North Korea nuke test

[InfiniteDreams]

I don't think it's a bad example for the rest of the world. When your position in the world order is not commensurate with your national power, you naturally want to upset that order. In that sense, China is not setting, but rather following examples set by others. It's human nature.

Yea but at what cost...

Does China want to see a nuclear Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, and maybe even the Philippines?

Chinese are supposed to be long term thinkers. From my perspective Beijing are absolute idiots for standing by while NORKs build up the ICBMS and test Nukes.

If DPRK is allowed to keep it's nukes and LRBM's it's not going to be long before all of South East Asia has nukes.

How dumb are the Chinese!?

Anyone think the U.S would sit by while Mexico builds Nukes and test missiles?

[InfiniteDreams]

From the U.S perspective: 8 Years under Clinton, 8 Years under Bush, and 8 year under Obama. That's 24 years of 'kick the can' and China blowing smoke up our ass.

Trade with China is up 37%!?

Can anyone point out one time where sanctions have actually worked. How did it work out with Cuba?

I think one of the best ideas I've heard so far is from Charles Krauthammer (Skip to 7 Minute Mark). We offer China the 'Grand Bargain'...if they don't take it we go it alone.

Wish OoE was here to provide more insight as tensions seem to appear at an all time high and at a crossroads...

[hboGYT]

From the U.S perspective: 8 Years under Clinton, 8 Years under Bush, and 8 year under Obama. That's 24 years of 'kick the can' and China blowing smoke up our ass.

Trade with China is up 37%!?

Can anyone point out one time where sanctions have actually worked. How did it work out with Cuba?

I think one of the best ideas I've heard so far is from Charles Krauthammer (Skip to 7 Minute Mark). We offer China the 'Grand Bargain'...if they don't take it we go it alone.

Wish OoE was here to provide more insight as tensions seem to appear at an all time high and at a crossroads...

I remember OOE say that either China or South Korea can collapse the North Korean regime, but neither does so for fear of a refugee crisis. If we believe that argument, then it's not a simple matter of offering China a grand bargain. China is not the only one letting the problem fester.

[tbm3fan]

I don't think it's a bad example for the rest of the world. When your position in the world order is not commensurate with your national power, you naturally want to upset that order. In that sense, China is not setting, but rather following examples set by others. It's human nature.

The example setting is not by China but by the U.S.as in we can deal your sovereignty away because we got a better deal.

[citanon]

Yea but at what cost...

Does China want to see a nuclear Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, and maybe even the Philippines?

Chinese are supposed to be long term thinkers. From my perspective Beijing are absolute idiots for standing by while NORKs build up the ICBMS and test Nukes.

If DPRK is allowed to keep it's nukes and LRBM's it's not going to be long before all of South East Asia has nukes.

How dumb are the Chinese!?

Anyone think the U.S would sit by while Mexico builds Nukes and test missiles?

NK is most afraid of Chinese intervention. That's why it's been harshest on internal conduits of Chinese influence.

Kim uncle and Chinaphile - executed.
Kim's brother who was under Chinese protection - assassinated.
Army officers under Chinese influence - rumored to have been killed horribly.

These were all preemptive moves against Chinese influence.

All China has left is now sanctions, but you can get sanctioned a lot and still develop a viable nuke. The Chinese leadership would remember that China itself was under Soviet sanctions in the sixties when it developed its program.

[hboGYT]

NK is most afraid of Chinese intervention. That's why it's been harshest on internal conduits of Chinese influence.

Kim uncle and Chinaphile - executed.
Kim's brother who was under Chinese protection - assassinated.
Army officers under Chinese influence - rumored to have been killed horribly.

These were all preemptive moves against Chinese influence.

All China has left is now sanctions, but you can get sanctioned a lot and still develop a viable nuke. The Chinese leadership would remember that China itself was under Soviet sanctions in the sixties when it developed its program.

Is there still any chance that Kim may be assassinated at this point?

[citanon]

Is there still any chance that Kim may be assassinated at this point?

There's always a chance. The ones with the best shots at him are still the people inside the regime, but if any of them had backbone they would have been shot a long time ago. Also, they have to think about what would happen the day after with no Kim on the throne, which was probably a big reason why KJU killed his brother.

There's the Chinese but it's highly unlikely.

We might be able to do it, but we need to locate him at a precise time and place. How much success have had in, say, killing Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi? How long did it take us to get Saddam or Bin Laden? I'm not long those odds.

[Oracle]

North Korea says considering strike on Guam after Trump warns of 'fire and fury'

SEOUL/BEDMINSTER: North Korea said on Wednesday it is considering plans for a missile strike on the US Pacific territory of Guam, just hours after President Donald Trump told the North that any threat to the United States would be met with "fire and fury".

The ratcheting up in tensions rattled global financial markets and prompted warnings from U.S. officials and analysts not to engage in rhetorical slanging matches with North Korea.

Pyongyang said it was "carefully examining" a plan to strike Guam, an island of around 162,000 in the western Pacific and the site of a U.S. military base that hosts a submarine squadron, an airbase and a Coast Guard group.

A Korean People's Army (KPA) spokesman, in a statement carried by state-run KCNA news agency, said the plan would be put into practice at any moment once leader Kim Jong Un makes a decision.

In another statement citing a different military spokesman, North Korea also accused the United States of devising a "preventive war" and said any plans to execute this would be met with an "all-out war wiping out all the strongholds of enemies, including the U.S. mainland".

Washington has warned it is ready to use force if need be to stop North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear programmes but that it prefers global diplomatic action, including sanctions.

Speaking to reporters in New Jersey on Tuesday, Trump issued his strongest warning yet for North Korea.

"North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen," Trump said.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Saturday over its continued missile tests, that could slash the reclusive country's $3 billion annual export revenue by a third.

North Korea has made no secret of plans to develop a nuclear-tipped missile able to strike the United States and has ignored international calls to halt its nuclear and missile programmes.

It says its intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are a legitimate means of defence against perceived U.S. hostility. It has long accused the United States and South Korea of escalating tensions by conducting military drills.

U.S. stocks closed slightly lower after Trump's comment and S&P stock futures (ESc1) slipped further in Asian trade, while a widely followed measure of stock market anxiety ended at its highest in nearly a month.

The U.S. dollar index edged down and the safe-haven yen strengthened against the U.S. currency after North Korea's response. Asia stocks dipped, with South Korea's benchmark index and Japan's Nikkei both falling 0.5 percent.

TENSIONS RISE
The United States has remained technically at war with North Korea since the 1950-53 Korean conflict ended in an armistice rather than a peace treaty.

Tensions have risen since North Korea carried out two nuclear bomb tests last year and two ICBM tests last month.

On Monday, two U.S. B-1 bombers flew from Guam over the Korean Peninsula as a part of its "continuous bomber presence," a U.S. official said, in a sign of the strategic importance Guam holds.

The alert status at Andersen Airforce Base on Guam had not been changed as of Wednesday morning, according to the duty officer at the base's public affairs office.

Republican U.S. Senator John McCain said Trump should tread cautiously when issuing threats to North Korea unless he is prepared to act.

"I take exception to the president's comments because you got to be sure you can do what you say you're going to do," he said in a radio interview.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, according to a confidential U.S. intelligence assessment.

But U.S. intelligence officials told Reuters that while North Korea has accelerated its efforts to design an ICBM, a miniaturized nuclear warhead, and a nosecone robust enough to survive reentry through the Earth's atmosphere, there is no reliable evidence it has mastered all three, much less tested and combined them into a weapon capable of hitting targets in the United States.

North Korea's ICBM tests last month suggested it was making technical progress, Japan's annual Defence White Paper warned.

WAR OF WORDS
Former U.S. diplomat Douglas Paal, now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank in Washington, said Trump should not get into a war of words with Pyongyang.

"It strikes me as an amateurish reflection of a belief that we should give as we get rhetorically. That might be satisfying at one level, but it takes us down into the mud that we should let Pyongyang enjoy alone," said Paal, who served as a White House official under previous Republican administrations.

Lockheed Martin Corp, the Pentagon's No. 1 weapons supplier, said on Tuesday its customers are increasingly asking about missile defence systems. (Additional reporting by Soyoung Kim in Seoul, Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo, Doina Chiacu, Susan Heavey, John Walcott, Idrees Ali and David Brunnstrom in Washington, Rodrigo Campos in New York; Writing by Lincoln Feast)

This guy is out of his mind.

[tbm3fan]

Which guy? The guy who says fire and fury or the other guy who says fire and fury???

[InfiniteDreams]

The guy who says "lead from behind".

[Double Edge]

And now just like that...


North Korea now making missile-ready nuclear weapons, U.S. analysts say | WAPO | Aug 08 2017

North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded in a confidential assessment.

The findings are likely to deepen concerns about an evolving North Korean military threat that appears to be advancing far more rapidly than many experts had predicted. U.S. officials concluded last month that Pyongyang is also outpacing expectations in its effort to build an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the American mainland.

Although more than a decade has passed since North Korea’s first nuclear detonation, many analysts thought it would be years before the country’s weapons scientists could design a compact warhead that could be delivered by missile to distant targets. But the new assessment, a summary document dated July 28, concludes that this critical milestone has been reached.

“The IC [intelligence community] assesses North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, to include delivery by ICBM-class missiles,” the assessment states, in an excerpt read to The Washington Post. Two U.S. officials familiar with the assessment verified its broad conclusions. It is not known whether the reclusive regime has successfully tested the smaller design, although North Korea officially claimed last year that it had done so.

An assessment this week by the Japanese Ministry of Defense also concludes that there is evidence to suggest that North Korea has achieved miniaturization.

Analysts and policymakers have been surprised repeatedly as North Korea achieved key milestones months or years ahead of schedule, said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies. There was similar skepticism about China’s capabilities in the early 1960s, said Lewis, who has studied that country’s pathway to a successful nuclear test in 1964.

“There is no reason to think that the North Koreans aren’t making the same progress after so many successful nuclear explosions,” Lewis said. “The big question is: Why do we hold the North Koreans to a different standard than we held [Joseph] Stalin’s Soviet Union or Mao Zedong’s China? North Korea is testing underground, so we’re always going to lack a lot of details. But it seems to me a lot of people are insisting on impossible levels of proof because they simply don’t want to accept what should be pretty obvious.”

[Oracle]

Which guy? The guy who says fire and fury or the other guy who says fire and fury???

Prophet of NKorea. It seems he's itching to get his ass kicked.

[Bigfella]

Prophet of NKorea. It seems he's itching to get his ass kicked.

Nah. He knows that the US will huff and puff and do nothing. Unless it becomes crystal clear the DPRK is going to attack nothing will happen. If the US starts bombing Seoul goes up in smoke and hundreds of thousands of South Koreans die within hours. The South Korean economy collapses. What would it do to US allies to know that the US is prepared to see their nations wrecked because it is a bit upset about a bombastic little nation with nukes?

Kim may be crazy, but he ain't stupid. Trump may be stupid, but he ain't crazy. That he serially ignores the advice of the grownups around him does not fill me with confidence, but this isn't the issue where it worries me most.

[tankie]

If the cabbage patch doll kim fires off the 4 rockets Trump will have no choice but to do something about but in what sort of intensity of any form of retaliation will he choose , if any , i hope the sabres are placed firmly back in their scabbards and sense prevails , why cant the yanks take kim out and his regime , without the massive casualties which will be inevitable if it kicks off , but whatever the shortarsed fat twat needs a well aimed 50 to his bloated fat f***** head , then maybe the next one to follow shows more sense .

[Oracle]

Nah. He knows that the US will huff and puff and do nothing. Unless it becomes crystal clear the DPRK is going to attack nothing will happen. If the US starts bombing Seoul goes up in smoke and hundreds of thousands of South Koreans die within hours. The South Korean economy collapses. What would it do to US allies to know that the US is prepared to see their nations wrecked because it is a bit upset about a bombastic little nation with nukes?

Kim may be crazy, but he ain't stupid. Trump may be stupid, but he ain't crazy. That he serially ignores the advice of the grownups around him does not fill me with confidence, but this isn't the issue where it worries me most.

Is there no way the US can take out NKorea's nukes, artillery, whatever the Nkoreans can throw at SKorea, before launching a full assault? Cruise missiles can precisely do that, take out C4ISR of the North. After that, drop leaflets urging NKorean soldiers to abandon the battle and surrender. It isn't easy, but that can be done.