You’re absolutely right. I should have taken more time on that one. What I should have said was, if there was even a chance of a real payload, we’d likely have been hearing more from our government/media about it than what we saw today.
Rumor has it that this was a test firing of a MIRV.
NK must be very afraid of a conventional American strike against them right now. People in the US are freaked out that NK might nuke LA because “crazy” but this is because they’re clearly a generation that never experienced the Cold War and don’t understand concepts like MAD. If “crazy” NK nuked LA then almost every single person on the Korean peninsula, aside from some huddling refugees far in the south, would be dead in hours. That’s not a “win” for NK by any measure. OTOH, they can scare the US (aka Trump) into inaction by threatening to “nuke” the US, the same way they’ve threatened Seoul for decades with artillery, should the US intervene preemptively with air strikes or cruise missile strikes. NK’s saber rattling is almost certainly deep worry that the Trump administration will not adhere to heretofore norms in the Korean peninsula.
Have they gotten to MIRVs already? You’re talking quite a bit of miniaturization.
Just a rumor. Seems to have come from some people reporting three projectiles while others are reporting only one launch. I wouldn’t put too much stock into the rumor tbh for that exact reason - they haven’t seemed to pass the first hurdle to get there, let alone enough for a MIRV.
Well, yeah, we know it didn’t have a payload, but the fact remains, it’s a missile that could have such a payload. Even that I think makes it a bit more problematic than some plain-Jane conventional boom thingy.
North Korea skipped a bunch of stages in the nuclear development. The trade off was it meant they had a bunch of failed test launches. But they did manage to get ahead doing that.
I’m glad that the U.S. Executive branch now consists of the most thoughtful, deliberate, and experienced officials in generations. They, as well as the House and Senate, are fully prepared to deal with one of the greatest threats that has appeared to one of our allies in many years. The situation requires a deft touch, and the U.S. Government is finally fully prepared to lead our country in a positive direction to avert a true crisis.
Apparently part of the skipping entailed ripping off (or getting for $$$) stuff from eastern Ukraine…
Regarding that, there’s this NPR interview with Michael Elleman from last week:
NPR: North Korea’s Secret Weapon In Nuclear Program: Ukrainian Rocket Engines
ELLEMAN: Well, I don’t know that it came from Ukraine. In my writing, I think I was very specific in saying that the most likely source would be Ukraine. We’ve seen the modifications that were incorporated into the engine that the North Koreans are using. I have two independent sources that have said they’ve seen that engine in Ukraine. It doesn’t mean that it came from Ukraine, but it strongly implies that.
But I want to make one point very clear. I don’t think the Ukrainian government was involved in this at all. I don’t even know that executives from the Yuzhnoye plant would have been involved. This, to me, sounds like criminal gangs were able to access something and export it from either Ukraine or Russia.
SIEGEL: Last month, the factory Yuzhmash said it had not, does not and will not participate in the transfer of potentially dangerous technologies outside Ukraine. You say it could have been a criminal gang. In a way, that seems almost scarier than the notion that a government might have supplied the Koreans with this technology, the idea that it’s on the loose and being sold on the black market.
ELLEMAN: Well, again, you know, because there are so many sites where a large number of engines might have been stored or kept, not all of them would be protected to the extent that we would like to see. And the Yuzhmash - Yuzhnoye facilities are not too far away from the area where Russian separatists in Ukraine and the Ukrainian armed forces are actually fighting, so undoubtedly there would be a number of criminal elements.
And we know from the past in the 1990s that a number of Russian missile technology left Russia and ended up in North Korea. And we know that there were North Korean agents seeking missile technology from Yuzhnoye in 2012 because they were arrested by the Ukrainian government.
Yeah, I’m not sure which is worse, the idea that desperate Ukrainian companies would support Pyongyang or that criminal gangs have access to nuclear and/or missile tech. Probably the latter is more frightening.
Yes, but that’s the only way Doc Brown gets the plutonium he needs for the flux capacitor.
Those were Iranians!
If you’re willing to listen to people talk for an hour, the International Spy Museum had a panel of a former deputy directory of the CIA and former chief negotiator in the six party talks.
Libyans!
They’re not Swedish, Mac, they’re Norwegian!
“But you’re wearing Lederhosen!”
North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has warned that Tuesday’s missile launch over Japan was a “meaningful prelude to containing” the US Pacific territory of Guam, adding that his regime would conduct more ballistic missile tests.
Ron Howard voice: “It wasn’t.” (I hope.)
The photo of Kim Jong-Un watching the Tuesday launch is really something.
Do our sanctions include barbers or something?