WTF Are the North Koreans Smoking Now?

[LadyTevar]

America tries to ease tensions

US DELAYS MISSILE TEST

A senior defense official confirms that the Pentagon has delayed an intercontinental ballistic missile test that was scheduled for next week. The official says Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel decided to postpone the test because of ongoing tensions with North Korea.

The test was "long planned and was never associated with North Korea to begin with," the official said, but added that "given recent tensions on the Korean Peninsula, it's prudent and wise to take steps that avoid any misperception or chance of manipulation, so the test has been postponed."
The test was planned for next week at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. It would have tested the Minuteman 3 ICBM missile.
The U.S. will conduct another test soon, the senior defense official said, adding that the U.S. "remains strongly committed to our nuclear deterrence capabilities."
The unusual move follows recent warlike rhetoric from North Korea, which included a threat to attack U.S. bases in the Pacific.
North Korean authorities also told diplomatic missions they could not guarantee their safety starting next Wednesday -- after declaring that conflict was inevitable. There were also reports that North Korea had moved two medium-range missiles to a location on its east coast.

[The Xeelee]

In before "this is just making America look weak".

[Skywalker_T-65]

Personally, I think it makes America look smart. No reason to keep provoking the Norks if it can be avoided.

(even if this particular test had nothing to do with them)

[LadyTevar]

At this point I agree that the Norks would have taken the tests as a response to their rhetoric, and used it as an excuse to expand their current military actions. A related article on NBC quotes a South Korean Official reporting that the Norks seem ready to test another long-range missile.

[Simon_Jester]

But if we're going to accept that, we need to be consistent and say that it is also dangerous (and dumb) escalation when North Korea jumps up and down shouting "I KILL YOU!" on media broadcasts, or lobs missile tests past someone's head, both of which have happened within the past several months under the reign of the new Supreme Leader of North Korea.

If this has been done consistently, then how can it be escalation

They do not happen consistently, although they do happen over and over. It's as if during the Cold War one side kept agreeing to move the IRBMs out of a country, then moving them back in, then taking them back out, then putting them back in, and so on.

Provocative and dumb.

Honestly I can overlook the satellite launches, shrug that off, for the same reason I think the North Koreans should be able to overlook the bomber. It's not really telling us we didn't already know, and does no direct harm. We knew North Korea was working on rockets and that they couldn't all be failures, after all.

The media broadcasts (and things like telling the workers at Kaesong to get out) are if anything more worrying because they imply a change in the situation, and in North Korea's attitude. Possibly a violent change, or a change to a new situation where violence is more likely. This is the kind of thing that's very alarming coming out of a nuclear power- and North Korea is looking to be recognized as a nuclear power, so that they can afford to wind down conventional forces and cut military costs.

Fine. Great. OK. But if that's what they want, is it too much to ask, that they get the hang of this "don't make everyone think you're about to jump on them and beat them to death" thing?

In before "this is just making America look weak".

What? This is fine. Arguably unnecessary, but fine. As noted, this kind of test has to be planned far, far in advance, but postponing it is totally reasonable at a time like this. We won't learn anything from the missile test that we couldn't learn just as well by doing it a month from now.

[Col. Crackpot]

If Russia was flying formations of nuclear bombers up and down the Californian coastline I imagine the US reaction would be ferocious.

They didn't need to. They had plenty of ballistic missle subs parked off the coast. And somehow we managed not to nuke them dor it.

[weemadando]

If Russia was flying formations of nuclear bombers up and down the Californian coastline I imagine the US reaction would be ferocious.

They didn't need to. They had plenty of ballistic missle subs parked off the coast. And somehow we managed not to nuke them dor it.

Had they also levied crippling economic sanctions against you and had forces based in Mexico in 60 years?

[Stark]

They didn't need to. They had plenty of ballistic missle subs parked off the coast. And somehow we managed not to nuke them dor it.

Its almost like peer relationships differ from non-peer relationships in some kind of strange, fundamental way. Or do we just forget the other side of that shiny coin you're holding?

[PeZook]

I do see your point, it's not completely clear-cut, but... honestly, the US bases the B-2s out of Missouri. They can fly anywhere. Everyone with Wikipedia access knows this already. This doesn't demonstrate any capability the North didn't already know we have, unless (again) the North is so illogical or dim that we can't expect them to react rationally in a crisis.

They are a known capability, which is precisely why they're so threatening!

They may not be a cause for concern when they're sitting in hangars in Missouri. But once they launch, towards your country, during a crisis...well, what then? How can you know what's inside their bomb bays?

After all, if they are carrying B83s, and are headed towards Korea, all they need to do is turn slightly and fly a bit longed in order to devastate your country possibly with zero warning. So you get jumpy - and you may be the one who started the crisis in the first place (good idea at the time!), but what can you do? Ignore them so that you are seen as backing off? But then what if they ARE full of nukes?

It's the same reason why the USSR didn't actually park SSBNs off the US coast: the possibility of a debilitating first strike with no warning would've made nuclear war far more likely and force the US to use launch-on-warning. They didn't even do this back when all their SSBNs had were modified SCUDs and would be almost totally ineffective away from the coast.

But if we're going to accept that, we need to be consistent and say that it is also dangerous (and dumb) escalation when North Korea jumps up and down shouting "I KILL YOU!" on media broadcasts, or lobs missile tests past someone's head, both of which have happened within the past several months under the reign of the new Supreme Leader of North Korea.

Of course it is dumb. Threats of nuclear attack are a clear escalation from conventional threats or even conventional SHOOTING, but the point shouldn't be to be certain of who is to blame when cities are burning ; The point should be to prevent cities from being burned with nuclear fire in the first place. For that to happen, somebody has to STOP escalating the situation, much like you shouldn't continue a verbal pissing match if your goal is to actually avoid a fight. Even, or ESPECIALLY when you're massively stronger than the guy trying to piss you off.

The North Koreans are not fools. And they still have a right to react badly when someone threatens them. But by the same token, South Korea has a right to react badly when someone threatens them, especially if the threat is far more explicit, or is accompanied by murders.

No, I disagree: North Korea should also try to de-escalate whenever possible. But if it doesn't, for whatever reason (it could be a rational reason, or even a batshit insane one, it doesn't really matter), the way to avoid a war is to stop going up the ladder.

It is fine and good to condemn irresponsible escalation. What is poisonous is to assume that only one side should be condemned for irresponsible escalation, especially when one side has a legacy of killing people to make its point on the peninsula and the other does not.

You can understand why someone does things (like threats) and expect others to restrain themselves despite said threats, without approving of the initial threat in the first place. The sad thing about escalation is that all the moves leading up to a nuclear exchange can be perfectly rational for both parties.

[TimothyC]

It's the same reason why the USSR didn't actually park SSBNs off the US coast: the possibility of a debilitating first strike with no warning would've made nuclear war far more likely and force the US to use launch-on-warning. They didn't even do this back when all their SSBNs had were modified SCUDs and would be almost totally ineffective away from the coast.

That actually depends on how you define off the coast for SSBNs - K-219 was relatively close to the US (compared to the bastions - but inside it's patrol box) when it sunk.

[LaCroix]

It's the same reason why the USSR didn't actually park SSBNs off the US coast: the possibility of a debilitating first strike with no warning would've made nuclear war far more likely and force the US to use launch-on-warning. They didn't even do this back when all their SSBNs had were modified SCUDs and would be almost totally ineffective away from the coast.

That actually depends on how you define off the coast for SSBNs - K-219 was relatively close to the US (compared to the bastions - but inside it's patrol box) when it sunk.

Well, "off the coast" tends to be a vague parameter if your missiles have ranges of 2400 to 3000km...

With that range, in theory, anything your side of the Atlantic Ridge or closer than Hawaii is "off the coast", but K219 was ~1800 km off the US coast, which almost anybody would agree to be a rather "not right in your face" distance...

[Thanas]

I think it is good that the US tries to act like the adult in the room and scaled back its rhetoric.

[Broomstick]

The US has also delayed a planned missile test launch as well. That is also probably a good move.

[Metahive]

>snort<

Nothing I say or do here is going to have any effect at all over the situation on the Korean peninsula. So what does it matter if I speculate, question, or try to understand?

It does have an effect on those reading your posts, which includes me. Now be honest, how often do you even really think of Korea when there's no story like this around? And yet you think you can psychoanalyze them to any degree of accuracy.

Isn't you who also always throws shitfits whenever someone does the same to Americans?

[Broomstick]

>snort<

Nothing I say or do here is going to have any effect at all over the situation on the Korean peninsula. So what does it matter if I speculate, question, or try to understand?

It does have an effect on those reading your posts, which includes me. Now be honest, how often do you even really think of Korea when there's no story like this around?

More often than you might think - I've known people who were either stationed in Korea as part of the military or living in Korea (often as English teachers) for quite a few years now. Like anyone else, I tend to care more about those I personally know than complete strangers, and since I know people who are in or did live in Korea it actually is on my radar somewhat.

And yet you think you can psychoanalyze them to any degree of accuracy.

Not claiming I'm making any sort of actual diagnosis. I am trying to understand them better which is very hard to do between the low flow of information out of North Korea, and because their system is so very different than the one I've lived under all my life.

Isn't you who also always throws shitfits whenever someone does the same to Americans?

Not really. Quite often, I'm very critical of my own country. I do protest what I see as excess or misplaced criticism but that doesn't automatically make it a "shitfit". There are other posters who are much more guilty of that particular sin than I am.

[PeZook]

With that range, in theory, anything your side of the Atlantic Ridge or closer than Hawaii is "off the coast", but K219 was ~1800 km off the US coast, which almost anybody would agree to be a rather "not right in your face" distance...

Obviously there are concessions to practicality: yours subs aren't much of a deterrent if they are patrolling outside the range of their missiles (penetrating the GIUK gap in wartime would be a pretty huge risk).

However, notice how it didn't get any closer than it had to. As missile range increased, patrol areas became more and more removed from US coast - The Delta IV and Typhoons never even got into the Atlantic. And of course the Golf and Hotel classes also kept well enough away, despite mostly carrying very short ranged missiles.

[Metahive]

More often than you might think - I've known people who were either stationed in Korea as part of the military or living in Korea (often as English teachers) for quite a few years now. Like anyone else, I tend to care more about those I personally know than complete strangers, and since I know people who are in or did live in Korea it actually is on my radar somewhat.

I have friends and relatives in several different countries too, but I would still not think I'm yet qualified to speculate about the people of those countries potentially being delusional or defeatist about a bad situation. And that's when my job requires me to think outside the borders of my current country of residence quite often.

Not claiming I'm making any sort of actual diagnosis. I am trying to understand them better which is very hard to do between the low flow of information out of North Korea, and because their system is so very different than the one I've lived under all my life.

Wouldn't the first step to be to ask either South Koreans or people with connections to it? You say you know people who lived there and yet your opinion sounds rather unqualified. Are they telling you that the South Koreans might be all delusional about the North Korean threat?

[Broomstick]

My questioning of people with direct Korean experience did very little to help my comprehension because the answers were all over the map and contradicted each other.

I'm saying denial of a situation is a possibility. Not necessarily in a totally-oblivious-to-reality sense but rather like London during the Blitz, with people trying to keep a normal life going in an abnormal situation. South Korea and Seoul have been under constant threat for 60 years and the North has a record of sinking ships, shelling various locations in the South, kidnapping people, and assassinations so it's not an entirely idle threat. One way to cope with constant threat is to recalibrate your normal and tell yourself it's not that bad. Is that all South Koreans? No - South Korea is a mass of individuals, not carbon copies of each other. It probably applies to some, whether a small minority or possibly a majority. I wouldn't even classify it as pathological, it very much can be a survival mechanism in some circumstances.

The people I know with direct Korean experience whom I have asked have given me answers from "This is nothing, the North Koreans always bluster but never do anything." to "This is for real this time, I want to get out of here." so I can't come to a conclusion from that.

Likewise, when it comes to reunification I've heard, again from these same people, everything from "It's absolutely essential, everyone wants it." to "The younger generation gives it lip service but don't really mean it." Again, I can't come to a conclusion, other than a desire for reunification is not, in fact, universal in South Korea but whether that's a very few individuals or a significant group (though still probably a minority) I don't know. Korean media treat reunification as a foregone conclusion but both the Chinese and US outlets have had a mention of North Korea becoming some sort of protectorate. Oddly enough, I've seen the US suggest China as the one to control North Korea, and the Chinese side question if having the US take it over would be acceptable to Chinese interests. Very minority views, but apparently neither side wants the place. If that's the case, reunification is almost inevitable should the current DPRK rulers fall.

From reading Korean-origin media I gather that the government is more concerned than the average person in the street. Does that mean the government knows something the public doesn't? Or in this case is the general public doing a better job assessing the situation?

[Simon_Jester]

They are a known capability, which is precisely why they're so threatening!

They may not be a cause for concern when they're sitting in hangars in Missouri. But once they launch, towards your country, during a crisis...well, what then? How can you know what's inside their bomb bays?

After all, if they are carrying B83s, and are headed towards Korea, all they need to do is turn slightly and fly a bit longed in order to devastate your country possibly with zero warning. So you get jumpy - and you may be the one who started the crisis in the first place (good idea at the time!), but what can you do? Ignore them so that you are seen as backing off? But then what if they ARE full of nukes?

If that had been the plan, why announce the flight at all? They're stealth aircraft, you can't see them coming, that's the point.

Then again, it is credible that North Korea would so disastrously misread American politics and... overall strategic 'personality' that they would expect the US to cover a nuclear sneak attack on North Korea as a routine 'flag-showing' tour. Hell, there seem to be people in the First World who are probably at least as well informed of what the US is really like as a typical Korean senior officer, who make exactly that kind of mistake (not you).

This would be sort of like the Great White Fleet having randomly opened fire on someone back in 1908, but whatever.


When you get right down to it, the metaphorical "shot across the bows" involved in a B-2 flight to South Korea is an escalation, was dumb, and is just all around a mistake. My main objection- this is really a response to others- is that YES, this kind of thing is dumb. But in our rush to "understand" the US we should not forget that it is dumb, nor should we forget that the North Koreans were being equally dumb last week or the week before, in different ways.

I perceive that there's a sort of patronizing tendency to assume that it's OK, that Third World countries can be forgiven for behavior that would be totally provocative and ridiculous from 'major nations.' Because they don't know any better, because they have special unique reasons that only ever apply to the little guy for acting that way, and so on.

But I saw people who... well, I perceived that people were doing that, and my remarks are a legacy of that earlier in the thread. I disagree with that, because I think that raging asshole behavior by small nations is often as big a threat to world peace as imperialist behavior by small nations. Think about what happened when Serbia got over-ambitious in the Balkans in 1914...

It's the same reason why the USSR didn't actually park SSBNs off the US coast: the possibility of a debilitating first strike with no warning would've made nuclear war far more likely and force the US to use launch-on-warning. They didn't even do this back when all their SSBNs had were modified SCUDs and would be almost totally ineffective away from the coast.

Two notes: one, ballistic missiles often have a minimum effective range as well as a maximum one, unless you do something gamey like launch with the submarine parked at an angle. Something like a MIRV SLBM loses a lot of effectiveness when fired at a target a few hundred miles away, assuming you'll be able to hit it at all.

Two, a big part of the reason the Soviets kept backing their subs up was to make them more effective as a deterrent. They wanted to make it impossible for the US to locate and destroy Soviet SSBNs before they could launch. That was most easily accomplished by parking the subs in protected 'bastions' guarded by Soviet surface naval units... which in turn meant pulling them back farther away and closer to Soviet ports.

Moving the subs farther away may or may not have made them less scary; I'm not sure what the Kremlin thought about that.

Of course it is dumb. Threats of nuclear attack are a clear escalation from conventional threats or even conventional SHOOTING, but the point shouldn't be to be certain of who is to blame when cities are burning ; The point should be to prevent cities from being burned with nuclear fire in the first place. For that to happen, somebody has to STOP escalating the situation, much like you shouldn't continue a verbal pissing match if your goal is to actually avoid a fight. Even, or ESPECIALLY when you're massively stronger than the guy trying to piss you off.

I agree; my persistence is mostly an artifact of the people I've seen in this very thread who seem quite ready to justify North Korean aggression and provocation while condemning American aggressive and provocative acts that are far less harmful in any objective sense.

Anyone who is prepared to criticize both sides commensurate with what they've done wrong, I don't have a problem with. And I certainly am glad the US seems to have an upper limit on how much dickwaving it's going to do in this situation. I don't want this to turn into a deadly game of nuclear chicken.

[Stark]

I think it is good that the US tries to act like the adult in the room and scaled back its rhetoric.

I think you'll find that doing the wrong thing, then admitting it, was actually a cunning political move all along.

Laughs aside, its a relief that hysterical pressure isn't driving the State Department.

[Simon_Jester]

Agreed.

I had not really considered just how... super-escalating foreign nations might see the B-2 as being. Given that it's not just a nuclear delivery platform, but an invisible one that most countries can't seriously hope to stop short of its target... yeah. That might make people more nervous than even something like a carrier battle group, which could carry much more nuclear weaponry and has far greater conventional power to break down defenses.

[LaCroix]

My beef with the B2 escalation was that it is exactly the thing that the Norks were most afraid of - an invisible first strike weapon. The B2 is exactly the weapon you would use if you want to attack North Korea. All of them, all your F22, your F35 (and any 117 you can make airworthy). Add a swarm of cruise missiles skimming the ground, and you could knock out half of their offensive capabilities before they even know what hit them.

That threat in particular was the reasons they said they would fire at the first provocation. Flying by close to them to prove they really can't see those planes on their radar screens is a dick move, and certainly did not help to make them less jumpy.

[Stark]

Agreed.

I had not really considered just how... super-escalating foreign nations might see the B-2 as being. Given that it's not just a nuclear delivery platform, but an invisible one that most countries can't seriously hope to stop short of its target... yeah. That might make people more nervous than even something like a carrier battle group, which could carry much more nuclear weaponry and has far greater conventional power to break down defenses.

Like Lacroix says, its EXACTLY the kind of threat that makes people say 'if you even look at us like there is something fishy going on we will strike first', because once you've noticed the US attacking you it's all over and you lost. This is the psychology of being the red-headed stepchild... which is pretty much 'the entire world that doesn't have nuclear weapons'.

Its bizarre but I think the US national psyche is too obsessed with their 'vulnerabilities' to be able to understand that they're basically Zeus throwing thunderbolts and everyone else is just a victim.

[Simon_Jester]

Americans used to have a much higher degree of confidence in this. Ironically back when the US was more vulnerable to attack, in that countries 1 through N ganging up on it would have posed an actual threat that couldn't be repaid in kind. The Cold War scared people very deeply in the US because it took away the sense of security, and because the intentions of the USSR were a huge unknown from the point of view of... pretty much any American.

So for anyone born before about 1980, the normal state of affairs is that everyone could die on a few minutes' notice because some asshole pushed a button. This does not make people think of themselves as "Zeus throwing thunderbolts." And it makes them very receptive to the idea that new threats exist which could destroy them (if slower and more subtly) just like the old threats could.f

The new generation who weren't affected by Cold War mentality may have a different attitude on average, but they aren't in power and at the moment the system is working rather hard on immiserizing them into submission so that they won't upset the status quo too much.

[Broomstick]

I had not really considered just how... super-escalating foreign nations might see the B-2 as being.

I think the US government didn't really realize that either until after that incident. Once that was realized the US started scaling things back both verbally and in actions.

Now, can anyone tell me if April 10 is of some significance to North Korea? They gave that as a deadline for South Koreans to get out of Kaesong, there was something else about April 10 as a deadline I'm not quire remembering this early in the morning, and now there's the threat that war is "hours" away, which here on April 9 means... on April 10? They date seems significant in their bluster but if so I certainly don't know the significance.

It seems there is more "just in case" actions by various governments, such as South Korea distributing civil defense information and Japan readying anti-missile batteries. But no one seems to be leaving the area, either. North Korea's words certainly aren't moderating. Tensions don't seem to be diminishing. I would really like the whole mess to simmer down.