Korea Tensions Lead To Delay Of Minuteman III Test Flight 256
An anonymous reader writes "The U.S. plans on delaying 'the test of the Minuteman III intercontinental missile' that was scheduled for launching next week out of the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The reported reason is to prevent 'misperception or miscalculation' by North Korea. North Korea has warned foreign diplomats that 'they could not guarantee their safety from next Wednesday' onwards, but the warning has not caused any plans for evacuation of any embassies so far."
Re:Are You Kidding Me? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think that it's probably a move meant to give the North Koreans a chance to back down and declare 'victory' to their own people so that the crisis can end before things become unpredictable.
Even if the US wanted a war with North Korea this would not be the time. A war like that takes months of planning and logistics if it's going to go well. The US and South Korea could defeat North Korea over the next couple of weeks if necessary, but at what cost?
Re:Are You Kidding Me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Are You Kidding Me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it would be much better to simply allow things to settle down and let the little tyrant continue the deathcamp conditions prevalent throughout NK.
Either that or we should let him have the first shot. Because that would be the responsible thing to do, right?
(Do we really want him firing off his dirty bombs into SK, Japan, or who knows where else? )
Re:Are You Kidding Me? (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if the US wanted a war with North Korea this would not be the time. A war like that takes months of planning and logistics if it's going to go well. The US and South Korea could defeat North Korea over the next couple of weeks if necessary, but at what cost?
If the US wanted a war with North Korea, the pretext would be far more important than the planning and logistics. North Korea would be able to do terrible damage to South Korea regardless of timing, so it'd look a lot better if the US came charging to the rescue against a North Korea that has gone bat shit insane than if the US was building up an invasion force that would be seen as another act of US aggression and backing Kim Jong-Il into a corner where he might as well strike first with all he's got.
Re:Are You Kidding Me? (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to underestimate 60+ years of uninterrupted regime propaganda.
Re:Are You Kidding Me? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that it's probably a move meant to give the North Koreans a chance to back down and declare 'victory' to their own people so that the crisis can end before things become unpredictable.
Even if the US wanted a war with North Korea this would not be the time. A war like that takes months of planning and logistics if it's going to go well. The US and South Korea could defeat North Korea over the next couple of weeks if necessary, but at what cost?
You need to look at the cost of not going to war as well.
Would you like to wait, perhaps, until North Korea is testing their Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile equivalents?
NK is a bully child in the playground. Fists can be ignored but when he pulls out a knife you have to do something about him...before he pulls out a gun the next time and starts shooting.
Opportunity Cost (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to ask yourself...what is the cost of not going to war against North Korea now.
Do you want to wait to be certain that he has not only nuclear capability and also medium range missile capability but the ability to launch medium range missiles with nuclear warheads (which may not currently be the case) ?
Re:Battered Wife Syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't settle for less than both.
Try to placate him... until you can kill him.
Re:Are You Kidding Me? (Score:5, Insightful)
North Korea has been waving their gun around for a long time. Even though you may not care about this from an American perspective, NK has for decades been fully capable of launching devastating attacks on major South Korean population centers (which don't require intercontinental long range missiles). Outside the perspective of "only American lives matter," NK's longer range weapons don't fundamentally change the diplomatic situation: they are still, as they have always been, capable of going out with an unacceptable suicidal bang, simply continuing the same decades-long tense standoff (in order to continue, on their side, receiving aid money/supplies as appeasement). NK's current round of bluster is really nothing new; and, while there is no certainty in dealing with madmen, there is also no positive reason to expect that NK's actual policies (of waving a gun with their finger on the trigger, but stopping short of anything beyond warning shots) have changed.
Re:Are You Kidding Me? (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact that Barack "Chamberlin" Obama, the appeaser, is ordering this, pretty much guarantees if NK *does* have the stones to lob a nuke at SK/Alaska/Hawaii, that Obama won't retaliate in kind.. I strongly suspect "Lil Kim" and his cronies have the wherewithall to hit SK pretty much anywhere, with whatever nuclear materials they have, and perhaps as far as Alaska/Hawaii... Lil Kim doesn't even have to aim it very well.. Get it close to Anchorage or Honolulu and do an airburst at 50K ft.. Can you say EMP? Those cities would lose their electronic infrastructure, and likely not very many casualties, except for electronics...
We learned in WWII from the original appeaser, Neville Chamberlin, that appeasing flat-ass crazy dictators didn't work.. Give em a inch and they take a mile.. We need another Eisenhower... He stood up to NK/China and put in place the armistise that survived until Lil Kim got ahold of it just now..
We is soooo screwed with Obama at the helm....
Re:Battered Wife Syndrome (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? Are you kidding? Nobody gives a shit about NK except maybe South Korea and China until Dear Leader starts acting like a madman threatening to blow his neighbors away. We want him dead because it's scary to have a lunatic with nukes. When it was just the US and the good ole USSR staring at each other we pretty much knew that neither side really wanted to pull the trigger, they had too much to lose. Now you've got this syphilitic little shit that may just be crazy enough to pull the trigger and he's jumping up and down talking about nuking people. Yes, we'd like him dead.
You don't know much about Military do you? (Score:5, Insightful)
Come now, stop and think. What does North Korea have that can not be stopped at will, and don't you realize that those logistics have been worked out pretty consistently? Does North Korea have an Air Force? The answer is "NO", they do not. The few planes they have would be shot down within seconds of taking flight. Nothing they have compares with the US or South Korean planes.
Does North Korea have a Navy? The answer is "NO". They have a few small boats and subs, that like their military planes, would be neutralized within minutes of an engagement.
The few North Korean Soldiers on the border that lived after the first hour of engagement would be just like the Iraqi Army in Gulf 1 and 2. We would have more problems with refugees and surrendering troops than we would the N. Korean Military. ("We" being S. Korea more than the US)
We are not very worried about the few T72 tanks that NK has, so the only thing that may cost a few lives is the initial artillery fire. Air power would eliminate that artillery pretty quickly. Oh, and before you hype the short range rockets remember that those are worse than artillery. They are fire and forget with very poor range, extreme inaccuracy, and often don't even explode on impact.
The biggest rational fears are with the few scud missiles they have, which are inaccurate and slow. We have had Patriot batteries in South Korea from long before we saw them in the Gulf wars. Think about what they have been trying to hype on the News over the last couple days. "N. Korea has moved 1-3 medium range missiles to the east. Really, 1-3 missiles is a concern when they are scud type missiles? That is laughable if you stop and think about it! It would be sad of course if they were to hit someone with one and people died, don't get me wrong. But it is not a big military threat.
I have not quite figured out the game that's being played politically, but the hype of doom and gloom is grossly exaggerated. I have some speculations, but at present they are not very sound. Some considerations are "Why has China not stopped NK from threats?" China has that much power over NK, perhaps they want to be involved? Why has the US propaganda media (Fox/ABC/NBC) been hyping NK as a real military threat like they did the Iraqi Army? We know their capabilities, and have no reason to over play them unless our politicians (or perhaps more appropriately the people pulling their strings) want a war.
And lets not put this into terms like the propaganda machine might. We don't need to invade and capture North Korea to win and neither does South Korea. We take out anything in their military that "may" cause anyone else harm and leave them the fuck alone. Let the great leader sit in the sand box and cry because you took his shovel away for trying to hit other kids with it. If South Korea want's to drive up to the capital and make it official, that's fine but the US does not have too, and should not consider it.
There is no need for a long drawn out Gorilla war, and if we get into one it's our the politicians fault. Our politicians need to be dealt with harshly if that happens.
Re:Are You Kidding Me? (Score:3, Insightful)
which is the only reason north korea even exists
Re:Are You Kidding Me? (Score:4, Insightful)
fair market value of targets completely irrelevant and useless point of view for the purposes of warfare. Risk and benefit analysis of war doesn't include those numbers.
Re:Opportunity Cost (Score:2, Insightful)
You are starting to understand how they feel about you. That is the real problem here. They can't just abandon their long range nuclear weapons programme because it is the only thing protecting them. They have to play this dangerous game.
I don't know what the solution is. I know what it isn't though: military intervention.
Just. Plain. Stupid.
Being obnoxious but someplace nobody much cares about was the only safety NK ever had. Being obnoxious and waving around nukes will get people, even their nominal protector, China, thinking hard about how to flatten them before they do something unfortunate.
Re:Are You Kidding Me? (Score:5, Insightful)
We probably have a nuclear sub or 2 off the cost. We could empty all tubes on NK and level the country.
Murdering millions of innocent non-combattant peasants, nice. I thought Milosevic was dead. See you at the Hague when you're done, ASSHOLE!
Re:Are You Kidding Me? (Score:5, Insightful)
I know the story about the artillery within range of Seoul makes a good scare piece, but there's zero chance they will be wantonly killing all the South Koreans just because it's technically a separate country.
Because they didn't kill any South Koreans in the Korean war right?