US To Deploy Ballistic Missile Interceptors In Response To North Korean Threats 266
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the where-art-thou-star-wars dept.
from the where-art-thou-star-wars dept.
New submitter dcmcilrath sends this quote from the NY Times:
"The Pentagon will spend $1 billion to deploy additional ballistic missile interceptors along the Pacific Coast to counter the growing reach of North Korea's weapons, a decision accelerated by Pyongyang's recent belligerence and indications that Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, is resisting China's efforts to restrain him. ... The missiles have a mixed record in testing, hitting dummy targets just 50 percent of the time, but officials said Friday’s announcement was intended not merely to present a credible deterrence to the North’s limited intercontinental ballistic missile arsenal. They said it is also meant to show South Korea and Japan that the United States is willing to commit resources to deterring the North and, at the same time, warn Beijing that it must restrain its ally or face an expanding American military focus on Asia."
Re:Time to put the foot down (Score:5, Informative)
The Iraq and Afghanistan wars have contributed many $100s of billions to our debt,
That's a low estimate, by a few factors. Think trillions.
Re:Not trying to argue but... (Score:5, Informative)
Up until recently, North Koreans literally had no other sources of information than state-controlled propaganda. While I'm sure there were enough cases where propaganda disagreed with local reality for them to be skeptical of everything they read, if you hear a message stated as fact from the moment you're born through adulthood, and hear nothing to suggest that this might be a lie, why would you (much less the majority of people there) ever seriously consider it to be a lie? In the US we grow up hearing dissenting viewpoints for everything, causing us to be skeptical of everything. North Koreans don't have that.
There have been tens of thousands of people over the last few decades escape from North Korea to tell us about their experiences. Their perception of the world is essentially entirely drawn from state propaganda.
Increasingly, however, a market economy is beginning to fluorish, driven by trade mostly from China. Many parts of the border are largely open between the two countries. With trade in products comes trade in information, and so the propaganda machine is only now starting to lose power. But there are many people still quite insulated from this and who have no reason to believe anything other than what the state tells them.
Re:Good Job (Score:5, Informative)
These missile interceptors aren't for North Korea. That is the excuse. They are actually a bargaining chip for China. If China reels in North Korea, then these missile interceptors near their borders will be removed. Until then, Obama can simply claim that he is trying to defend against an aggressive North Korean threat to nuke the US (even if North Korea doesn't actually have the capability to do so).
That's what I was thinking - China has a huge amount of bargaining power with North Korea (ie. even if NK stops listening to them, the vast majority of their "slush fund" accounts are in Chinese banks and currently China is ignoring the UN resolution it *supported* to freeze them. Until then, the US can pretty much attribute anything it does in the Western Pacific to countering North Korean threats...
If that analysis is wrong and it really is just to about North Korea, they clearly have won this pissing match, as the US would be spending the equivalent of ~10-20% of NK's entire yearly military budget just to counter a ridiculous idle threat.
And Un is definitely not the brightest bulb - not only has he given the US an excuse, but he has the majority of South Korea's population in favor of developing their own nuclear weapons. Given SK's GDP is $1.1T and NK's is approx. $20B, a high tech arms race is absurd.
Re:Good Job (Score:3, Informative)
They are going to Alaska with additional radar tracking installations in Japan. Play with a great circle map for a little while. You will see that if China wanted to attack the west coast of the US, most of those paths from their missile bases would pass over Alaska, just like North Korea's paths. And the descent stages would be able to be targeted by interceptors launched from Alaska.
Here are two examples (note, I used nearby airports since this mapper requires ICN codes which are hard to find for nuclear weapons launchpads--I don't claim to be exact since China is fairly secretive).
[1] [greatcirclemapper.net]
[2] [greatcirclemapper.net]
Play with it yourself. West coast attacks will generally go over Alaska.
Re:The term "socialist" is overloaded (Score:4, Informative)
(Look at their zero tolerance to drug policy).
That is not unique to Singapore. Asia is very sensitive to drugs (see the Opium Wars). It is quite common to have Draconian drug rules in Asia.
Re:any argument about north korea (Score:4, Informative)
that starts with the premise that north korea will only do things that are rational and make sense, and never anything stupid, is a losing argument
citation: the behavior so far of north korea
Victor Cha, former director of asian affairs in the white house security council amd top advisor on north korean affairs for Bush disagrees with you. [washingtonpost.com]
Most people who say things like you did don't understand that NK considers itself to still be at war - that everything they do is predicated on that belief. And it isn't wholly irrational to believe that either, we've never signed a peace treaty with them. The USA and, to a lesser extent, South Korea act like the armistice is a full-blown peace treaty, but it ain't and as far as NK is concerned fighting could break out at any time.
Re:Socialism at it's finest! (Score:4, Informative)
Well, Socialism was created as a sort of cry for help. Is it a legitimate cry for help? The most common counter argument is that there has never been a truly free society and that if there had been such a society, Capitalism would have been all good. The only reason why Capitalism is destructive in our societies is because of our biased and corrupt systems of government.
I personally don't think it's possible to create a government that is above corruption and bias, but I think it is worthwhile to strive towards that as an ideal. I think people who have done it in the past have made things better. I think that history will go on forever and there will never be a point in time when people can lay down and say that everything is fixed forever, but we can improve society temporarily. As for ideology I think it's interesting to think in terms of ideology, I'm mainly interested in Liberalism (in the classical sense) and socialism, but I don't think that any ideology can be the ultimate solution to all of people's problems.