Is there an ideal number of times for North Korea's missiles to work?
I would think zero is a number we could live with.
North Korea’s Missile Launches Were Failing Too Often
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Re: North Korea’s Missile Launches Were Failing Too Often
#72So Russia and China may now worry that we'll make a first strike because we could disable their counterattack. And we have to worry about them doing it to us. This was the whole reason the US & Russia tried to restrict building anti-missile defense systems in treaties - because it increased the chance someone might think a first strike could work. If true, this is bad.
Russian tried the US walked out of the treaty and has been pulling quite a few risky moves.
In fairness to the US, their missile engineering was sufficiently advanced that by the 1990s their "anti-missile" and "anti-aircraft" systems started to converge into general platforms that were indifferent to aerial target type. In effect, many of its anti-aircraft defense systems are also classified as anti-missile defense systems. Many decades ago, these were distinct kinds of systems due to technical capability limits that forced specialization.
This is why the US pulled out of the ABM treaty. The distinction between their anti-aircraft systems and anti-missile systems blurred, and the US was not going to suddenly stop deploying air defense weapons. The notion that a distinction exists is archaic and reflects the practical limitations of its time but doesn't exist today for the US.
Re: North Korea’s Missile Launches Were Failing Too Often
#73Every year (I think they were cancelled once or twice) the US and South Korea hold military exercises. Around that same time North Korea does something to flex their muscles.
In writing the comment I just looked up when the last US-South Korean military exercise. I was surprised to learn it started March 1st. http://www.dw.com/en/us-south-korea-launch-large-scale-milit...
Re: North Korea’s Missile Launches Were Failing Too Often
#74Someone forgot to task Detachment 2702.
Best Comment ever.
Re: North Korea’s Missile Launches Were Failing Too Often
#75Note: The linked article basically chronicles how the story took shape. This appears to be the actual story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/world/asia/north-korea-mi... - In retrospect, invading North Korea in 2003 would have been a far better choice than Iraq. NK didn't have nukes back then, we'd have avoided destabilizing the Middle East, and the defense industry would still get its blood money. Not to men…
> In retrospect, invading North Korea in 2003 would have been a far better choice than Iraq.
This sentence sounds very alien to me, am I alone? It suggests that USA had to invade something, just for the sake of invasion.
Maybe the scars of the two WW are still a little too fresh where I live (France) for me to understand such a point of view. I'm trying hard to put an adjective on that mentality, but all that comes is alien, as in inhuman.
Re: North Korea’s Missile Launches Were Failing Too Often
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Russian tried the US walked out of the treaty and has been pulling quite a few risky moves.
In fairness to the US, their missile engineering was sufficiently advanced that by the 1990s their "anti-missile" and "anti-aircraft" systems started to converge into general platforms that were indifferent to aerial target type. In effect, many of its anti-aircraft defense systems are also classified as anti-missile defense systems. Many decades ago, these were distinct kinds of systems due to technical capability l…
Also, shooting down rogue nation launches has value and any hand-wringing over 'destabilization' is fairly ridiculous as nukes have counter measures and are launched in numbers that make it impractical to shoot down in mass numbers. The US's very limited shield may stop Iran or N Korea from hitting a population center (Tokyo, Tel Aviv, etc) but won't stop nuclear war with China or Russia if a full launch happened.
There is no practical counter-measure over hundreds of ICBM's, sub launches, and bomber launches with many warheads per missile.
Re: North Korea’s Missile Launches Were Failing Too Often
#77Note: The linked article basically chronicles how the story took shape. This appears to be the actual story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/world/asia/north-korea-mi... - In retrospect, invading North Korea in 2003 would have been a far better choice than Iraq. NK didn't have nukes back then, we'd have avoided destabilizing the Middle East, and the defense industry would still get its blood money. Not to men…
Invading North Korea in 2003 would have been an unimaginably bad mistake. 1. North Korean artillery could have done far more damage than 100,000 deaths in Seoul. It's said that one out of three rounds holds a chemical charge. 2. South Korea under the progressive Roh Moo-hyun gov't was firmly opposed. Socially, South Korea would be torn apart by pro and anti-US (war) sides. 3. What about China? At that time the PRC ha…
>Invading North Korea in 2003 would have been an unimaginably bad mistake.
Probably. It's just infuriating that the Western world has allowed the entire situation to persist for so long. It's 2017 and there's people who are born, live and die in labor camps with conditions straight out of the Holocaust.
>This assumes that the US would be able to occupy North Korea long enough to create order.
I often wonder what occupation of North Korea would be like. Are there actually a sizable number of brainwashed individuals that would fight to the death? Or would their populace be largely sympathetic in face of new information, considering their past treatment? My gut feeling is the latter, considering what happens when western media is smuggled into NK. These people literally risk a fate worse than death to see a glimpse of the outside world.
Either way, an occupation would be deeply weird in so many ways. I'd love to see whatever post-invasion psyops playbook the U.S. has prepared, and any associated assessments. Probably classified though.
>Be careful what you wish for...
Not wishing per se, just operating under the assumption that if we had to have a war to satisfy various monied interests and their war profiteering ambitions, North Korea would have likely been a superior choice over Iraq from a humanitarian and global security perspective.
Re: North Korea’s Missile Launches Were Failing Too Often
#78Note: The linked article basically chronicles how the story took shape. This appears to be the actual story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/world/asia/north-korea-mi... - In retrospect, invading North Korea in 2003 would have been a far better choice than Iraq. NK didn't have nukes back then, we'd have avoided destabilizing the Middle East, and the defense industry would still get its blood money. Not to men…
> invading North Korea in 2003 would have been a far better choice
This sounds just like the rationale for the Vietnam war or the recent annexation of Crimea.
Re: North Korea’s Missile Launches Were Failing Too Often
#79Note: The linked article basically chronicles how the story took shape. This appears to be the actual story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/world/asia/north-korea-mi... - In retrospect, invading North Korea in 2003 would have been a far better choice than Iraq. NK didn't have nukes back then, we'd have avoided destabilizing the Middle East, and the defense industry would still get its blood money. Not to men…
> In retrospect, invading North Korea in 2003 would have been a far better choice than Iraq. This sentence sounds very alien to me, am I alone? It suggests that USA had to invade something , just for the sake of invasion. Maybe the scars of the two WW are still a little too fresh where I live (France) for me to understand such a point of view. I'm trying hard to put an adjective on that mentality, but all that comes…
>It suggests that USA had to invade something, just for the sake of invasion.
Correct, at least with the administration at the time. Iraq was invaded on the flimsiest of pretenses, and was done in a fashion to maximize profit.
For example: Critical infrastructure was targeted under the pretense of rapid dominance largely for the purpose of creating incredibly lucrative reconstruction contracts for that administration's criminal friends. It's not like we needed to take out power and water for months.
Not to mention lucrative private security contracts, privatized logistics for the military, munitions and weapon systems. Attempts at privatizing Iraq's oil that only served to further fuel the brutal insurgency. The list goes on.
>Maybe the scars of the two WW are still a little too fresh where I live (France) for me to understand such a point of view. I'm trying hard to put an adjective on that mentality, but all that comes is alien, as in inhuman.
It is inhuman, when the motivations are profit. On the other hand, there's people suffering in North Korean camps that endure Holocaust-like conditions right now, as we speak. Liberating those people would be a moral justification for war if I've ever heard one.
Re: North Korea’s Missile Launches Were Failing Too Often
#80Note: The linked article basically chronicles how the story took shape. This appears to be the actual story here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/world/asia/north-korea-mi... - In retrospect, invading North Korea in 2003 would have been a far better choice than Iraq. NK didn't have nukes back then, we'd have avoided destabilizing the Middle East, and the defense industry would still get its blood money. Not to men…
> NK didn't have nukes back then
They still had artillery pointed at Seoul, no?