Tag: North Korea

North Korea appears to back down

6:27 pm

A news report today out of North Korea suggests that its leader, Kim Jong Un, has stepped back from a plan to test fire four missiles in the direction of Guam.

This could be related to China’s decision this week, under strong pressure from the Trump administration, to finally go along with UN sanctions and ban imports of iron, lead, and coal from North Korea.

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China admits it will do nothing to stop North Korea from attacking US

10:25 am

In an official editorial, China has admitted that it will do nothing to stop North Korea from using missiles to attack the US territory of Guam.

Beijing is not able to persuade Washington or Pyongyang to back down at this time. It needs to make clear its stance to all sides and make them understand that when their actions jeopardize China’s interests, China will respond with a firm hand.

China should also make clear that if North Korea launches missiles that threaten US soil first and the US retaliates, China will stay neutral. If the US and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.

In other words, China will not stop North Korea from carrying out its attacks, but if it does so China will also not do anything if the U.S. responds.

The editorial is intellectually dishonest however. It also states,

The real danger is that such a reckless game may lead to miscalculations and a strategic “war.” That is to say, neither Washington nor Pyongyang really wants war, but a war could break out anyway as they do not have the experience of putting such an extreme game under control. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words are simply wrong. It has been very clear now for several years that North Korea is eager for war, and has been doing everything it can to instigate a conflict.

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North Korea launches another ballistic missile

9:58 am

Does this make you feel safer? North Korea today launched another ballistic missile.

Not much is known about the rocket or the launch. My overall impression however is that North Korea is refining its approach to the launch of these rockets. Several years ago they would blast away, with no sense of rhyme or reason, often following up one failed launch with another almost immediately. Sometimes they would even try to launch a bunch of rockets in one day. To me these earlier launches suggested a mindless attempt at bravado, with little serious interest at improving the technology.

Now their launches seem to have a more measured cadence, as if they are properly treating each launch as an engineering test. They then review their results, apply them, and try again.

If so, we have much more to fear from their effort to develop rockets and nuclear bombs.

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North Korea test fires another ballistic missile

7:01 pm

North Korea today launched another test missile into nearby waters, this time landing in Japanese waters.

Update: North Korea now claims this was an ICBM that could have reached Alaska, and some of the experts quoted appear to agree.

It was estimated to have reached an altitude that “greatly exceeded” 2,500 kilometres, Japan said, prompting arms control specialist Jeffrey Lewis to respond on Twitter: “That’s it. It’s an ICBM. An ICBM that can hit Anchorage not San Francisco, but still.”

David Wright, of the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote on the organisation’s allthingsnuclear blog that the available figures implied the missile “could reach a maximum range of roughly 6,700 km on a standard trajectory. … That range would not be enough to reach the lower 48 states or the large islands of Hawaii, but would allow it to reach all of Alaska.”

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China cuts off oil to North Korea

12:03 pm

It’s about time. China’s national oil company has suspended all oil sales to North Korea because of lack of payment.

The reason North Korea doesn’t have the money to buy oil is largely because it hasn’t been able to sell any coal to China. And the reasons for both is likely China’s increasing desire to rein in North Korea’s missile and nuclear arms programs.

Without oil or coal, North Korea’s leadership will find itself hard-pressed to survive.

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North Korea fires another ballistic missile

6:11 pm

North Korea today conducted its ninth ballistic missile test this year, all of which have been in violation of UN sanctions.

The missile, presumed to be a Scud type, was launched eastward from the vicinity of Wonsan, Gangwon Province, at around 5:39 a.m., according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). “The flight distance is around 450 kilometers,” it said.

As a Scud, the missile would likely not have the capability of carrying a heavy payload, like a nuclear bomb. Nonetheless, with each test North Korea gains knowledge on how to do exactly that.

For a detailed look at the people building North Korea’s missile program see this article from yesterday: Kim’s rocket stars – The trio behind North Korea’s missile program

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North Korea completes ballistic missile test

12:06 am

North Korea today successfully completed a ballistic missile test.

The unidentified ballistic missile was launched at 5:27 a.m. Sunday Seoul time (4:27 p.m. Saturday ET), off Kusong north of the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, a South Korean military official told NBC News. The missile flew around 30 minutes and landed in the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea, Japan’s chief cabinet secretary said.

The missile is not believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile, U.S. Pacific Command said. Defense officials said the U.S. is assessing whether it was a success of failure. “Right now it sure looks successful,” one U.S. defense official said.

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North Korean missile destroyed because it was heading to Russia?

9:53 am

A new report today suggests that the North Koreans purposely destroyed their ballistic missile on Saturday because their tracking indicated it would land in Russia.

According to South Korea’s SE Daily, the ballistic missile would have struck ‘a harbour point or a Russian territory’ if it had not failed. ‘It is for this reason that North Korea intentionally destroyed the missile,’ the website reportedly said. A source is quoted as saying the launch target was ‘different from the previous direction’ and that ‘in the past, we fired 89-90 degrees to the east, and the projectile fell off the East Sea. But the angle of this shot was 49 degrees.’

So far the theories surrounding this missile test include an unintended explosion, a planned explosion, an aborted explosion, and even sabotage. All this suggests to me that the real issue here is that we really don’t have good intelligence behind North Korea’s actions.

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North Korean missile explosion part of planned test

12:27 pm

South Korean government officials said today that they do not believe the most recent North Korean missile test, which exploded shortly after launch, was a failure.

“We don’t believe the mid-air explosion was an accident,” cable news channel YTN quoted a government official as saying. “It’s believed the explosion was a test to develop a nuclear weapon different from existing ones.”

The nuclear-armed isolated country fired a ballistic missile on Saturday morning from near Pukchang in Pyeongannam-do (South Pyeongan Province). The missile climbed to 71 kilometers before exploding within North Korean territory, according to the South Korean and U.S. defense ministries. The explosion happened two or three minutes after blast-off.

Military experts say mid- or long-range missiles normally stabilize at 20 or 30 kilometers above ground. In the latest test, the missile climbed to three times the so-called “stabilizing height, which means the chances that any internal mechanical failure caused the explosion were “very low,” according to experts.

The officials also added that they think this test flight is preparation for a future nuclear bomb test that would take place above ground.

Update: This detailed essay takes a look at North Korea’s military capabilities for attacking its neighbors by short and long range artillery and missiles.

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North Korea ballistic missile test ends in failure

2:53 pm

North Korea on Saturday local time once again attempted and failed to launch a ballistic missile.

Some details here. The missile flew 25 miles, and was a short range missile.

While previously I attributed the consistent failures of every single North Korean missile test to the inherent incompetence of that society’s totalitarian regime, I am now beginning to wonder if espionage from either the U.S. or China might be a contributing factor. It seems unlikely, and the simplest explanation remains engineering failures with North Korea’s aerospace industry. Yet…

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North Korea missile test fails

9:35 pm

North Korea on Sunday failed to launch another ballistic missile, with the missile apparently exploding immediately upon launch.

This failure once again highlights the fact that North Korea’s communist totalitarian culture, which has made that nation very poor, puts some limit on its ability to build things like intercontinental missiles and nuclear bombs. At the same time, we must never underestimate the ability of madness to achieve irrational things. North Korea continues to be a very dangerous player on the international stage, which is why the Trump administration’s aggressive threats against it have not been protested by China in a strong manner, and instead have prompted that nation to finally apply its own pressure against Pyongyang.

In fact, it appears to me that the only ones with strong misgivings about the Trump administration’s aggressive policy against North Korea’s missile and nuclear program have been leftwing politicians, academics, and journalists here in the U.S.

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China and South Korea agree to counter North Korea’s missile/nuclear program

9:33 am

Under pressure from the Trump administration to do something about North Korea’s out-of-control and aggressive nuclear and missile program, China has worked out an agreement with South Korea to take “strong action”.

It remains a question how serious this response will be, but it is also the first sign in a long time that China is finally taking the threat from North Korea seriously.

Update: China refuses acceptance of coal from a fleet of North Korean ships.

This new story confirms that China was serious about this ban when it announced it in February. Set to run to at least the end of this year, the loss of income to North Korea, very poor already, should have some influence there. Whether good or bad, however, remains unknown. One cannot expect irrational and mad individuals holding great power to come to rational conclusions.

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North Korea test fires four ballistic missiles

7:46 pm

Does this make you feel safe? North Korea today test fired four ballistic missiles into the Sea of Japan.

North Korea on Monday launched four ballistic missiles, three of which fell into Japan’s exclusive economic zone in the Sea of Japan, the Japanese government said. There were no immediate reports of damage to ships or aircraft in the area, Japan’s top government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, said at a news conference in Tokyo, calling the latest missile launch a “grave threat to national security.”

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe separately told reporters that the missiles traveled around 1,000 km. He later said at a Diet session that the remaining missile also fell near the EEZ.

It is very unclear whether these missile tests were a success, since we really don’t know what kind of missiles they were. If short or medium range, they went the right distance. If longer range, the distance traveled (600 miles or 1000 kilometers) suggests the missiles did not travel as far as they should.

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China suspends coal purchases from North Korea

3:49 pm

Finally! In an apparent response to North Korea’s recent ballistic missile test China has suspended its coal purchases from North Korea through the end of this year.

China will suspend all imports of coal from North Korea until the end of the year, the Commerce Ministry announced Saturday, in a surprise move that would cut off a major financial lifeline for Pyongyang and significantly enhance the effectiveness of U.N. sanctions. Coal is North Korea’s largest export item, and also China’s greatest point of leverage over the regime.

The ministry said the ban would come into force Sunday and be effective until Dec. 31. China said the move was designed to implement November’s United Nations Security Council resolution that tightened sanctions against the regime in the wake of its last nuclear test.

While there are doubts this will change policy in North Korea, it does indicate that China is finally losing patience with that rogue state and its threatening behavior. And since China is one of the few countries that does any trade with North Korea, it is probably one of the few countries that can influence it in any way.

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The present strengths and limits to North Korea’s nuclear missile capabilities

8:43 am

Does this make you feel safer? A U.S. military official today outlined the strengths and weaknesses of North Korea’s aggressive effort to develop the capability of launch missiles with nuclear warheads.

North Korea appears able to mount a miniaturized nuclear warhead on a missile but is still struggling with missile re-entry technology necessary for longer range strikes, a senior U.S. military official said on Thursday. “I think they could mate a warhead with a delivery device. They’re just not sure (about) re-entry,” said the official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity. “They’re endeavoring to overcome that.”

North Korea has carried out repeated nuclear and missile tests this year in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions and sanctions and claims it has the capability to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile. Asked whether North Korea could mate the warhead to the missile, the official said: “I think they can.”

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Kim Jong-un orders investigation into missile failures

11:30 pm

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ordered an investigation into his country’s string of missile failures recently.

“Kim has instructed the special investigation team to implement a probe into the national defense sector starting on Nov. 1 to make the causes for the launch failures clear,” said Kim Heung-kwang, a North Korean defector and executive director of Seoul-based dissidents’ group North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, in a press conference. Kim attributed the investigation to the North Korean leader’s belief that spies from the United States and South Korea had been implicated in a series of Musudan missile failures.

I wouldn’t want to be an engineer who worked on this missile, as Kim has a bad habit of routinely executing people at the slightest whim, and the failures here have been routinely spectacular.

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China considers moves against North Korea

11:14 am

It took them long enough. Faced with news that North Korea is preparing for a sixth nuclear test, China policy makers are now considering various options for removing North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un.

According to the Korea Times, Professor Zhe Sun told a security forum in Washington that the Chinese were debating how best to deal with the North Korean leader. ‘Some Chinese scholars and policy makers began to talk about supporting “surgical strikes” and “decapitation” by the U.S. and South Korea as one policy option,’ he said.
Satellite images of North Korea’s nuclear test site shows activity at all three of its tunnel complexes, fuelling speculation of another test ahead of a key political anniversary next week
Professor Zhe Sun told a security forum in Washington that the Chinese were debating how best to deal with the North Korean leader ‘More radical proposals indicate that China should change the leader, send troops across borders and station in DPRK, force DPRK into giving up nuclear and beginning opening up and reforming.’

North Korea has never been able to do anything without the support of China. That China has allowed them to get this far in their nuclear weapon and missile development has been an enormous mistake. That they might now be finally realizing this means that we could see some drama there very shortly.

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North Korea fires three more test missiles

2:23 pm

What, me worry? North Korea today fired three test ballistic missiles into an area of the Sea of Japan considered part of the Japanese defense zone, repeating their previous test.

Unlike the previous test, these were ground-based missiles. Either way, the Obama administration was immediately on the case!

In a statement, the US said it “strongly condemns” the multiple launches. The move came at a potentially embarrassing time for North Korea’s only real ally, China, which is currently hosting the G20 summit in Hangzhou. “Today’s reckless launches by North Korea threaten civil aviation and maritime commerce in the region,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Monday. “We will raise our concerns at the UN about the threat posed to international security by these programs,” he continued. “We will also do so in other fora — including the upcoming East Asia Summit — to bolster international resolve to hold the DPRK accountable for its provocative actions. Our commitment to the defense of our allies in the face of these threats remains ironclad.”

I especially like this State Department spokeman’s use of “fora”, the Latin plural of “forum.” That’s telling ’em! We aren’t going only raise this issue in one forum, we’re going to raise it in many forums!

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North Korea fires a ballistic missile from submarine

12:08 am

North Korea today successfully launched a ballistic missile from a submarine, landing it within Japanese waters.

In addition, North Korea on Monday threatened to launch a nuclear attack on the U.S.

North Korea warned Monday that it would launch a preemptive nuclear attack against the U.S. and South Korea if they showed the “slightest sign of aggression” toward Pyongyang while conducting their annual military drills. The North’s Foreign Ministry said its “first-strike” units are prepared to conduct retaliatory strikes on South Korean and U.S. forces, threatening to turn the two nations into “a heap of ashes.”

Don’t worry however. The Obama administration “strongly condemned” the test launch today. That will certainly make a difference.

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North Korea’s space goal: Hit the Moon in five years

8:20 am

The competition heats up? According to one North Korean official, that country’s goal in space is to put a spacecraft on the Moon sometime in the next five years.

I actually believe this official. Their dear leader has demanded this, and they are sincerely trying to do it. Since they have had enormous trouble simply launching short range ballistic missiles, I have serious doubts they will make it happen, at least within five years.

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North Korea fires three more missiles

9:51 pm

Does this make you feel safer? North Korea fired three ballistic missiles early Tuesday,

North Korea fired three ballistic missiles early on Tuesday which flew between 500 and 600 kms (300 and 360 miles) into the sea off its east coast, South Korea’s military said, the latest in a series of provocative moves by the isolated country.

The U.S. military said it detected launches of what it believed were two Scud missiles and one Rodong, a home-grown missile based on Soviet-era Scud technology. North Korea has fired both types numerous times in recent years, an indication that unlike recent launches that were seen as efforts by the North to improve its missile capability, Tuesday’s were meant as a show of force.

I am sure the Obama administration is monitoring this closely!

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Another North Korea missile test

10:25 pm

Does this make you feel safer? North Korea test fired two missiles today, with one traveling more than 300 miles.

At around 5:58 a.m., North Korea fired off what is presumed to be a Musudan missile from near Wonsan along the east coast, but the launch seems to have ended in failure, the JCS said, providing no further details. About two hours later at 8:05 a.m., the North launched another missile presumed to be the same type of IRBM from the same area, the JCS noted. “The second Musudan-like missile flew about 400 km,” the JCS said without elaborating on whether it was a success. “South Korea and the United States (militaries) are carrying out an in-depth analysis on it.” Military sources added the first missile has been detected to have burst into pieces in the air after flying some 150 km after launch.

I am sure the Obama administration will express deep concern about this, which of course solves the problem.

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