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North Korea Accused of Testing an ICBM With Missile Launch Into Space (examiner.com)
MarkWhittington writes: Reuters reported that North Korea launched a long-range missile that is said to have placed a satellite into space. The launch happened much to the consternation of North Korea's neighbors, South Korea and Japan, as well as the United States. Pyongyang claimed that the missile launch was part of that country's peaceful space program. But, other countries are pretty sure that the launch was a test of an ICBM capable of placing a nuclear weapon on any target in the world, particularly the United States.
The US and North Korea only have an armistice, not a peace treaty. Legally they're still at war with each other. Added to NK's disregard of pretty much everyone, their having ICBMs does make the US nervous for good reasons. The US respects the armistice, but NK will likely start the war up again if they ever think they can get away with it.
No country is happy with any other country having the ability to attack it. Just very few countries are in the position that the US is in of having a military powerful enough that their displeasure makes people take notice.
The US doesn't just use it's military as casually as most think, typically it waits for a large group of allies to urge it to take action. It's wars in the Middle East benefit Europe a lot more than they do the US.
Most of them.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
China needs to do more to keep NK under control, unless NK's games are tolerated by China for reasons unknown.
The reasons are far from unknown. China is currently grabbing as much territory as they can, anywhere they can:
Baekdu Mountain (North Korea) ...)
Bhutanese enclaves in Tibet (Bhutan)
Demchok, Chumar, Kaurik, Shipki Pass, Jadh, and Lapthal (Taiwan, India)
Hong Kong (Taiwan)
Jiandao (North Korea, South Korea)
Kula Kangri and points West, Haa District (Bhutan)
Macclesfield Bank (Taiwan, Vietnam)
Paracel Islands (Taiwan, Vietnam)
Scarborough Shoal (Taiwan, Philippines)
Senkaku Islands (Taiwan, Japan)
Shaksgam Valley (India)
Arunachal Pradesh (Taiwan, India)
Spratly Islands (Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei)
Taiwan (Taiwan)
Eastern Bhutan (Taiwan, Bhutan)
Mainland China, Hainan (Taiwan -- but the PRC has a pretty good claim here 8^)
Western Heixiazi / Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island (Taiwan)
Penghu, Jinmen,Matsu Islands, Pratas Islands (Taiwan)
Songling District, Jiagedaqi District (Mongolia)
Pamir Mountains (Tajikistan)
Yalu River islands (North Korea, South Korea)
Shaksgam Valley (India)
Anything that keeps peoples attention focussed elsewhere is all to the good, as far as China is concerned. The territorial waters claims in the South China Sea, in particular, are important to them in terms of extending their range of control, in order to control fishing rights, since their population is still rising, despite sterilizations after the second child, and similar measures.
NK with ICBMs is a big concern because there is doubt that the NK leaders are 'rational actors.' So normal considerations like self preservation of the country or people may not apply.
"The bass, the rock, the mic, the treble. I like my coffee black, just like my metal" - Mindless Self Indulgence
2 things are keeping the western world from taking more action against North Korea. The first is that any military moves against North Korea would result in North Korea lobbing massive firepower (missiles, artillery and other things) at South Korea long before the US or others could stop them. And the second is that regardless of what China may say about the North Korean nuclear program, China would likely take action to stop a democratic unified Korea right on their doorstep just as they did in the early 50s.
All except Vanguard were atop converted ICBMs until the Saturn boosters came along, and the first Saturn was basically cobbled together from ICBM parts so it could also call it ICBM based, The Saturn V was mostly not ICBM based.
Which is of course irrelevant. The US (nor USSR) were not under international sanctions with agreements not to do it at the time, unlike North Korea.
I did my own checks to see how many US military missiles were used for space launch.
Two Mercury launches (the suborbital ones) occurred atop PGM-11 Redstone missiles, which were operated by the US Army. The remaining four used SM-65 Atlas missiles, which were operated by the US Air Force. They technically had a new designation, but the modifications were mostly additional safety measures, so the actual launch system was essentially Atlas.
All twelve Gemini launches used Titan II missiles, used by the US Air Force. Again, they had a separate designation, but adding abort systems and backup navigation systems doesn't really make it "not a missile".
Apollo, as you stated, used only Saturn I, IB and V rockets, which were never used for military purposes. However, the Saturn I/IB's first stage was derived from PGM-11 Redstone. Only Saturn V was completely free of military history. The same is true of ASTP and Skylab, since they reused Apollo launchers. This definitely doesn't fall under "atop US Army boosters", but you can't deny that there was some history there - mostly because the design of Saturn started before NASA or even NACA existed.
The Space Shuttle did not directly use any military components, but the design was informed by the capabilities of the military-industrial complex. Solid rockets had, by that point, become the obvious choice for nuclear missiles, so much of the American rocket industry retooled around solid rockets, and so the Shuttle used solid boosters for much of its power. And the US Air Force did plan to operate their own Shuttles, even building a launch site for them (Challenger convinced them to go with expendable launchers instead). But it can't reasonably be claimed the Shuttle itself was a military product.
North Korea is currently under international sanctions for violating several UN Security Council resolutions. That means that the majority of the UN considers North Korea's missile/nuclear program to be a problem, specifically destabilizing the region and undermining the global nonproliferation regime. In case you forgot, the nonproliferation treaty states that aside from the "nuclear weapon states" (China, France, Russia, the US and the UK), no other nation state should receive, manufacture or acquire nuclear weaponry. The NWS are also the five permanent members of the Security Council.
So within the bounds of international law and politics, North Korea is indeed disallowed to have ICBMs. Who's disallowing them? Everyone. As of the last few resolutions, even China has decided to withdraw their support, making the resolutions passed unanimously. Nuclear weapons aren't something you get to unilaterally decide you'll develop and own, and if you do, other countries will be extremely suspicious of you and for good reason.
Let's not kid ourselves here: North Korea is a farce. Its people is continuously under threat of famine, is being brainwashed, held back on just about every level, because the leadership of the country wants to conserve an iron grip on their small patch of land. As such, it's one of the poorest and most isolated places on the planet, and politically is extremely unstable and dangerous. You can't consider them on a rational level because they are not a rational actor. They have severe delusions of grandeur, regularly threaten just about every neighbor of armed conflict, often for no apparent reason, etc. The best possible thing that could happen for NK and the rest of the world would be a slow transition towards democracy and a complete reconstruction of its political sphere (including eliminating all current military and political personnel, up to Un himself). Failing that, I hope that one day the rest of the world decides to act upon this retarded stepchild and cut the head off - the transition would be far more traumatic, but at least it'd happen.
What right does the US has to invade North Korea?
According to Wikipedia, US and South Korea are in a military alliance.
From what I understand, North and South Korea are currently in a state of war.
Based on these two factors, US does not need any extra international justification to once against wage war on North Korea.
From what I've seen, even China is getting sick of North Korean antics and have started applying political pressure behind the scenes for them to chill out. Unfortunately, it seems as though NK is ignoring it and going rogue, which is a really bad idea as it's really only the influence that China wields that keeps them from getting steamrolled by any of several other countries or groups.
If anybody here would like to understand the situation in North Korea better, I highly recommend reading Victor Cha's book _The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future_. Cha worked for the George W. Bush administration and he's an expert on North Korea. Not to digress, but it would really be helpful is President Obama would make somebody in his staff who pays attention to North Korea read this too. Secretary of State Kerry keeps demanding that China do more. If he'd just read the book or have a staffer summarize it for him, he'd understand why they won't.
Here's the deal. North Korea started the Korean War on their own and Mao and Stalin weren't really happy about it. Stalin refused to get involved although he was willing to for Soviet pilots to serve as the de facto North Korean Air Force during the war. China committed troops only when it looked like MacArthur might actually get up to the border with China and possibly invade China. China paid a real price in blood to save North Korea. Mao's own son was killed in the fighting. So while the old line of North Korea and China being "closer than lips and teeth" is no longer really true, China does feel involved because a lot of her soldiers died in that war and they don't want it to be for nothing.
What Kerry, Obama and others in the US need to understand is what Cha points out in his book. Namely, that China really doesn't like North Korea causing problems but it views all possible outcomes of a post-North Korea version of Korea as really bad for China. China feels stuck in that it knows that North Korea's regime can't last forever, but if it puts too much pressure on them, they may collapse soon and remember, they view all post-DPRNK outcomes as very very bad for China. China fears that a unified Korea will have US soldiers stationed in what is now North Korea, so that means right on its borders. China also fears that once North Korea falls, the border will be overrun with North Koreans (there is an area of China near the border that is majority ethnic Korean, so refugees would likely go there) and China will have a humanitarian disaster on its hands that it will have to spend time and resources to deal with. Additionally, in exchange for their financial support, North Korea is basically selling its rare earths to China at below market prices, so China is financially very vested in maintaining this. A unified Korea is not likely to let China continue to destroy the North Korean countryside to get rare earths at a discount. China doesn't see any possible outcome of a post-North Korea world where things aren't a lot worse for China, so they are caught in rarely using the influence they have. However, outsiders, especially the Obama administration, seem to greatly overestimate what influence China actually has. The reality is that China has more influence than they are willing to use, but not as much as everybody else thinks. The Kim regime will do what it can to survive and if that means going against China, no problem there. China is simply never going to stop providing money and assistance as long as the regime exists, so expecting China to do anything but maintain the status quo is not very likely to happen.