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The US Is Testing a Microwave Weapon To Stop North Korea's Missiles (vox.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the cruise-control dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Vox: According to an NBC News report, the weapon -- which is still under development -- could be put on a cruise missile and shot at an enemy country from a B-52 bomber. It's designed to use microwaves to target enemy military facilities and destroy electronic systems, like computers, that control their missiles. The weapon itself wouldn't damage the buildings or cause casualties. Air Force developers have been working with Boeing on the system since 2009. They're hoping to receive up to $200 million for more prototyping and testing in the latest defense bill. There's just one problem. It's not clear that the weapon is entirely ready for use -- and it's not clear that it would be any more effective than the powerful weapons the U.S. already possesses. The weapon, which has the gloriously military-style name of Counter-electronics High Power Microwave Advanced Missile Project, or CHAMP, isn't quite ready for action, but it could be soon. Two unnamed Air Force officials told NBC that the weapon could be ready for use in just a few days.

37 of 217 comments (clear)

  1. Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 3, Funny

    Because that's how you get popcorn.

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
    1. Re:Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by currently_awake · · Score: 2

      Designing the system to cook people would be more effective, as the weapons would be shielded.

    2. Re:Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Designing the system to cook people would be more effective, as the weapons would be shielded.

      This system would require a lot of lead time to load the B-52, takeoff, fly to NK airspace, launch the cruise missile, and wait for its subsonic engines to propel it to the target.

      The NK missile launch last week occurred with NO warning. They were able to fuel and prepare the missile for launch without detection.

      This microwave system would be worthless at countering a NK missile launch. It would only be useful as a first strike weapon. Fear of an American preemptive strike is exactly what motivated NK to develop their nukes in the first place.

      Maybe someday America will learn that you don't convince your adversary to stop being paranoid by threatening to attack them.

    3. Re: Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Don't mistake no public warning with no warning. You are acting like there isn't a new mover of spy satellites watching North Korea at any given moment.

      The spy satellites that have the resolution to see the launch preparations are in LEO, and have a viewing window of less than a minute during each orbit.

      The spy satellites that can dwell and "zoom-in" are only in the movies.

      Also, the missile was prepped and launched in the middle of the night, and this time of year Korea has plenty of clouds.

    4. Re:Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by sysrammer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Well, just to play devil's advocate, what has worked?

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
    5. Re:Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2

      This system would require a lot of lead time to load the B-52, takeoff, fly to NK airspace, launch the cruise missile, and wait for its subsonic engines to propel it to the target.

      The NK missile launch last week occurred with NO warning. They were able to fuel and prepare the missile for launch without detection.

      This is why the US needs Prompt Global Strike

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    6. Re:Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by Freischutz · · Score: 2

      This microwave system would be worthless at countering a NK missile launch. It would only be useful as a first strike weapon. Fear of an American preemptive strike is exactly what motivated NK to develop their nukes in the first place.

      All this is assuming the news report itself is not complete boloney that is simply designed to cause a reaction so the recon analysts can see which ones of the 258 suspected high tech and nuclear weapons sites in N-Korea show a sudden flurry of activity erecting screen defences against a first strike with a microwave weapon.

    7. Re: Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by whodunit · · Score: 4, Interesting

      If only we had stealth drones equipped with synthetic aperture radar that can generate FLIR-quality images through cloud cover. Like the RQ-170 and its successor, the RQ-180...

    8. Re:Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by BlueStrat · · Score: 4, Informative

      This system would require a lot of lead time to load the B-52, takeoff, fly to NK airspace, launch the cruise missile, and wait for its subsonic engines to propel it to the target.

      The NK missile launch last week occurred with NO warning. They were able to fuel and prepare the missile for launch without detection.

      The US could keep a flight/flights of CHAMP-equipped-cruise missile-carrying B52s on station 24/7/365 as the old Soviet Union and NATO used to so during the Cold War.

      Really though, as someone with extensive high-powered RF engineering experience including radar and microwave, I have serious doubts about how effective such a weapon could be IRL. The inverse-square law of transmitted power, distance to receiver/tarfet, and signal strength/current/voltage/thermal heating induced means it would also require enormous amounts of power, especially with a size-limited transmission antenna array due to it all being crammed into a cruise missile.

      It's extremely inefficient energy-transfer wise. Only a tiny fraction of the power transmitted actually reaches the intended target (or receiver in the case of radio). Unless they can pack 1.21 gigawatts (or some similar ridiculously-huge number) into a cruise missile, I can't see how this could possibly be effective and practical as a weapon.

      Sounds more like propaganda for both domestic (look! we're doing...something!) and NK consumption (we'll blind you with Science! [insert cheesy Thomas Doolby '80s pop tune]) while doubling as a handy excuse to hand out US defense money for the usual reasons.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
    9. Re:Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by Solandri · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Fear of an American preemptive strike is exactly what motivated NK to develop their nukes in the first place.

      Maybe someday America will learn that you don't convince your adversary to stop being paranoid by threatening to attack them.

      You grossly misunderstand North Korea. The U.S. has had the capability to launch a preemptive strike against North Korea unchallenged for over 65 years and hasn't done so. There isn't much else it can/could have done to assuage North Korea's fears and convince it that it wasn't going to attack (at least not without opening up South Korea to another North Korean attack - North Korea's two top goals are to drive the U.S. out of the peninsula, and to reunify it, by violent means if necessary).

      Even the U.S. troops stationed in South Korea (about 37,000) aren't sufficient in number to represent any meaningful offensive fighting force if the U.S. did decide to launch a preemptive strike(North Korea has just shy of 1 million active military personnel). The U.S. troops there know it too. They call themselves "speed bumps." Their sole purpose is, in the event of a North Korean invasion, to be overrun and killed, so that the U.S. has an excuse to immediately get involved in a second Korean War without having to go through the UN like the first time (which only succeeded because the USSR was boycotting the UN that week)..

      North Korea's ire against the U.S. isn't based on paranoia. It's based on propaganda. Any repressive system generates extreme discontent within its population, which eventually leads to uprising and revolution. Unless you can present the people with an external bogeyman that they can fear and hate instead of their oppressive overload. North Korea has chosen the U.S. to be that bogeyman. They teach their grade schoolers to want to attack Americans for crying out loud. Please, educate yourself on what actually goes on in North Korea before you believe their claims of victimhood.

      In a way, North Korea is a test for what the world's future will be like. You attribute the lack of a violent confrontation with North Korea for 65 years to the effectiveness of a pacifist approach to them. My hunch is that it's more because North Korea simply didn't have the capability to strike outside of its borders effectively. The nukes aren't going to end with North Korea. On the contrary, this is just the beginning. First it'll be rogue nation-states getting nukes. Then rogue organizations. Then rogue individuals. You're not going to be able to appease them all by being pacifist. At some point, one of them is going to be sufficiently offended or self-deluded to actually use those nukes.

      The world needs to come up with some effective strategy for dealing with the proliferation of nukes. I honestly don't know what the best approach is (if it were simple, we would've already done it). I'm extremely troubled by Trump's aggressive attitude towards North Korea, but I can kinda see his point. We've known for decades that North Korea was a cancer in the socio-political fabric of the world. If it had been excised early on, we wouldn't be having this problem today. But instead we did nothing, taking the pacifist approach and hoping the problem would go away by itself. Well, it hasn't, and now it has nukes. And like I said, this isn't just about North Korea. This is just the beginning. Next it'll be rogue organizations with nukes, then rogue individuals with nukes. I really hope we can establish some effective way to deal with them, or we're doomed. We're going to look back at the time when terrorists brought down airliners with a bomb as the good old days.

    10. Re:Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by gtall · · Score: 3

      There is no convincing the Norks the U.S. doesn't desire to own a poor country with nothing going for it. The intellectual giants running N. Korea only keep the threat of U.S. intervention alive so they can give the public a reason why they should stay in power and shouldn't be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.

    11. Re:Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by ceoyoyo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Diplomacy, open trade, and international organizations. It's not as sexy as nukes and special forces, but the current stability of the world (and it is in an unprecedented state of stability) is almost certainly due to those things.

    12. Re:Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by kilfarsnar · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Diplomacy, open trade, and international organizations. It's not as sexy as nukes and special forces, but the current stability of the world (and it is in an unprecedented state of stability) is almost certainly due to those things.

      What do diplomacy, open trade, and international organizations have to do with North Korea?

      Only everything. There are no good military solutions to the conflict with North Korea. They all involve hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. If you think that's acceptable, we should probably reconsider who the murderous psychopath is in this situation.

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    13. Re:Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by kilfarsnar · · Score: 2

      Yeah sure. Please point to any time since the Korean war where that's worked with North Korea. Oops, you can't.

      How about the whole time? The armistice agreement has held, and no one has attacked anyone. What's your definition of "worked"?

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    14. Re:Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by kilfarsnar · · Score: 2, Insightful

      North Korea's ire against the U.S. isn't based on paranoia. It's based on propaganda. Any repressive system generates extreme discontent within its population, which eventually leads to uprising and revolution. Unless you can present the people with an external bogeyman that they can fear and hate instead of their oppressive overload. North Korea has chosen the U.S. to be that bogeyman. They teach their grade schoolers to want to attack Americans for crying out loud. Please, educate yourself on what actually goes on in North Korea before you believe their claims of victimhood.

      The ironic thing to me is that this describes the United States as well. Just reverse the names, and the paragraph still works. We don't demonize North Korea in our text books, but the rest is pretty accurate.

      We've known for decades that North Korea was a cancer in the socio-political fabric of the world. If it had been excised early on, we wouldn't be having this problem today. But instead we did nothing, taking the pacifist approach and hoping the problem would go away by itself. Well, it hasn't, and now it has nukes.

      You think McArthur should have been allowed to go all the way to the Chinese border? You think the US would have prevailed in a war with China? I think you need to read up on the history if you think the US has taken a pacifist approach to North Korea. We killed 600,000 civilians there. "Hoping the problem would go away by itself" does not at all describe the US actions since. We have been active on the peninsula since the armistice, and would probably be in a better position if we had honored our own commitments after the 1994 framework was established.

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    15. Re:Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by Wrath0fb0b · · Score: 2

      Clinton got played (and I say this as someone that's voted 'Clinton' 5 times already), and so did South Korea. North Korea never dismantled their nuclear program, as was obvious from being ready for tests. They never stopped counterfeiting US dollars or using their 'credentialed' diplomats to run drugs and ivory.

      Their MO is pretty clear: do bad things, expect to be rewarded for stopping them, then do them again in order to extract more concessions. Most of the world is wise to this game after this many iterations . . .

      It's a no-win situation.

    16. Re:Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 2

      hey all involve hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths. If you think that's acceptable, we should probably reconsider who the murderous psychopath is in this situation.

      If a brief war, killing a 100,000 civilians saves LA or SF or Seattle from becoming Chernobyl you'd call me a psychopath? Really

      That is one of the potential options being bandied about. And it isn't like we want to kill 100,000 people in NK, it is that we'd rather not have a city that used to have millions as a pile of nuclear rubble. The difference totalitarian dictators and free people is that brutal dictators don't care about anyone but themselves. And both you and I care about more than ourselves (even if we disagree on approach). THAT is what is the difference maker here.

      Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands in NK have already died under the Kims rule. And more are likely, regardless of the war. I don't see you trying to save them.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    17. Re:Are North Korea using corn-based missiles? by cold+fjord · · Score: 2

      How likely is it that Kim would start a war knowing that he'd be obliterated? There's a difference between being a psychopath and a suicide bomber.

      Parallel between Japan 1941 and N. Korea 2017?

      The Japanese, many Arab states, and North Korea have had various times held to forms of honor cultures that sometime lead to bad outcomes.

      Moreover, North Korea is really China's problem, and China would much rather not have a nuclear war adjacent to its border. The Chinese government knows perfectly well what happens if North Korea launches a nuke

      The sovereign nation of North Korea has repeatedly stated it is at war with the United States, that the armistice is off, and stated its intent to attack the United States with nuclear weapons. It has both nuclear weapons and it seems the long range ICBMs to deliver them, if not now, then soon. That might suggest the United States has at least some "minor" direct interest.

      The right thing to do is not to stir up trouble.

      Trouble already exists, and the war never ended. Waiting for much longer will result in it moving to another level.

      And, as far as those hundreds of thousands of North Koreans, the number of civilian deaths in the Seoul area on the first day of the war could easily exceed that. Some problems have no good solution.

      The situation of Seoul is difficult to calculate fully given the many variable, but it is probably better than commonly held. One thing is clear, however: some solutions are better than others. Waiting too long will probably make things worse, probably much worse.

      North Korea is already deeply involved in many criminal enterprises, including drugs, counterfeiting currency (especially US), and the arms trade, to name a few. How do you think it would work out if they perfect their nuclear weapons and then begin selling them? There are nations that would be happy to buy nuclear weapons if they were for sale, and there are terrorist groups with access to deep pockets.

      --
      much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  2. Thank God for North Korea by aberglas · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Finally, a reason to spend billions more on missile defense. The arms industry will be very happy indeed.

    1. Re:Thank God for North Korea by currently_awake · · Score: 2

      High energy ground based lasers, using adaptive optics to reduce atmospheric distortion, could reliably block North Korean missiles from hitting America. All the technology exists for this.

    2. Re:Thank God for North Korea by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2

      The DPRK has been declaring war, or claiming war has been declared against it 200 times since 1997. It's basically the default thing for the DPRK to do.

      https://www.nknews.org/2017/09...

      Despite the very public statement, Ri's comments are far from the first time the DPRK has claimed that declarations of war have been made against it.

      The phrase "declaration of war" appears in Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) English language articles over 200 times since 1997 - a search of NK Pro's KCNA Watch database shows - and many of those entries echo Ri's press conference.

      In fact, Ri's comments aren't even the first time that North Korea has claimed Trump himself has declared war on the country.

      On September 22 and 23, six articles were published by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in response to Trump's UN General Assembly (UNGA) speech on September 19, during which he threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea

      "The United States has great strength and patience but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea," Trump said during his UNGA address.

      The six KCNA articles carried statements from the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country of the DPRK (CPRC), the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea (CC, WPK), various military officials and citizens, all of whom claimed the speech represented a declaration of war.

      "Trump's rubbish is the open declaration of war against our supreme dignity, state, social system and people, and an unpardonable extra-large provocation," the CPRC statement said, according to KCNA.

      So aside from Trump's recent comments, what constitutes a declaration of war in the eyes of the North Korean state?

      THE COUNTRY THAT CRIED WAR

      In April, KCNA published a memorandum by the DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) that provided a recap of what, it claimed, were declarations of war against North Korea.

      A review of the memorandum reveals a broad set of criteria. For one, policies from North Korea's opponents have been cited as a declaration of war.

      In 2003, for instance, the MFA considered President George Bush to have openly declared "nuclear war" against North Korea "by putting it as a target of preemptive nuclear strike," according to the memorandum.

      Accusations against the DPRK also qualified. Again in 2003, KCNA said that U.S. claims that North Korea was engaged in "drug smuggling, counterfeiting of money, suppression of religion, human traffic (sic) and training of computer hackers" as well increased pressure on aviation and merchant vessel activity, qualified as a declaration of war "no matter how hard they may try to cover up them."

      The adoption of sanctions against the country have also inspired this response from North Korean state media and in 2006, the year of North Korea's first nuclear test, it claimed that the adoption of UN Security Council (UNSC) resolutions against the country was a "de facto 'declaration of war'."

      "The UNSC 'resolution,' needless to say, cannot be construed otherwise than a declaration of a war against the DPRK," the MFA said, following the adoption of Resolution 1718.

      The same claim has been made repeatedly following the adoption of subsequent UNSC resolutions as well as after the U.S.'s imposition of unilateral sanctions. Further UN action against North Korea has also inspired similar responses.

      In November 2014, a UNGA committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of a draft resolution recommending that North Korea be referred to the International Criminal Court.

      North Korea's National Defence Commission (NDC) responded with the following statement: "The brigandish 'resolution' against the DPRK's genuine human rights means the most undisguised war declaration to infringe upon its sovereignty," the November 23 NDC statement read.

      The joint milit

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    3. Re:Thank God for North Korea by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Informative

      High energy ground based lasers, using adaptive optics to reduce atmospheric distortion, could reliably block North Korean missiles from hitting America. All the technology exists for this.

      We already have laser planes which can shoot down a missile under ideal conditions. I'd be surprised if those haven't been improved since they were invented, to the point that they might even shoot down a sufficiently primitive missile in the real world.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:Thank God for North Korea by Hal_Porter · · Score: 2

      Saddam agreed to complete disarmament and full inspections prior to the invasion, but not until the US and UK were on his doorstep. He even offered exile for himself. However the "coalition of the willing" ignored him and invaded anyway.

      He didn't leave Kuwait before the Gulf War. And he didn't disarm verifiably before the invasion - he maintained a policy of strategic ambiguity for fear of Iran, according to George Piro who interrogated him for the FBI

      https://archives.fbi.gov/archi...
      "Saddam misled the world into believing that he had weapons of mass destruction in the months leading up to the war because he feared another invasion by Iran, but he did fully intend to rebuild his WMD program."

      That turned out well. And the DPRK was watching. They know that they can't trust the USA to let them exist unless they are in a position to make them pay dearly for invading. Kim doesn't want to end up like Saddam or Ghadaffi.

      The US won't attack the DPRK because it has enough conventional weapons to cause mass carnage in South Korea. Then again if you're Kim, maybe the fact that people don't want to see Korean killed doesn't even occur to you, because his regime has killed a lot of Koreans - ones in the South when the North invaded and loads in the North due to starvation, concentration camps and so on.

      Other countries without much of an effective military seem to manage okay from a diplomatic standpoint.

      Well it depends what you mean. The UK does OK diplomatically, but then it spends 2% of GDP on defence, has nukes and aircraft carriers and has the US as a close ally. UK diplomatic policy independent of the US wouldn't be effective. In fact the only times the UK operated independent of the US - Suez or the Falklands for example - it either lost diplomatically or had to use its military to get anything done. France mirrors the UK, except with no US alliance. Germany spends 1% on defence but has NATO to back it up. In fact most NATO countries don't spend 2% and freeloaded on the US to defend them in the Cold War. Post Cold War they're effective if they can shame the US into action, but ineffective with when they can't.

      The DPRK's leadership just wants to exist. They are no real threat (or haven't been until the US pushed them into it).

      Except they threaten war with almost everyone. They've killed their own people. They've attacked South Korea on multiple occasions. Now they've got nuclear ICBMs they could easily put the US in a situation where it attacks them. I.e. nukes haven't brought them security. Of course inside North Korea, you'd be killed for saying that. Which is what makes them an autistic regime. And that in turn makes them dangerous.

      It's ridiculous. Just leave them alone and wait for their population to oust the leaders of a failed system. It's cheaper and safer for the planet.

      What should the US do if North Korean fuels up an ICBM, puts a nuke on it and shows every sign of launching it, either at the US or a country the US is treaty bound to protect?

      With prompt global strike you could hit the missile on the ground with a non nuclear weapon. With boost phase intercept you'd have a chance of hitting it in just after launch.

      Earlier this week the DPRK offered diplomacy and the UN sent an envoy. The US's response so far has been "Not until you give up your nukes". Wut? You don't start a diplomatic exercise by making demands before you will agree to talks. There is no risk to talking unless you don't want a resolution.

      The DPRK acts out because it gets rewarded for it. Clinton and Bush both did deals with them where they agreed to stop their nuclear and missile programs. South Korea and the US shipped them oil, food, and

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  3. Re:Two unnamed air force officials by Xenx · · Score: 2

    The NBC article only says two Air Force officials. They don't specifying unnamed, or give names. They just refer to them as two officials. NBC not specifying their names doesn't make them traitors, or fictitious.

  4. Re: Better ideas by Jesus+H+Rolle · · Score: 2

    However, it is unlikely that the Muslims will develop nuclear weapons

    Pakistan's already got nukes, you know.

  5. Re:Somebody forgot what B in ICBM stands for. by arth1 · · Score: 2

    It's just a bad story title. This weapon isn't intended to take out missiles, but take out the launch facilities before launch. TFS says as much too.

  6. Re:EMP? by AHuxley · · Score: 2

    The US mil has been messing around with this since the Christofilos effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... years.
    Look for Project 137. Task Force 88. Operation Argus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... .
    Lots of early thinking about how to shield the USA from missiles went on.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  7. Re:Somebody forgot what B in ICBM stands for. by blindseer · · Score: 2

    But the ballistic missile is not ballistic until the engines finish propelling the warhead. During that time it needs it's electronics functional or it will not reach the target. That's why the weapon must be deployed within 700 miles of the launch site, to catch it while it's still under power. Beyond that range means the missile has gone ballistic, with a "B", and is no longer vulnerable to this weapon. That is unless the cruise missile doesn't just keep going towards it until they collide, which if the missile had enough fuel to do that kind of makes the whole microwave thing redundant.

    --
    I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
  8. Faraday cages are completely unknown in N Korea by Required+Snark · · Score: 2

    Also, they have never heard of aluminum foil or metal screen mesh.

    --
    Why is Snark Required?
  9. Re:AJIT PAI == SHITTY SMELLY INDO-CHIMP by _merlin · · Score: 3, Informative

    No he isn't. He's US-born, raised and educated, graduating from one of your prestigious law schools and working as a lawyer for a glorious US telecommunications megacorporation. He's American through-and-through.

  10. CHAMP? Really? I can play too. by blindseer · · Score: 5, Funny

    I get the impression that the military just grabs words out of a hat for the next weapon system and makes up an acronym to fit. I can do that too.

    High
    Energy
    Radio
    Output
    Emitter
    System

    or

    Weapon
    Intercept for
    Nuclear and
    Non-nuclear
    Enemy
    Rockets

    Who else wants to try? Here's a tough one: VICTORY

    --
    I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
  11. By The Way, Thanks for the Announcement! by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

    Now we have time to refine our missiles so that they're not micro-waves sensitive. Best, KJU

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
  12. microwaves by cstacy · · Score: 2

    The US Is Testing a Microwave Weapon To Stop North Korea's Missiles

    Has it been testing it in Cuba?

  13. Re:CHAMP? Really? I can play too. by cstacy · · Score: 2

    Make Acronyms Generic Again

  14. Dear Slashdot by Hallux-F-Sinister · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You really need to create a score of -2, to differentiate that which is merely offensive garbage that does not contribute meaningfully to a conversation and ... posts like this.

    --
    Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
  15. Re:The North Korean people are starving by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

    So it would probably be just as effective to parachute drop a few hundred standard microwave ovens and several thousand cases of Marie Callender Pot Pies on the country.

    Self-heating MREs will work a lot better, unless your plan is to blow out their electrical grid when all their citizens try to run a microwave at the same time.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  16. Re:You could just as easily credit nukes by ceoyoyo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Don't believe what the media tells you. The actual numbers say the world has less violence and is more stable today than it ever has been. It's been getting more so for a thousand years, even if you include the 20th century wars.

    When you go country-by-country, the factors that emerge as contributing to stability, peace and prosperity are engagement with the international community and international trade ties. The trends were present well before nukes were invented. Nukes may explain why we haven't had any of the largest kinds of wars recently, but they really don't work as a good explanation on any other level, even limited to post 1945: all the nuclear powers have been involved in wars, and several of them aren't or weren't exactly what you'd call stable or peaceful.