North Korea test fires another ballistic missile
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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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.”
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
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3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
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Cortaro, AZ 85652
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You all know what my solution to this would be.
Better safe than sorry.
Better we than them.
Better sooner than later.
Although, giving North Korea a huge contract to modernize their military, in exchange for them not continuing development of their ICBM, might be the best option right now. They are in desperate need of modernization and if they only can extort enough monies from their neighbors to pay for it, US industry should supply them. And very profitably so.
If the Chinese thought that North Korea was a pawn against the US, their geography kind of contradicts that. Let’s help the Chinese and South Koreans and Japanese to take care of the problem! Let’s give them some incentives! Like a few hundred cruise missiles to start with and modern aircrafts and US instructors. Since South Korea doesn’t want THAAD, I bet North Korea would love it! Let’s open up that market. I heard they want to import oil too, even better.
Putting a fire cracker with a burning fuse in someone’s underpants is always a great practical joke. Makes people dance.
A US-North Korea military partnership would rob Iran of a major partner too.
You’ve gotta give it to me that this would be a check mate kind of move in a locked-up mid game of chess after like 70 moves going nowhere and the batteries in the game clocks are running out.
I can envision Trump lifting up Kim Whatshisname so that he can hug him in the White House, after together having declared the end of the last left over of the cold war. Happy 4th of July!
Time’s up. Saturation MOAB the Norks. Give South Korea one day notice.
Tell China to get the people they want to save out of the country.
Playing footsie with the Norks got us here. Enough is enough.
Then tell Iran inspections start tomorrow… or not!
Trump should have Tea with the other nuclear powers while the MOABs blossom.
“The rockets red glare… bombs bursting in air” Give proof you do not threaten America. If they can’t love us, make them fear us.
Sell the MOABs to Kim!
And the bunker buster versions.
Xi would love it. He’ll sleep in his plan B bunker. Spending lots of time in the elevator every day (with that annoying bell boy, you know, can’t stand him just standing there).
Peace through trade! Outsource the problem. Sell North Korea any weapons they want that cannot hit the US. And then see whether the locals care about their Godzilla or not. It’s up to them.
When you understand the two words:
AMERICA FIRST
you will get this ground breaking new kind of strategy. Why else do you pay taxes at all?
And yet, if Trump does a pre-emptive strike, he’s screwed by the Dems, if he waits for us to get clobbered, he still is…
Happy 4th July all!
Democrats don’t care about Alaska so they wont think this is important until California is in range. I suspect they will be clamoring for missile defense after decades of working to stop development.
We need to be sending layered missile defense systems to Seoul. When Seoul is heavily armed, we can shoot down each missile they test and possibly retaliate against launch sites and launcher depots. NK’s main threat in a conventional war is the rocket and mortar attacks on Seoul. If we can blunt that and take out their larger missiles, then they wont be so intimidating.
Arming NK would just backfire.
“Arming NK would just backfire.”
That’s a problem for the Asians to take care of. They don’t seem to care at all, so give’m Hell!
Arming NK does nothing to prevent further ICBM development. You do not reward bad actors, you punish them.
Actions are supposed to have consequences or they teach nothing.
NK crossed the line. The world is watching. Do nothing effective and NK will be the least of our problems.
if Trump does a pre-emptive strike, he’s screwed by the Dems
He should have pre-emptively struck the dems on Jan 21st by firing them all including any suspected collaborators (which doesn’t require much research.) Homeys for Comey for example.
He still could. Of course the media will howl. So what? The people will cheer and demonstrate how much of a minority the Trump protesters really are.
All Trump has to do is stand before the nation and say, “We believe NK now has the ability and intent of first strike on our nation. We must respond to this threat. It is with sorrow that we take this action. All those wishing to avoid collateral damage should leave the territory of NK. The deadline is midnight one week from today. No more will be said about this until this action is completed. ”
I expect the NK leaders would be assassinated well before the week ends.
Then we dismantle their program.
ken,
“You do not reward bad actors, you punish them.”
China does. And Japan and South Korea have since decades proven that they don’t care at all. Turn NOKO (North Korea) into their problem. It’s their backyard, if they don’t clean it, the US should arm it. No reason for Koreans to be hostile to some country far far away. NOKO has serious problems and are very negotiable. And their geography is great as a military outpost against China. Their huge army and medium range nuclear missile capability should be taken advantage of, now that China seems to turn their back on Kim. They seem much more active and capable than the lame Japanese for example.
Local Fluff, you seem to believe that arming our enemy will magically cause him to no longer be our enemy. Or you’re trolling us; in either case I can’t take you seriously.
NOKO is the natural, and the historical, enemy of China. The US should profit from becoming neutral and export weapons to the highest bidder. The gooks can take care of themselves, don’t try to be a supremacist racist sturmbannführer of a nursing home here!
LocalFluff asked: “Why else do you pay taxes at all?”
Considering that more than half of our taxes is redistributed to individuals and families, the primary reason that Americans pay taxes, currently, is to give people free stuff.
LocalFluff asked: “The US should profit from becoming neutral and export weapons to the highest bidder.”
This is why the Soviets thought that the US would sell them the rope that they would use to hang the US. They expected greed in America to outweigh self preservation. They had no concept of Adam Smith’s concepts for free market capitalism. It is not greed that drives capitalists, it is enlightened self interest, which may look like greed to someone who thinks that people are virtuous rather than more interested in his own self. Communists, socialists, and Marxists believe that everyone should be more concerned about the state — the country — than in himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dwz_Z62e0s
As Brussels learned — twice — in the 20th century, it turns out that no one can declare themselves to be neutral and expect all the other nations to respect that declaration. A bad-actor nation will happily ignore the declared neutrality and attack whenever it pleases.
Besides, the UN continually requests military aid from the US, so the US often ends up taking the UN’s side. The UN is still at war with North Korea, it is just that there is an armistice, at the moment, not peace. Communist North Korea’s actions make better sense when one realizes that they are still fighting a cold version of a war that is now 2/3 century old.
What was the speed to the rocket when it re-entered the atmosphere?
So far all these rockets have done is fly vertically. They have shown little if any ability to travel horizontally. Which if he just used most of that flight time to going east instead of up he might actually make orbit and have a real ICBM instead of just a long distance unguided missile.
So far he has not blown up anything at all with any of them. Do they even have functional warheads on them or are they just dummy payloads?
Until he blows something up he is aiming at he is just launching large bottle rockets.
Heck he might not even have guidance systems on them. They just seem to be shot rather ballisticly.
False alarm missile test in Hawaii:
Who was in Hawaii during the false alarm test?
http://bigislandnow.com/2018/01/14/former-president-clinton-visits-big-island/
Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and…………………………………………………Huma Abadin.
Who here believes that that was a coincidence? It could happen, but somehow it seems like a very long shot.
I’m sorry, Cotour, you lost me. What do you think is the connection?
Three people under extreme scrutiny for extreme corruption and who will more than likely be in extreme legal jeopardy related to the security of the nation related to Uranium One and nuclear weapons materials are all on the Big Island and there is a never before seen nuclear missile attack false warning.
Seems like a very, very odd coincidence to me. It could happen, but it is very, very odd.
At this level, are there coincidences or “mistakes”?
Hawaii just started operation of their warning system. Governments, especially extremely liberal ones, are not known for their efficiency/effectiveness, and they have shown a lack of accountability in the aftermath. Sounds like ripe ground for a malfunction.
There have been similar false alarms elsewhere, including one in Japan just yesterday (by NHK, their national tv station).
I don’t really see a plausible relationship between the Terrible Trio and the false alarm; I’m struggling to come up with some way they could be related, and I’m drawing a blank.
Lots of esoteric / cryptic / symbolic information floating around.
If you believe that there is a lot more going on than what is portrayed in the spoon fed “####hole” main stream media and that there is an internal fracture in the world of the “Spooks”, White Hats V Black Hats, Nationalist Patriots V Globalists, then there are no coincidences at this level of operation.
In the context of the subject at hand I personally do not believe in “coincidences”.
Do you believe that the actions of the leadership of both the FBI and the DOJ was unbiased and non political and not treasonous? Coincidence? “Gross negligence”? A “Happy accident”?
We may not understand all of the cryptic symbolism but I am certain that there is a mighty struggle for America going on within the halls of the agencies and the military industrial complex / Pentagon. If you have been paying attention the evidence is overwhelming.
I agree that many things are connected in ways not being reported by the mainstream media.
But coincidences certainly do occur, and this case just seems to be a coincidence. I can’t imagine who would gain anything by having a false alarm in Hawaii occur when the Terrible Trio is in town (on the Big Island, which is far from the population center).
I feel for the poor kid who was walking down some rural street in the 1960’s somewhere in New England, and for no particular reason he hit a telephone pole with a bat or a stick of some kind. Just as he made contact the lights turned out for the great blackout that blanketed the region for the better part of the day; he was convinced that he had caused it.
Soon after, my uncle, who also didn’t believe in coincidences, called my parents breathlessly, telling them that the Russians were attacking.
Of course, it was no coincidence that 9 months later many newborn babies were named Otis (many people were stuck in elevators for the duration of the blackout).
Could be a coincidence or it could be symbolic. IMO there is too much at stake and players at this level love symbolism to send their messages.
I posted this right after the Hawaii event:
” One of my customers came in last night and just an hour before returned from a trip with his wife.
Where exactly were they? Hawaii, tent camping on the Southern slope of a mountain on the big island during the “nuclear missile attack”. He is a well known research scientist and his wife is a psychiatrist and both understood that if this was a real attack that they had no chance, so what did they decide to do since they had no place to shelter?
They decided to make a fresh pot of coffee. I smiled, what else could you do? ”
This was a true coincidence, so why would a coincidence not include the three main characters in the selling of nuclear weapons material to the Russians who just happened to be on the Island on that particular day? Could happen.
Are you aware of or following the Q Anon posts? Some interesting “Coincidences” in His / Their posts also.
Hadn’t thought of the symbolic nature of the situation, but even so, who would make that happen? I would think that most of the employees of the State of Hawaii would be Hillary sympathizers.
“….both understood that if this was a real attack that they had no chance…”
That’s a bit melodramatic.
No chance? ….zero chance? (Depends what one means by “a real attack.”)
Hardly. Come on….
The Chinese or Russians aren’t going to attack Hawaii, 1st, with multiple fusion weapons.
At best, the Norks have boosted-fission warheads and not full blown fusion weapons.
Lethal blast radius for a perfectly delivered & air-detonated (non hydrogen) warhead is considerably less than the size of Hawaii (2-3 miles depending on terrain). And to double that lethal blast radius, requires up to 8X’s more initial blast. (Twice as big, is not twice as destructive.)
Unless one is talking hydrogen-bomb, within 6 miles of a major target, you have a huge chance.
Jordan Peterson
“how to cut through existential-crisis”
https://youtu.be/sh90Y2–qlk
11:52
Garry: I do not know, I am a spectator just like you. A mistake? A hack? Who knows for sure? Do you have confidence in what the government puts out as explanations for these kinds of things?
Wayne: His story and words not mine, they sat down and made coffee.
Would have been one heck of a show no matter what its yield or level of sophistication.
(What level of CAPCHA are you going through?)
C–
today– no challenge’s at all, yesterday–they made me work like a rat pressing a lever.
Wayne, we think a lot alike; just yesterday the wife was asking about what we could do to prepare for a nuclear attack, and the first words I said were that more than likely it wouldn’t be that much different from planning for a hurricane or earthquake (although with a potentially longer recovery period); total destruction happens only within a small radius.
Even in the worst disasters, a lot of people get out alive – Pearl Harbor, 9/11, the sarin attack in the Japanese subway system. Not all fun and games, but certainly not total destruction over a wide area.
I found it interesting that in the artillery we defined destruction of an enemy unit as 30% casualties. A more general term, “decimation,” literally means killing 1 in 10.
I haven’t had to do anything for reCAPTURE at all today, other than check the “I’m not a robot” box.
Garry–
yes, not fun at all. But far from erasing the islands off the map. At least from a N. Korean weapon, right now.
(I spent way too much of my life worrying about nuclear attack.)
Jesus Jones
“Right Here, Right Now”
https://youtu.be/GYPBt4fZOUI
3:17
“I saw the decade end, when it seemed
the world could change at the blink of an eye.
And if anything,
then there’s your sign of the times.”