Korean Brinksmanship

[dales]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/ ... YQ20130403

(Reuters) - The Pentagon said on Wednesday it was sending an advanced ballistic missile defense system to Guam in the coming weeks, as U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel cited a "real and clear" danger from North Korea.

North Korea has singled out U.S. military bases in Guam, a U.S. territory in the Pacific, and Hawaii among its potential targets in threats in recent weeks that have put the Korean peninsula on edge and triggered a change in the U.S. defense posture and missile defense planning.

"Some of the actions they've taken over the last few weeks, present a real and clear danger," Hagel told an audience at the National Defense University in Washington.

He said those actions had threatened the interests of South Korea and Japan, but he also cited their direct threats against Guam, Hawaii and West Coast of the United States.

Shortly after Hagel spoke, the Pentagon said it was deploying a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD), which includes a truck-mounted launcher, interceptor missiles, an AN/TPY-2 tracking radar and an integrated fire control system.

"The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and stands ready to defend U.S. territory, our allies, and our national interests," a Pentagon spokeswoman said.

[Lord Jim]

I have been meaning to post about this...

North Korea's trash talk has reached a level it has not reached before...

PYONGYANG, North Korea | DMN — North Korea’s state media said Monday that the armistice agreement that halted the Korean War is no longer valid and warned it is bracing for a showdown with enemy forces. The Rodong Sinmun, an organ of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), said in a article monitored in Seoul that the time for the showdown war is now at hand and claimed the cease-fire pact that barely maintained its existence was now null and void. “Under the guidance of the WPK, the undefeated might of the military will now target the United States and by destroying the ‘evil empire’ herald the historic start of a unified country,” the newspaper said. Pyongyang commonly refers to Washington as an evil empire or imperialistic power.

http://dmnewsi.com/2013/03/11/special-r ... r-footing/

That's pretty grave...

Neither the Great Leader nor the Dear leader went so far as to formally withdraw from The Armistice Agreement, which would technically give them the legal predicate to resume hostilities at any moment....

The North Koreans are also claiming that they've put their forces on the highest standard of alert ever...

And also claiming that they are readying missile launches against Guam, Hawaii, and the US mainland...(I would suggest they aim for the US mainland; while they have demonstrated an ICBM capability by finally launching a satellite, given their limited guidance system capability, best to go for a big target like North America...They could easily miss Guam or any of the Hawaiian Islands...)

The North Koreans have The Bomb, and they have a rudimentary ICBM technology, but they are a long way from being to reduce it's size to the point that they could deliver it on a missile warhead...

So what are they up to with these meaningless threats?

In theory they could use their highly unreliable rocket technology to deliver a conventional or "dirty bomb" payload against the US Mainland...but if they did that, the impact on the US would be minimal, while the response to their regime would be swift and fatal...

And besides, it would likely never even come to that, because the moment it looked like the North Koreans were readying whatever missiles they have, in the current sabre rattling environment they have created, we would wipe them out on their launch pads...(We could take out what the North Koreans have that passes for "air defense" in about 10 minutes, and strike all of their missile launching sites before they could get close to launching a single missile)

On top of that, the only patron state they have in the world, The People's Republic of China...Has absolutely no interest in seeing the economy of Asia destabilized, let alone having this pipsqueak nation bring on World War III...

Surely the North Koreans must know these things...

Which raises the question...

If they know these facts; that an actual attack will mean minimal loss to us, and total destruction for them...

Why on earth would they even be threatening such a thing?

The only way to interpret what North Korea says from a rational perspective, is to assume it's all for internal consumption...

The US and South Korea, are engaging in regular military exercises that we engage in every year...

The North Koreans are claiming that this a prelude for an invasion...

This is ludicrous; the US and South Korea have absolutely no interest in "invading" North Korea; (The prosperous South Koreans have made quite clear, ever since the reunification between East and West Germany, that they have absolutely no desire to take on a similar basket case responsibility; and the US is certainly not going to force them to)

So when the "invasion" doesn't come...

(That was never going to happen anyway)

The new Dear Leader can tell his subjugated starving people that the invasion didn't happen because the US was scared off by his threats...

However, though that's what's most likely to be going on here, we can't just assume that....

Prudence indicates we have to allow for "the crazy man theory"....

I think that at the moment, the Administration is responding just as it should...

Not getting into a tit-for-tat on the rhetoric with these ying-yangs, but sending them another message by bringing more forces into the region....

[Gob]

Drop a big one on Pyonyang, everyone would be pleased, especially any North Korean not in the city at that time.

[Lord Jim]

Drop a big one on Pyonyang, everyone would be pleased, especially any North Korean not in the city at that time.

Yes, but could we get UN Security Council Approval?

An argument can be made, that by making truly ridiculous threats, that everyone knows they can't possibly back up, like, "we're going to fire nuclear missiles at the US mainland"...

That they are signaling, in their own strange way, that they really aren't serious...

The problem is, that they have real capabilities, that could kill a lot of people, and create complete economic disruption throughout all of Asia, (and here in the US) far short of that...

The GenX Leader's forces have enough artillery pieces in place to fire 500,000 shells into Seoul in the first hour of combat...

And enough medium range missiles to fire several thousand more at Tokyo...

Even if at the end of the day they are totally demolished, the damage to the economic system of Asia would be incalculable...

There's no way the Chinese could possibly want that to happen, (their own prosperity is now too tied in to a stable economic system; as much as they may enjoy seeing North Korea play the gadfly and be a thorn in the West's side, they don't want them to upset the whole apple cart; they have too much invested)

But history suggests that the Chinese don't have the kind of total controlling influence over the North Korean leadership that we like to assume they do...They have some influence, more than any other country; but not as much as we like to think...

Under The GenX Leader's father, the North Koreans confiscated PRC planes, train cars, and cargo ships (sent to provide relief) and even held the occasional Chinese diplomat for ransom...The reason the Chinese didn't reach out and squash them like a bug when they pulled this crap, was because they, didn't want to own this basket case country...

If these North Korean Nutters are prepared to thumb their noses at a ruthless regime with over 1.2 billion people sitting right on their border that they're totally reliant on...

You can imagine how unimpressed they're likely to be with us.... (No matter how many Carrier Task Force Groups we bring to the party)....

[Lord Jim]

There's a substantial body of evidence that suggests that the people who have run this odd little country for at least the past several decades do not calculate things in the way that the leaders of most nations do...(be they democratic or authoritarian nations)

They have gotten away with so much outrageous behavior for so long, and lived in such an insular way, that they apparently believe they can get away with saying and doing anything...they have created a complete private reality for themselves...

Hence the "we're going to fire a nuclear missile at the United States" thing...

[Andrew D]

It seems to me that the US's next step -- assuming that we have not taken it already -- should be serious diplomacy with China. Not the kind of puff-n-stuff diplomacy that is carried out in public; the serious diplomacy that is carried out in private:

Bring your dog to heel, or we will kill it.

[Crackpot]

I do think that they've been eating their own bullshit for so long that they now actually believe it

[oldr_n_wsr]

Here is how I see it. NK has used up all it's foodstocks over the winter. They sabre rattle (although more than in the past) in order to get all involved to the table. Then they bargain to keep their mouths shut about starting a wor for another year and in return they get more food.
It's pretty much a "step and repeat" from prvious years/admins. The rhetoric is up a bit, but the chess strategy is the same.

[Crackpot]

It has progressed passed rhetoric they've canceled the armistice and closed the border from new entries effectively shutting down the joint north south industrial complex (one of the norths few economic engines)

[oldr_n_wsr]

All for more food.

ETA
If I were the Pres, I would have stealth bombers and fighters flying right on the border.

[Crackpot]

If so what will they do next time?

[oldr_n_wsr]

Die?

[Gob]

Don't worry about rising tensions in North Korea. The US has sent over the B52s

They'll soon surrender once they've had to listen to ' Love Shack' a few times.

[dales]

(Reuters) - The stealthy, nuclear-capable U.S. B-2 bomber is a veteran of wars in Iraq and Libya, but it isn't usually a tool of Washington's statecraft.

Yet on Thursday, the United States sent a pair of the bat-winged planes on a first-of-its-kind practice run over the skies of South Korea, conducting what U.S. officials say was a diplomatic sortie.

The aim, the officials said, was two-fold: to reassure U.S. allies South Korea and Japan in the face of a string of threats from North Korea, and to nudge Pyongyang back to nuclear talks.

But whether North Korea's young new leader, Kim Jong-un, interprets the message the way the White House hopes is anybody's guess. His first reaction, according to North Korean state media, was to order his country's missiles ready to strike the United States and South Korea.

A senior U.S. official said Kim's late father, Kim Jong-il, was at least more predictable: He would issue threats that got the world's attention without provoking open conflict, and then use them as leverage in subsequent diplomatic negotiations.

This time, U.S. intelligence analysts are divided over whether Kim Jong-un is pursuing the same strategy. "It's a little bit of an 'all bets are off' kind of moment," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity,.

The official said the idea for the practice bombing run, part of annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises named Foal Eagle, emerged from government-wide discussions over how to signal to Seoul and Tokyo that Washington would back them in a crisis.

It is less clear whether Washington informed China, North Korea's neighbor and only major ally, in advance.

The plan was approved by the White House and coordinated with South Korea and Japan, the official said.

REASSURING ALLIES

While the 20-year-old B-2 often flies for long durations - 44 hours is the record - Thursday's flight of approximately 37-1/2 hours was the plane's first non-stop mission to the Korean peninsula and back from Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, Air Force officials said.

With Pyongyang threatening missile strikes on the U.S. mainland, as well as U.S. bases in Hawaii and Guam, the flight seemed designed to demonstrate how easy it would be for the United States to strike back at North Korea.

It is far from clear that Pyongyang, which has had mixed success in its missile tests, can make good on its own threats.

"This is useful reminder to the South Koreans that the U.S. nuclear arm can reach out and touch North Korea from anywhere. We don't need to be sitting there at Osan Air Base," south of Seoul, said Ralph Cossa, president of the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum CSIS think tank.

"This also reminds the Chinese that North Korean actions have consequences. It tells them that the U.S. is taking North Korean threats seriously but we're not panicking," he added.

The senior U.S. official said that once the Foal Eagle exercises are concluded, the Obama administration hopes to pivot to a diplomatic approach to North Korea, and hopes Pyongyang will reciprocate.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to travel to East Asia in about two weeks, the first of a parade of senior Washington officials headed toward the region.

45-MINUTE NAPS

Thursday's drill was a rare moment in the limelight for the B-2 "Spirit" bomber, which began life with a slew of cost and development troubles for manufacturer Northrop Grumman Corp but has become a mainstay of U.S. nuclear deterrence.

Long-duration missions, in which the bomber is refueled in midair, are "a challenge on your body and mind, staying sharp," said an Air Force captain and B-2 pilot. Under the service's security rules, the pilot could only be identified by his radio call sign, "Flash."

The captain, who did not participate in Thursday's practice mission over South Korea, said flight doctors have devised special regimens to keep the plane's two-man crew sharp.

They include 45-minute naps, on a cot in the back of the plane, that end a half hour before "critical events" such as in-air refueling or dropping ordinance, he said.

All 20 of the United States' B-2 bombers are based at Whiteman, and they saw combat during the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the NATO mission that led to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's overthrow.

In the 1980s, the Pentagon had planned to buy 132 of the bombers, whose main mission was to penetrate the Soviet Union's airspace undetected. The program was drastically cut back after the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989.

So elite is the B-2 pilot corps that more people have been in outer space than have flown the aircraft, "Flash" said.

[Rick]

I've sent a message to Tony Cordesman about this, he has yet to reply...

[Crackpot]

Don't worry about rising tensions in North Korea. The US has sent over the B52s

They'll soon surrender once they've had to listen to ' Love Shack' a few times.

If that doesn't work we're conscripting REM back together.

Do you know what that will mean?

[Crackpot]

Might even be considered a war crime....

[Crackpot]

They mighty get away claiming it was a call for peace tho...

[Lord Jim]

I suggest that at the first sign of aggression, we start blasting Leonard Cohen at them...

Pretty hard to fire off artillery barrages when you're stone cold passed out...

Better than nerve gas....

[Gob]

Don't worry about rising tensions in North Korea. The US has sent over the B52s

They'll soon surrender once they've had to listen to ' Love Shack' a few times.

If that doesn't work we're conscripting REM back together.

Do you know what that will mean?

The end of the world as we know it?