SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
North Korean state media claims that it can hit anywhere in the world with its new missile. Others say that it is capable of reaching Alaska:
North Korea said on Tuesday it successfully test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time, which flew a trajectory that experts said could allow a weapon to hit the U.S. state of Alaska. The launch came days before leaders from the Group of 20 nations were due to discuss steps to rein in North Korea's weapons program, which it has pursued in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions.
The launch, which North Korea's state media said was ordered and supervised by leader Kim Jong Un, sent the rocket 933 km (580 miles) reaching an altitude of 2,802 km over a flight time of 39 minutes.
North Korea has said it wants to develop a missile mounted with a nuclear warhead capable of striking the U.S. mainland. To do that it would need an ICBM with a range of 8,000 km (4,800 miles) or more, a warhead small enough to be mounted on it and technology to ensure its stable re-entry into the atmosphere. Some analysts said the flight details on Tuesday suggested the new missile had a range of more than 8,000 km, underscoring major advances in its program. Other analysts said they believed its range was not so far.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 04 2017, @11:13PM (4 children)
I would like to hear Ethanol-Fueled's opinion on this topic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 04 2017, @11:30PM
Can we have HIM for once?
(Score: 2, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:20AM (1 child)
Independence Day is still a holiday, even in California. He's probably too shitfaced to type by now.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:40AM
Sad! Norks need better ICBMs!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday July 05 2017, @06:54PM
It probably uses kerosene.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 04 2017, @11:13PM
NK
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday July 04 2017, @11:43PM (1 child)
The two "Axis of Evil" leaders who did not possess WMD's are dead, and Kim has no intention of joining them
Poor old Iran will be next, as they have been conned into dropping their Nuclear research.
(Score: 2, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 05 2017, @12:11AM
"as they have been conned into dropping their Nuclear research."
Well, yeah - that IS the official party line. Is it true, though?
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Wednesday July 05 2017, @12:11AM (58 children)
Under Obama the Norks could have kept doing this shit. I suspect the orange one is getting his panties in a bunch, and is planning some sort of retaliation. I can think of several forms that could take, as in target the missile/bomb makers via Seal Team Six, bomb where they make the missiles/bombs, or hell, take out ol' Kimmie himself.
Downside to all of these is Seoul will be subjected to a horrific artillery attack. We can do our best to do a pre-emptive strike against the norks artillery positions, but we won't get them all. Not to mention good ol Kimmy has low yield nukes and short range rockets they may fit on.
If I lived in Seoul I'd be selling my house at fire sale prices, and see how far I could move south. Cuz I really thing our infantile prez is gonna do something.
Relationship status: Available for curbside pickup.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 05 2017, @12:14AM (9 children)
I mostly agree with your post - but Seal Team Six? I don't see that happening. I hear that Trump watches a lot of television, so maybe he has bought into all that Hollywood hype, and he sees it happening. Holy shit, imagine that. Hollywierd forming national security policy by proxy. Now, that's scary!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:43AM (8 children)
I'm thinking snipers at 1m+ range. Drop a Seal sniper team in country, give them a day or three to get into position, and they should be able to take out a key player from a mile away. That will make the other players' nuts head to the northern territories, and if the sniper can nail an associate of the target a second or two later so much the later.
Use a stealth helicopter to get the team out of country and let lil Kim stew.
Relationship status: Available for curbside pickup.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:49AM
You've been watching too much bad TV. Maybe episodes of the A Team or something equally stupid.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:49AM
The way I hear it, Kim Jong Un's position at any given moment is unknown to many in the Army, and he'll move around a lot.
Killing Kim just means someone else in the Army will assume power. Whether or not they unleash fury upon South Korea is a known unknown.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @05:36AM
I agree -- at ranges less than 1 meter, you hardly need snipers.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Wednesday July 05 2017, @09:00AM
"1m+" range? Yeah, it would be pretty hard to miss at 1 meter!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 05 2017, @12:57PM
"Oh, hello, American spy"
"How do you know I'm American? My accent or what?"
"No. You're black".
Do you have many Korean looking and NK accent speaking precision snipers? Maybe a (self-inflatable?) sniper riffle that can be carried inconspicuously until needed?
Or maybe those snipers can enter hibernation until dear comrade Kim makes a mistake about his security?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Wednesday July 05 2017, @04:02PM
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Wednesday July 05 2017, @07:27PM
A one+ mile shot is actually very rare. At that range you can't be 100% certain to make your kill, and you can't count on getting a second shot.
Most shots IIRCC are at a max range of ~800 meters. Still impressive as all Hells in my book.
The laser guided .50cal bullet they are developing has a max range of 8 miles but you still need someone close enough to put the laser on the target.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @03:27PM
This is some of the dumbest shit I've ever heard. If you don't know anything about the subject don't even bother talking jesus christ you sound like a 2nd grader who spent all afternoon playing metal gear.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday July 05 2017, @12:22AM (41 children)
NK have very few missiles that work in combination with nuclear bombs that work. So strategically knocking them all out should be possible. One US ship that fires self guided missiles to these sites and the missile against missile defense should be able to nullify any such NK action.
I'll bet there is a high altitude radar airplane + satellites keeping track of any launch. And that US know exactly where these sites are. Trucks with mobile missiles can be tracked by their heat, optical signature and ignition radio emissions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Snotnose on Wednesday July 05 2017, @12:35AM (35 children)
You miss the point. They have thousands of artillery pieces targeting Seoul, we have no way of taking them all out. Unless we take them all out we can count on millions of casualties in Seoul.
My fear is The Orange One will decide a million South Koreans is a good tradeoff for preventing a nuke from landing in Alaska or Hawaii.
Relationship status: Available for curbside pickup.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:23AM (34 children)
I think your math needs work. That or you have no idea of the effectiveness of artillery.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:30AM (33 children)
Don't get your point. Seoul is one of the most populated regions in the world. A few hundred artillery shells can cause a lot of damage. Figure if we missed that artillery battery in the first strike it's cuz we didn't know it was there, guessing they can get 3-4 more artillery rounds off before we can find/destroy it.
I don't have a problem imagining a million or so Seoul residents dead in the first 10 minutes of any kind of war. Of course, after 10 minutes the norks are out bitches, but how is South Korea gonna feel about that?
Relationship status: Available for curbside pickup.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:47AM (31 children)
Yes, yes they can. They cannot, however, kill millions.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by arcz on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:53AM (10 children)
Are you stupid? North Korea has NUKES. A nuclear cannon has been done before and there's nothing to suggest that NK does not have them. Even if they can't fit one on an ICBM they can definitely hit South Korea with nukes.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:58AM (9 children)
We were talking about artillery, slappy. Get with the program.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Wednesday July 05 2017, @03:37AM (4 children)
NK will not have much trouble delivering a nuke into Seoul. They have lots of short range missiles. But who can say that they haven't already delivered one or two just by sea and trucks? The area is chock full of small fishing vessels; any of them can be overtaken by NK, driven to any of SK's ports and unloaded without too much attention.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @10:29AM
Oh I expect they can. We were talking artillery though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by EvilSS on Wednesday July 05 2017, @04:04PM
(Score: 1) by JNCF on Monday July 10 2017, @07:59PM (1 child)
Hey dude, this is super off-topic but I can't reply to this old post of yours [soylentnews.org] anymore. I just wanted to explain that while Bitcoin fees could theoretically be based on any criteria, in practice miners are demanding that fees scale with the size of the transaction in informational bits, not the monetary worth or number of Satoshis. The informational size of a transaction increases when you attach extra data (as with OP_RETURN, for example) or script things like multisig outputs, but as long as you're recording a simple transaction you can have a large amount of value sent for the same cost as a small amount of value. I think core defaults to 1000 Satoshis per kilobyte.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Monday July 10 2017, @08:19PM
Oh, and another common reason for transactions getting larger is extra input or output addresses.
(Score: 1) by In hydraulis on Wednesday July 05 2017, @07:11AM (2 children)
Operation Upshot–Knothole [wikipedia.org]
Artillery and nuclear weapons are not mutually exclusive concepts.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @10:27AM (1 child)
You reckon NK has managed to go through the trouble of making a nuke that can survive being used as artillery? It's not a simple thing. One solder joint dislodged and no earth-shattering kaboom.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @03:31PM
There is no way north korea has built a nuke small enough to fit on a shell unless they have some sort of saddam hussein mother of all guns or some shit. Snotnose is a pure moron I was enjoying his stupid shit but then remembered he's probably normal and now I'm going to have a bad day.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday July 05 2017, @07:26AM
I have it on good authority that cannons are artillery.
(Score: 1) by arcz on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:57AM (6 children)
Nuclear cannon:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c0MytMHwzAM [youtube.com]
Tell me North Korea certainly has not developed this technology? It's much simpler than an ICBM. North Korea only needs a few nuclear cannons to kill millions of South Koreans.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 05 2017, @02:17AM (3 children)
One thing to note is that many of their tests are estimated to have had sub-10 kiloton yields. Miniaturizing the weapons might make the yields even worse. Although if they can fire 20-30 of them into the Seoul Capital Area, maybe it won't matter.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by fnj on Wednesday July 05 2017, @09:09AM (2 children)
Did you ever hear of a place called Hiroshima? Nagasaki? In each case, a single explosion of around 15 kilotons killed around 100,000 people. Per inverse square scaling, a couple of kilotons could easily kill tens of thousands. Twenty to thirty of those? Are you kidding? In a city like Seoul tat could easily take out millions.
Get real. Christ, people have no idea what real war is any more. It's not like playing pattycake with a few terrorists.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:43PM (1 child)
You get real. The yields on NK's weaponizable nukes could easily be less than 2 kilotons each. There are less wooden buildings in Seoul. 20-30 nukes is the high estimate. And I never said millions wouldn't die.
Maybe the Cold War has addled your brain.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by fnj on Wednesday July 05 2017, @10:45PM
Or they could just as easily be considerably more than 20 kilotons. What's the point of completely unsupported wild-assed guesswork? You plan based on what you know is possible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @05:47AM
Suppose they have. How many nuclear shells do you suppose they have? if you take out 90% or more of their artillery emplacement, how many do you expect will be on hand at the remaining emplacements?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by fnj on Wednesday July 05 2017, @09:19AM
Nuclear cannons are simple in concept but pretty sophisticated in actual execution. First, your warhead needs to be miniaturized far smaller than it does for a missile. More importantly, you have to arrange for it to survive the terrific concussion of being fired, and still be intact enough to operate perfectly on hitting the target. It's challenge enough to guarantee a real non-dud nuclear explosion every time in an ordinary free-fall bomb not subject to any rough handling at all.
You know what IS simple in concept AND in execution? A nuclear explosive device (not even a polished packaged bomb) in a delivered shipping container. Or a nuclear explosive device in a fishing boat visiting a harbor.
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Wednesday July 05 2017, @02:09AM (11 children)
25 million population in the Seoul Capital Area, with 10 million of those in a crunchy Seoul center.
Last time I checked, experts guessed that North Korea had about 10 nuclear bombs. Here's a recent estimate [isis-online.org] that guesses 13-30 (great name btw).
There's questions over whether or not their nukes are miniaturized enough. While North Korea may be stretching it to reach Alaska with anything, I think they could hit Seoul just fine.
They have lots of conventional weapons that would obviously do a lot of damage to the densely populated Seoul. They may have chemical weapons that could do significant damage (let's rule out biological since those aren't going to kill instantly).
More estimates:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/could-north-korea-annihilate-seoul-its-artillery-20345 [nationalinterest.org]
Stratfor's analysis shows not a lot of the artillery hitting Seoul, and describes the chemical weapons they have as aging and limited:
https://worldview.stratfor.com/analysis/how-north-korea-would-retaliate [stratfor.com]
Somebody using the word "millions":
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-20/what-can-north-korea-already-do-without-nuclear-weapons/8543532 [abc.net.au]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @02:22AM (10 children)
Again, we were talking about artillery.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Wednesday July 05 2017, @09:23AM (6 children)
Your point is? What difference does it make whether they use missiles, artillery, or ballistae? Or whether they deliver nuclear mines into harbors using submarines?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @10:24AM (2 children)
Potential damage. The amount of artillery they have simply is not capable of killing millions unless they stand there going lalala waiting to be killed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Wednesday July 05 2017, @04:07PM (1 child)
Yeah, that WWI thing was overrated, right? 8 million military combat deaths, almost all of them from artillery and machine guns, with some crude chemical weapons thrown in, while NK almost certainly has nerve gas, and quite possibly biological weapons. And let's not forget nuclear artillery shells. The US and the Soviets had those 50 years ago.
In North Korea you are looking at around 12,000 pieces of artillery dug into mountainsides. Artillery is a hard target to begin with. Even machine tools were surprisingly resistant in Germany. The factories were turned to rubble, but the tools could be back in operation under tents very quickly. Stuff made out of great hulking pieces of steel doesn't just vaporize graciously from a few bombs. From experience in WWII, particularly Italy and the Pacific, prepared positions are extremely difficult to neutralize. You look at the pounding of the Pacific Islands from heavy gunfire and sustained air attack, and you wonder how anything could resist, but they did. That stuff had to be taken out one strongpoint at a time by point-blank assault, and it often took ten or more times as long as planned.
12,000 pieces of artillery can fire over 100,000 shells, which is thousands of tons of explosive, per hour and keep that up for days, weeks, months. It would make the destruction of Hamburg or Dresden look like a firecracker.
Turning Seoul into hell would strike a devastating blow to the entire world economy. An incredible amount of consumer and industrial goods are manufactured there. The entire population attempting to flee would create staggering dislocation, starvation, and misery.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @05:54PM
You're comparing an entire world war to the expected initial artillery strike here? Really? Come on...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday July 05 2017, @12:15PM (2 children)
With artillery they need to fire a lot which means it's a lot easier to find and wipe out the shooter.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Wednesday July 05 2017, @04:11PM (1 child)
Ask the US Marines how tough it is to find and wipe out fortified positions. Caves and cocoanut-log pillboxes had to be assaulted individually at point-blank range. Heavy naval gunfire and sustained air attack just didn't do squat.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday July 05 2017, @05:54PM
Are we talking WWII marines or modern ones that have access to equipment from 2017?
(Score: 2) by infodragon on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:31PM (2 children)
Pack a bunch of plutonium in a shell; dirty artillery. They could easily contaminate anything their artillery can reach and they would have plenty of non-weapons grade, not capable of critical mass, radioactive material as a byproduct of production of weapons grade radioactive material.
The result would be a catastrophic impact on SK economy.
Don't settle for shampoo, demand real poo!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:38PM (1 child)
Yup, it'd be nasty. Might cause quite a lot of radiation sickness, cancer down the road, and some amount of extra death. Still not capable of killing millions though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by infodragon on Wednesday July 05 2017, @07:04PM
Killing millions via a dirty bomb *MAY* be an over statement. The economic impact of a dirty bombs, i.e. artillery packed with dirty material, would eventually cause millions of deaths.
1. All of Seoul could be irradiated quite easily, only 10s of shells needed and dirty material is abundant for NK.
2. Mass panic due to being hit with dirty bombs
3. Mass migrant displacement. It would be more than the Syrian migrant crisis x10! Logistics don't scale linearly so the more migrants deaths increase non-linearly.
4. Infrastructure for feeding/watering dense population stops over night.
5. economic impact destroys companies that could step in to deal with the crisis.
6. Disease starts to tear into the survivors within 1-2 weeks.
Easy to consider 20% of the population dying after the above takes place within 2-3 months. Feel free to look up dirty bomb scenarios for NYC and whatnot.
Don't settle for shampoo, demand real poo!
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday July 05 2017, @08:54PM
Target that high-density metropolis with explosive and incendiary warheads, and you essentially get into the five figures in the first hour. Probably six figures shortly thereafter, if you blow up enough hospitals as people are trapped surrounded by burning everywhere, not enough firemen, and the water supplies got hit too.
Assuming massive bombing by the US/Korea and friends, fighting stops quickly before people starve or get sick, but the SK economy takes a major hit at a time when China will happily step in any market space that opens.
Suicidal move by the Norks, so Kim isn't dumb enough to do that unless cornered.
The primary question obsessing the people in Seoul is whether they can prevent retaliation orders from reaching the DMZ, or prevent them from being executed. Nobody is moving on anybody until they are sure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @03:24AM
They can cause a lot of chaos, yes. It'd take awhile (weeks) for them to cause a lot of damage.
The chaos, though, would be incredible, at least initially.
The disruption on global markets, especially in the US, would be HUGE. Way bigger than the Orange One's great hands.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Wednesday July 05 2017, @12:39AM (1 child)
And the potentially tens of thousands [stratfor.com] of civilian casualties across almost half the world from NK retaliation would just be acceptable losses, right?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @07:49AM
Ah, I see you're familiar with the US foreign policy.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @03:16AM (2 children)
Just happened to be reading about S-400 today on Wikipedia. China has signed on to buy a few sets. Are any deployed in China yet?
China could say they deploy a set that is to protect some strategic this or that in China, and that installation will happen to overlap over enough of North Korea and perhaps even into South Korea a bit.
Sounds like China's plan is to set up a system to cover Taiwan at least, too. (according to what's in Wikipedia).
Russia will likely share a friendly "heads up" with NK if the US decides to try and act unilaterally in the near future.
It'll give NK enough time to move the important things while letting the Great Orange One his moment of glorious small-hand waving twitter glory. Of course, leaving the Great Orange One with an important decision to make...
If NK launches a missile at Alaska, do we waste a couple of SM-3's to try and swat it out of the sky?
That leave the important question: Is there a Donald Trump property in Hawaii? There's definitely not one in Alaska. I somehow think that the Great Orange One never tried to pimp Trump-brand Halibut Steaks in the Skymall catalog or on QVC. So the symbolism of a random Aleutian island getting hit by a NK missile isn't that big of a loss. It could even be a big one for him if it happens to hit a big fish processor in Bristol Bay or wherever - screw all those liberal west coast salmon eaters!
(most of US salmon is farmed Atlantic salmon from wherever. We on the west/left coast have readier access to the real and good stuff - wild salmon, whether we buy it at the store or can actually go out and catch it ourselves... )
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday July 05 2017, @12:18PM
Ah.. the west coast. Is that salmon with Fukushima spices? :p
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday July 05 2017, @03:43PM
When you're in Hawaii, treat yourself to a few nights at the Trump International Hotel Waikiki. It's a destination in itself. Enjoy! youtu.be/txc1QDVZLiw [youtu.be]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:49AM (2 children)
Trump! Trump! Trump!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @05:53PM (1 child)
Wow - sounds like you need simethicone. Or loperamide.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday July 05 2017, @08:57PM
Cyanide.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday July 05 2017, @11:56AM (1 child)
I don't see removing Kim Jong Un as helping. It's entirely possible that he's less belligerent than the other people who would take over if he were out of the picture.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Wednesday July 05 2017, @04:16PM
The only way you could possibly get any significant results would be to decapitate the entire twisted leadership cult in a mass coordinated system of assassinations. "Pour encourager les autres".
(Score: 2) by driverless on Thursday July 06 2017, @10:19AM
Naah, Trump watched the documentary The Rescue [imdb.com] and is currently looking for a group of adventurous teenagers to take on the KPA. It's worked before, no reason why they can't do it again.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday July 05 2017, @12:16AM (2 children)
2017-06-30 United States president and South Korean president: End of strategic patience with North Korea.
2017-07-04 NK executes a missile launch test. Adding to the insult, it's executed on the national day of the US.
2017-07-05 US demands closed meeting with the UN security council.
* Will there be a Chinese blockade?
* Strategic destruction of key sites, R&D for missiles and nuclear?
* Full scale invasion with SK soldiers on the ground and US knocking out the military key sites?
* Bombing the infrastructure at the north end of NK to prevent any supplies? possibly combined with other government departments or infrastructure knocked out?
* Assassination of key leaders? already prepared anyway.
* Massive drop of leaflets, candy, movie tapes, etc to undermine the government? broadcasts?
Otoh, by keeping NK around politicians perhaps will be too distracted to do any damage elsewhere. At least more than the current level.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:25AM (1 child)
Undermining the government doesn't do much when it's a military dictatorship with a large enough army to staunch any sort of uprising. Just saying.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @03:30AM
but when said government is rudely smacked around, all that in-the-ranks morale and esprit de corps goes directly into the shitter.
They're a country built up on a huge mythology (far more so than the US is).
But will the Great Orange One throw the US economy into the macerator just to make us think he has big hands?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @02:03AM (3 children)
That's 1,741 miles ... which is seven times higher than the International Space Station (currently at an altitude of 249 miles). Can that be right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @02:55AM
I think so, that is why analysts claim it can get to Alaska. NK has been using high "lob" trajectories for testing so the missiles land short of Japan, but at the same time show their potential capability. This is not the first test with a high trajectory like this.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @03:33AM (1 child)
Like I'm sure you probably know, getting into orbit isn't about height - but speed. The ISS is traveling at more than 17,000 miles an hour. Things in space don't float because they're in space - but rather move very rapidly around an object that they're falling towards. There's an old Douglas Adams quote that the secret to flying is to throw oneself at the ground, and miss. Things in orbit stay in orbit because their horizontal velocity results in them continuing to 'miss' the Earth as they approach it. In an otherwise empty universe you could fly millions of miles away from the Earth and you would eventually fall back down. I say otherwise empty since in our universe you're likely to get pulled in by something else with a stronger gravitational force if you travel that far away, even if you never directly accelerate yourself to escape velocity relative to the Earth (the other body's gravitational force would).
So with that background ICBMs are basically just exploding bullets. You shoot them up really high and they eventually come back down. Lots of math and physics magic let's you land them where you fancy where they come down with a raging force after free falling from their peak 'altitude'.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @07:54AM
I knew that since grade school, but, sadly, I actually got it only after playing Kerbal... Heh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @03:06AM (4 children)
I'm afraid military action could trigger full out war, killing roughly of half of S. Korea.
Instead we may have to starve average citizens to weaken NK by blocking food and supplies going in. It's ugly, but it's either us or them.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @04:02AM (1 child)
Fundamentally this is what North Korea wants. The entire ideology of North Korea is a sort of self sustaining socialism. And real socialism as in government owned industry as opposed to what Americans call socialism which is just capitalism social welfare in lieu of corporate welfare. And I would not assume we would win this hypothetical Korean War even if it did happen. It's like people forget history so fast. We lost the Vietnam War, we were stalemated in the Korean War. Even in modern times, look at Iraq. We are not facing any organized enemy there. It's just a relatively small force of disorganized people and groups using decades old rifles and literally homemade explosives. That's been enough to kill about 5,000 Americans, wound tens of thousands, and one can only imagine how many have been psychologically screwed. Our expenditures on war are in no way proportional to our capabilities.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday July 06 2017, @11:06PM
The disaster in Korea was almost entirely due to mistakes in foreign policy and most of all MacArthur. First, Korea was not included in the initial area the US agreed to protect after WWII, leading the North to believe it was safe to attack the South. Second, the China Lobby, a lobby probably stronger then than the Israel lobby is today, diverted funds and attention from possible zones of conflict to, well mostly to the bank accounts of Chiang Kai-shek and his cronies and to his dreams of re-establishing rule over mainland China. But mostly it was MacArthur. He did not believe North Korea would attack the south, therefore it could not be prepared for and all the intelligence he and his loyal staff received to the contrary was dismissed. When the attack came, the ROK army and the meagre US forces in the area were ill prepared to handle it and not until complete defeat was imminent did MacArthur start using sufficient forces to counter the attack. Generals on the ground were condemned for failures, but it was the lack of support from the top that was at fault. Only a tiny corner of South Korea was maintained until counter attacks started stalling and driving back the North Koreans. MacArthur claimed hero status for his landing at Inchon that reversed the tide of the invasion, but that succeeded only by luck (including the same sort of hubris on the part of the North Koreans) and the narrowest of margins. The North Koreans were driven far back, back into North Korea, but then MacArthur's demagoguery kicked in again and he refused to believe the Chinese were sending forces in to protect North Korea. The result was U.N. forces caught in an unprecedented ambush, with soldiers in overexposed forward lines forced into retreat under heavy attack all the way with major loss of lives. Most loss of life in the Korean War could have been prevented had a more capable general than MacArthur been in charge, but by the time Truman fired him it was too late. If veterans have a reason to be bitter, those of the Korean War do so doubly. Most have always remained bitterly silent about their experiences there. Sadly, we saw many of the same mistakes repeated in Vietnam, but I attribute them more to the advance of a military-industrial complex beginning to run wars for profit rather than mistakes in military leadership, although again, had those on the ground been listened to, especially in the early years, much loss of life could have been prevented there as well.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @05:28AM
Look, it's a country with an unstable and erratic leader that does bizarre things. Uh....which country are we talking about?
But seriously, do you really believe that it's down to "us or them"? So close that it's okay to starve children half a world away to teach them a lesson? Ever wonder what you're teaching them? You have really drank the koolaid and came back for seconds.
(Score: 2) by fnj on Wednesday July 05 2017, @04:28PM
I'm afraid I've got some bad news for you. You can't PREVENT a war by wishing it away, nor by clever planning. It's like trying to talk a rabid animal out of biting and killing you; "nice doggie". When your opponent is a brainwashed rabble of savage madmen, they have the initiative. Because they don't give a flying flip what happens. If you didn't learn that from Hitler, Mao Tse-Tung, Saddam Hussein, and Idi Amin, I don't know how to make it any more plain.
First of all, you can't starve them because there are agents of hell running China who are propping them up. But even if you could, it would just cause them to snap, and there would be your trigger.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Wednesday July 05 2017, @09:53AM (4 children)
First time hearing\reading this one. I wonder how such a racial\ethnic\national slur came to be. It's not like people spontaneously started shortening it while chit-chatting... Like, compared to the British Paki for Pakistanis or Polack for Polish in the States, you could imagine a conversation going like "This Paki at the store was..." or "That Polack at class...". But North Koreans? I doubt even foreign office officials interact with enough North Koreans to come up with "Norks".
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @02:02PM
even funnier, in the UK "norks" is slang for a womans breasts.
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Thursday July 06 2017, @03:54PM (2 children)
Folks in the military talk about North Korea a lot. There's a lot of speculation about whether they'll be sent over to do some gunbarrel diplomacy, so shortening the 4-syllable "North Korean" to one-syllable "Nork" makes sense given the frequency that crowd uses it. According to Google Ngram Viewer that usage hasn't spread much, [google.com] so don't feel bad about not having heard it.
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06 2017, @05:45PM (1 child)
This usage is definitely a new trend: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?hl=en&q=norks [google.com]
You can actually do a date limited google search and see it's extremely new from the past couple of weeks. Probably another 4th of July spin cycle from our friends at the state department ( https://torrentfreak.com/state-dept-mpaa-riaa-fake-twitter-feud-plan-backfires-170706/ [torrentfreak.com] ). It would seem that much like Heinlein's Starship Troopers, the military is more than happy to look past the criticism and instead treat Orwell's books and essays as how-to manuals.
(Score: 2) by Spook brat on Thursday July 06 2017, @08:54PM
I remember throwing the term "nork" around long before the past two weeks' new cycles. I have no idea what sparked its uplift into the public consciousness; maybe the past weekend was just CNN's or Fox News' opportunity to be part of the lucky 10,000? [xkcd.com]
Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday July 05 2017, @04:17PM
I've always said, Chairman Kim is a smart cookie. I love his hairdo! It's great that he knows about our Independence Day. Amazing how much those North Korean kids learn! But with the rockets, they're not so smart. Because the Russians -- and I always listen to the Russians, very smart folks -- say the rocket didn't go so high. Their analysts say it didn't go as high as we've been told. We had great fireworks in Washington. But I didn't see Kim's rocket. Because it didn't go so high. When North Korea sends its rockets, they're not sending their best. They're sending rockets that have lots of problems. They do it for the ratings, they think it will boost their terrible ratings. Stupid! While I greatly appreciate the efforts of Chairman Kim & his Politburo to help with our Independence Day celebrations, it has not worked out. I think maybe North Korea is trying to send its rockets too far. I think it's time for them to open a rocket factory in the #USA and hire Americans to build those rockets. And put the launching pad here too. They're sending them too far, that's got to be a big part of the problem. I'd love to see some North Korean fireworks, but they're sending them too far. They need to launch them from the #USA. At least I know Chairman Kim tried! 🇺🇸