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North Korea Parades Hybrid 'Frankenmissile', Then Fails Yet Another Missile Launch Test (cnn.com)
First, an anonymous reader quotes Inverse:
On Saturday, the North Korean military paraded an unprecedented array of weapons through Kim Il-sung Square in the center of Pyongyang... "We're totally floored right now," Dave Schmerler of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, tells the Wall Street Journal. "I was not expecting to see this many new missile designs." Schmerler tells The Journal that the large missiles -- the "frankenmissiles," as he calls them -- in the parade appear to be hybrids of the North Korean KN-08 and KN-14 missiles, both of which are ICBMs.
But at least one arms control expert noted that while the parade included ICBM-sized canisters, "what's inside is anyone's guess" -- and there's still mixed results for the country's missile program. "An attempted missile launch by North Korea on Sunday failed, US and South Korean defense officials told CNN... At this point, US military officials don't believe the missile had intercontinental capabilities, a US defense official told CNN." The official said there was limited data -- because the missile blew up so quickly -- prompting CNN.com to run the story under the headline "Show of Strength a Flop."
Update: Slashdot reader Dan Drollette is a science writer/editor and foreign correspondent for Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and contacted us earlier today to share his recently-published analysis "to delve into what has been happening lately...and to discredit some common tropes in the media, such as the idea that 'North Korea is about to collapse,' 'China has a lot of influence over North Korea,' 'North Korea can credibly threaten the United States right now,' 'North Korea has no reason to feel threatened,' or 'The North can be completely denuclearized.'"
But at least one arms control expert noted that while the parade included ICBM-sized canisters, "what's inside is anyone's guess" -- and there's still mixed results for the country's missile program. "An attempted missile launch by North Korea on Sunday failed, US and South Korean defense officials told CNN... At this point, US military officials don't believe the missile had intercontinental capabilities, a US defense official told CNN." The official said there was limited data -- because the missile blew up so quickly -- prompting CNN.com to run the story under the headline "Show of Strength a Flop."
Update: Slashdot reader Dan Drollette is a science writer/editor and foreign correspondent for Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and contacted us earlier today to share his recently-published analysis "to delve into what has been happening lately...and to discredit some common tropes in the media, such as the idea that 'North Korea is about to collapse,' 'China has a lot of influence over North Korea,' 'North Korea can credibly threaten the United States right now,' 'North Korea has no reason to feel threatened,' or 'The North can be completely denuclearized.'"
Somehow I doubt any NK sub is moving a millimeter without a US fast attack or two trailing it with loaded tubes and a firing solution already locked in. If they so much as open a tube or missile door they'll be dead before they can fire anything.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
So when they put out all the paranoid rhetoric that the US is only out to invade and bomb them, are they really being paranoid?
My drill instructor gave me some useful advice about thirty years ago: if someone says they want to kill you, you should take them seriously. Let's keep in mind that since the late 1950's North Korea has been militant, aggressive, threatening, and destabilizing no matter who was in the White House. Various administrations have tried various sticks and various carrots to get them to change all to no avail. If the Norks are afraid of external animosity they only have themselves to blame.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
From the 'debunking' note, I wouldn't credit Mr Drollette as being as informed as he seems?
"âoeNorth Korea wants to demonstrate it has a deterrent. To do so, it needs to be able to credibly threaten the US mainland or our overseas assets. For that, you have to make the bomb (more correctly, the warhead) small enough to mount on a missile,â "
No, they don't.
Certainly, any of the 4 old Romeo-class subs that the DPRK has could accommodate a sizable warhead, and it's entirely unlikely that US antisub systems would be audacious enough to sink it if it was cruising in the Los Angeles littoral. Surfacing just outside or in the harbor, and suicidally popping that nuke would devastate Los Angeles even if it fizzled.
"North Korea has no reason to feel threatened? "
Oh bullshit. The US ROK exercises have gone for what, 50 years? To assert 'they infuriate the north who believes them a practice for invasion' is about as credible as Little Kims score of 18 at golf, or the insistence that he simply doesn't poop. Let's say that they have no rational reason to feel threatened and leave it at that.
"the best and most realistic approachâ"or rather, the âleast badâ(TM) approachâ"is to negotiate a freeze on Pyongyang's nuclear program. Such a deal would in some sense be a new version of the 1994 Agreed Framework, which succeeded in slowing the North's nuclear program."
The 1994 Agreed Framework was a complete and TOTAL FAILURE. It was intended to halt the DPRKs nuke program, and the rationalization that it "slowed it down" is utterly without basis except to the pollyannas who believe sanction just might work the next time.
How gullible are you?
"âoeUnder an updated version of the agreement, North Korea would impose a moratorium on nuclear tests and long-range missile launches. It would give inspectors access to its nuclear facilities. In exchange, Pyongyang would receive food, humanitarian and development aid on a regular basis"
This is EXACTLY what the 1994 Agreement tried to do, they took the food, the aid, and cheerfully violated their side of the agreement. I'm reminded the colloquial definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over expecting different results".
I'm not a warmonger. I don't believe the US can "send in special ops" or nonsense like that. But to assert blithely that an agreement with DPRK can result in anything but rewarding them with more time and western goods to limp along in their goofy separate reality is ludicrous.
-Styopa
I'm sure our boomer and attack sub commanders would be appalled to know they are so easily found. You should let them know ASAP. /s
Or to put it another way, you have no idea what you're talking about, and should probably stop talking in order to prevent further illumination of this fact.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Exactly, they need to be disarmed before they miniaturize their warheads. The missile stuff is mostly a red herring. If they do another nuke test, they have to be immediately stopped because they're just too close.
I keep hearing the South Korean media blather on and on, misunderstanding the word "consult" for "seek permission." I guess that is why they had protests when some of their politicians wanted local military control. When war comes, saying no to it just means you one of the dead. North Korea is a real threat, if they were not a real threat they would be staying close to China and there would be no problems. They could have Chinese troops protecting them if they would give up the nukes, but they won't do it.
Some people forget that history has shown examples of evil regimes not only willing but eager to kill millions. When they say they're going to nuke us, and they're really trying to develop the needed technology, it might be worth taking them at their word.
They can get pretty close by simply putting it onto a boat and sailing it in the any US port. For that matter the 9700 pound Hiroshima Bomb could be built into a modest sized cabin cruiser and sailed up to the Potomac to within about a mile of the White House.
It's really hard to protect a large modern state from a rogue nation with nuclear capabilities, which is why non-proliferation is so important. It's one of those problems that are so hard, people just ignore it and focus instead on ones that seem more accomplishable, like establishing democracy in countries that have never had one.
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The thing about submarines is that the low tech ones are actually quieter than the fancy ones when running on batteries. They have to make a bunch of noise to recharge, but if you're just moving one submarine one time there are ways to avoid that, like having it follow under a regular civilian ship and running generators on the ship. That obviously won't work for a whole fleet, and won't work repeatedly, but there are lots of schemes to get a battery powered sub through the defenses one time. Even the drug smugglers manage it. They might even buy it somewhere else, and it wouldn't even have ever been to North Korea.
I'm not sure what difference you think you would see if it has nukes, vs not having them.
Things like plankton plumes are what you would worry about with a nuclear powered submarine that generates a lot of waste heat, it has nothing to do with a battery-powered submarine that is simply carrying nuclear warheads.
Perhaps you read something talking about the cold-war techniques developed to try to keep track of submarines, and mistook it for an absolute capability instead of a bag of tricks that sometimes work.
Delivering a massive first strike would only give the NK regime an excuse to say to its people "see, we told you this would happen", and then retaliate in equal measure. Which would only leave losers on both sides.
NK should not be given that excuse. Shoot down their missiles if any of them come too close to population centres outside NK. Sink a sub if it comes too close to US (or other friendly nation) shoreline. Covert sabotage operations, fine. A good dose of cyberwar, why not. Stationing extra troops near border areas as a show of preparedness. But DO NOT be the one to push the start button for a full-on war. Especially if nukes might be involved.
Ultimately it's up to NK people to deal with their own regime. And that regime will come to an end - like everything else. It's only a matter of time.
Assuming some NK hardware is not at least as capable is absurd.
This is 2016, not 1942. The technology for detecting and tracking submerged vessels has improved somewhat in the last 74 years. The North Korean subs are basically vintage 1960s era technology, like much of the rest of their military. They're not going anywhere without being tracked and if they approach the United States they will be sunk, war or no war, because nobody will be watching except the ones doing the shooting. Submarines can be accident prone and the Pacific Ocean has a fearsome reputation among mariners. Nobody would have any problem believing that a North Korean submarine had an "accident" while at sea. In fact, the visibility of submarines at sea to the general public is so low that they United States could essentially deny any knowledge. Finally, the North Koreans are so unsympathetic and unpopular these days that nobody would care what happened to their submarine anyway.
When they say they're going to nuke us, and they're really trying to develop the needed technology, it might be worth taking them at their word.
They don't say they are going to nuke us. They say their nukes are for defensive purposes against American belligerence. Let's look at America's track record:
1. Saddam Hussein gave up his nuclear program.
Result: America killed him.
2. Muammar Gaddafi gave up his nuclear program.
Result: America killed him.
So how does it make any logical sense for Kim to give up his nukes?
If America wants non-proliferation, maybe we should stop killing people who cooperate.
Truly we have fantastic technology today.
We can find a submarine just as easily as we can find a crashed airliner under the ocean given a couple of years to look for it.
Some things are just not easy kids - no flying car for you!
Yet South American drug convoys manage to run subs and boats back and forth on a daily basis spitting distance off the US coast. You vastly overstate the quality and readiness of the US military.
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AC's are no less wrong or right than anyone else. Judge on substance, not user name. That is how Trump became president.
I'm aware. I write signal processing software for the signals that drive spectrum / waterfalls. Some people would be quite surprised as to what can be done with only a hint of data.
Again, no details can be laid out here, but some tracking is definitely possible. My point was that losing track is also possible, so yes, we agree.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
OK, I see where you are coming from and really wish I didn't.
WTF is it with the warmongering and complete and utter disrespect of allied nations? WTF is the point of attacking NK at all if South Korea is going to be thrown away - "being strong" or some shit like that?
Let's not forget that Ukraine also gave up their nukes, and Russia promised to protect them... Look what happened there.
North Korea is a small country with a relatively weak military, who have either lost or are in the process of losing their powerful allies. As it stands, a conventional war between north and south korea would end very swiftly in defeat for the north especially if america got involved on the south's behalf and right now pretty much the only thing stopping this from happening is china, and it doesn't look like the chinese will be backing them for much longer.
On the other hand if they have nukes and are able to deliver even a small number that would make any aggressors think twice about attacking because even though north korea would still ultimately lose, there would end up being significant losses on both sides and neither the us or south korean governments would be able to justify this to their people.
The north is highly unlikely to ever strike first, because there is no way they would ever be able to hit hard enough that there wouldn't be a severe response. They might be able to blow up a few cities, but then they would have america attacking them back in full force.
Let's also consider the economic sanctions imposed on north korea, they don't hurt the regime - there are still plenty of black market channels through which kim jong un can obtain his imacs and whatever else, and the lack of open trade/communication is helping the regime keep their people away from foreign sources a propaganda. Meanwhile the negative attention and threat has caused them to spend a disproportionate amount of their budget on the military in order to defend themselves.
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But mainly they're starving because the regime redirects so much of the economic output, including agriculture, to its military. And the US and South Korea have intervened before to save NK lives by sending in food, and often enough one of the reasons for increased NK belligerency has been because they need to bolster their own economy, and use threats and low-level hostility to convince everyone to come back to the table. This is an old game, and one that has worked out rather well for the regime, though obviously not for the citizens of NK.
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