Does this make you feel safer? An attempt by North Korea to test a ballistic missile launched from a mobile platform failed seconds after launch today.
Does this make you feel safer? Satellite data suggests that North Korea might be preparing to test launch a mobile ICBM.
North Korea could launch either its Kn-08 or Kn-14 mobile ballistic missiles which would have a longer range and could potentially hit the Pacific Northwest of the United States. The Kn-14 is thought to be a more precise version of the Kn-08, and it is believed the regime showed it for the first time at a military parade in 2015, officials say.
…if the North were, for the first time, to launch a mobile missile with these types of ranges, it would be a significant military advance and a change in the North Korean calculus for the U.S., military officials say. In a conflict, mobile launchers can quickly shoot and move to a new position making it very difficult for satellites or spy planes to track them. It would also be a violation of U.N. resolutions banning North Korea from ballistic missile tests.
Well, why worry? Those U.N. resolutions will obviously prevent North Korea from doing anything. So will harsh words from Obama and his diplomats. Hasn’t that always worked?
Peace in our time! South Korean intelligence experts have concluded that North Korea now has both the rocket and miniaturized nuclear warhead capable of hitting Russian, China, Japan, and all of South Korea.
“We believe they have accomplished miniaturization of a nuclear warhead to mount it on a Rodong missile,” said the South Korean official, who has knowledge of South Korea’s assessment of the North’s nuclear program. The official spoke to a small group of reporters on condition of anonymity… The Rodong missile can fire a 1 tonne (1,100 lb) warhead a distance of up to 2,000 km (1,250 miles), the official said. That would put all of South Korea, most of Japan and parts of Russia and China in range.
But don’t worry. President Obama has eased tensions worldwide by his speech-making abilities!
Ignoring UN resolutions North Korea today test fired a ballistic missile, sending it into the Sea of Japan after a 500 mile flight.
But don’t worry: the Obama administration is closely monitoring the situation!
Does this make you feel safer? The North Korean state-run news agency today claimed that they can now build a nuclear bomb small enough to fit on their ballistic missiles.
The story includes pictures. In addition, John Batchelor sent me a few more, including the one posted above. It supposedly shows Kim Jong Un, the supreme dictator of North Korea, inspecting a miniaturized warhead. Whether that is a real bomb or not cannot be confirmed. I would be curious hearing what some of my engineering readers think of this image and the bomb that he is admiring.
Below shows Kim Jong Un inspecting two rockets. Once again, I wonder how real this is, or is it a Potemkin Village.
U.S. Defense officials stated today that the satellite that North Korea launched on Sunday is now tumbling in orbit and is useless.
Do not take comfort from this failure. North Korea has demonstrated that it can put payloads in orbit. From this achievement it is a very short leap to aiming those payloads to impact any continent on Earth. They might not be able to aim that impact very accurately, but if you want to ignite an atomic bomb somewhere, you don’t have to be very accurate.
North Korea today launched a rocket that has apparently put an object into orbit.
North Korea today revealed plans to place a satellite in non-geosynchronous orbit sometime in the next two weeks.
News of the planned launch between Feb. 8 and Feb. 25 drew fresh U.S. calls for tougher U.N. sanctions already under discussion in response to North Korea’s nuclear test. State Department spokesman John Kirby said the United Nations needed to “send the North Koreans a swift, firm message.”
Pyongyang has said it has a sovereign right to pursue a space programme by launching rockets, although the United States and other governments worry that such launches are missile tests in disguise.
It is horrifyingly hilarious to read the bluster put forth by Obama administration officials about this new North Korean effort to develop ICBMs that, as the article says, “could reach the U.S. West Coast.” Besides wanting to send “a swift, firm message,” they call the North Korean launch announcement a “slap in the face”, “another destabilizing provocation,” and “an egregious violation.” They then say they are working “cooperatively and effectively with the Chinese to counter this threat.”
It is laughable, but terrifying at the same time. North Korea, led by the worst kind of power-mad tyrant, is developing the ability to launch nuclear weapons to any place on Earth, and all our leaders can do is whine how mean they are.
From Presidents to movie executives, everyone involved in the Sony software hack by North Korea has shown themselves to be a weak-kneed coward, willing to fold to the demands of a meglo-maniac dictator rather than to stand for freedom.
I want to underline one fact about almost all these cowards: They are almost all liberals. Except for Clooney and a handful of other liberals, the only people willing to stand up to North Korea here have been conservatives.
Meanwhile, Sony is now giving tax cheat, bigot, race-baiter, and anti-Semite Al Sharpton veto-power over the movies it makes.
An image of North Korea taken from ISS illustrates starkly the failure of a state-run top-down dictatorial society.
As is typical for today’s leftwing political correct journalism, this reality is attributed not to communism but to vague generalities. North Korea is a “rogue state” or “North Korea stands alone as an unusually isolated nation, where residents live under a familial dictatorship,” statements that embarrassingly avoid the truth. The rulers of North Korea, like Cuba, refused to reject communist when the Soviet bloc fell in 1991 and have thus left their countries and the people trapped within them poor and bankrupt.
Aren’t you glad that today’s Democratic Party here in the United States considers leftwing dogma the height of progress and a goal worthy of emulation?
Good news: North Korea has withdrawn two missiles from their launch site.
The article is very vague, unfortunately, about the rockets themselves and whether either were the orbital rockets that North Korea had been threatening to launch several weeks ago.
North Korea has completed preparations for a mid-range rocket launch tomorrow.
If I was in South Korea or Japan, I would be very very worried.
Bad: North Korea says it has authorized plans for a nuclear strike against the United States.
But, while Pyongyang has successfully carried out test nuclear detonations, most experts think it is not yet capable of mounting a device on a ballistic missile capable of striking US bases or territory. Mounting tension in the region could however trigger incidents on the tense and heavily-militarised border between North and South Korea. There was no immediate American reaction to the North’s latest statement, but US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Pyongyang represented a “real and clear danger” to the United States and to its allies South Korea and Japan. [emphasis mine]
Right now North Korea almost certainly cannot hit the U.S. with an ICBM. However, South Korea and Japan are very very very exposed.
Bad news: North Korea on Wednesday closed access to the Kaesong Industrial Park, a joint factory zone with South Korea.
Experts on the Korean situation had noted that we shouldn’t take seriously the harsh language coming out of North Korea as long as Kaesong was in operation. Thus, this news is very bad indeed.
One very good sign that North Korea’s recent warlike threats are merely posturing.
[W]e do have one pretty good metric with which to judge the country’s intentions: the Kaesong Industrial Complex. The Kaesong Industrial Complex, located just across the northern side of the border, is staffed by South and North Koreans. It can’t function without Pyongyang’s daily okay. If the North suddenly shuts down Kaesong at some point, watch out. But as long as it’s still running, as it has been throughout the provocations and tensions of the last few weeks, we can probably – probably — assume that North Korea is not actually planning to launch a war.
And the complex is still in operation.
The day of reckoning looms: North Korea has pulled out of its U.N. armistice agreement.
The day of reckoning looms: North Korea successfully set off an underground nuclear explosion today.
But don’t worry. The U.N. is going to talk about it later today. So will Obama.
The satellite that North Korea launched early Wednesday appears to be tumbling out of control, according to unnamed U.S. officials.
The Defense Department does have the capability to detect a tumbling satellite, especially if its solar panels are visible, though I must emphasize that the information here is so vague it hardly means anything. Regardless, the real issue here is not that North Korea put a working satellite into orbit, but that it now has the rocket capability to put anything into orbit. For us this is not a good thing: A rogue nation that is trying to build nuclear weapons that is also officially still at war with our ally South Korea now has this capability.
North Korea launched its rocket early Wednesday, despite indications earlier in the week that they were delaying the launch due to technical problems.
It appears those “technical problems” were a feint to distract everyone just prior to launch. Based on radar data it also appears the rocket did put an object into orbit.
North Korea, having postponed the launch for technical reasons, has apparently begun removing the rocket from the launchpad.
North Korea has halted preparations for its planned rocket launch.
North Korea has placed the first stage of its own rocket on the launchpad in preparation for a test flight later this month.
Japan, South Korea, the United States, and the United Kingdom (as indicated in the article above) have protested this launch, as well as Russia and China. Interestingly, no one has objected to the South Korea’s effort to build its own orbital rocket, which tells us a great deal about the differences between the two Koreas.
North Korea’s attempt to put its first satellite into orbit today was a failure, breaking up less than two minutes after liftoff.
Despite protests from the U.S. and South Korea, North Korea is continuing preparations for the launch an Earth observation satellite.
North Korea recently entered into a food aid agreement with the U.S., which requires the Asian nation to halt long-range rocket launches in exchange for critical resources to stem the country’s widespread poverty and famine.
Officials from the U.S. and South Korea have said that the Unha-3 launch is a violation of this agreement, and could carry significant consequences. South Korean officials have said they may even shoot down parts of the Unha-3 rocket if they breach the state’s borders.
Clues to North Korea’s rocket program.
The epic story of the only man to escape from a North Korean prison camp.
Good riddance: North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, 69, is dead.
