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US To Deploy Ballistic Missile Interceptors In Response To North Korean Threats
New submitter dcmcilrath sends this quote from the NY Times:
"The Pentagon will spend $1 billion to deploy additional ballistic missile interceptors along the Pacific Coast to counter the growing reach of North Korea's weapons, a decision accelerated by Pyongyang's recent belligerence and indications that Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, is resisting China's efforts to restrain him. ... The missiles have a mixed record in testing, hitting dummy targets just 50 percent of the time, but officials said Friday’s announcement was intended not merely to present a credible deterrence to the North’s limited intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal. They said it is also meant to show South Korea and Japan that the United States is willing to commit resources to deterring the North and, at the same time, warn Beijing that it must restrain its ally or face an expanding American military focus on Asia."
I believe this problem would largely go away if the media just stopped covering North Korea's every temper tantrum. An exception would be The Onion and maybe Colbert, but even that might be enough to reinforce their "Terrible Twos" sort of behavior. I do give some credit to the administration for ceasing to play the stupid game that has been going on since the early 90s:
1. Provocation
2. Talk
3. Cough up food aid or the like
4. Promise to be nice
5. Lather, rinse, repeat
Perscriptio in manibus tabellariorum est.
Except we don't really want to bomb them back to the stone age. What do you do after you take out the Kims and their government? We'd have to do something about the millions of poorly fed, uneducated people who live there. In a war blasted country they will flood to the south or west to China and the mechanisms for coping with such a thing just aren't there. It would be an absolute crises socially and economically and it gives the nation-states involved in the Korean peninsula a reason to want to maintain the status quo. Which is one of the reasons North Korea gets so much slack diplomatically speaking.
Maybe not, but how many crazy people see a big red button and push it just to see what happens?
We're lucky that that Russian, Stanislav Petrov, had a cool head and didn't start WW III years ago.
a child with nuclear weapons throwing a tantrum is
they are dangerous. and so people are interested, and for good reason, so the press covers them
anyone who doesn't understand that is buried in ignorant false complacency
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
His "cred" is that he has these weapons and he is in control of a large enough land mass to be called a country.
He can not make such declarations as saying he will attack a country without some repercussions. I'd do the same with anti-missile defenses, but I'm surprised it took so long and that it will cost so much. I'm sure we have plenty just sitting around.
"Home of the brave" does not mean "home of the ignore threats we don't think will amount to anything." If it means anything beyond a simple phrase, it would be "home of those that will not back down from a fight." - That is this case. He wants a pissing contest. He doesn't want to realize our bladders are stronger and much much bigger.
Honestly speaking, I'm hoping for an attack, not matter how ineffective so that it can be a pretext to cross the DMZ and wipe out the threat and give the country to South Korea so that it can finally be the Best Korea. And then get rid of the nuke land mines. Lose a good golfing area though.
It is time to stop appeasing the North Koreans and take action. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have contributed many $100s of billions to our debt, the result of wars of attrition. Our current response to North Korea continues this pattern and actually validates the North Korean threat. This has got to stop.
A country should be able to feed its people. If it cannot then it is a failed country. North Korea cannot feed its people, at least it seems as such.
Here are some steps I would recommend.
Step #1: Discontinue all aid until nuclear observers are allowed into the country and can operate freely (with NK observation but no interference). No aid without compliance, the blood and death is on those causing the problems, not on those who would try to help.
Step #2: Restore aid with the explicit requirement that aid distribution is controlled by a UN agency (with NK observation but no interference, I can't believe I'm supporting the UN...)
Step #3: I'm not sure, but the first two would placate the world in terms of North Korea's nuclear ambitions, and could result in the restoration of aid to the population (could, this is not guaranteed, the blood is on their hands). After that the next move is on the North Korean leadership. Have a couple of US carrier groups nearby and possibly bolster South Korean defenses as well...
BlameBillCosby.com
Most of its supporters would celebrate if it attacked the USA. It may loose some support from the ,masses in south Korea but the ones they have are rather hardcore after all the attack NK has made against SK.
Also any bombing attacks against NK would have problem getting support. NK would probably not launch against the USA until they have a large number of nuclear weapons. Once they have them they warn SK, Japan and any countries housing USA military that the missiles will be used against them if they support the USA. At this point you have problems and it will take a long time for countries to provide support or allow aircraft to fly in thier territories.
It just seems like another excuse to prop up our bloated military-industrial complex. Do they really think NK will launch a missile our way, or is this just another example of security theater?
If you post it, they will read.
So, the Obama administration scrapped the prior administration's plans to increase the number of interceptors from 30 to 44 at Ft Greely, AK in 2009. Now the Administration plans to increase the number of interceptors from 30 to 44 at Ft Greely, AK. By 2017. Idiots.
that starts with the premise that north korea will only do things that are rational and make sense, and never anything stupid, is a losing argument
citation: the behavior so far of north korea
it's rather weird that anyone is depending upon rationality, common sense and intelligence, in attempting to understand the behavior of north korea
of course they can't win. but they can do a lot of damage on their way out, and this is the problem. to not understand this is to not understand that control is not absolute, and behavior is not perfectly rational. in any country, nevermind the likes of basket case north korea
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
For a billion dollars, couldn't they just fly over North Korea and blow their military and government institutions to the stone age? Hell, could probably be done for a lot less. Instead of waiting for Kim Jong Crazy the 2nd to try and attack North America, why not just stop him before he has a chance.
So Iran doesn't have the weapons yet, and hasn't threatened the US, but the US is considering invading them.
Meanwhile N.Korea has the weapons and has threatened the US, but the only thing the US is doing is deploying more interceptors? Why no threat to invade N.Korea?
...warn Beijing that it must restrain its ally or face an expanding American military focus on Asia.
I wonder if they'll be borrowing money from China in order to support that expansion :)
Will 'resolve' the situation themselves to prevent South Korea, USA and other countries to have to intervene when North Korea goes to far. They would be able to establish a government friendly to China and preserve their interests in the region. Also, they would be able to show their military power in a war every other nation will find just.
Not least of which, because if their recent tests are anything to be judged by, they would get it horribly wrong. That rocket that they launched? Crashed without doing anything useful. I don't know why the States is worried, China has more to fear if NK actually aims at the US.
One thing I know, and that is that I am ignorant...
China. They're big allies of North Korea, and I don't think they'd take kindly to America having significant military presence right there.
One thing I know, and that is that I am ignorant...
"they" are probably starving, living in rotten conditions and scared. Its the brainwashed "minority" and leader that is the problem. I'm so sick of everyone lumping everyone into one fucking pile based media coverage. Not trying to troll, but this us vs them, my tribe their tribe bullshit needs to go. ,/done ranting, sorry.
Go, NK. Stand up to those capitalist lackeys.
Millions of people regularly resorting to eating grass to ward off starvation is socialism at its finest?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
My theory:
These missile interceptors aren't for North Korea. That is the excuse. They are actually a bargaining chip for China. If China reels in North Korea, then these missile interceptors near their borders will be removed. Until then, Obama can simply claim that he is trying to defend against an aggressive North Korean threat to nuke the US (even if North Korea doesn't actually have the capability to do so).
Kim Jong Un overstretched his threats and gave the US the perfect opening to do this. He is obviously much stupider than his father. At this point, he has given the US an excuse to build up its military power right on China's borders (including the deployment of more ships). And he has scared Japan and South Korea enough that they won't resist the continued US presence on their shores. China is NOT going to be happy about this. Not one bit. If I were Kim, I would be worried about the possibility that China might have him kidnapped or assassinated for this stupidity.
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
And the US is doing this why? Is South Korea broke? Doesn't Japan have a national defense force? China is in pretty good shape militarily.
In fact Xi Jinping could pick up the phone and tell Kim Jong-Un to put his missiles away and stop being a jerk. Assuming they have working phones in North Korea.
No, but I find it's best not to respond to the strawmen that the McCarthyists like to hold up. They usually find some other grand flaw in socialism when you bother to point out that it's been working well for decades in Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan, China, and most of South America, and that many of the countries under that umbrella enjoy a better average standard of living and healthier economy than the US, too.
You'r essentially saying the people there are to dumb to know they are being lied to. Which I doubt.
I wouldn't really say it's been working in China. The government's rich, but the average person is pretty bad off. I'd agree with you on the other places, though.
Overreaction? Yes. But probably the prudent move. Kim Jong-un is like a teenage that just got the keys to his dads Porsche. He is on a thrill ride, but he will be reigned in sooner or later. If he stays on this path he will drive the Porsche right into a tree.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
So, somewhere around ten times more accurate than most other munitions then?
Nordic Europeans countries, Australia, and Canada have successful "socialist" programs due mostly to the fact that they have small populations and have robust resource extraction industries. Take away their oil/coal/natural gas and they would suffer just like Japan, China, and many South American countries, which counter to your claim, have either stagnant economies (Japan, S. America) or have abandoned socialism altogether (China). If you didn't know, China got rid of public health care way back in the 90's. Everything is private (well, except for government workers).
If by standing up you mean "give the DoD yet another excuse to flush billions down the shitter so their MIC buds can buy some more hookers and blow" you are correct. This "interceptor" is another Sgt York, looks good on paper but doesn't work IRL but hey, as long as the MIC can bleed more billions out of the pentagon its all good, see the F-22 and F-35 for examples.
To me the fucking sad part is our MSM is so damned bought and paid for they are ignoring all the evidence that shows NK is about as big a threat as those WMDs in Iraq. For those that didn't read the report, you know that "sat" that NK put in orbit, which just FYI but uses the SAME ROCKET that they would use to launch a nuke? Yeah we recovered the first and second stage, turns out its just an uprated SCUD. "Well so what?" you ask? Simple the USSR wasn't stupid and they didn't hand out their good shit to third stringers and lets be clear on this The SCUD is NOT a missile in the conventional sense, its rocket artillery. Its not designed to go any real distance but to be used in a artillery barrage similar to "Stalin's Organs" in WWII. Neither its fuel nor its engine is designed to be a SRBM much less an ICBM and is frankly more likely to explode on the pad (as several did in NK before the sat launch) or fall apart in flight. The ONLY ones that have to fear this is SK because any farther than that and this POS is gonna fall out of the sky in pieces. Hell they'd be lucky to even hit the North American continent, much less any city in the USA.
So yet again we get a "threat" that is all bullshit and hype so the DoD and MIC can play Scrooge McDuck and swim in pools of money while the American people get stuck with more garbage. Hell at least with something like SDI (which also didn't work) you were looking at a REAL threat in the USSR, the NK "military" if you can call them that are using 40+ year old ex-Soviet junk that frankly wasn't top line when the Soviets sold it, just as we sold the F-5 to those countries we didn't trust with the good stuff so too did the Soviets keep "export versions" which they actually called "monkey models" to sell to third stringers like NK. At the end of the day NK is a bad joke, the little fatty "dear leader" has nothing more than bodies to throw into any conflict as their tech is so old and shitty, remember how well that worked for the Japanese empire in the Pacific?
This is just more empty threats in the hopes of wrangling more aid but never let it be said the DoD ever missed an opportunity to crap more money away.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
A couple of carrier battle groups and a ballistic missile sub parked off the coast of North Korea.
North Korea needs to know that, while they could launch an ICBM at the United States, their country would be reduced to smoldering rubble before their missiles re-entered the atmosphere.
These missile interceptors aren't for North Korea. That is the excuse. They are actually a bargaining chip for China. If China reels in North Korea, then these missile interceptors near their borders will be removed. Until then, Obama can simply claim that he is trying to defend against an aggressive North Korean threat to nuke the US (even if North Korea doesn't actually have the capability to do so).
That's what I was thinking - China has a huge amount of bargaining power with North Korea (ie. even if NK stops listening to them, the vast majority of their "slush fund" accounts are in Chinese banks and currently China is ignoring the UN resolution it *supported* to freeze them. Until then, the US can pretty much attribute anything it does in the Western Pacific to countering North Korean threats...
If that analysis is wrong and it really is just to about North Korea, they clearly have won this pissing match, as the US would be spending the equivalent of ~10-20% of NK's entire yearly military budget just to counter a ridiculous idle threat.
And Un is definitely not the brightest bulb - not only has he given the US an excuse, but he has the majority of South Korea's population in favor of developing their own nuclear weapons. Given SK's GDP is $1.1T and NK's is approx. $20B, a high tech arms race is absurd.
"You've committed one of the classic blunders, only the most famous of which is never get involved in a land war in Asia. Slightly less well known is that you should never go in against a Scicilian when Death is on the line! Ha! Ha! Ha! (Plop)"
Once they have them they warn SK, Japan and any countries housing USA military that the missiles will be used against them if they support the USA.
No, that doesn't make sense. The only reason NK hates the US is because they are SK's biggest supporter. Remember, their main goal in all of this is to take over the rest of the Korean peninsula.
Besides, the bulk of the US nuclear arsenal is submarine-based, and the bulk of the cruise missile arsenal is sea (subs and frigates) based. Not to mention the 10 aircraft carriers in service.
They are actually a bargaining chip for China. If China reels in North Korea, then these missile interceptors near their borders will be removed.
The summary clearly states the interceptors are going to the US Pacific coast.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Or the system as a whole?
If the success rate is per interceptor, meaning that they have several chances to hit a warhead by using several interceptors then 50 percent isn't too bad. Fifty percent success (or failure) means that shooting say five interceptors at each warhead will result in a 95 percent chance of shooting it down, not perfect but certainly enough to make Kim Jung-Un realize he probably isn't going to inflict ANY damage with a suicidal nuclear attack. NK probably wouldn't be able to get off more than a few before the launch sites and command bunkers were nuked (can you say close to shore submarine based missiles on depressed trajectories?).
Of course if the success rate is for the system as a whole (doubtful) for example due to some basic limitation of the targeting radars, then adding more interceptors isn't going to deter Mr. Kim. He probably realizes that his attack is a long shot (ha ha) anyway and having 50 percent odds on taking out, say San Francisco is pretty good. So let's hope that the system is capable of targeting multiple interceptors at a single warhead so the odds are in our favor.
The best scenario is for to add more layers to make a multilayer defense. In addition to the Patriot missile batteries in South Korea and the Aegis missile cruisers offshore (can either of their missiles overtake an ascending ICBM launched hundreds of miles away?) whatever happened to the laser equipped 747s?
Now if Kim Jung-Un really wanted to make the U.S. worried, he should use his much more powerful (but extremely vulnerable and time consuming to launch) liquid fueled rockets to put a disguised nuke INTO ORBIT. Not only would it completely bypass the ABM defenses that are only protecting the U.S. from direct trajectories but it would reduce the warning time from 30 minutes to maybe 5 (or zero if an EMP blast was the goal). The only thing the U.S. could do would be to pre-emptively knock down EVERY satellite put up by NK which while easily doable, would really raise tensions. Of course NK would be violating the 1967 treaty banning weapons (especially nukes!) in Outer Space which is probably the only thing that kept us from accidental thermonuclear war but NK doesn't seem to pay to much attention to treaties.
So if NK starts orbiting largish satellites and testing re-entry vehicles, be afraid.
One side effect of all this is that the improvements in ABM systems is forcing China to upgrade its ICBM force. Unlike the Russians, the Chinese only had a few hundred (?) ICBMs capable of reaching the U.S. and no subs or bombers. They worried that if the shit REALLY hit the fan, the U.S. could launch a first strike taking out most of their missiles (not to mention iPhone production). The few surviving missiles would not make it through even the modest shield that is being built and thus the U.S. woud survive unscathed. So the Chinese are following the Russian model of bolstering their ICBM forces so that even after a first strike they would be able to overwhelm the limited ABM defenses in place.
This fear of an enhanced ABM system is one reason why China is (trying to) keep Mr. Kim from building ICBMs. Not to mention the fear that South Korea and Japan and possibly Taiwan(!!!) will decide they need a nuclear deterrent against North Korea. That would really complicate China's desire to become THE power in Asia (and make reunification with Taiwan much more perilous).
Since they don't really work, we could save $999M by paying some Hollywood set designers deploy something that just looks like a ballistic missile defense system. They could hire some extras to protest the installations for greater authenticity.
all communication including word of mouth. I really find that hard to believe. But I dont live there, so what the hell do I know. I would like to think that should their government vanish over night, most of the people there would be celebrating. Just because they are fed propaganda there entire life does not mean the entire population is batshit crazy. That's really all im saying.
Having government-regulated economies is different than having government-regulated political systems. Right-wingers tend to mix these two up in their heads, but in fact they are orthogonal traits.
Singapore has a more or less capitalist economy, but has heavy gov't control over political decisions (no democracy), which demonstrates that economic control and political control are different things both in theory and in practice.
Table-ized A.I.
Time for your re education medicine, comrade.
No thinking. It's been proven to cause heart disease, cancer and prolonged incarceration.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
My theory:
These missile interceptors aren't for North Korea. That is the excuse. They are actually a bargaining chip for China. If China reels in North Korea, then these missile interceptors near their borders will be removed.
Uh, did you even read the summary, dude? Can you explain to me how defensive interceptors parked off the US pacific coast can simultaneously be located "near [China's] borders?"
You can see China from here.
Well, Chinatown anyway.
A number of them will be in Alaska - not all that far away from parts of China. I'm not sure that this is a terribly credible reason, however. We already *have* lots of things to point at China. ICBMs, subs, long range bombers. We can turn China into one large glass museum if we wanted to. So having more IRBMS (which we have plenty on the subs) doesn't change much. Having marginally competent interceptors doesn't help all that much either. China isn't stupid enough to threaten us with nucs, only Un thinks it's possible (get it, Un possible.... I crack me up).
China is happy to play the grand game of resource wars and the occasional little war / police action. They won't be able to go head to head with us for a long time. By then, we'll have blown off both of our own legs. We don't need China, we're our own worst enemy.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You might have listened to what the Secretary of DoD actually said, (1) the deployments are scheduled until 2017 at the earliest, and (2) only if they are proven to work.
Now go take the little blue pills this time.
They are going to Alaska with additional radar tracking installations in Japan. Play with a great circle map for a little while. You will see that if China wanted to attack the west coast of the US, most of those paths from their missile bases would pass over Alaska, just like North Korea's paths. And the descent stages would be able to be targeted by interceptors launched from Alaska.
Here are two examples (note, I used nearby airports since this mapper requires ICN codes which are hard to find for nuclear weapons launchpads--I don't claim to be exact since China is fairly secretive).
[1]
[2]
Play with it yourself. West coast attacks will generally go over Alaska.
The Democrats have been saying for the past 30 years would not work?
"The report to this bill specifically notes the possible threat from the North Korean Taepo Dong II missile, which the report claims may have the range to hit Alaska. Since this weapon is in development, we do not in fact know that this missile will be capable of that range. But with North Korea in such dire straits economically and the growing possibility of its opening, with reunification with the south increasingly likely, should we spend billions on a missile defense system that probably won't work to counter a threat that may never exist?" - John Kerry
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1995/s950804f.htm
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
So the entire slashdot community is oblivous to the fact that refined fizzle is the only thing preventing terrorists from using a tactical nuke. If you are unfamiliar with suitcase nukes I suggest you research the tech, it's been around since the 50s bra...
What in Bog's name does a suitcase nuke have to do with a 50's bra? Did they call boobs 'boomers' back then or something?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
North Korea is not socialist. The US is more fascist than NK is socialist (not that the US is actually fascist, but that's the point).
I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few subs or something of the sort nearby capable of launching a bit more than interceptors...
This is a purely defensive installation, and the cost isn't huge by military proportions. No need to even name an enemy. In fact, they could probably install three layers of this system for $3 billion and have 87 % success rate (if the probability of success does not depend on the trajectory). The chance for a nuclear strike is small, but nukes are a "holy grail" for all small totalitarian regimes, of which there are a couple in east Asia, and it's better to not be taken by surprise.
Did you believe? I didn't. Most rational people I met didn't. The media spat it out, but I have yet to meet a person that believed that 100%....even the stanchest bushies.
Kim Jong Un does not have the influence or power that his father had. He's a figurehead used to give the impression to the NK people of a strong continuing dynasty, and as a scapegoat to the west if things should go wrong in the future. The real power lies with the military leaders.
many of the countries under that umbrella enjoy a better average standard of living and healthier economy than the US, too.
Sure, pick on the US when it's down. It wasn't so long ago that the US enjoyed a sub-6% unemployment rate while Europe looked on in envy with 25% of their youth out of work. And for every Germany or Norway in Europe you have an Italy or Spain (Greece is too easy). For every Brazil in South America, you have a Venezuela. Socialism can quickly send your country over a cliff when the voters run up the debt and the financiers decide to make borrowing more expensive. Even the US has gone down this road - can you imagine the carnage if our Treasury yield suddenly were in the 7% range? We'd be in a austerity spiral like half of Europe.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
They won't be able to go head to head with us for a long time.
Five years maybe? Ten at the outside. The Chinese industrial base is so far beyond America's, both in terms of total productive capacity and terms of manufacturing technology, that it will be almost impossible for America to maintain it's current military superiority in the medium term.
mmm, I don't think pandas look like pandas because they wear panda makeup.
You probably should not smoke pot and post here, or anywhere.
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
North Korea is Juche which is a perverted form of Communism which in turn is a perverted form of socialism. You could argue that North Korea is a socialist society in the same sense that fascist Spain was a conservative society.
Socialism is the school of thought that's based on the idea that unfettered capitalism will infiltrate and ruin every aspect of society and act over time to concentrate wealth into ever fewer, ever more incompetent hands. This basic belief is shared by everyone from the centrist middle of the road Social democrat all the way over to the hard line Stalinist-Maoist, but the conclusions that people within socialism come to are very different. One reason why most socialists don't call themselves socialists today is because the Soviet Union and its vassal and client states and their horrible crimes against their own populations made it necessary to drop that term.
Socialism can go very, very wrong, obviously, but it's difficult to dismiss the basic premise that capitalism does destructive things.
What was China trying to get out of allowing NK to keep it's accounts anyway? That's totally puzzling to me. They have a much bigger interest in reigning Un in than we do. Is the new leadership trying to show it doesn't take orders from the world or what? If things continue to escalate, and China's little brother starts shelling, that seems like it would reflect very poorly on the Communist Party.
That said, I've never even been to China and don't really have a good handle on the politics. Maybe Chinese citizens find NK attacking South Korea to be entertaining?
After thinking over my previous (long) post a little, it occurred to me that the X-37 was probably designed with NK in mind.
For those of you not familiar with it, it is a extremely flexible winged spacecraft (looks like a mini-shuttle) operated by the Air Force. By extremely flexible I mean it can be launched into any orbit (including polar ones), has demonstrated orbital maneuvering capability, (very) long life in space, and considerable cross-range capability. And it can return objects from space with its cargo bay! It's too small to retrieve large commercial satellites (but not too small to retrieve a warhead) and can gently land on a runway with rubber tires not skids. It is not man-rated and does not have a docking port or any other features that would make it useful as a rescue vehicle.
It was rumored that it was sent up to spy on the Chinese space station but for a variety of reasons, not least of which was that the Chinese would see it coming and would be pissed, that was dismissed.
So when Mr. Kim starts launching more reliable "satellites" (the first one failed after achieving orbit), I imagine the U.S. will send up one of these with a good camera and radiation detectors to give it a close inspection. Maybe it'll even come into physical contact and probe it with robotic arms! If it really looks suspicious, perhaps it will stow it on board and retun it, presumably to Guantanamo bay (that way if there's a nuke on board it won't go off on U.S. soil). (Perhaps that's why it's a WINGED re-entry vehicle, in addition to giving it cross range capability, I'd imagine the g-forces would be less not to mention no annoying "thump" when it splashes down or lands).
Unlike China, it is highly unlikely that NK has developed space based radar that could detect something sneaking up on its "Satellite" from ANY direction. (Also, here's a question, does anyone know if the X-37 is stealthed?). In addition, even if the NK satellite did detect the X-37, it couldn't easily communicate that fact to the ground; I'd bet NK has only the most rudimentary communications and tracking support, probably limited to only when it's passing over NK. I'd even doubt their few "friends" in the world (China? Iran?) would be willing to help, especially if the North Koreans were using it as a cover for putting nukes in orbit! (That's not something you want to be associated with). So it's basically blind and dumb for most of its orbit, a sitting duck for the X-37.
If the next time NK puts a working satellite in orbit the U.S. follows with a launch of the X-37 remember: you read it here first!
For me it was yet another bs war.
That said, I've never even been to China and don't really have a good handle on the politics. Maybe Chinese citizens find NK attacking South Korea to be entertaining?
Maybe the Communist party leaders find it entertaining, but from my experience most of the rural citizens just want to be left alone to get by without government interference, and most of the urban citizens just want to be left alone to make money and buy Western toys. In that sense, it's really not that much different from the US :)
That people think and are human? F = U
"They said it is also meant to show South Korea and Japan that the United States is willing to commit resources to deterring the North and, at the same time, warn Beijing that it must restrain its ally or face an expanding American military focus on Asia."
Because America has such a great track record with getting into wars in the Far East. Better get Britain ready to save them *again*...
It's a stretch to call what they have in Europe, Australian, Canada, Japan or even China socialism. Those are capitalist economies with varying amounts of socialist elements. The same is true of the USA. North Korea is a whole different thing and the system they have there is very broken.
The military leaders he had imprisoned, or the ones he appointed for their loyalty towards him?
What was China trying to get out of allowing NK to keep it's accounts anyway?
Simple: NK is a buffer state. If SK +NK would join, then American troops would be standing, on SK soil, right on the border with China. They obviously would hate that.
So what China does, is to keep the NK regime alive no matter what. But, they really hate what is happening now too: anti-ballistic systems in the US, and probably soon as well in Japan and SK. Because the GP is absolutely right, this weakens the militairy capabilities of China itself.
Does Beijing control Pyongyang or Pyongyang control Beijing?
Now that the pudgy leader decided to directly threaten the US, the US can simply use future NK tests as target practice. NK having had only a single successful launch following a failure cannot be that confident in their capability. Now they will be unable to perform any additional testing. If I was NK I wouldn't even set off any fireworks for a while......
My theory:
These missile interceptors aren't for North Korea. That is the excuse. They are actually a bargaining chip for China. If China reels in North Korea, then these missile interceptors near their borders will be removed. Until then, Obama can simply claim that he is trying to defend against an aggressive North Korean threat to nuke the US (even if North Korea doesn't actually have the capability to do so).
That's exactly what OP said:
These missile interceptors aren't for North Korea. That is the excuse. They are actually a bargaining chip for China. If China reels in North Korea, then these missile interceptors near their borders will be removed. Until then, Obama can simply claim that he is trying to defend against an aggressive North Korean threat to nuke the US (even if North Korea doesn't actually have the capability to do so).
Surprise surprise, a "communist" country that isn't actually communist.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Because the great circle course from china to the US shore is... along the US pacific coast! The same equipment can defend against Chinese missiles. By nullifying their projection, our own projection reaches farther.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I prefer to use a wheel rather than a line for the political spectrum, because at the extreme "ends" (fascism/communism) it basically looks the same.
I doubt very much that the accuracy scales linearly. Sure, it would be pretty meaningless to try and save Seoul from 25,000 rockets an hour, but a few shitty missiles aimed at the US would require much less coordination and processing power.
so socialism is a retort to capitalism. ok. i get that. if wealth concentrates into ever fewer hands, maybe they WIN. maybe they Deserve It. maybe socialism is a "we can't win" didactit.
Know what the definition of insanity is? I'm sure you've heard the bit. Look up Sgt York or better yet here is a link thanks to Crosshair84. Why do I bring up the York? Because just like the York it looks good on paper but so far EVERY TEST, and just FYI but every test costs US money, they get paid whether or not this turkey ever does shit which is a nice scam if you can get it, every single test HAS FAILED.
You might as well say we'll be deploying TIE fighters in 2017, you have about as much chance of making it work. we are talking about hitting a tiny object moving thousands of miles an hour with an even tinier object moving thousands of miles an hour. Picture trying to shoot a baseball launched out of a cannon with a single bullet...not gonna happen, never gonna work, they might as well promise energy shields because they are looking at the same odds either way of the damned thing working.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
simply because you cannot conceive of it happening doesn't entail it cannot happen. The fact remains, the secretary said it is isn't proven, it won't be bought.
Grass, rodents, bugs...
Strangely, I don't see any dearth of people trying to immigrate to the military-industrial complex-run America. Looks like people voted with their feet.
Millions of people regularly resorting to eating grass to ward off starvation is socialism at its finest?
It's socialism at its most typical. Orwell was really on target in pointing that out.
I thought with all of the sequester scaremongering from Obama that we didn't have any money left. At least that's the reason given for the furloughs days for employees....even though we are still spending more money this year than last year.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Well, Socialism was created as a sort of cry for help. Is it a legitimate cry for help? The most common counter argument is that there has never been a truly free society and that if there had been such a society, Capitalism would have been all good. The only reason why Capitalism is destructive in our societies is because of our biased and corrupt systems of government.
I personally don't think it's possible to create a government that is above corruption and bias, but I think it is worthwhile to strive towards that as an ideal. I think people who have done it in the past have made things better. I think that history will go on forever and there will never be a point in time when people can lay down and say that everything is fixed forever, but we can improve society temporarily. As for ideology I think it's interesting to think in terms of ideology, I'm mainly interested in Liberalism (in the classical sense) and socialism, but I don't think that any ideology can be the ultimate solution to all of people's problems.
Not likely. ICBM's travel at insane speeds in terminal phase (The minuteman moves at Mach 23.
They are going to spend money to deploy an interception system that doesn't really work against missiles that have no chance of hitting the US (unless they were aimed at New Zealand) which can't possibly hold a nuclear warhead because they are too large. This coming from a country who has about half the politicians who want to invade a country that wants to develop nuclear power but when another country threatens to detonate a nuclear warhead in their capital city they impose sanctions on their banks. Yep, sounds like a typical government.
Well, that sounds a bit like 'the political compass' where you have a left-right axis and a authoritarian-libertarian axis. You have left-wing authoritarians and right-wing authoritarians.
I tend to think about people's political beliefs and attitudes in terms of two personality types: hawks and doves (or a spectrum between hawks and doves), of three ideologies: Conservatism, Liberalism and Socialism, and of countless political movements that people (ideally) join in order to try to get things done.
It's easy to bring up the images of the stereotypical hawkish conservative who's involved in furthering religion and the right to bear arms, and of the equally stereotypical dovish liberal-socialist who's a feminist and an environmentalist, but I think most people are a lot more complicated than that and probably a lot more complicated than my amateur model accounts for. I know that research in countries with multi party systems has consistently shown that voters can switch from any party to any other party from one election to another, so it's pretty complicated.
I call shenanigans. The experts concluded that intercepting ballistic missiles was impossible back in the 80's when Ronald "Ray Gun" proposed it.
Experts have concluded all kinds of things were impossible, until someone else found out how to make them possible. You aren't trying very hard.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
That idiot Hagel won't be upto the task. He's going to flub things badly.
Again watch the video, the Sgt York wasn't "bought" either yet the company walked away with several billion in the bank....get it now? they do NOT have to hand in a working product as THEY GET PAID NO MATTER WHAT and in fact like "The Producers" they can often make MORE money on a flop than on a working system!
You see you are thinking its like a business, where somebody offers you a product and you buy...its not the way it works. they get paid HUGE amounts in "R&D" and admin costs even if it never works at all so that 2017 deadline gives 'em 4 years to live off the sweet gov teat while not actually having to show jack shit. So you see it doesn't matter if every scientist out there has said it'll need computers and radar and scanners several orders of magnitude more precise than anything we currently have because no matter if they make paper airplanes or spend the next 4 years sitting on ass they STILL get to hand those padded bills over and get checks cut.
Like I said its a hell of a scam, they just recycled the SDI crap from the 80s with as much chance of making it working and they get years of big fat checks no matter what.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Wrong. Sweden, Finland and Denmark doesn't have any of the natural resources you mentioned. In fact, they have very limited natural resources but their awful socialist school systems produce well-educated employees for their high tech industries. The right mixture of socialism and capitalism is a quite well working formula.
These are ballistic missiles, not cruise missiles. They're essentially suborbital (and not sub- by much at that) spacecraft that reenter without any thought for slowing down to land. So the answer to your question is: not a chance.
Also your hawk/dove example is based largely on American tendencies. Religion and guns don't necessarily go hand in hand in other parts of the world.
I still prefer circle (or sphere if you must) over compass because it recognizes that communism and fascism are basically just the same sort of tyranny, but maybe with different propaganda.
BAE and EADS are the same thing. nice try at fleshing out your list...
A "perverted form of socialism". Yeah, right. In fact it is much closer to "true" socialism than Sweden has ever been. It's just a horrid place to live so naturally socialists define it away with the No True Scotsman fallacy. "Och, tha's nae a socialist state, laddie!" It's all about the definition. You see this whenever left-wingers actually win a government and then spend the next 10 years exterminating other competing forms of leftism. "Trotskyite!" "Heretic!"
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Oh look, we just pissed away a billion dollars on something that doesn't work against a country that not an actual threat. Reminds me of the way we threw away a large part of The Constitution in order to win the War Against Terror. The beacon of liberty is shining brighter all of the time...
On my task bar I only saw "US To Deploy B..."
and immediately thought "US To Deploy Billions of Dollars".
Which pretty much is what this is about.
Interceptors != missiles.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
Low. Our youth was not rioting. Even today, when the US is supposedly in shit-shape, US youth unemployment is lower than Europe. Only North Africa and the Middle East are worse than Europe.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Go, NK. Stand up to those capitalist lackeys.
Millions of people regularly resorting to eating grass to ward off starvation is socialism at its finest?
====
You are wrong about socialism. What you were describing was dictatorship. Socialism works well in moderation and in conjunction with capitalism. That is why Canada, Australia, much of Europe, Norway, Finland, Japan and other countries are able to feed and take care of their citizens. There is nothing wrong with taking care of your sick, elderly, and poor. By the way, under socialism, there is global purchasing of medicines, so instead of seventy-five cents a pill, it is five cents. In a capitalist society that was well known for its wealth, the seventy-five cents rate is the norm.
When I was in the hospital for Creaping flesh eating disease (yes, we have medicare), the hospital rate was not $1000 per day, with another $1000 for doctors and tests, but $300 for the room, $70/visit, and in the weeks stay, $400 for anti-biotics, all covered at 100% by my medical assurance. I love socialism mixed with capitalism.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
Good that the US is taking proper defense measures, but come on, North Korea also seems to be threatening every other country it can. They seem like a little kid looking for attention.
Well, I wouldn't define away DPRK as completely not socialist. I would call it an unusually perverted form of Socialism. The reason why I call DPRK:s Juche ideology perverted is that it's based on arbitrary rule of the leader and on fantasies about complete and utter self-reliance. Yes, they want everything to be produced domestically, except for the luxury goods for the great leader and his closest friends and family, of course. They have a ridiculous cult of personality. I've also heard that there have been instances where the government forced starving farmers to grow opium poppy instead of grain so that the government could make some money by exporting it. The maxim seems to be that trade and market forces are bad, except when they bring some benefit to the leader and his buddies. None of this is an intrinsic part of the school of thought that's called socialism.
I suppose that if you define Socialism as 'bad policies by leftists' then DPRK becomes the most socialist country in the world, because they have the worst leftist policies right now.
The conflicts among leftist government here in Europe tend to revolve around how much they want to budge to large domestic corporations. Left-wing governments have far too much to do to have time for leftist sectarianism. That mostly happens in the movements on the left that have no chance of getting into parliament. I mean the personal conflicts are probably horrible, I guess (that's why I've never joined a party in my life despite an interest in politics) but the conflicts about the politics itself are relatively mild. For example, the green movement in Europe is essentially debating internally whether or not magic exists (homeopathy and so on), but it's not falling apart because of it.
From TFA:
They said it is also meant to show South Korea and Japan that the United States is willing to commit resources to deterring the North
.
Thank god Japan and South Korea's children can sleep safely at night knowing that the Americans are putting missile interceptors in Alaska. That'll show them we care!
Honestly speaking, I'm hoping for an attack
Clearly you don't live in Honolulu, SF, or Ellay...
Was the US not talking to Russia about further nuclear disarmament?
How is creating missile defense going to allow for that.
I had thought that the whole "star wars" thing was if one got an advantage from MAD that it was an escalation of arms not the other way around?
Anyway everyone is calling NK crazy, what is the US thinking right now? NK can't hit the US with a missile.
If people are calling Kim Jong Un crazy, what of Obama then for doing this stunt?
I am pretty sure 1000's of already existing missiles that actually can hit the US are a lot more of a danger to the US than anything NK can do.
It's possible any war with China would result in the U.S. rebuilding its industrial base again.
Methinks you're a tad over-optimistic. The US does not have an industrial base to rebuild. It's gone. We have no capacity to crank out the raw materials needed to ramp up for war like we did in WWII.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
How about checking your facts?
EADS and BEA failed to merge, particularly because Germany objected to it.
See here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19897699
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. - Cardinal Wolsey