I heard where you’re coming from, but I doubt anything “serious” will start between us [writing this in my calendar so I can feel like an idiot right before the nukes hit].
Not serious (i.e. the fatboys), sure. But a missile strike on some NK weapon facilities is surely not out of the question?
If anything did happen, I could see an air strike or cruise missile strike. I still doubt it, though; given that the infrastructure for their development is underground, such a strike would be pretty ineffective. Attacking the DPRK’s C&C would start and all-out war, so we wouldn’t go that route for the “soft” targets, either. I get that Trump is a knee-jerk reaction kinda guy, but someone at some point would say “Um, yeah … about that … maybe tweet instead?”
That headline sounds too innocuous for its own good. Here’s the goods that should be terrifying to everyone:
North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded in a confidential assessment.
“The IC [intelligence community] assesses North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, to include delivery by ICBM-class missiles,” the assessment states, in an excerpt read to The Washington Post. The assessment’s broad conclusions were verified by two U.S. officials familiar with the document.
And a few paragraphs later:
Kim has repeatedly proclaimed his intention to field a fleet of nuclear-tipped ICBMs as a guarantor of his regime’s survival. His regime took a major step toward that goal last month with the first successful tests of a missile with intercontinental range. Video analysis of the latest test revealed that the missile caught fire and apparently disintegrated as it plunged back toward Earth’s surface, suggesting North Korea’s engineers are not yet capable of building a reentry vehicle that can carry the warhead safely through the upper atmosphere. But U.S. analysts and many independent experts believe that this hurdle will be overcome by late next year.
[…]
“Overselling is particularly dangerous,” said [Siegfried Hecker], who visited North Korea seven times between 2004 and 2010 and met with key leaders of the country’s weapons programs. “Some like to depict Kim as being crazy — a madman — and that makes the public believe that the guy is undeterrable. He’s not crazy and he’s not suicidal. And he’s not even unpredictable.”
He’s talking like a fucking Targaryen, and not one of the good ones. We are so fucked.
Huh, at the beginning of the thread the NKs were crazy and unpredictable and would engage in bizarre press conferences using weird rhetoric threatening to rain death down on their opponents.
Someone needs to give him a crown.
Amen to that.
I swear, if Trump does this, there’s gonna be hell to pay in so many ways.
Here’s the thing. You sort of can’t blame NK for wanting a nuke. See how the US rolled over Iraq, the West helped to eliminate Khadafi, and Russia roll over Ukraine.
So, yeah, I think you can see how they’re totally being not unpredictable about this.
Wait. Was that said to buddies in the clubhouse, or to the actual journalists? Like, that’s an official statement?
There’s a video of it.
Well, you watch that above video and tell me.
Well, I guess I can go over to the Trump optimism thread and wait for the nukes to drop on me.
It’s hard to interpret that any other way than ‘we’ll drop nukes’, isn’t it?
And laying down a red-line like that. So what now, if NK cross it and issue another threat? He’s cornering himself.
What you really want with nuclear deterrence policy is being vague and unpredictable and known for lying.
We are so fucked. :/
I fear that to Trump, war is something that happens on the movie screen, a sort of macho he-man sport, the military is the players, and he’s the owner of the team. I’m pretty sure he has no clue about the real consequences of using force, on any participant.
Even better: It’s good for business!
YouTube video of the statement: