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United States Begins Flying Stealth Bombers Over South Korea
skade88 writes "The New York Times is reporting that the United States has started flying B-2 stealth bomber runs over South Korea as a show of force to North Korea. The bombers flew 6,500 miles to bomb a South Korean island with mock explosives. Earlier this month the U.S. Military ran mock B-52 bombing runs over the same South Korean island. The U.S. military says it shows that it can execute precision bombing runs at will with little notice needed. The U.S. also reaffirmed their commitment to protecting its allies in the region. The North Koreans have been making threats to turn South Korea into a sea of fire. North Korea has also made threats claiming they will nuke the United States' mainland."
Better way. Ignore them completely. Don't acknowledge them, don't respond. Act like you you don't even hear them.
Pretend they don't even exist.
That's bloody stupid. Has ignoring playground bullies ever worked? No, it just invites escalating provocations.
If I were North Korea and I just wanted to blow up some Yankees out of spite, I'd say "forget the missile" and try to work out how to get a nuke into a standard intermodal container on a ship bound to a busy port near a population center.
Slashdot, check me on this. As North Korea, are my nukes powerful enough to do damage to land-based civilians from a boat pulling into harbor in Oakland or New York or Los Angeles? I know detonating a nuke in the NYC harbor was among of the canonical cold-war-turns-hot scenarios.
Captcha: "terrors". you don't say.
they've gotta be getting to the point where even China isn't going to take their crap for much longer. They WERE trying to destabilize the region. NOW they're trying to destabilize the entire world.
I see NK like some punk little child that goes around trying to start trouble everywhere he can, that always runs back and stands next to his big brother whenever anyone gets fed up with his harassment. This makes him bold beyond common sense, kicking and spitting on the others around him that would otherwise break his face. And Big Brother has got to be getting sick of it by now.
And just like in the neighborhood, china's the hulk of a big brother that is the only reason any number of others in the neighborhood don't tackle the punk and give him the pounding he so badly needs and deserves.
So really the big brother is the only one that can effectively fix the problem, by finally picking him up by the hair, shaking vigorously, and screaming "ENOUGH!"
I just hope that china is even a fifth as annoyed with him as the rest of the world is. Seriously, even China-style communism would do that country a world of good. I'd just love to see Jinping make a trip over to Pyongyang and sit the little dictator/delusional-god in a small chair and discuss making some minor adjustments to how NK is run.
(contrary to some suggestions in earlier comments, this is not the sort of problem you can ignore till it goes away... the more you ignore little punks like this, the bolder they get. ignore them, and it will never end, it will only continue to escalate)
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Depends. I'm not familiar with the geography of Oakland's or New York's harbors, but a low yield nuke in the LA-Long Beach port would probably have (relatively) few immediate casualties. The port itself is huge, and the surrounding area relatively under-populated (compared to other areas of the city). The Hiroshima blast radius was only about 1 mile with little direct structural damage outside that radius. Such a blast at the LA port would still probably kill thousands, but very likely far less than Hiroshima did. They ensuing chaos (we Angelenos LOVE a good riot) would probably kill as many people as the bomb.
My guess would be that Oakland would be even less severe, and New York would be worse.
They marked you funny but frankly its true, for those that didn't read about it we recovered their first stage from the ocean after their "sat" launch and found...its an uprated Scud missile. For those that I'm sure will say "So what?" you might want to look up "Stalin's Organs" which was the rocket artillery the Soviets used in WWII, the Scud was just a slightly more modern take on that. Imagine taking a Vietnam era Hellfire rocket and saying "We'll just build a really really REALLY big one of these and fly to the moon!"...yeah, not really made for that chief, gonna blow up in your face more often than not. This is why we have a hard time to this day saying how effective the Patriot battery was against the Scud because Saddam did the same trick and ended up with a rocket so fragile and explosion prone that they often ended up in pieces whether we shot anything at it or not, neither the fuel nor the engines were ever made to do any kind of range, it was just a cheaper weapon to make than the traditional artillery cannon which is why the Soviets favored them.
Finally remember that the Soviets weren't no dummies,unlike the USA in the 80s that would hand out its best tech to anybody that would say "we hate commies" the Soviets were smart enough to keep lower quality designs for export, designs its military derided as "monkey models" for the M placed at the end of the model, T72-M for example. So not only are they trying to build an ICBM out of something built for at best short range inaccurate barrages, but on top of that they are doing it with grossly inferior models to start with as the Soviets kept the best gear for the Warsaw Pact and everybody else got M models.
Sooo...yeah, maybe if they just drove the bomb over the giant leaking sieve of a border that nobody will fix because its a political hot potato? Then they might do something but with their "ICBM" tech I'd be more worried about the thing getting a couple hundred feet and turning into a fireball, possibly setting off the nuke (after all we have NO clue how safe their weapons are designed) and even if it doesn't spreading radiation all over Korea and possibly China. I have a feeling this is just some more bullshit posturing because their last aid packages have run out and they hope if they rattle the saber followed by the tin cup they'll get a little extra scratch. Personally I'm shocked China has put up with them for this long, maybe when the last of the old guard are dead they'll pull the plug and that will be that.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
You also have to consider a big difference between WW1 and WW2: fear of communism. While almost everyone in France was in a patriotic frenzy before WW1, there were a lot of people that did not want to fight Germany for WW2 because fascism was seen as a good protection against communism.
Germany, Italy, Spain had fascists regimes. France spared a fascist coup in 1934 just because different fascists leaders could not agree with each others. Some where hoping that a war defeat would bring to France what a coup missed to achieve.
NK is not Germany, though. And so far they're just shaking their fists in the air, not invading countries.
One does not "pull a boat" into Oalkand or LA without the US already knowing what is on it and where it came from.
In exchange for fast customs clearance the US clears the vast majority of containers before the ship departs from foreign ports.
Hahaha...only 8-10% of containers are inspected before departing foreign ports, and roughly the same when they're coming into port in North America, there's just too much of it to search and look it up. The majority of shipping relies on documentation and belief that the shipper is "following the regs and laws."
Om, nomnomnom...
Remind me, how is the "War on Drugs" going? Still having issues with that whole importing tons of cocaine every single year thing? And you think they can't slip a cargo-container with a nuke inside past the Coast Guard? They don't even have to get it through customs. Just set it off in the Port of LA - instant panic.
They do have reasons to be pissed at the entire rest of the world though...we've basically been screwing them over for decades.
Who was the first to nuclearize Korea? Not NK -- Eisenhower in the 50s. We planted a bunch of nukes right on the border, and were flying fighter jets armed with _nothing but_ nuclear bombs, and driving 20 kiloton nukes around in jeeps and helicopers just south of the DMZ -- and official policy was that if they attacked, we'd denoate all of 'em rather than let the North Koreans take them. Now, I know what you're saying -- that was the 50s...but that's just when it started. We kept it up until 1991, when we decided to withdraw the nukes to submarines and aircraft carriers and such just offshore. We've had them under constant threat of nuclear attack for sixty years!
The United Nations is still officially at war with North Korea.
It is said that North Korea has violated the 1953 armistice 221 times (many of which they dispute) -- but nobody counts how many times our side has. At the very least, the armistice prohibits nuclear weapons in the Korean theater -- so we've been violating it non-stop for around sixty years.
We say North Korea is developing nuclear weapons in violation of the Nonproliferation treaty. But one of the conditions of that treaty was that we would assist them in building nuclear power plants. Russia agreed to do this in the 80s, but never did. The USA then agreed to build them four LWRs in the 90s in exchange for more IAEA inspections. We got the inspections, but they never got the reactors. Never even made an attempt to start building them. Instead, we announced after the collapse of the USSR that we were taking our ICBMs formerly aimed at Russia and pointing them at North Korea. Bush and Obama have since also publicly stated that we are keeping our nuclear arsenal aimed at North Korea.
We've been threatening to nuke them for 60 years; and now we're shocked when they do the same thing? We've broken every damn promise we ever gave them, all with a loaded gun aimed at their head...is it REALLY a surprise they're not our best fucking friends?
There is a book where a supervillain delivers nukes into the US mainland inside of new cars. The A/C unit of the car is replaced with a nuke; then ships are filled with those cars and sent to US ports. The cars are perfectly functional, except that the A/C is not working - but who is going to test that? Not the dealerships; they are owned by the said supervillain.
There is a lot of large machinery that can contain a nuke, or parts of a nuke. You cannot even take that machinery apart. Consider a large electric motor, for example... that is 10' or 20' in diameter. How would customs agents even power it up? it is absolutely impossible. But that mountain of metal can have plenty of space inside to hold contraband. The shipper does not even need to damage the product. If the container is inspected, the agents see what they expect to see - a bulldozer, for example. How would they know that 90% of its fuel tank is already taken by a contraband? How would anyone know what is hermetically welded inside the steel chassis of that machine? You cannot X-ray it; you have to destroy the product - and the agents will do that only if they have specific information.
No, it's more like a paramedic arriving to find a person bleeding out from a laceration that's severed the femoral artery. Instead of putting a tourniquet on the limb in an attempt to save the person's life - even if it means they lose the limb - the paramedic begins talk therapy with them, in an attempt to find out how they feel about the injury, in the hopes that that will somehow make the wound decide to close itself spontaneously.
The response to Germany annexing Austria was, "let's talk about this! Can't we all just get along." Germany nodded and smiled and said, "yes, of course, that's a wonderful idea!" while continuing to build up its military in preparation to annex the Sudetenland, invade Poland, and later blitzkrieg all over the map.
IF there had been a strong military response to Germany's actions from the beginning, it's entirely possible that they would have been deterred from their further aggressive actions. But Chamberlain tried to charm them, in the foolish belief that Hitler's Germany was fundamentally reasonable and rational - they were not, and numerous voices were warning of that at the time. Unfortunately, the rest of the world paid the price in blood for Chamberlain & the other appeasers' unwillingness to act quickly to neutralize a clear threat to the security and stability of Europe.
Nip Germany in the bud in the late 30's, and the Blitz never demolished London, and the British people didn't spend 4 years on the brink of extinction. Dunkirk wasn't necessary, Normandy wasn't necessary, the retaliatory bombing of countless German cities wasn't necessary, and millions of Russians didn't have to die.
Chamberlain's pursuit of peace at all costs is a direct CAUSE of the people of Europe being subjected to a level of death and destruction that could have been avoided, had the world simply acknowledge the threat and dealt with it before the Germans could build their military up to the point that conquering most of Europe was possible. There IS a time and a place for the justifiable and moral use of force: Europe in 1938 was positively screaming for it.
I do not know but could he commit the British people to that level of death and destruction without having tried?
If he had stood up to Hitler earlier, the level of death and destruction would have been far less, or perhaps zero. Germany was still very weak when the appeasement started. When Hitler sent soldiers into the Rhineland, they had no ammunition. If the Allies had put up even a token resistance, they could have stopped it. But by making concession after concession, they gave Germany time to build up forces. Even after the war started in September of 1939, Britain and France took little offensive action, and war settled into a "sitzkrieg". They gave the Krauts another nine months to finish off Poland, and mass their forces on the western front.
At the time, WWI was called "The Great War" and WWII had not yet been named. When Churchill, who had opposed appeasement, was asked what the war should be called, he answered "The Unnecessary War".
Attach the trigger to a simple magnetic door contact, and the thing goes off when the container is opened. An IR motion detector will pick up any movement in the container if they manage to bypass the DC. A normally-open switch under the device will trigger if the device is removed from the container. Including the cost of the battery you've spent under $100. Even North Korea can afford that.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Hitler actually had the military to make good on his threats -- he wasn't all bluster. If Li'l Kim actually started a war he'd be smashed into powder by the South Koreans alone, and he knows it.
No, they don't test every ship with a geiger counter, and even if they did, a well shielded nuclear bomb (the regular kind) will not show unless the container containing it is opened.
Learn to love Alaska
That's a good summary, Japan was all but defeated in the Pacific and on the mainland, the nukes just drove the point home. It's often been said that Hitler fought the wrong war, he opened the East front first which prompted Stalin and Churchill to align against him (even though they detested each other). The history we (everyone, not just yanks) learned at school comes from a nationalistic POV, this is why many Chinese do not like Japan, the Japanese are not taught about the atrocities in Korea, Burma, China, etc, and many Japanese see the victims ( such as surviving "comfort women") as a bunch of liars denigrating their country. The same "winners history" can seen in every public school, here in Australia it was the abhorrent treatment of aboriginals that got swept under the carpet in history classes.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
China wants North Korea as a buffer zone. Having a reunified Korea lead by the democratic South is not what it wants - that's why it continues to prop up the Norks, despite the latter being insane.
China doesn't want to be an enemy. It is a competitor though, so in some sense it already feels as if it is in a shadow war with the US (and the rest of the World, in fact). Here's an article discussing the huge amount of espionage that the Chinese Government is organizing:
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htintel/articles/20130328.aspx
China knows it cannot win a kinetic war against the US and its allies. It is instead planning to set up all the pieces beforehand (eg. technology, modern arms and a knowledge of US military secrets) and have a strong regional force so that the US will hesitate to intervene in any dispute. The plan of China is already to enforce its ridiculous "9-line" claim, by force if necessary.
However, China is concerned about the supply lines to keep its industry going. It is contributing to global peacekeeping like the Somalia anti-piracy operation (which also helps train the PLA Navy for eventual power projection in the Indian Ocean). If China stops trampling on the Exclusive Economic Zone of its neighbours then its rise will be a positive thing. At the moment it is running around roughshod over its neighbours, so it is increasingly viewed negatively by its neighbours (who used to be neutral or friendly). That is why Vietnam asks US *military forces* to visit (no doubt a surprise for any readers with their mind still stuck in the paradigms of the 1970's), of course the US is still in Japan and Korea. Then we have Burma/Myanmar peeved with the Chinese (and their crap quality weaponry) so turning toward the Russians; then we have the Philippines who kicked the US out asking to have the US back. The funny thing was that China was afraid of a US-lead anti-China alliance even though none existed. By stupidly throwing its weight around it has in-fact got it's neighbours annoyed and they are asking the US to guarantee their protection (thereby starting to create such an anti-China alliance). I know that the Chinese feel that it is "their time to take their rightful place in the World", and this is somewhat true, but they are so terribly clumsy about it they don't realise they are acting as their own worst enemy.
Note to Chinese readers, we like you and don't want to fight you, so please chill a little. We know you don't want to be pushed around, please realise no-one else wants China to push them around either. Compete hard, but compete fair. :)
France and England stood by and LET Hitler take what he wanted
And so did the USA. We knew about the holocaust long before we got involved. Hell, the service contract for the IBM concentration camp management machines was handled straight out of Armonk, NY. Well after we knew what was going on we were still selling aluminum to Japan, and fuel and other resources straight to Germany. The Bush family fortune is based on deliberately channeling funds to Hitler's S.S. There's plenty of blame to go around.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"