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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!"
There is no real risk of a nuclear strike coming out of NK. The real deterrent they have is the massed conventional artillery pointed at Seuol. Any attack on NK would have to be so overwhelming as to destroy the artillery in a minute. If not millions of civilians die.
Look at the bright side - the day after a North Korea 1st strike, the problem with North Korea will be solved. Or at least disappear.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
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.
North Korea is now all-in on their nuclear-weapons gambit. What North Korea's endgame might be remains unknown, least of all to its young, inexperienced leader Kim Jong UnKim
Since I am convinced Kim Jong Un does not want to live the rest of his life in a radiation-proof bunker, I am not scared by North Korea military posture.
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.
He took one look at American's presidential candidates and said to himself: "Self, if I don't do something fast, I'll lose my title as craziest man on the planet."
They don't have to have an ICBM, just get an object into orbit and they can drop it anywhere provided they have enough math skills
Eh... that's basically the definition of ICBM.
I suppose you could argue if they are actually launching a satellite into a stable *orbit* that would eventually drop a nuke with any accuracy it wouldn't technically be ballistic - but in that cast it's an order of magnitude more complex than an ICBM so what's the point...
errr.... which takes the MUCH more powerful rocket system and more accurate guidance? to do sub-orbital lob and hit a target, or put object fully into orbit, to de-orbit later and hit a target?
Says PolygamousRanchKid: "Oh, joy oh joy... I knew that 2016 was missing something: the threat of nuclear war!"
We don't need this stupid bullshit in the summary. I'll read the comments if I want stupid bullshit.
There is no real risk of a nuclear strike coming out of NK.
Nuclear weapons aren't necessarily missiles, nor even nuclear bombs. Nuclear weapons include dirty bombs, nuclear dusting and various other things. Some of the later only require WW2 era technology. North Korea is capable of attacking the US with these older technologies.
Some of these regimes that play the tough guy, all they really want to join their voices with Aretha Franklin and ask for some r-e-s-p-e-c-t.
I grant it's hard to respect the DPRK because they are so morally and economically impoverished.
They are usually wanting to say one of two things (and sometimes both at the same time).
They say, "Look at me. I'm a real country. I get to play with the big boys."
And back home they can bolster a (false) sense of nationalism by saying to their people, "Hey look at us, we are powerful in the world, standing up to the big boys."
In the end all of this really isn't all that important.
The DPRK's eugenics program, human rights abuses and an absolute lack of free speech are for more concerning.
so guess the western powers need to throw rocks on another buggie man/hornets nest/
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
The point is, instead of 20 minutes of warning you get maybe 5 before the nuke lands on you, thereby rendering all of our anti-ballistic technology useless. Oh, and you'd have no idea who deorbited their nuke so you can't even retaliate properly.
That's what they want you to think. You are really dumb, did you know that? How dumb you are?
Why is the GP dumb? They don't have 20 Megaton bombs because they're not practical. 10 200 Kiloton bombs are more dangerous than one 20 Megaton bomb.
NORAD does too much tracking. If a bird deorbits they know which bird it was, who put it into orbit when and from where.
He got the downmod for doing it wrong. What a bunch of noobz we're cursed with, these days. NOW GET OFF MY LAWN.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
So basically, you want to nuke North Korea because you want to nuke North Korea.
And you assume that Kim is not a rational actor. That's a big assumption. Especially since he seems to have proved himself quite adept already at removing possible threats to the power that he was born and raised to assume as the scion of a Stalinist dynasty.
(And I am also an EU citizen, and you most certainly do not speak for me.)
Thanks for playing!
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
So he picks a fight and some good and innocent people die, but 100% of his country gets vaporised in the counter strike. He had better check the weather before he wumps SK too, because at the moment the fallout would poison most of eastern China. Or does he realise that and is trying to intimidate Xi Jinping as well? Somehow I don't think that strategy is likely to go well for him.
Cue cartoons of him in a nappy trying to count on his fingers, because that is the magnitude of his arsenal and the nature of his behaviour.
Does anybody else notice an increase in right wing FUD in the stories covered here...stories like this one, that barely qualify as tech-related, if they do at all?
I'm learning to think it's not a real week at Slashdot unless we see at least a couple of "Obama sucks because" stories, three or four "Windows 10 only phones home a hundred times a second because if loves you" stories, and a few like this one, where the "authorities" we're supposed to dislike and mistrust say they don't think North Korea can get a nuke-carrying missile as far as the US.
Can we get back to the Slashdot that used to keep this crap somewhat isolated and filterable, please?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Look at the bright side - the day after a North Korea 1st strike, the problem with North Korea will be solved. Or at least disappear.
By what means? The U.S., nor any other nation, would not issue a retaliatory strike, and probably not even invade. A few facilities bombed, and that's about it.
It would take several consecutive strikes before any first world nation (well OK just the U.S.) would consider a nuclear strike right now.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
At this point, we really won't even mind if you keep it as a "communist" buffer state. Just install a saner puppet. Really. We won't mind that much. Do it. DO IT. DO IT!!!!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
a lot of what comes out of Pyongyang is likely directed at their own population. Kim needs to convince his people that their country is under imminent threat in order to distract attention away from the corruption and oppression by his regime. He needs to show his own people that he is doing something to respond to that threat that his propaganda machine created. Otherwise he appears weak, or his people won't take that threat seriously. And he needs the combination of an over-sized military (for the population) and sanctions as an excuse for the extreme poverty most of his citizens face. "Comrade, I know you are starving, but unfortunately we need to protect our country from American aggression. We don't want to divert precious resources to build atomic weapons, but those cosmically evil Americans give us absolutely no choice..."
Why not consider an expert's opinion? I point you to the work of Andrei Lankov and in particular a recent (Feb 1, 2016) Q&A he did with the Korea and the World podcast. He's traveled to China and spoken with officials there about the relationship with North Korea—it is in better shape than the media lets on. Also he talks a bit about the current state of the economy and the growth of private markets—they are thriving and being allowed to do so. The conclusion is that North Korea is much more stable than most would give them credit—especially the South Korean propaganda machine—and that despite appearances Kim Jong Un may actually be allowing an openness not previously seen in North Korea. This is demonstrated by the decrease in the number defectors over the last two years and the general increase in the standard of living. source: http://www.koreaandtheworld.or...
I wonder if the Baby God Dictator of the Norks has minions who are smart enough to shoot his ass before letting him destroy their country?
If the Norks pop off a nuke, it will be the last thing they ever do.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That is what the USA always does. Then we wonder how come they don't like us. ... and what has N.K. ever done to us that we hate them so?
Oh
Just a wild speculation.... have US defence budgets been reduced lately, perchance?
Requiem for the American Dream
The point is, instead of 20 minutes of warning you get maybe 5 before the nuke lands on you, thereby rendering all of our anti-ballistic technology useless. Oh, and you'd have no idea who deorbited their nuke so you can't even retaliate properly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And what then mr know-it-all?
Tell me, what exactly do you think their second step would be, and what do you think the worlds reaction (for example, China..) would be?
Perhaps N.Korea can invade someone with their highly capable navy, using their extensive airforce for air cover, and hold the ground against
the efforts of the rest of the world?
They want such weapons to protect what they have now, which almost certainly includes their access to nice western toys for their elite.
They will rattle their sabers for two reasons which are really the same. To try and maintain their power/position, both internal and external (hence 2.)
There is no scenario where they 'win' any form of external attack.
The people in power there currently enjoy absolute power, and all the trimmings that comes with. Why exactly would they want to wipe that out
by launching an actual attack, short of being on the brink of losing that power?
The difficulty will come when change eventually comes from N.Korea, THAT is when things get touchy.
promise everyone 4 month's worth of rice in return for Kim et al's head on a pike. They'll lose their fear, spike Kim, stay home and grow their own food.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
That system only covers a small fraction of the globe and it doesn't work in bad weather. So all it takes to get plausible deniability is to build in some maneuvering capability and wait for a cloudy day. Oh and leave a decoy where the warhead was supposed to be, that way you can claim the weapon is still there in orbit.
The US does not hate China dude. If North Korea attacked China, the US would assist- if China needed help swatting that fly, which they would not.
Your whole preconception is wrong.
If North Korea pre-emptively attacked the South, either with an artillery / missile barrage or used a nuke, it might as well kiss its existence goodbye. At least as far as the regime and a large portion of its army was concerned. Even China would probably be on the side of those looking to wipe them off the face of the earth.
All North Koreans are receiving extra rations of beans and other types of food known to cause gaseous discharge.
Same shit, different day.
Maybe someday the south will just say, "OK, bring it on you fat little faggot!" and smack the shit out of them.
Problem solved.
Scruting the inscrutable for over 50 years.
LOL, hell no.
The fact is Americans love the Chinese. We buy their products like crazy. We love their food. We admire their art, exotic language and respect their ancient heritage. We welcome their people to study and work here. Sure we complain about the trade imbalance and the gamesmanship between our governments. But for the things that really matter they are our brothers and would instantly and without hesitation rally to their aid.
Make no mistake, if North Korea would actually use nuclear weapons in anger against *anybody*, it would cease to exist as a political entity in less than a week.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Not only that, But they was massive layoffs in China recently and the most efficient way to deal with it would be conscription into military service and a war that thinned the population out.
If North Korea provoked China, it might be the end of N.K.
Loudmouthed little turd.
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.
Even if you assumed 50% were inoperable the amount of explosive that would rain on Seoul is insane.
But this is the insanity I don't understand. Why do the Sokors insist on locating their largest city within artillery range of a country it's technically still at war? The government could have easily built, especially during SK's period of rapid growth, a new capital on its southern edge, closer to Japan. If not that, it would have been a rather simple matter, converting some of the other cities into a government center.
Given its central location in the Korean peninsula, Seoul would make an excellent capital for a united Korea, but as it stands, it's a huge security risk and magnet for attack with a mere minutes' advance warning should Kim decide to launch blitzkreig.
Just stop paying attention and he will go away.
It works on internet trolls right? Right?
It's time to eliminate AC countries.
And...imagine how many more products a unified Korea could make?
Some analysis says that it would cause less than 40k casualties, potentially as few as 1000. Still lots of human lives lost, but not as bad as NK wants to paint it.
http://www.popularmechanics.co...
https://skeptoid.com/blog/2013...
There are more in-depth articles I'm unable to find at the moment. Gist of it is: Not much of their artillery has the range to would reach Seoul, it's probably in bad maintenance or would break down soon, and NK would not be able to supply it with enough munitions or spare parts for sustained barrage, they would not reach Seoul center but less densely populated northern suburbs, there are plenty of shelters and after initial shock people would take cover. Not to mention counterbattery and airstrikes to take it out which would start immediately. --Coder
While this would suck for South Korea, I wish Kim WOULD try a large scale attack so his little army and power structure would be stomped into the ground.
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
Both Clintons too.
A nuke deal was reached under Bill's presidency too. It too was violated even though it was under the former leader.
Deals may not be possible with North Korea. At least long term ones.
LOL, don't be so fucking gullible; yeah, our governments apparently finds it useful to spin their leaders as madmen but you're really not supposed to fall for that bullshit unless you're stuck with an IQ under 105; the North Korean regime clearly hasn't stayed in power as long as they have because they base their tactical and strategic decisions on their fucking emotions!
How did that work out for Germany when the wall came down? NK has virtually no production capacity or skilled labor, and would be a drain on the ROK economy for years before things got better.
Just another day in Paradise
Under the threat of them using nukes? No, collateral damage would be a sad but necessary evil.
Just another day in Paradise
Or is this like the movie Armageddon, where nobody has thought of anything that could remotely happen, as opposed to likely as in this case?
That is what you took out of that movie, a lack of preparation? They had two shuttles all ready to go that could fly out past the moon, they had a rover designed and built for just such a mission, with a drilling rig attached to it. They had some issues getting the transmission working on the drilling rig, but that was due to intentional sabotage of the plans submitted to the patent office.
I didn't see a lack of preparation in Armageddon, I saw tons of preparation. About the only lack in foresight was the lack of early detection of such a large asteroid, which was pretty far fetched.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Costly at first to feed and house millions of Germans who had been starving for two generations and had been used to planned poverty, but they caught up surprisingly fast.
Koreans have been one people since the beginning of history. We tend to forget that the whole idea of North Korea dates back only to the immediate postwar years. NK is a fake country that has existed this long only because of the perceived support of China, which is now finding the place to be more trouble than it's worth. When the wall comes down. no matter what the reason, Both Korea will immediately cease to exist, and there won't even be any equivalent of Ostalgie.
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?
I haven't forgot. I was in Germany for six years, including during the fall of the wall. I also spent another six in the ROK.
ROK will certainly embrace their brethren civilians from the north, and exploit the natural resources there. I agree with your take on the northerners not missing any of their old country...they've lead extremely sheltered lives.
Just another day in Paradise
Such a near sighted comment. -Wishing- an attack and deaths of many thousands and possibly millions of people just to 'stomp' an army into the ground.
This isn't a video game, these are people's lives. Losing your parents, children, loved ones, and/or family is horrible every single time.
Please don't think of wars at a macro level with a 'winner' and 'loser'. At the micro level, it's devastating; brothers that live their lives without limbs, children born without eyes, and sometimes lifetime poverty for families.
I'm so appreciative of the fact that I've grown up without this is my life, but I do think it's made everyone forget about the real life impact wars have on people.
I'm not sure one can conclude that North Korea won the Korean war considering the economic and political situation in the South. Some might say it's a stalemate, but even that is not accurate considering the differences between the two halves of the peninsula.
Also, if China were truly interested in controlling the actions of NK, including development of nuclear weapons, China could shut NK down very quickly by an economic blockade which would encourage the rest of the world to do the same. The small economic actions of the rest of the work have had little affect on NK. Then again, if NK were really blockaded their actions could be pretty bad for that part of the world, sort of like a cornered rat with no options but to do crazy things.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
Taking the train to Berlin shortly after reunification, I was struck by the difference between prosperous Braunschweig and the next town, run-down, freshly liberated Magdeburg. In Berlin, I saw the Brandenburger Tor standing by itself in the open, recalling how much grainy newsreel footage I had grown up with of people being shot for sneaking through it.
In the debate, he said the foreign country that poses the biggest threat is North Korea. He cited the fact that they are a nuclear power and a very strange country and dictatorship.
But smart Clinton understood new that Iran was a bigger threat. She's so good at foreign policy that she turned Libya into a failed state, armed people who eventually helped start ISIS.
And dumb Sanders said we should worry about North Korea...
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
At least he can use critical thinking and math. You seem to be falling short in those respects.
Here's a hint: in order to make a big-dick multi-megaton nuclear explosive, it's really HEAVY, and still has the inverse-cube law applied to it's detonation. Instead, you can use the same missile to carry *multiple* smaller independently-targetable warheads that do MORE damage and cost less.
Go back to 1963 where you belong.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
This assumes that NK has anything remotely close to this capability. They've launched precisely 2 things into orbit (both of them much much much smaller than your theoretical maneuverable nuke with precision de-orbit capability) and both of which ceased to function before they even made it to orbit. ICBMs are much easier than what you propose
Your whole premise is silly because we are talking about NORTH KOREA.
1) if NK actually gets anything of a decent size a stable orbit you'd better believe it will be tracked by every country in the world capable of doing so - they'd know exactly where it is and who did it.
2) they can't do #1 right now. And launching an ICBM would be WAY simpler than #1, which was my point.
3) it's basically suicide at a national level if they ACTUALLY do either #1 or #2, so they don't REALLY want to use it, they want to bluster and threaten people with it. In that case they are much better off telling everyone they have a ICBM than that they have a space based nuke, as in the latter case anything NK ever launched into orbit would basically be shot down immediately and without repercussion as it violates international space law.
If that doesn't make sense to you, you should watch Dr. Strangelove... "The whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world?"
As a world, I expect that we spend a lot more money on preparing films as we do on preparation for asteroid strikes.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
For the South Korean people I know, reunification would be a dream come true. I know people whose families were divided. The Germans I know are very happy that they are reunited economic challenges notwithstanding.
Greed is the root of all evil.
I wasn't questioning the idea that it was desirable on a humanitarian front. I've lived in both places, and know full well the implications. The GP however made what I believe is an incorrect claim regarding their ability to produce once unified.
Just another day in Paradise
That makes sense.
Greed is the root of all evil.
It would take more than a week because the rest of the world would not want to harm the civilians. So strikes would need to be planned out pretty well and be extremely surgical.
Your dreaming.. Retaliate first and widespread, then for the second wave, take care of what's left.
If war starts, it will be by a widespread surprise attack.
No time to be rational on defense mode.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
I'm not debating the merits or not of attacking anywhere. What I'm saying is that if NK were to choose a target to do a maximum amount of damage for as little overhead as possible, as well as giving the entire region a black eye, Okinawa would be that ripe target. Of course retaliation would be swift and severe, but that won't make it any less damaging.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Apparently, North Korea lies. A lot. Even to a country which could render it uninhabitable for decades. Who could have guessed it?
Eventually -- probably within 10 years, according to my highly-uneducated guess -- the regime will collapse or be overthrown from within.
If things go badly, it will just be another backward awful country that is somewhat less repressive to its people and even less dangerous to the United States (already a negligible danger). Perhaps a notch or two worse than Venezuela.
If things go very well, it will go like East Germany.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.
Costly at first to feed and house millions of Germans who had been starving for two generations and had been used to planned poverty, but they caught up surprisingly fast.
I sincerely hope that my literally inexistant knowledge of NK ist still much better than yours of divided Germany. There has never been any starving or housing problems in east Germany during the existance of the iron curtain and not nearly as much oppression of the population and never any real isolation from information from the rest of the world. Not that the GDA was fine, don't get me wrong...
I hate their bland food. Give me Indian or Thai.