Samoud 2 missiles, 50 of which had been destroyed under the Commission’s supervision. That did not necessarily mean that such items could not exist. But long lists of items remained unaccounted for and “it is not justified to jump to the conclusion that something exists just because it is unaccounted for”.”
Taken from Security Council Press Release SC/7777 dated June 5, 2003.
The inspectors could not satisfy themselves that WMDs were not present because they were not allowed to inspect freely. Of course that does not mean they exist, but the war could have been avoided by allowing unlimited inspections, instead of designating palaces as off limits for religious reasons.
Negotiate an end to the Korean War ?
It will fall on Russia and China to save the world this time. With two nut cases in a standoff the result of their recklessness would destroy the world’s economy for a couple decades. Russia and China will not want to see their 25 years of economic progress undone. A healthy world economy is more important to them than North Korea or Washington DC.
Here is an idea. How about putting a 30% tariff on all imported Chinese goods until the Chinese stop supplying North Korea with arms, technology, and convince their allies in NK to give up their nukes. Sure it would badly damage the world economy, but not nearly as much as WW III would.
The sad truth is, the ‘solution’ might just be acceptance. Any other option leads to huge collateral damage.
Thought we came here for tech news
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I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops… uhhh, depending on the breaks…
There is but one truth and it is this: Trumpski has a personality disorder that controls his every thought, word and action. He is incapable of learning or of appreciating advice from “experts” if there is no perceived benefit to the one thing that matters to him — protection of Trumpski and his all-important image. If there is a mistake, someone else made it; if there is trouble; someone else caused it; if there is a demonstrable falsehood that has come to light, the subject of said falsehood is then of no importance. Good luck, world; you’ll need it.
All will be well. Kim Jong-un will be taken-out by his own close military. It will happen swiftly and the new North Korea will join the world stage. Maybe someone will rub a lotion on Kim’s face as he did to his brother-in-law, or maybe a massage oil rubbed on his fat ass will contain a slow death sentence.
On the flip side war is big business. Dropping 20+ Mother of all bombs (no nukes) will take the wind out of their sail. I don’t see this happening because China doesn’t wasn’t a flood of people moving like we see in Europe.
Whatever occurs the US will make it look like Kim Jong-un started the war. The US will take Kim out and North Koreas will hand it over to China as a gift.
Lots of blah blah. Shorter reason NK wants nukes and a delivery system is the fact that murika does not do “Regime Change” in countries with nukes. End of rant.
Murika also does not do regime changes in peaceful, non-threatening, countries without nukes.
I mostly hear talk about the United States and Guam, what about South Korea less than 50 miles from the DMZ? An artillery barrage would cause extensive damage to Seoul and its surroundings and any invasion by lets say conservatively 200,000 troops from North Korea would further the damage if not overrun the country and American forces.
In North Korea you have a dictator running a country as a criminal enterprise (drugs, counterfeiting, slave labor exports for hire) which is why any enterprise connected to the regime has to be banned by the international banking system (money has to move). You can’t tell me between the various intelligence agencies around the globe we can’t identify every single operator and shell company and shut them out of the system.
And finally at some point we’ll have to use THAAD and shoot down every missile launched, experimental or not, armed or not until the regime gets the idea. Plus its good to find out if the billions we’ve spent on these systems actually works. If the missiles don’t I’m sure our President will get us a hefty refund or negotiate a deep discount on future systems.
Re: “If the missiles don’t I’m sure our President will get us a hefty refund or negotiate a deep discount on future systems.” Two thoughts: 1) the government doesn’t pay for anything, we do, so the government will spend every penny we give them and more, since they can always print more. 2) I find it hard to imagine a situation where a deep discount resulted in a better custom-made product.
North Korea is like Zimbabwe, Iraq, China and any dictatorship. But its different it makes perfect products for profit in the west. What does Afghanistan export? What does Columbia export? What did Taiwan export? They all exported illegal products. Drugs for the first two and Apple ][ clones or illegally copied books in the 1950’s and 1960’s. WHY? USA and the west had no need for their cheap legal products. But they wanted legitimacy in world trade. Taiwan became legit with tools and then more technological products, it then exported the factories to China. And Made China a powerhouse in world trade.
Guess what? That is what North Korea wants to do but it can’t beg and plead for factories.
South Korea in the 1950’s -60’s was a failed state run by strong dictators and USA Dollars. The Japan discovered technologies and sent their heavy shipbuilding to South Korea. Later Samsung Shipbuilding discovered Computer memory. USA RAM memory cost Thousands Japan RAM memory cost hundreds and Korean memory cost tens of dollars. WHY? Its economics and commoditzation.
Back to North Korea – it produces on cleaned $1 USA notes the BEST $100 forgeries to make $99 profit. But still its not enough because the best profit is in Apple iPhones or Google or Facebook ads. How do you pass $20 billion in $100 notes around the world?
What North Korea wants is for Apple to export their factories to their land as it did with Apple ][‘s to Taiwan to over come the clones.
It needs a Steve Jobs or Henry Ford or Mr Sony or Chairman Deng to open factories and let the Koreans feel the weight of USA dollars in their pockets.
But that is where the problem lies Kim Jong-un can’t open up the state because like printing in the Renascence it opens free thinking which is dangerous to leaders.
I believe in the JFK quote “ They have children too” and we will see if Kim Jong-un is a Kennedy or a Jones of Jonestown! Whether he loves his country or is a nihilist.
Live with it + Work for the future + Plan for the worst
Live with it – Other nations have nuclear weapons without being an existential threat; in reality although now they seem normal players of the international they weren’t in the past, just think of Stalin’s USRR or Mao’s China.
Work for the future – How long can the North Korea dictatorship last?! what can be done to strengthen internal opposition?
Plan for the worst – Speaks for itself – have a battle plan
How about just taking out all mobile and static launch sites with our own missile, then keep 1000 drones and 120-140 Blackhawks hover to shoot at anything we miss, then another 15-20 F-15’s which keep everything remaining below 50,000 feet?
And then some F-16’s or missile defense near major cities to take out any incoming.
And then when they are neutralized, we invite S. Korea ground troops to go “finish the job”.
Is something still going to get through? And so what if it does? I doubt that they actually have 20 nukes built, more like 2-5.
Or we could hack into their control system, install a boomerang app, so anything launched will immediately return to it’s launch point.
Live with it. Open normal trade relations, get them hooked on our economy and toys like everyone else, and in a decade or two North Korea will be forgotten.
NOW YORK CITY
NOW or NEW? Either way, I don’t understand what you mean.