Nork Nukes Nearing Nuisance?

Started by bayonetbrant, March 14, 2017, 11:39:26 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

bayonetbrant

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/as-north-koreas-arsenal-grows-experts-see-heightened-risk-of-miscalculation/2017/03/11/0a0b5cd2-05be-11e7-ad5b-d22680e18d10_story.html

excerpt
QuoteRegardless of whether the miniature bomb is real or a clever prop, North Korea does finally appear to be "on the verge of a nuclear breakout," said Robert Litwak, an expert on nuclear proliferation and director of International Security Studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He said Pyongyang's arsenal is believed to now contain as many as 20 nuclear bombs, along with enough plutonium and highly enriched uranium to make dozens more.

"When I got into this field," Litwak said at a symposium on North Korea this month, "I couldn't have conceived of North Korea acquiring a nuclear arsenal approaching half the size of Great Britain's."

The country's missiles also have grown more sophisticated. Last year, North Korea's military conducted the first test of a two-stage ballistic missile that uses solid fuel — a significant advance over the country's existing liquid-fueled rockets because they can be moved easily and launched quickly. Also in 2016, North Korea broadcast images of engineers testing engines for a new class of advanced missiles with true intercontinental range, potentially putting cities on the U.S. mainland within reach.
The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

Con

I wonder how close we came to nuclear war last night.  The Russians must have been going bat shit seeing a missile heading towards Vladivostok and landing a mere 60 miles away.  Ivan must have been a hairs breath away from pressing the button.  I wonder which way their paranoia would be spinning - was this a missile test from North Korea, a surprise launch from China, was the US behind it like in the movie Spies like Us?  I bet there are a few Russian Generals right now who lost a couple of pounds in sweat (and probably some US ones as well).

Another question I have was this a deliberate targeting by the NORKs or was it just the usual lemming like tossing f missiles that they do?  I just cant fathom what really truly deeply pissing off the Russians in addition to all the other countries that have North Korea on the shit list will achieve.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/13/asia/north-korea-projectile/index.html?adkey=bn


JasonPratt

"SURELY THE RUSSIANS WILL NOW BOW TO US AS EQUALS OR EVEN THEIR SUPERIORS ON THE WORLD STAGE!" -- Kim's diary.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Joke aside, a lot of the super-insanity could be explained as Kim doing his best to keep his own associates scared of him, for his own self-protection.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Gusington

I don't know if he's doing a good job or not.


слава Україна!

We can't live under the threat of a c*nt because he's threatening nuclear Armageddon.

-JudgeDredd

JasonPratt

Nork Nukes Newly Nuisancing Nebraska.




...



.... as a novelist, I also now declare "nuisancing" to be a real word.

Anyway, thought this thread should be revived with the news that North Korea can now hit Chicago with ICBMs.

We should probably have a RPF thread, too, since there are political fingers to point at how they got the information to get this far.  >:( But I recommend this thread should stay for developing news about the situation.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Barthheart

Quote from: JasonPratt on August 02, 2017, 08:40:42 AM
...
Anyway, thought this thread should be revived with the news that North Korea can now hit Chicago with ICBMs.
...

They have technology that when used correctly and built correctly might reach the USA.
So far, all they have hit is the Sea of Japan... some of the time.  ::)

When they actually put a test rocket within 500 miles of Hawaii, then you really need to start worrying... about them maybe hitting Hawaii....

OJsDad

I saw where their last test almost hit an Air France airliner.  Missed it by about 10mins. 
'Here at NASA we all pee the same color.'  Al Harrison from the movie Hidden Figures.

mirth

Quote from: Barthheart on August 02, 2017, 08:47:17 AM
Quote from: JasonPratt on August 02, 2017, 08:40:42 AM
...
Anyway, thought this thread should be revived with the news that North Korea can now hit Chicago with ICBMs.
...

They have technology that when used correctly and built correctly might reach the USA.
So far, all they have hit is the Sea of Japan... some of the time.  ::)

When they actually put a test rocket within 500 miles of Hawaii, then you really need to start worrying... about them maybe hitting Hawaii....


All of this
"45 minutes of pooping Tribbles being juggled by a drunken Horta would be better than Season 1 of TNG." - SirAndrewD

"you don't look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire" - Bawb

"Can't 'un' until you 'pre', son." - Gus

Nefaro

Well.. they may have a problem if they launch a ballistic 'test' missile in a trajectory that takes it over Japan, for one.  Especially if it's projected to land anywhere near US territory.  There may be no discerning between a test launch or the real thing, warranting a quick & decisive retaliation against the launching Norks. 

That's why NK has only been launching them into the sea, off their coast, via very high ballistic paths but short land range.  They well know that they may be signing their own death warrant if they shoot their test ICBMs over or near another country.

If the Norks start doing such test launches, then they're already thrown nuclear caution to the wind & it's time to start building that underground shelter for the nuke war (if it doesn't happen right then).

Sir Slash

Said it before, say it again. Make Hillary ambassador to N.Kor. and problem solved overnight. How would you like waking-up every morning with her waiting outside your bedroom door?   :hide:
"Take a look at that". Sgt. Wilkerson-- CMBN. His last words after spotting a German tank on the other side of a hedgerow.

bayonetbrant

The key to surviving this site is to not say something which ends up as someone's tag line - Steelgrave

"their citizens (all of them counted as such) glorified their mythology of 'rights'...and lost track of their duties. No nation, so constituted, can endure." Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers

JasonPratt

QuoteBut since the end of the Cold War, preventive military action has become a popular option among U.S. officials, culminating with George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq.

Technically, a state of war existed between Iraq and the US (via the United Nations) the moment Saddam decisively stopped even pretending to abide by the terms of his ceasefire agreement by which we spared his regime from being overthrown after he damn well invaded Kuwait. Moreover, his cabinet had been involved in planning terror strikes against the US, including 9/11. So no, that wasn't a preventative strike, Uri. But people tend to forget those things, and the media at the time was far more concerned with bashing Bush2 than with promoting why Iraq as well as Afghanistan was a target for invasion.

I guarantee if Kim lands a nuke in Boulder, CO, the Democrats will be excoriating Trump & Co. for not having done everything possible to prevent it, and calling that the greatest human catastrophe in living memory. Kim mouths constantly about holding the world hostage (if he can), or just going ahead and doing it (if he can). He had better start being afraid that nearby concerned powers will pull his plug decisively.

Also, Uri ends up having to admit that the catastrophic results he's scared about over there are just as "theoretical" as a risk if we strike, as the theoretical possibility Kim really will pull the trigger once he gets a working ICBM nuke. One big difference is that a strategic city-killer nuke will certainly, not theoretically kill lots of whoever Kim aims at it, whereas surgical strikes against Nork capabilities will certainly limit civilian casualties more. Sure, the whole thing could theoretically spiral out of control after we strike, but a nuke on any other nation's city will spiral out of control -- and the people who would pay the price for that spiral will be just as dead (or wishing they were) either way. The difference will be an extra city of dead civilians somewhere to kick it off.

(Another difference is that missile defense systems have been blocked by.... let us say certain parties... for decades as being destabilizing, leaving the US as the only one who could launch without fear of retaliation. It was also EXACTLY this mindset which led a certain American administration to open up leaks of American nuclear secrets to China, and thence to North Korea, o that the glorious proletariant revolutions in, for example, China and North Korea, could protect themselves against supposed American aggression by creating a new cold war of mutually assured destruction.)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

Boggit

Suddenly this sort of conversation seems a lot more real.... :o

The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own. Aldous Huxley

Foul Temptress! (Mirth replying to Gus) ;)

On a good day, our legislature has the prestige of a drunk urinating on a wall at 4am and getting most of it on his shoe. On a good day  ::) Steelgrave

It's kind of silly to investigate whether or not a Clinton is lying. That's sort of like investigating why the sky is blue. Banzai_Cat

ComradeP

JasonPratt: Dutch media reports on a possible war with North Korea focus on risks for the South Korean civilian population in case of surgical strikes. If you're anywhere in or near Seoul when war breaks out, you're probably not going to make it if the North Koreans use their thousands of guns aimed at the city and fire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons at it. Seoul is a very inconveniently located capital.

It's pretty much a hostage situation since the 1950's: If the Pyongyang regime goes down in flames, so does Seoul.

Anyway, we can be reasonably sure North Korea has some second strike capability with its more modern missiles, so the chance of taking everything out in the initial strike is close to zero. The aircraft or necessary quantities of cruise missiles to do so are not in the area to begin with. The recent Tomahawk strikes on an air base in Syria also showed that they're not very good at hitting area targets in a decisive manner, which they were not designed for. Any war wouldn't be quick, but it would be very lethal to anyone in its path.
The fact that these people drew inspiration...and then became chicken farmers - Cyrano, Dragon' Up The Past #45