North Korea may be able to deliver nuke, Pentagon intel says

I recall the rhetoric from the govern,ent andmedia on Iraq to be quite different. The whole vibe was different. In fact I think they don't want this war. They have repeatedly downplayed the severity of the NK situation and purposely tried to reduce tension. They did the opposite prior to iraq. They made out the iraq threat to be huge when it was hardly existent. They make out the NK threat to be morejust more talk from Kim when in fact you can see the worry that they don't speak.

I can't help thinking that N.K especially N.K would have already sorted out who is going to play on their team, if and when someone decides to say "are you ready to rumble"

N.K is a very secretive regime, that being the case, surely they are not going to let the enemy know what weapons they have stashed away. Let the enemy think your weak...

Do we know what weapons/technology have been shipped over their borders over the years, who, (which country/s) shipped them there in the first place, Are they a threat?

The mere fact that they fail testing their missiles sends alarm bells ringing in my ears. Let the enemy think your weak.

How many other Countries should be under the microscope at the moment, Iran comes to mind, who is on their team? how many other countries would love to have a crack at the USA , but wouldn't dare on their own?

N.K would not go this alone, it doesn't make sense to me.

All the talk about lil kim being a dumbass may be true. I've heard that about Obama as well.

Kim has the old school Generals leading him by the nose, who are no dumber or smarter than most other Generals on this planet.

I think it's a mistake to underestimate N.K and their team, who we don't yet know who they are.

Just having a coffee with my feet up wondering.

Originally posted by pirhanna
I recall the rhetoric from the govern,ent andmedia on Iraq to be quite different. The whole vibe was different. In fact I think they don't want this war. They have repeatedly downplayed the severity of the NK situation and purposely tried to reduce tension. They did the opposite prior to iraq. They made out the iraq threat to be huge when it was hardly existent. They make out the NK threat to be morejust more talk from Kim when in fact you can see the worry that they don't speak.

You think it's different because they've TOLD you to think it's different. And you will think something else is different next time they tell you something is different too. You saying 'the vibe' is different proves you have been psychologically manipulated by the MSM press reports.

This is from the experts:
www.rand.org...

“What makes this different from past 'normal crises' is our lack of insight into…Kim's mind and the uncertainty regarding how firmly he and his regime sit in the saddle,” Shlapak said. He added that the threat to South Korea is significant, even if North Korea lacks the ability to deliver nuclear payloads via missile.

Let's say that again - “What makes this different from past 'normal crises' is our lack of insight into…Kim's mind and the uncertainty regarding how firmly he and his regime sit in the saddle,” - that's right, this crisis is different from other crises because "our lack of insight into Kim's mind". Therefore the difference is *purely psychological*. This is the intelligence agencies outright admitting that they are manufacturing this story - but here you are repeating your fears as if this is a real event.

From the same report:

“North Korea's bluster suggests that it would meet South Korean escalation with even more escalation."

- this is them admitting that the aggression is initiated by the USA.

“We don't know if North Korea can mount nuclear weapons on ballistic missiles, but there is a reasonable chance that they can, on at least their shorter range missiles. It is very unlikely that North Korea has intercontinental ballistic missiles that could deliver a nuclear weapon to U.S. territory,” he said.

- this is them admitting that there is no nuclear threat.

Although China recognizes that North Korea is not blameless, Scobell said China believes that the United States shoulders the lion's share of the blame and could help ease tensions by adopting a more conciliatory policy toward North Korea. Beijing views Pyongyang's bad behavior as a reaction to an extremely hostile U.S. policy

- again, this is them admitting that the real aggression is from the USA.

PLEASE USE YOUR BRAIN!

here's another equal possibility...... (!)

They could deliver flowers !!!!

I hope some get the point here.

reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin


This is simply a charade put on by the GOP to eradicate the budget put forth by Obama to cut the defense budget, "nothing more". Fear tactics work well with the American people. In the coming days they will be pushing for more money. Anyone wanna bet?

Originally posted by 7thangel
reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin

 

This is simply a charade put on by the GOP to eradicate the budget put forth by Obama to cut the defense budget, "nothing more". Fear tactics work well with the American people. In the coming days they will be pushing for more money. Anyone wanna bet?

Oh yeah...cause the GOP has North Korea in their pocket....

Well they did put a satellite into orbit, correct? That right there is a test of a delivery system. If you can get a warhead into orbit, you can pretty much strike at will.

Reliability would be the key here, can they RELIABLY deliver a warhead to their intended target.

Japan? yup. South Korean? They could throw it. Us mainlaind? Ahh, no, I wouldn't be that concerned.

This is the thing, it's mostly saber rattling, but there is a slight risk, they do indeed possess nuclear technology. It's just the worst possible time to be trying to flaunt it. Failed wars, dropping support, failing economy.

I hate to say it, but the US really needs a war they can win, one that will help they regain some of the good reputation that has been tarnished, protecting people from a crazy nuclear powered dictatorship that is ACTUALLY threatening war, would be a good start.

going in and stopping this nonsense, freeing the people, and uniting north an south korea could be one of the best moves the US could take right now.

Originally posted by phishyblankwaters


I hate to say it, but the US really needs a war they can win, one that will help they regain some of the good reputation that has been tarnished, protecting people from a crazy nuclear powered dictatorship that is ACTUALLY threatening war, would be a good start.

going in and stopping this nonsense, freeing the people, and uniting north an south korea could be one of the best moves the US could take right now.

Dude gtfo promoting wars here. That's sick and wrong. You sound like fascist.

Originally posted by CIAGypsy

Originally posted by 7thangel
reply to post by OtherSideOfTheCoin

 

This is simply a charade put on by the GOP to eradicate the budget put forth by Obama to cut the defense budget, "nothing more". Fear tactics work well with the American people. In the coming days they will be pushing for more money. Anyone wanna bet?

Oh yeah...cause the GOP has North Korea in their pocket....

What makes you think that any of this is genuinely coming out of the North Korean government? The CIA has manufactured press stories like this for decades and this is just another episode of the show. I'd say about 5% of what is being promoted by the MSM is actually based on the real stance of the North Korean administration.

7thangel is probably right, this is probably something to do with the recent budget. Either to obscure how Obama is continuing to tear up the constitution and shaft the people, or to promote military spending. If you study the pattern of behaviour of DoD and Whitehouse press releases over the decades, this kind of hate-war being forced onto the press has happened over and over with official state enemies.

Here is a nice video with former CIA agent John R Stockwell talking about how the administration did exactly this 'crisis' thing consistently with Cuba and Russia:

Jump to 42:00 for the discussion of how state propaganda influences the media's stance:


He concludes that they did this for internal political reasons. Not for national security.

Same old tactic used over and over...

US is getting ready make another false flag

Or just getting the Americans into the right mood before they go invade another country

war huh what is it good for.. absolutely nothing
or is it ?

It´s funny to see how Americans clap their fat little hands whenever their leaders tell them to

Pshhhh maby this maby that, North Korea may be able to deliver my pizza in 30 minutes or less is just as credible as all these rumors

reply to post by Spacespider


Yeah, an unstable man who has detonated two nuclear weapons his Government has sworn to the world didn't exist, nor did the program to make them all these years does tend to make people a little jumpy. His threatening specific cities now, after proving he has the technology to detonate them (whatever size they may have physically been) makes it the world's problem I think.

Oh course, Kerry's stern 'don't you test that missile' warning awhile ago was probably about like telling a toddler not to touch the stove, it's hot. Turn your back? Sure enough...they'll be a little blood curdling scream as the toddler does precisely that. Gotta love the show we're watching in the pregame, anyway.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
reply to post by Spacespider

 

Yeah, an unstable man who has detonated two nuclear weapons his Government has sworn to the world didn't exist, nor did the program to make them all these years does tend to make people a little jumpy. His threatening specific cities now, after proving he has the technology to detonate them (whatever size they may have physically been) makes it the world's problem I think.

North Korea has had the ability to obliterate large parts of South Korea for decades. They have had 10s of thousands of shielded artillery weapons capable of flattening Seoul the whole time. This is the primary reason for the status quo. Nothing is going to change this until people start talking about peace. That will never happen with the current US stance.

The US has set off many nuclear weapons - most importantly the two they dropped on top of defeated cities full of civilians. The US has just proven it can do the same with stealth bombers flown from the US. They have ICBMs in South Korea. They have nuclear subs surrounding North Korea. Who is the real danger to both South and North Korea here?

A few here need to step back and take a deep breath. NK is living on nothing more than really thin propaganda at this point, you guys are falling for it.

They have an air force that consists of 30-50 year old aircraft. On top of that, they have no fuel to even get the things off the ground. This has been confirmed over and over again.

They have a somewhat large sub fleet, but they're incredibly antiquated diesel designs, and they don't have the fuel to operate them anyway. The rest of their Navy is similarly behind ours and low on fuel.

They have a very large standing army, but according to a bunch of intelligence gathered over the last decade, they barely have enough ammo to train their soldiers, let alone effectively fight a ground war, and with no manufacturing capability of their own and both China and Russia not willing to resupply, it's game over. They'll be fighting with sticks and rocks literally within hours.

Their missile batteries are notoriously unreliable and hard to effectively target, and they have no way to resupply after their existing stock is used up. So, while they could theoretically cause a bunch of damage to northern South Korea, it'd be a one-shot deal and they'd be back to the aforementioned sticks and rocks.

Their nuclear weapons capability is somewhere around where we were about halfway through the Manhattan Project. Yeah, they have nukes, but they're small and unreliable. Lots of damage potential, sure, but they don't have a lot of them and this ain't Russia's arsenal by any stretch.

We don't NEED to fight a ground war. Even the best land-based militaries have difficulty dealing with air-based attacks. Now understand that NK has a ground force fighting with 50 year old weapons, no air force of their own capable of intercepting, and very limited ammo supplies. We can park a carrier group off their cost and end the whole charade without any real effort.

China needs to handle reconstruction (who else is better equipped, strategically and historically, than a country who themselves did essentially the same thing with their own people over the last few decades), and I suspect this is the 'hold up' right now. We know we can't do it because of the heavy anti-west sentiment among the NK people, and China is trying to figure out how to put the (pun intended) china shop back together after the bull gets done and, even before that, how to get the Kims out of power without destablizing things worse than they already are. They don't want the NK refugees (hence their military buildup on the NK northern border), but they know this can't keep going on.

This very likely isn't the military leaders of NK pushing Kim around. It's far more likely the other way. Kim is a naive, soft boy...diametrically opposite of his father...and he's trying to saber rattle like his dad did so he can claim to his generals and his people that he's just as tough and just as able to get the west to 'cower' to him. However, the problem with brinksmanship is that if it doesn't work, you're screwed. If the west gives in, he wins and looks like a hero. But, if the west, Russia, and NK's old buddies the Chinese all basically leave them twisting in the wind, one of two things happens: You either have to attempt to follow through on the threats or you never have any credibility on the world stage every again. If he follows through, he dies, his leaders die, and his country is gone within days. If he doesn't follow through, he's forever a laughing stock and he probably dies anyway in a coup orchestrated by his military leaders.

You have to remember that the anti-west, pro-NK military propaganda being used in NK is for the citizens. The military generals are not dumb. They have to know EXACTLY what they're up against, even if they'd never admit it to the people. This is why I think I'm right on this. Kim and his leaders know what happens if they follow through on the threats. That's why you're getting this long, drawn out, utterly ridiculous 'countdown.' They're at the point that if they stand down, they're screwed, but they don't want the outcome of actually starting a conflict, so they're trying to buy as much time as possible while they hope and pray that SOMEBODY gives them SOMETHING...ANYTHING... that they can declare a victory to their people and continue business as usual. If this were really an actual start to a war orchestrated by the military leaders, it would've already happened. This is Kim trying to be his dad and so far he's kept his military leaders contained and his head (literally) on his shoulders. That can't continue forever.

I think we're going to get a sudden, swift movement by China and supported by Japan and the US that decapitates the regime, contains the population, and lets China handle reconstruction. Regardless, this isn't going to be WWIII in any believable scenario.

reply to post by yampa


While I see how strongly you feel about this being all America's fault and responsibility, we didn't put his nuclear weapons into the holes to test shot them this year. We didn't build those for him while North Korea has demanded the world believe it's nuclear power plant was just for peaceful purposes. I'm well aware of those 10,000-13,000 artillery pieces. In fact, if you check those links in my sig, you may see I've written quite a bit about North Korea numbers and capabilities as they are known to have. Not everything by any means, but quite a bit.

Now I take him seriously because he's backing himself into a hard hard corner with few ways out. Earlier this morning, Russia said this may have ended any realistic path back to 6-party talks in the future and the situation has grown markedly worse with the direct threat of nuclear attack on Tokyo. Even Russia can see THAT was about 10 steps too far.

It's one thing to be threatening us, perhaps and South Korea is used to the threats before nukes came into it. Threatening Japan with a nuke in the Capital City though? ..and after having proven he certainly does have the ability to make weapons that successfully detonate now? Well, now we're just betting he doesn't have the ability to follow directions. AQ Kahn sold them the plans for Chinese ballistic missile warheads of the nuclear variety. Hopefully they really are that bad at it ....

....because the US didn't do that either. A.Q. is a Pakistani ...the nation that does have very functional and somewhat advanced nuclear weapons. He sure had the ability and real opportunity to have the plans claimed to have been passed on. So now we all wait ....while we see how far a 29-30 year old novice at World Leadership handles his first trip to the edge of general war. Comforting, isn't it? What could go wrong?

Originally posted by samcrow

We don't NEED to fight a ground war. Even the best land-based militaries have difficulty dealing with air-based attacks. Now understand that NK has a ground force fighting with 50 year old weapons, no air force of their own capable of intercepting, and very limited ammo supplies. We can park a carrier group off their cost and end the whole charade without any real effort.

A lot of bluster here which is essentially a sick promotion of invasion of a sovereign state, offering no ethical justification. What is it about you people that does not understand that you do not get to choose who you kill and overthrow. Your whole statement is immoral. Check yourself.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000

Now I take him seriously because he's backing himself into a hard hard corner with few ways out. Earlier this morning, Russia said this may have ended any realistic path back to 6-party talks in the future and the situation has grown markedly worse with the direct threat of nuclear attack on Tokyo. Even Russia can see THAT was about 10 steps too far.

So now we all wait ....while we see how far a 29-30 year old novice at World Leadership handles his first trip to the edge of general war. Comforting, isn't it? What could go wrong?

edit on 12-4-2013 by Wrabbit2000 because: (no reason given)

I think you are manufacturing all those intentions. All posturing here is a response to the US military occupation of South Korea. There is no other reason. The nuclear weapons were constructed as a response to US aggression. That isn't my opinion, that's the opinion of every real defence analyst. As with Iran, any of those analysts will tell you that either of those regimes would be crazy not to develop a nuclear deterrent given the extreme hostile stance of the US gov across all administrations. And the US does not just posture. They are genuinely willing to slaughter hundreds of thousands of people over ideology.

Imagine for one second what the average North Korean must think of the US government given their very real history of extreme mad-dog behaviour over ideological concepts.

reply to post by yampa

Imagine for one second what the average North Korean must think of the US government given their very real history of extreme mad-dog behaviour over ideological concepts.

Having watched hours of video in the last couple weeks both in my courses at school and at home relating to and or directly from people who have been inside North Korea personally? I don't believe I really have to guess. The average North Korean has been raised to hate Americans to the core and that's been their indoctrination across that society since the war ended in 1953. The average North Korean though has no electricity and never has. Rural electrification never hit their priority list. So, aside from word of mouth and whatever they have for post service there, news isn't a part of life there as we know it.

Part of the problem.... Kim could tell them we eat babies for breakfast and are coming for theirs as dinner and they have no base for critical thinking to believe otherwise ....It's literally like a cult for the time warp effect, but it takes watching all that to really get a sense. The written reports don't touch the reality.

Now I really don't think it's just the nukes here anyway. Pakistan popped up with their nukes in 1998. They weren't destroyed for developing them. India proved they had them and the two have almost traded them a couple times since. Still, nothing done there. They aren't recklessly threatening, on a daily basis, to USE them against civilian population centers of surrounding nations though, either.

I can't recall any leader in history, literally, EVER, making threats like Kim is from a position of proven technology to at least feasibly carry out precisely what he says. Miniaturization is what it comes down to and whether they have.

Originally posted by yampa

Originally posted by samcrow

We don't NEED to fight a ground war. Even the best land-based militaries have difficulty dealing with air-based attacks. Now understand that NK has a ground force fighting with 50 year old weapons, no air force of their own capable of intercepting, and very limited ammo supplies. We can park a carrier group off their cost and end the whole charade without any real effort.

A lot of bluster here which is essentially a sick promotion of invasion of a sovereign state, offering no ethical justification. What is it about you people that does not understand that you do not get to choose who you kill and overthrow. Your whole statement is immoral. Check yourself.

You're taking it entirely out of context, genius. This is in response to the people in the thread talking about invasion force losses. Check your self-righteousness if you can't get a grip on what you're trying to be mad about.