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North Korea Launches "Communication Satellite" Rocket

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the transmitting-a-message-of-sorts dept.

Mad Ivan writes "The BBC has just reported that North Korea has launched a long-range rocket, which they say is a communications satellite, but that the US and Japan fear may actually be a ballistic missile. Details are still arriving; the rocket passed over northern Japan on its way up."

11 of 492 comments (clear)

  1. Outstanding. by palegray.net · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As if this regime needed to be any more creative to continue their quest to piss off the world. Yeah, U.N. sanctions don't really mean a whole lot these days (did they ever?), but this is ridiculous.

    Honestly, if I thought for one moment that North Korea actually had peaceful space exploration motives in mind, about 50% of my objection to this would vanish instantly. As it stands, the regime is run by a madman with serious nuclear ambitions, something people tend to forget about.

    Personally, I wish we'd dealt wish North Korea a long, long time ago... perhaps in place of Iraq. I'm certainly no foreign policy expert, but I have served in the military, and I've always considered North Korea a much larger looming threat to regional and global security than Iraq ever was (with the exception of the Gulf War, that is).

    --
    512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
    1. Re:Outstanding. by palegray.net · · Score: 1, Interesting

      you have the problem that this will cause a massive loss of life in the north that is not limited to, or even primarily, military.

      You're right, there's no good answer, and there hasn't been one for a long time (since my grandfather served as a Marine in Korea, in fact). That said, I see the North Korean people as faced with two choices:

      1. Depose their maniacal dictator and deal with the resulting upheaval in their society (considerable misery for their people).
      2. Accept a severe and devastating response from whatever nuclear-capable nation finally gets fed up with the threats and posturing from North Korean leadership.

      If I were their citizens, I would elect to pursue #1, regardless of the interim pain involved. I assure you, if North Korea continues on their present path the response will eventually be severe and devastating. The citizens of North Korea have a responsibility to reign in the tyrannical government that presently rules over them, or face the consequences. Should this turn into an "us or them" situation, it most assuredly will be "them," albeit with mass casualties on the South Korean side as well (which will indeed be tragic).

      --
      512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
    2. Re:Outstanding. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The point of the UN isn't to make and enforce international laws. It is only to provide a forum for discussion among nations. In that regard the UN has been quite successful.

    3. Re:Outstanding. by interkin3tic · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I for one cannot believe that the great powers, China in particular, continue to let this little pissant live.

      It's all about perspective. Keep in mind that some of our foreign policy opponents say the same thing about the US and Israel. The two aren't similar in many ways, but they both do provoke in ways that serve some of the interests of the us/china.

      In the case of North Korea, China gets a lot of leverage over Japan and the rest of the world. If you piss China off enough, they won't act like they're going to help your ongoing efforts to prevent North Korea from nuking japan. At least that's what I've heard from a few japanese scholars, take that with a grain of salt, but it does make some sense. Naturally, it's stupid if China is doing that, since China would be in a world of hurt if North Korea actually did start trouble.

      I've also heard (although this sounds much more dubious to me) that south korea isn't really doing all they can to stop north korea from getting nukes, since both countries express an interest in eventually reuniting, there's some sense of "If they get nukes, when we reunite, we'll have nukes." Again, that sounds like complete conspiracy theory crap to me, but what do I know?

  2. capabiliy by wizardforce · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Now we know that the only thing stopping North Korea from hitting anything in Japan or elsewhere is intention or lack therof rather than ability.

    --
    Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
    1. Re:capabiliy by shoemilk · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Actually, that's not true, until now, the best they'd ever done was to launch some missiles into the Japan Sea (more like sputtered into). Which was why Japan was so concerned that this missile would fall on Japan. With this rocket, they wouldn't be able to hit Australia (according to the news reports I've watched), but they could get all the way to the northern part of the Philippines.

      So, while the US is safe, the most part of Asia has to worry.

  3. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by Schemat1c · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'm not defending the possession of ICBMs, just suggesting that if there is one nation that should be kept from having them, North Korea is probably it.

    And since we already blew our wad in Iraq there is probably not much we can do about now.

    Thank you Mr. Bush.

    --

    "Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
  4. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by im_thatoneguy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Honestly what are the chances there is a communication sattelite on that thing?

    Even the most ambitious estimates didn't put this rocket into orbit.

    What good is a 'communications sattelite' that flys over Japan for 10 minutes?

    Also what are the chances any sizeable chunks of wreckage would survive impact? What do we intend to drudge up? Lint?

  5. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by johnsonav · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There's no strategic rationale for them to build a nuclear bombThere's no strategic rationale for them to build a nuclear bomb

    Sure there is. When was the last time the US invaded a nuclear power?

    --
    ... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
  6. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by Gordonjcp · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I wonder how many people who think that countries like Iran and North Korea don't have the right to have nuclear weapons are also believe that everyone has the right to own a gun?

  7. Re:Summary is hopelessly wrong... by FireFury03 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Super idea. Lets all give up nukes, and go back to the days when war between major powers is again thinkable.

    And slaughter millions upon millions in the process.

    If you think nuclear weapons are so good, why shouldn't everyone have them?

    Besides, I don't think nuclear weapons make a war unthinkable - you're going to slaughter millions upon millions with or without nukes if you start a world war, it makes very little difference.

    At the moment, there's nothing stopping nuclear nations warring with the non-nuclear nations (and the likes of Iraq has proved that they are happy to do that) - why wouldn't a non-nuclear nation want nukes when faced with this? There are only 2 ways you're going to convince other nations that they don't need nukes:

    1. Disarm yourself so that you are no longer capable of oppressing them, so they don't feel the need to be able to defend themselves from you.
    2. Conquer them.

    The US has shown that their preferred option is (2). Unfortunately, when you start conquering other nations, the ones who are left suddenly realise that they *really* do need to be able to defend themselves.

    --
    http://blog.nexusuk.org