Is This North Korea Business Real?

This is just their annual blustering when we do military drills with South Korea. Not to mention the new sanctions being voted on this week. They say a lot of stupid things.

In addition to what KingGorilla said, they've threatened to nuke the US before with (obviously) no effect. I don't think there's any reason to believe it's anything more than standard NK propaganda.

I suppose that depends on what you mean by "real." Reality and North Korean News are not members of the same church.

LA is about 6,000 miles from Pyongyang; to reach LA, North Korea would need an ICBM and platform on par with our own. To reach Washington DC, it would need to be superior to existing US ICBMs. India in the past few years successfully tested a rocket with a 3,000 mile range. China's ICBMs have similar range.

The likelihood that North Korea has a missile capable of reaching US soil is extremely remote.

The NPR news this morning made it sound like there was more concern about US bases in the DMZ area being hit rather than the homeland.

shoptroll wrote:

The NPR news this morning made it sound like there was more concern about US bases in the DMZ area being hit rather than the homeland.

I think the threat to South Korea or Japan are much more likely. At this point even Russia and China are putting palms to faces given the last round of testing. North Korea is running out of sympathetic allies.

The issue with an ICBM is that there has never been one successfully used. I would be much more concerned if North Korea were to develop something like the Poseidon Submarine platform.

KingGorilla wrote:

I think the threat to South Korea or Japan are much more likely. At this point even Russia and China are putting palms to faces given the last round of testing. North Korea is running out of sympathetic allies.

Right, that's the thing. They do probably have the capability to nuke a target in SK or Japan, but if they did it seems unlikely that even China would back them up. It would have to be some sort of desperation move, going out in a blaze of glory.

To state that you intend to make a nuclear strike on US targets, in the world forum, is rather bold.

I worry more about radicals piggybacking and trying to redirect blame. The idea of bodged together black market nuclear weaponry being controlled by lunatics is the stuff video game plots are made of.

Nuclear weapons are not an offensive option. Any country that used them that way, especially against US soil, would cease to exist shortly thereafter. Assuming that you believe Kim Jong-Un is sane, and that he believes he has any other option, there is little to fear.

The problem with this new round of NK bluster is that in the last few years Kim Jong Un has shown himself to be even more crazy than his father. His father used to say the same things and make the same threats every year whenever the US and SK did their training, but seemed content to return back to his caves filled with 500 top of the line Mercedes and the pick of the litter of young ladies. Ever since it looked like he was going to die soon and he started grooming his son to take over, though, his son has put action to words. First he fired a torpedo at a SK ship, killing several SK sailors, and then more recently he fired live artillery rounds at targets on an island populated by SK. He may not have the ICBMs to reach the US, and this may just be more bluster, but... he's definitely shown himself to be a completely dangerous individual. Hopefully he's not completely suicidal.

KingGorilla wrote:

I suppose that depends on what you mean by "real." Reality and North Korean News are not members of the same church.

LA is about 6,000 miles from Pyongyang; to reach LA, North Korea would need an ICBM and platform on par with our own. To reach Washington DC, it would need to be superior to existing US ICBMs. India in the past few years successfully tested a rocket with a 3,000 mile range. China's ICBMs have similar range.

The likelihood that North Korea has a missile capable of reaching US soil is extremely remote.

Or they could be given an extra one from China or ex-Soviet stockpiles.

Do you mean a Soviet or Chinese Missile or a sub? Because even China's own missiles cannot reach the Continental US. Now if they are given a Soviet Launch sub, we have a more realistic threat.

If they do get a sub. I hope someone like this guy is on there.

It will be weird when the history books talk about the first Nuclear war being started by this guy.

IMAGE(http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1277013.1362159798!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/rodmanwire2n-4-web.jpg)

Malor wrote:

Assuming that you believe Kim Jong-Un is sane....

I think you've put your finger on the fundamental problem right there.

(Does this thread belong in P&C?)

DSGamer wrote:

It will be weird when the history books talk about the first Nuclear war being started by this guy.

IMAGE(http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1277013.1362159798!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/rodmanwire2n-4-web.jpg)

Guy in the red cap behind them. Think he lives there?

I hadn't intended it.

I'm looking for news from the big room with the blue ceiling.

I'm no longer a cable subscriber. I get shut-in syndrome easily.

CaptainCrowbar wrote:
Malor wrote:

Assuming that you believe Kim Jong-Un is sane....

I think you've put your finger on the fundamental problem right there.

(Does this thread belong in P&C?)

There is politics but no controversy on this one.

I'll just leave this here.