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North Korea continuing nuclear programme - UN report
North Korea has not stopped its nuclear and missile programmes, violating UN sanctions, a report commissioned by the UN Security Council says. It also says Pyongyang has resorted to a "massive increase" of illegal ship-to-ship transfers of oil products and has been trying to sell weapons abroad.
The confidential report by a panel of independent experts was submitted to the UN Security Council on Friday. North Korea has so far not commented on the document's findings.
Last week, US officials said Pyongyang appeared to be building new ballistic missiles despite recent warming ties with US President Donald Trump's administration and pledges to denuclearise. Unnamed US officials told the Washington Post that spy satellites had spotted continuing activity at a site that has produced ballistic missiles.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 05 2018, @06:19PM (4 children)
NK has to do two, or actually three, things to hurt us. I'm assuming that the rocket leaves the launch pad to simplify things.
1. The missile has to get near enough to the US for the EMP to at least hurt us - whether that EMP happens in space, or in atmosphere, or near the ground.
a. If the missile has attained orbital height and speed, it has to reenter the atmosphere
2. The warhead has to explode for there to be an EMP.
a. The warhead has to get close to a populated area to cause a lot of damage
b. The warhead has to at least be within the horizon of the coast to cause significant damage, even if it misses a populated area.
Bottom line, NK has not demonstrated the capability to launch a successful strike.
Note that I have made no mention so far of US missile defense. Even if NK is capable of achieving the goal of a nuclear detonation somewhere in the United States - we do have some defensive measures. I'll not brag those defenses up, but it must be noted that they exist.
We can each speculate forever about NK capabilities, then we can speculate about US defensive capabilities. My own opinion is - NK isn't really capable of either completing a nuclear detonation on America soil, nor are they capable of penetrating our defensive measures.
If the damned fools were to launch a nuke, the most likely target would be S. Korea, or considerably less likely, Japan. Their chances would be a lot higher with closer targets.
Their chances of surviving the resulting strikes would remain somewhere in the negative numbers realm, no matter which direction they shoot.
(Score: 2) by Knowledge Troll on Sunday August 05 2018, @06:58PM
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm my gut says that its easy enough to pull off the EMP attack that even a damn fool place like NK can do it but I do recognize this could be up for debate.
In terms of missile defense though - out of any adversary that thing would need to work against NK would be one of the prime choices. I believe even Iran came up with a way to defeat it quite effectively before it was even completed but even if the thing only works 20% of the time we could launch 20 for that one NK missile and almost certainly succeed.
And you are right it would be suicide and they most likely would nuke something closer to home so erasing them off the map isn't immediately politically acceptable to the whole world.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 06 2018, @12:18AM
Maybe paradoxically, but I reckon it will be China to deliver the retaliation against NK - they will have to have 3rd party nukes flying so close to them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @03:20AM
> If the damned fools were to launch a nuke, the most likely target would be S. Korea, or considerably less likely, Japan.
And those two countries are famous for their opposition to the US, so fuck 'em. They deserve having a few million of their citizens murdered!
... What? They're among the closest allies? Fuck 'em anyway! U-S-A! U-S-A!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @03:25AM