North Korea missile showdown!

[Lancer]

That's correct, and not just for the home audience. If the potential enemies knew that our missile defense system worked 99.73 % of the time they might devise counter measures. Since any potential launch will likely only occur once, it's better if they don't know.

[axi]

Such states as the NK and Iran seek to develop WMDs and long range missiles simply because they're really afraid that the USA will invade them someday. Even if they wanted to, they know that they couldn't defeat the USA with a couple of nukes. They have no vested interest in attacking the USA, they really just want to be left alone. On the other hand, the USA has always played aggressively and has threatened with the use of nuclear weapons many times.

Even states like China and the USSR have just built their nuclear arsenals with the sole purpose of deterring the USA. Using conventional armies, both these states are (the USSR was) invincible in their own turf. The USSR even had the upper hand in a potential conventional war over western Europe. The only way for the USA to contain the USSR was to threaten the use of nuclear weapons. What stopped them short of ever contemplating initiating such an attack themselves was MAD.

[Lancer]

You forget to mention that such states harbor terrorists.

What happens to states harboring terrorists when those terrorists attack China?

[Alexander's Horse]

Re: North Korea missile showdown!

Originally posted by The diplomat
I hope we shoot the missile right out of the sky if NK does launch! We need to show the NK that their missiles can't hurt us.

You really need to change your username

[Kuciwalker]

axi: exactly, we'd rather NKor not have effective immunity from military pressure.

[Kidlicious]

Re: Re: North Korea missile showdown!

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse


You really need to change your username

[Alexander's Horse]

you can see the missile on Google earth

[Ecthy]

I'd think google Earth images are not that up-to-date.

[GePap]

Its nice to see some old fashioned sabre ratling.

[Seeker]

Lol the local english newspaper here ran photos of the launch site "from a public internet site"..it's a little scary that the internet can survey missile alunch sites.


By the way a big nutsy issue here is not so much the NKs trying to milk the US, but the risk of Japan/NK war.

In the past, NK has had somewhat of 'pass' in asia for anti-Jap stuff because everyone here hates japs. A LOT. So they can get away with stuff. But now Japan is laying it on the line...if a missile lands in their territory it's war....and the NK missile is probably of questionable quality. So this is a crazy situation which could easily get out of control because of other asian countries going easy on NK.

Why this isn't so much about US right now: THis is the Taepodong-2 missile, which is really more of an IRBM than an ICBM in Cold War terms. It can barely maybe sort of hit the edge of california and alaska.

When the US starts getting their knickers in a knot is the next development phase, the three stage Taepodong-3 which will be able to hit most of the US.

The other issue now is that the military NKs are really ****ing their people (err morseso, continuing, whatever) with this since the renewed boobery has nixed:
a) the new totally free lightwater reactor
b) the trans-asia London to Seoul railway link, which is off for now, thereby screwing a tremendous opportunity for the chance to piss off the japanese and mildly annoy some Americans.
c) creating difficulties for the first private investment fund which is now trying to operate in NK.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by axi
Such states as the NK and Iran seek to develop WMDs and long range missiles simply because they're really afraid that the USA will invade them someday. Even if they wanted to, they know that they couldn't defeat the USA with a couple of nukes. They have no vested interest in attacking the USA, they really just want to be left alone. On the other hand, the USA has always played aggressively and has threatened with the use of nuclear weapons many times.

This is not true. NK wants major weapons to bully other regional states, primarily SK and Japan. Even if they had the missiles to reliably hit the US, which they don't, it would be an utterly toothless threat for them to utter; if they ever did threaten the US, that would spell their doom, not only from the US but from the international community.

NK wants to be able to threaten Japan and deter any potential launches from them, as well as Seoul. Their desire is much closer to Pakistan's or India's than to use as a deterrent.

[q="axi"]
Even states like China and the USSR have just built their nuclear arsenals with the sole purpose of deterring the USA. Using conventional armies, both these states are (the USSR was) invincible in their own turf. The USSR even had the upper hand in a potential conventional war over western Europe. The only way for the USA to contain the USSR was to threaten the use of nuclear weapons. What stopped them short of ever contemplating initiating such an attack themselves was MAD. [/q]

China built their weapons simply to be able to declare themselves a world power; they are not now and never have been meaningfully threatened territorially by the US. The Korean war may have nearly involved nuclear weapons, but they weren't relevant in China's decision (as presumably they didn't know about the possiblity at the time). (North Korea doesn't qualify as this, of course, as they're not a world power.)

The USSR possessed nuclear weapons to counter the US, indeed; given that it was a two-superpower system at the time, that makes sense, as the US being the sole possessor of them would have been a destabilizing situation.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
axi: exactly, we'd rather NKor not have effective immunity from military pressure.

Eh? How does that go?? Nukes don't give you a free pass anymore ... particularly given we've had anti-nuclear tactics down for decades. Given the size of NK, and our pretty substantial intelligence on the country, they'd have a really hard time firing anything at us, especially anything that could actually REACH us (anything with that big of a rocket would be quite large and thus quite visible to our satellites).

If we decided to invade NK, a few carriers would be adequate to saturate all of their potential launch sites.

MAD relied on the fact that both the USSR and the USA had a) enough missiles/bombs to be impractical to find all of them; b) enough 'hidden' sites such as idaho mountain bunkers, submarines which moved around, etc. for it to be quite likely to evade destruction even with a massive first strike; and c) large fleets that could consider themselves safe from a first strike at least long enough to get plenty of nukes airborn.

NK has none of the above; thus they'd not be safe, and probably would be more in danger WITH nukes than without, as we'd consider them more of a danger than before.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Arrian
Activating a system that doesn't work I love it.

I wonder, is our government dumb enough to humiliate itself by trying to use the system in a real-world situation (as opposed to rigged "tests")?

That would be a massive loss of face and probably a political suicide. I am sure some people in the US will start questioning the wisdom of deploying a non-functional system.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Lancer
What happens to states harboring terrorists when those terrorists attack China?

Terrorists die?

[Vince278]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
you can see the missile on Google earth

Too bad Kennedy didn't have that.