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posted by martyb on Thursday August 10 2017, @01:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the what-would-YOU-do? dept.

A confidential Defense Intelligence Agency intelligence asessment has concluded that North Korea has miniaturized a nuclear warhead to make it capable of being launched by its ballistic missiles:

The analysis, completed last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency, comes on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country's atomic arsenal. The United States calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Some independent experts think the number is much smaller.

[...] 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.

Meanwhile, President Trump and Kim Jong Un have traded barbs:

President Donald Trump appears to have painted himself into a corner: He must now follow up on his pledge of hitting North Korea with "fire and fury," or he risks further blowing U.S. credibility.

Kim Jong-un's regime said late on Tuesday that it may strike Guam. That came shortly after Trump warned Pyongyang it would face "power, the likes of which this world has never seen before" if the renegade state continued to threaten the U.S.

"If the red line he drew today was 'North Korea cannot threaten the U.S. anymore,' that line was crossed within an hour of him making that statement," said John Delury, associate professor of Chinese studies at Seoul-based Yonsei University.


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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by AndyTheAbsurd on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:13PM (6 children)

    by AndyTheAbsurd (3958) on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:13PM (#551658) Journal

    There's no bad result for Trump (as Trump sees it). Let's take a look at the possibilities:

    • NK doesn't have a capable missile: NK doesn't do anything, NK looks weak/crazy, Trump claims to be a genius because he "knew" that NK couldn't do anything to the US
    • NK has the missile, but not a functional warhead: Same as above.
    • NK has the warhead, but no missile: Same as above.
    • NK has both a missile and a warhead, but it fails to reach Guam: NK gets laughed at, Trump responds as above. (The extra "funny" version of this is the warhead goes off anyway, while still in NK territory.)
    • NK has a missile and a warhead; it reaches Guam but fails to detonate: Same as above, save maybe we get to sue NK in international courts for damage to property and/or harming a handful of citizens.
    • NK has a missile and a warhead; and they both work: Trump gets to send the US to war with NK, and will claim to be "the greatest wartime leader that America has ever known" even if his strategies fail and millions of US lives are lost.
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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:35PM (3 children)

    by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:35PM (#551675) Journal

    - Kim doesn't fire his test missile but continues to prod Trump until Trump does something rash. The situation continues to escalate until some kind of hostile incident occurs between US and China / China, and suddenly all Trump's big talk about the size of his weapons looks a lot less impressive.

    In a way, you are are right: In Trump's eyes there is never a bad result for Trump, he just rebrands his failures as successes and blunders on regardless. As usual, the bad results will be borne by other people - in this case, the potentially millions of people who could be killed in a war.

    If you really want to know how it will all play out, keep an eye on Trump's investments in Seoul. I believe he has some buildings there. If you suddenly see them sporting "for sale" signs, you know shit's about to get real.

    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:33PM (1 child)

      by Thexalon (636) on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:33PM (#551712)

      Another way to know is that the US military allows personnel stationed in Seoul to bring their families along. If the families head home, the generals think it's going down.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:10PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:10PM (#551778)

        At face value, you are correct.

        OTOH, evacuation of dependents would be seen as provocative if in fact we seek peace, and as telegraphing the punch if we opt for war.

        Since boots on the Korean ground is a military liability anyway (too few, and pre-registered by plentiful NK arty), pulling back everything to the Aleutians, Japan and Okinawa would solve the problem since any war is going to be primarily remote-fought on our side.

        A pull-back would be a PR plus (except in SK) as a show of non-belligerence.

        My forecast: nobody is going to do anything different. More tests, more exercises, more media posturing. That's all.

        So much for arm-chair Realpolitk for today.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday August 11 2017, @04:39PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday August 11 2017, @04:39PM (#552410)

      Weapon-wise, the US still has China ridiculously out-gunned. The problem is: economics. China can make the US economy hurt, bad, if they choose to, all without firing a single shot.

      Actually, all-out war with China is very unlikely to be initiated or encouraged by China, since that might justify seizure of Chinese holdings inside the US.

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:37PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:37PM (#551679)

    Trump's basic response to any opposition from anybody, for any reason, is to find ways to hurt them until they comply with his demands. So his reaction to Kim Jong Un is completely 100% predictable, because it would not occur to him to do anything else.

    Kim Jong Un, for his side in all this, is not being stupid or crazy, although he may still lose:
    1. If he does not present a serious threat to the US or at least its allies, then he's likely to end up like Saddam Hussein or Qaddafi: Hiding in a hole until somebody finds him and kills him. This is why he got nukes in the first place.
    2. He probably figures that Trump would be fine with Seoul or Tokyo being nuked, so he needed to be able to threaten the US directly if he wants to survive. Hence his efforts to make sure his missiles can hit targets in Guam and Alaska, the closest US territories to his country.
    3. If the US does not present a serious threat to NK, then his people will begin to ask why they put up with the oppressive NK government, and that will lead to a revolution that will not end well for Kim. So occasional American bluster is good for Kim.
    4. If the various generals around him think that either (1) or (2) are not being well-managed by Kim, then they'll move to replace him, because their lives are very directly tied to Kim's. One reason he had his half-brother killed was that he wanted to eliminate a credible alternative claimant to his job should his generals start thinking along these lines.

    I think there's a chance that if the military received an order for a first-strike nuclear launch on NK, they wouldn't follow it. They'd probably find something in their manuals and rulebooks to save themselves from court-martial if they did so.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:52PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:52PM (#551684)

    Except that conventional weapons that North Korea has can reach millions of people in South Korea and China. Nailing an ally in dealing with the North would be just as bad or worse than hitting Guam.