N. Korea: Hydrogen bomb test successful

[photon]

Originally Posted by calgaryblood

Here's an idea, why don't all countries sit down and negotiate getting rid off all nukes and then nobody has a reason to have nukes any more.

That would be ideal, but I doubt it could ever happen. The appeal to keep a few would be too great, the man with a gun in a society with no guns is powerful. Who checks to make sure people are complying? How do you enforce that? What do you do when China decides to build a few nukes again?

I don't think you can put the genie back in the bottle.

EDIT: Maybe a more realistic goal would be to have countries continue to reduce the number of nukes to some lower number, 500 each max or something.

[Cheese]

Originally Posted by GaiJin

It was a strategic launch that will rattle Japan and the US to either diplomacy or the brink. Hokkaido doesn't have any US bases or presence up there, but it has over 4 million people. Firing it over Hokkaido proved the US doesn't have Japan fully covered and some areas of it are indeed weak targets. Also they fired it out of Pyongyang airport area, right out of populated areas, which tells the US they would have to carpet bomb the country to get all the ICBM's. Abe sounds nervous, and so he should be. Abe and Trump probably know now that they would have to level NK border to border, and they can't possible do that in one action. Should war break out, Japan,Sk perhaps Guam and Hawaii will get hit, that is now 100% certain.

No I dont think its certain at all. South Korea will get hit, but once those bombs have hit the ROK the DPRK will get strafed like no other country has in the past. Air and Sea is covered by the USA/ROK duo and there will be little time for the north to do any serious damage to other countries. Rest assured that the DPRK will become a large parking lot in short order.

[photon]

Not related, but I heard it suggested once that the nuclear codes shouldn't be carried around by a guy, but implanted in the guy's chest, and he carries a knife. If the president wants to launch nuclear weapons, he has to kill the guy and cut the codes out from the guy's chest.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Cheese

No I dont think its certain at all. South Korea will get hit, but once those bombs have hit the ROK the DPRK will get strafed like no other country has in the past. Air and Sea is covered by the USA/ROK duo and there will be little time for the north to do any serious damage to other countries. Rest assured that the DPRK will become a large parking lot in short order.

You can't bomb every square meter of the country (and the place makes Afghanistan look like a flat meadow), it's just not possible. Between mobile launchers and underground and hardened dug in artillery (numbering 10-15,000), with chemical and biological weapons, and a million man army, any military action would cost lives like hasn't been seen since WWII. No military estimate thinks a massive strike could be done anywhere near fast enough to prevent massive civilian causalities.

[Cheese]

Just a guess, but I think there would be mass defection from the DPRK if war broke out.
I didnt suggest there wouldnt be massive casualties, when I was in Seoul the thinking is that there could be 4-5 million people who would/could suffer the first few strikes, but the south has easily accessible bunkers far underground that should help alleviate the annihilation most think would happen. Once the air space and sea waters have been cordoned off it wouldnt take long to reduce the north to a banana republic.

[SportsJunky]

Originally Posted by photon

Not related, but I heard it suggested once that the nuclear codes shouldn't be carried around by a guy, but implanted in the guy's chest, and he carries a knife. If the president wants to launch nuclear weapons, he has to kill the guy and cut the codes out from the guy's chest.

Wasn't that the final episode of The Leftovers on HBO?

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by GaiJin

It was a strategic launch that will rattle Japan and the US to either diplomacy or the brink. Hokkaido doesn't have any US bases or presence up there, but it has over 4 million people. Firing it over Hokkaido proved the US doesn't have Japan fully covered and some areas of it are indeed weak targets. Also they fired it out of Pyongyang airport area, right out of populated areas, which tells the US they would have to carpet bomb the country to get all the ICBM's. Abe sounds nervous, and so he should be. Abe and Trump probably know now that they would have to level NK border to border, and they can't possible do that in one action. Should war break out, Japan,Sk perhaps Guam and Hawaii will get hit, that is now 100% certain.

I agree with your first comment about rattling JP and US to do something, be it escalating tensions or diplomacy re:sanctions, but that is about it.

Japan had the ability to shoot this one down apparently, and chose not to given its projected path. I wouldn't say Abe or JP is overly nervous now, and the combined anti-missile defenses from JP SDF, US bases and US navy is quite good on the Japanese side, and I imagine just as strong to the south in ROK. If DPRK launched everything they had at one, sure, wouldn't get them all, but DPRK would inflict minor damages versus getting completely annihilated. I'd give the chances of something making it to Hawaii, Guam, or even Japan pretty slim.

ROK is another story should war break out. There is just such a sheer volume of conventional weaponry at that border and given Seoul's proximity, they basically need the US & JPs support to ensure a swift end to any aggression.

[Sr. Mints]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

Wasn't that the final episode of The Leftovers on HBO?

House of Cards?

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by SportsJunky

Wasn't that the final episode of The Leftovers on HBO?

It was Robert Fisher in 1981

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by photon

That would be ideal, but I doubt it could ever happen. The appeal to keep a few would be too great, the man with a gun in a society with no guns is powerful. Who checks to make sure people are complying? How do you enforce that? What do you do when China decides to build a few nukes again?

I don't think you can put the genie back in the bottle.

EDIT: Maybe a more realistic goal would be to have countries continue to reduce the number of nukes to some lower number, 500 each max or something.

Not realistic, either of them.

The smaller nuclear nations have nukes to curb attacks by their neighbours and to also curb attacks by other members of the nuclear club.

the American's have massive number of weapons because it ensures that a nuclear war is completely unwinnable.

Reduction to a point is fairly cosmetic because we're talking about basically reducing the level of over kill.

Too big of a reduction and with accurate counterforce you suddenly create the prospect of a winnable nuclear war scenario.

We're never going to see the end of nuclear weapons or whatever its inevitable replacements are.

They're a cheaper barrier defense then a conventional military force. Khruschev had the idea of saving money by increasing the accuracy of his nuclear force and the use of mobile launchers and hiding behind a nuclear shield while reducing the size of his conventional military.

[Wormius]

Maybe this is obvious but why wasn't the NK missile shot down before it flew over Japan?

[IgiTang]

Originally Posted by fleury

There is a small chance of any nukes flying, IMO.

Secondly, Nestle or Dasani, Coke, Pepsi or whoever, aren't putting up the prices themselves in the face of a natural disaster. In this case it's the market places doing that deed. Imagine the backlash if Pepsi Co. or any of those large corporations gouged like that?

Originally Posted by afc wimbledon

Once nukes start flying the stocks are worthless, its the actual water you will want

You guys are sooooo naive!

Coke and Pepsi have teamed up and are really the ones behind this so that they can profit from the raised prices!! It's all about meeting shareholder demands of increased profits and dividends!

Didn't you know there is a hurricane device in the Atlantic that is simply a giant slurpee mixer that causes hurricanes so they can wholesale bottled water at a higher price before the hurricane develops..

So naive!

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Maybe this is obvious but why wasn't the NK missile shot down before it flew over Japan?

They can tell the trajectory/target of any missile pretty quickly, and if they knew it was going over Japan but posed no threat, it may not have been worth the risk of interception (debris, nuclear detonation, or even simply giving away their missile defense response time and capabilities).

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Ducay

They can tell the trajectory/target of any missile pretty quickly, and if they knew it was going over Japan but posed no threat, it may not have been worth the risk of interception (debris, nuclear detonation, or even simply giving away their missile defense response time and capabilities).

That wouldn't be true for a guided missile, would it? Or did they identify it as not being such, and just let it go on its way?

[Swift]

Given that NK's missiles don't always follow their trajectory, it was quite a ballsy/dumb move by them. That missile could easily have crash landed in Japan and triggered a war they presumably aren't ready for.

[The Yen Man]

Originally Posted by calgaryblood

Here's an idea, why don't all countries sit down and negotiate getting rid off all nukes and then nobody has a reason to have nukes any more.

A world without nukes seems like a simple solution. Until that happens, North Korea should be allowed to have nukes.

Lol, that's like saying, here's an idea to stop global warming. Stop polluting! What a simple solution!

[CaptainCrunch]

Just given the current situation it might pay to understand how a ballistic missile defense would work for Japan.

Currently there are two levels, sea born and land born.

Sea born uses the SM-3 Block three air defense missile, these are mounted on Aegis equip destroyers that both the Japanese and the Americans have in the sea of Japan.

Japan also has the land based Patriot PAC-3 Interceptors, the Americans at Guam have the Thaad system.

The Korean IRBM has three phases, the launch phase, midcourse and terminal phases.

For missile defenses probably the best place to intercept would be the launch phase, that way your destroying the missile and payload as it launches over the enemy territory.

From my understanding while such systems are in development they're not available.

The SM-3 is designed to destroy a IRBM in midcourse, however the difficulty here is that they would be deployed to destroy a midcourse track that would impact in Japan, since this launch was over Japan it was effectively from my understanding out of the range and capability of the SM-2.

The PAC is designed to hit a missile entering its terminal phase, its also designed to destroy the debris of a destroyed missile, However while the THAAD is specifically designed to destroy a extremely fast IRBM in its terminal phase, the PAC-3 is designed to destroy slower moving non IRBM's in their terminal phase, in other words the PAC-3 missile isn't fast enough to intercept the type of missile that Japan was firing.

Again plus once they saw the missile was going over Japan, it likely meant that the missile was still in midcourse anyways.

If North Korea launched a IRBM at Japan, they realistically have one of the three layers of defense, they can deal with it midcourse. If it was a slower missile they would have two layers of defense.

Since this missile was flying over Japan, they didn't have the capability in theatre to shoot it down.

However I'm pretty sure that launch phase defenses just got a whole ton of funding.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Cameron Swift

Given that NK's missiles don't always follow their trajectory, it was quite a ballsy/dumb move by them. That missile could easily have crash landed in Japan and triggered a war they presumably aren't ready for.

If the missile had departed its flight plan and was going to crash into Japan, they probably would have tried to engage it with the PAC.

Japan really needs to deploy the THAAD system now.

[LGA]

Will Japan launch the Gundam's now?

Serious note though, not cool NK. It's terrifying having NK and ISIS, just these hyper-irrational people that have quite a bit of destructive power at their disposal. Plus, they are fueled by brainwashed people they are more than willing to use as human shields.

[Puppet Guy]

Originally Posted by LGA

Will Japan launch the Gundam's now?

Forget the Gundams - Japan needs the Kaiju!