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North Korea (DPRK — Democratic People's Republic of Korea) has launched an SLBM (Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile) from a submarine in the Sea of Japan, according to a Reuters story. The missile travelled about 300 miles (500 km). A similar launch last month seemed to fail.
Having the ability to fire a missile from a submarine could help North Korea evade a new anti-missile system planned for South Korea and pose a threat even if nuclear-armed North Korea's land-based arsenal was destroyed, experts said.
The ballistic missile was fired at around 5:30 a.m. (2030 GMT) from near the coastal city of Sinpo, where a submarine base is located, officials at South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defence Ministry told Reuters.
The projectile reached Japan's air defence identification zone (ADIZ) for the first time, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a briefing, referring to an area of control designated by countries to help maintain air security.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 25 2016, @03:00PM
Because North Korea has one of the world's largest armies; its paramilitary is roughly five times larger than the United States' entire active army. As active armies go, NK has about 1.2m to the USA's 1.5m. With our global commitments, we can't commit our entire active army to attack them, but they can commit almost their whole army to defend.
We'd probably win (if nobody interferes) but it would be very costly, unless we literally just level the entire country, and kill hundreds of thousands of non-combatants directly. At which point, we'd have to ask if we were really doing the right thing- it sounds like we'd be acting just like they pretend to act.
Gross oversimplification but I think that gets the gist of it.