North Korea Launches Two Midrange Missiles, Both Tests Fail (cnn.com) 73
An anonymous reader writes: According to South Korean Defense Ministry officials, North Korea fired two midrange Musudan missiles Thursday, and both missiles appear to have failed. The military cannot confirm exactly when the missile exploded but said it "crashed shortly after it was launched," a Defense Ministry official said. U.S. military officials said the missiles traveled an estimated 200 meters from the launchpad. This past weekend, North Korea launched a ballistic missile from a submarine off the east cost of the Korean peninsula. It only traveled about 30 km, well short of the 300 km range that would be considered a successful test. A little more than a week prior to that launch, North Korea failed to launch an intermediate-range missile on the 104th anniversary of the birthday of the country's 'eternal president,' Kim II Sung.
Re:Wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
Little Kimmy Jong Un can't get it up!
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This is an expletive sentence structure, and "a whole lot of folks just south of the border with a hole lot [sic] artillery aimed up their noses" is the complete subject.
The South part clearly refers to the South Koreans, unless you are from Australia. Not because North and South are different there, but because they allow Barnaby Joyce to continue to hold office under the guise of protecting animals and thus might be expected to get things diametrically incorrect.
You a
Consider these factors (Score:2)
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GTFO
The USSR was a real threat, now BOTH China and Russia are sick of NK
Threat level 0
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And yet we fought them (Score:1)
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True but that was before China was a trading partner of the USA. Right now China has more to lose with Keith Korea going off the rails than to worry about a unified Korea democracy.
What no one realizes is that reunification of the Korea is now impossible. To much time has passed.
China's best method is to absorb North Korea into China, and remove one half of the population to 1000 different Chinese cities. But China really doesn't want to deal with that.
How valuable is trade? (Score:1)
I'm not sure that's going to influence their decision much at all now that China has other trading partners, and the USA's importance is fading. You only buy debt from and sell products to superpowers, and it's hard to argue the USA is still one of those at more than a military level.
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Are China and other countries
Let's revisit this in ten years (Score:1)
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Great leader is not short (Score:5, Funny)
The Great Leader does not fall short - not when in comes to missiles, height, hair size, stomache size, or any other kind of size. His hands are big too.
Ignore the lies, Great Leader will make North Korea the WINNIGEST country every. They will win so much, you will ask him to stop winning that much. His missiles will fly furthest, his walles will be the biggest.
Wait - am I still making fun of Kim, or Donald? I forget which.
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Dear Leader was not short; rather he was limp
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We laugh, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
We laugh, but failures are how one learns how to do things; we had many dozens of rockets fail before we perfected the technology.
Eventually they'll figure it out. Then what? I don't trust that crazy government with ICBMs.
Well..... (Score:2)
You learn from mistakes and try again, unless you are summarily executed for failing.
I have no doubt that's the case here.
"here top scientist, take these marbles a rubber band and a corkscrew and make super death missile"
"You failed, *bang*"
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We laugh, but failures are how one learns how to do things; we had many dozens of rockets fail before we perfected the technology.
Eventually they'll figure it out. Then what? I don't trust that crazy government with ICBMs.
I dunno. When our tests failed von Braun and crew figured out the issue, fixed it, had another iteration. In NK I would imagine each failure adds 20+ people to the labor camps, hard to say if a scientist gets a second chance.
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If the Russians did not have nuclear weapons they would be just another 3rd world wannabe power.
This is factually wrong. Russia will always be "2nd world" by definition. [wikipedia.org]
It's good you posted as A/C so as to prevent such a post from being associated with your identity. Words have meanings.
Coupled with the fact that the state of California has a higher GDP than Russia also means they have no economic leverage to on the international stage.
Big freaking deal. [ca.gov] I have no love for Russia (or the mad man they have as a leader), but Caliornia's economy is HUGE.
The big surprise is that China has let NK get to this point without intervening. They could close their border and stop all deliveries of food, oil, and coal shipments. This would give NK just enough rope to hang themselves. Any hostile response directed from NK to China would give the Chinese all the reason they need remove all existing NK leadership and install their own people to govern the state. China would not face any criticism from the international community for their actions. As it stands NK actions have resulted in all the surrounding countries upgrading their missile defense systems that when coupled with the increase in US missile defense systems could weaken China's nuclear deterrent.
China needs an unstable NK, but not too unstable. Too stable or unstable, they risk the Koreas reuniting and China does not want a powerful ally to the US right on their border.
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We laugh, but failures are how one learns how to do things; we had many dozens of rockets fail before we perfected the technology.
Eventually they'll figure it out. Then what? I don't trust that crazy government with ICBMs.
Back up a little and ask why they are doing this. Is it because they want to invade the South? No. They aren't stupid or suicidal. When we vilify these people, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that way. But they want to continue their way of life the same as everyone else.
So why are they really doing this? Because they fear that the USA will invade THEM. That isn't an unreasonable assumption; the US has invade Iraq, Afghanistan, bombed Libya, and meddled in many other countries and topp
Does anyone think these failures are deliberate? (Score:2)
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.... so that if they were to actually try and do anything that actually posed a danger, nobody would take it seriously until it was too late?
Define "Deliberate"? As far as a country with limited funds and resources intentionally destroying missiles in an attempt make the rest of the world roll our eyes at them, I highly doubt it. Rushing the launches, without properly evaluating what caused the previous failures and making the necessary adjustments in order to ensure success, just to look like they're doing something fearsome? More likely. Same goes for their nuke tests. I doubt they're wasting fissile material on super low-yield detonations ju
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I think they are no more deliberate than the SpaceX failures. What they are attempting is not easy. The fact that North Korea is testing these missiles in earnest is of concern.
Re: Does anyone think these failures are deliberat (Score:1)
In fact one of SpaceX's successes was to land a rocket very near where it was launched from. So maybe N. Korea "making a missile that only went 30 meters" was actually very clever of them.
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Don't think of left right as plots on a line. Think globally - literally. If you go east long enough you can get to points in the west. Now add in latitude and realize that the distances can be longer or shorter or a combination of both.
Left and Right (Score:1)
I never would use such a simplistic device. I simply think of them as two competing theories.
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Nationalism is not a left/right concept. It's a good thing when done right, but a bad thing when done wrong. It's what gave much of Europe its borders. Good when the random germanic states decided to unify as a country, or when the Baltic regions figured they could kick out the Tsars, but bad when Napoleon decided he could sweep across the world.
Rewritten History (Score:1)
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Hitler wasn't socialist. He claimed that title because early on it got some votes, but never did he or his party have any kind of socialist ideas or policies.
Check out points 7, 9-11, 13-15, 20 (Score:1)
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and the end of seoul at same time.
Like a shithouse rat (Score:1, Troll)
We meddle in the affairs of other sovereign nations, often to our own detriment.
Yet, we have seemingly no interest in freeing the North Korean people (and the world) from this attention-seeking child.
Re:Like a shithouse rat (Score:4, Interesting)
Yet, we have seemingly no interest in freeing the North Korean people
More an issue between South and North Korea. Of course, we'd help our ally. China, on the other hand, doesn't want the regime to collapse. Millions of refugees crossing the border to deal with. Plus, having a mad dog in the back yard might come in handy.
The thing that I think will bring China around is: When the NORKs get a warhead working and manage to fit it onto a missile, Beijing will be a much easier shot than the USA. And Kim Jong-un is crazy enough to try and blackmail China for aid.
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collateral damage (Score:3)
Given the way this "country" operates, I'm pretty sure that after each failure heads are rolling, literally. A few more such failures and NK will run out of rocket scientists and missile commanders...
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One wonders if this is true, but beyond the internal and external DPRK propaganda, it seems like there must be enough men and women of reason in their government and research facilities to make the case for and maintain these complex weapons/energy programs in a relatively protected environment, knowing that failures and quality improvement are necessary and inherent to the process.
That sentence was a lot longer than I planned, sorry.
He did succeed (Score:1, Troll)
Seriously you have complete cowards even on this site arguing that the US needs to piss away billions of dollars ever year on military pro
"North Korea Announces Two More State Exedcutions" (Score:1)
1984 (Score:2)
You'd never think there'd be such a thing as an orwellian 1984 nightmare nation - but North Korea pretty much is it.
What an utterly bizar spectacle.
I hope this fatso dies painfully of an heart-attack whilst shitting on the toilet and that the people of North Korea can finally have a peaceful and halfway decent republic of their own. After burning all the images and idols of him and his kin.
it's a test.... (Score:2)