Slashdot Mirror
Kim To N. Korean Military: Be Ready To Use Nuclear Weapons At Any Time (reuters.com)
PolygamousRanchKid writes with this story from Reuters, excerpting: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his country to be ready to use its nuclear weapons at any time and to turn its military posture to "pre-emptive attack" mode in the face of growing threats from its enemies, state media said on Friday. The comments, carried by the North's official KCNA news agency, marked a further escalation of tension on the Korean peninsula after the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday imposed harsh new sanctions against the isolated state for its nuclear program. South Korea's defense ministry said on Thursday North Korea launched several projectiles off its coast into the sea up to 150 kilometers (90 miles) away, an apparent response to the U.N. sanctions. ... North Korea has previously threatened pre-emptive attacks on its enemies including South Korea, Japan and the United States. Military experts doubt it has yet developed the capability to fire a long-range missile with a miniaturized warhead to deliver a nuclear weapon as far as the United States.
Says PolygamousRanchKid: "Oh, joy oh joy... I knew that 2016 was missing something: the threat of nuclear war!"
I live in Seoul and no one I know is even slightly concerned about this guy. No one is scared and no one cares.
Ignore him.
Mostly because people who have seriously studied the DPRK military note their military is like the military divisions in Moscow during the Soviet era: all show and no go. Many have said that the DPRK military may not even have enough ammunition and military hardware to mount a full-scale invasion of South Korea.
Sorry I don't give NK military the level of credit you do. I doubt that they are particularly well trained or well equipped. They are also not combat tested to any degree.
Do not confuse the NK military in general with the NK special operations types. Its night and day. They're special operations types are highly capable and have proven it in South Korea. For example in the 1990s a NK reconnaissance team infiltrated South Korea by submarine and successfully surveilled a navy base for several days. When the sub came back to pick them up the sub ran aground. Classified equipment was destroyed and then the recon team executed the sailors and tried to make it to NK on foot. They were discovered and evaded the South Korean military for over a month, killing and wounding several dozen South Korean soldiers in the process. Most of the recon team was killed during this long hunt, one is thought to have made it to NK.
On another occasion a NK sub got caught in a fishing vessels nets. Its seems to have scuttled itself when the South Korean Navy tried to take it. The water was shallow enough for divers to search it. Evidence of numerous successful recon mission on South Korean territory was found.
It wouldn't be the first time. ladies and gentlemen meet the freedom tank where a Czech found an old Nazi battle tractor, slapped hillbilly armor on that bitch, and drove it right through the iron curtain. I'm sure there are tractors in NK that could similarly be made into "freedom tanks".
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
millions of civilians die
Millions would not die. The death toll of a surprise barrage by NK conventional artillery would be tens of thousands. Long range NK artillery would be neutralized in the first week. Seoul would survive.
You're parroting the claims of the NYT and others that tend to exaggerate the consequences of conflict for their own misguided reasons. Without nuclear or chemical weapons NK cannot destroy Seoul, and with such weapons they face rapid obliteration by the strategic weapons of South Korean allies.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
Every country has an enemy it is fighting against. Without the enemy, every country has no reason to exist.
Very interesting report. Certainly makes me rethink the (for lack of a better term) conventional wisdom about NK's ability to strike at Seoul. Until now I would have essentially agreed with the OP. The report definitely seems to be well thought out and thorough, however it does rely on some information which, while it may be the best available, is not completely verified (acknowledged in the report, to it's credit). For example, the so-called "Dud rate". I'm don't necessarily disagree with these numbers, but when considering potential civilian casualties their uncertainty must be factored into the inherent risk.
Also, I'm not sure what "misguided reasons" the NYT and others have to exaggerate the consequences of the conflict. Perhaps they are misinformed, or ignorant, but that statement indicates that there is some ulterior motive, and I don't think that's justified.
Furthermore, while the consequences may not be as severe or immediate as some believe, they are still pretty severe, they are still pretty immediate, and they will absolutely be far reaching. There is something to be said for the value of restraint, perhaps in this situation most of all.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
This stuff is easy to look up yourself.
Hell, get on Google Earth or Google Maps and review all the places they say there will be attacks from.
You'll find a few holes and tunnel entrances.
What you won't find, is fast deploy-able anti aircraft weapons. You won't find ports or ships to carry attackers. You won't find rail lines that can't be cut fast, and you won't find shit for infrastructure to support a war or a movement of troops. You won't find airfields of any merit. You won't find planes on any of the ones that are there that have moved in years. To attack, they'll have to WALK. Over MOUNTAINS.
Cluster bombs, dropped mines, and other simple stuff will stop them. Hell, drop FOOD behind the lines with a leaflet that says "we dropped all the food behind you." That's what they want anyway, that's the reason for all the threats.
Nothing will come of any of this. China will ship them some more food and they'll quiet down until the crops fail next year.
Lankov is Russian and is based in Russia. Do I really have to point out that nobody in Russia is a reliable source of information under Putin? For all you or I know, he has Kremlin ties. I do think it's certainly possible that private markets are helping stability, I'm not convinced that Lankov doesn't have an agenda straight from Putin and for a variety of reasons it is in Putin's interests at the moment to paint North Korea in a picture as rosy as possible. I have read Victor Cha's book _The Impossible State_ and I recommend it. Cha points out that China basically has no choice but to support North Korea. They don't want refugees flooding over the border, which not only would cost them money but would take up valuable resources they are going to need to keep the population in line as the economy declines. China lost Taiwan, perhaps forever, as a result of going to North Korea's aid in the Korean War. This is still a major sticking point for them. Their desire to have complete control over Taiwan is insatiable. Also, China paid a real price in blood to save North Korea, including the loss of one of Mao's sons. And finally to give China something for their support, North Korea is basically letting them ravage the environment to dig up rare earths that China pays a huge discount for. Cha states that while China has more influence than they are willing to use most of the time, they actually have less real influence than is commonly believed in the west. North Korea knows that ultimately it can do what it wants because there are real limits to how much China will push back.
Why is it to people like you everything that's evil is conservative? You're aware Truman, the only man to ever use a Nuke was a liberal and a democrat, right? This is usually where people like you try to disavow that he was part of *your team* and claim that the democrats weren't what they are now back then. But then you seem to forget that the shining example of what a democrat should be, FDR, was the president Truman served under as VP, and it was FDRs death that elevated him to the presidency. Then again, we point out that Johnson is mostly responsible for Vietnam, not Nixon, who was in fact responsible for getting us out of there. Again, usually you're ilk go on about not really a democrat and all and forgetting that he was the VP under another shining example of a democrat, JFK. And now you go on saying that conservatives and the Fox News approach are responsible for "lie is just as good as the truth" when in fact this is standard politics that literally predates the US as a country, let alone the republicans or the democrats. If you see anything dealing with NK as a "right wing echo chamber" you're literally an idiot. This can be proven by how you go off on spouting all these things while supplying literally not one shred of verifiable evidence, and the other side can literally present a press release from NK.
Face it, you're a left wing wack job. You have no compass on anything and you're so disillusioned that if you had any wisdom you should just shut up to stop yourself looking the fool.
It is gullible to think that Kim Jong Un is insane? He pokes SK, Japan, and the US on a regular basis. He has attacked SK previously, and fires off missiles and explodes nukes as a temper tantrum every year when the US and SK have their annual cooperation drills.
The guy is clearly crazy, the only reason they won the Korean war was due to China's support, and he has managed to alienate China, their closest ally, by setting off nukes after they told him to quit it.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?