There's one thing I'm asking myself-If Kim does as he has said he would and send some ICBM with nukes against Guam or some other states nearby.
Will USA response with same type of weapon or will they use conventional weapons ? Or a combination of both, where the highest nuke strength they will be using is 30-40 kiloton.

Markus

Honestly I imagine it all depends on which way the wind is blowing. But id probably bet on a conventional retaliation coupled with minimal tactical nuclear strikes rather than wiping out the entire peninsula and outlying areas.

Anyway from what Ive read and contrary to popular belief it takes two to authorize a nuclear launch. The presidential football simply confirms the presidents identity to the second person, it doesnt contain any launch codes.

Not even me expects NK to fire at Guam a nukle right now, in some days. The tlak was of "just some missiles". A plan will be set out by the army, sdays their propaganda TV, and that plan will be finished in a coupe of days and then will laid before the great vleader for approval (or non-approval). Boy, do the yreally hope to win a war with planning times like this....? LOL

You question. Would I take it queer if you take a shotgun, aim it at me, and then fire it 30 cm before my feet into the ground?

You better bet I would. And I assume the US would as well. I also assume that any major power with at least some remaining self-esteem would react much more pissed than I would be. If it would not, it could as well say Sajonara to its stand and reputation in world history, as a major power. The US, if it wants to be taken serious any longer, could not afford to let such a provocation go by unanswered. Not if it wants to continue being taken serious in the region.

Furthermore, I consider that North Korea must be destroyed.

Lemme get this straight

When the US flies its bombers toward North Korea and turn back near the boarding airspace that's acceptable because we are are staying in international zones. When we deploy naval forces withing striking distance of North Korea it's just a training exercise and North Korea is over reacting.

But if the North Koreans just talks about launching an unarmed missile that lands in international waters that's a provocation? :doh:

Both sides need to ratchet down the sabre rattling. Like children playing with grownup tools, someone is going to get hurt.

Ya but they started it. lol. But honestly how about if they ratchet it down, Im tired of being the tolerant one. If they want to continue making threats then Im all for pushing the button to shut'em up.

Another thing, while reading Skybird response on my comments.

Have anyone of us never thought that this threat on sending missiles/ICBM towards Guam is nothing more than aggressive propaganda-The way Kim and NK talk.

I would be highly surprised if NK did fire these 4 missiles/ICBM against Guam. If they does it, the missiles/ICBM will only fly half the way and land somewhere in the Pacific.
The next question is, what kind of response will JP come up with

If I have seen correctly the missiles/ICBM has to pass JP airspace

Markus

Revealing to a bully that you are armed (by drawing your pistol or even just lifting your jacket, or having a parade, or driving a ship through a water street), is one thing. Firing a live shot into the wall close beside the others' head, is something very different. - Even the laws in my and your country make this difference, as far as I know. The law differentiates between announcing that you are armed, pulling a weapon but keeping it down, and aiming with that weapon.

Their missiles are announced by them to fall short of Guam. If they malfunction, the fly 30km further, and hit. And in their first flight phase, they penetrate Japanese space. If they malfunction there, they impact on Japanese soil. Or in a Japanese city.

Earlier this month it was reported that an Air France airliner was missed by one of their missile test flights some weeks ago.

You can gamble with your own life. Do not claim the right to gamble with the life of others not being you or your own family. You do not have that right.

Furthermore, I consider that North Korea must be destroyed.

I beoleive those threat shots too only when I see them happening. And yes, Kim poulls such stunts all the btime and boasts with words and uses rethoric. But so far only because he had no nuclear ICBMs. Once he has them, nobody can afford anymore to take his word in a relaxed laid-back manner.

The missiles shots at Guam also would not be armed nuclear, if the shots fiored are not meant to start a real war. novbody wastes nuclear warheads just to sink them in the ocean.

The rnage his missiles have. Nulcear devices he has. Its now only about making the latter so small that they match on the tip of a missile. And Japan says that final completion of their task is imminent.

Furthermore, I consider that North Korea must be destroyed.

Someone wrote in this thread that he hoped NK would make the first strike thereby giving Trump a go-ahead and erase NK from the planet. A FB friend is fearing the same, that NK will do as they has said they would

I believe when the Intelligent Service in JP/US and other countries see there is about 96-99 % chance he will fire these missiles, USA will make an Preemptive strike of some sort. Or will they put their trust on that these missiles will fall in the sea near Guam or between JP and Guam ? Or if they have Guam as end station the air defense can take on these missiles.

Markus

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-40894529

War of words hotting up. :hmmm:

The problem is that air defences can fail and anti-missile-missiles can miss. The latter do so not even rarely. A kill probability of 90% means that on avergae every tenth shot will miss.

Also, a missile can be destroyed in flight - and still do damage on the ground on impact. Quite some of the Iraqui Scuds fired in the second Gulf war and brought down by Patriot fire, did even greater damage on the ground than they would have done if their warheads would have exploded. The debris scattered like ammunition from a shotgun and covered a bigger area.

Too much trust is put into these misskile defence systems, for my taste. I want to sit at the receiving end of a destroyed missile only if I were situated in a really hard-hardened shelter. And if the missile swarm coming in is nuclear armed, then a shot-down quota of 90% all of a sudden sounds incredibly bad. It takes just one nuclear explosion to ruin your day. I want a 100% quota, therefore. And that can only be had by denying the enemy the ability to fire one in the first. Either cut off his head or his hands, or take the weapon away from him.

the reason why the Sovjets never did take Reagan's Star Wars program serious was that they knew that cost efficiency was on their side. It is easier and cheaper to flood a defense area with more "dumb" missiles than the counter-missile defence can bring down, or than to develope, maintain, and rearm a system called Star Wars and make it fail-safe (if that even can be achieved, which I severly doubt). The tests of such systems in America in recent years, produced many fails - under ideal laboratory conditions already, and then against just one single incoming vampyre. How is that under conditions of war, with not one but hunderds of missiles comming in simulatenously...??? Heavy jamming? Human stress? Simulataneous cyber attacks, subsystems and units in the field having suffered losses, or not being replenished in time? Too little early warning time? technical hickups? Communication breakdowns? Or an EMP weapon fired first?

This is why I am so unforgiving about NKorean nukes (and Iranian ones). "Star Wars" is for the one, single, isolated stray-off ICBM. Not for swarms of missiles.

Furthermore, I consider that North Korea must be destroyed.

Apart from the obvious reason why you could not hide an advanced nuclear weapons program (tests), in case of Japan (when compared to say DPRK) it is very hard for them to have a covert nuclear program because their nuclear industry is very open (to international observers) and is well regulated.

(and Japanese are not very good at secrecy nowadays)

Today marks the 72nd anniversary of an event that could be considered the start of this whole Korean mess.

I have a half facetious hypothesis that if there is a messed up place in the world, if you delve into its history you will find a British guy, a map, and a pencil arbitrarily drawing a border. In many cases it has proven true.

But the event of 10 Aug 1945 refutes that hypothesis slightly. In this case it was not a Brit, but two Americans with a pencil and a map .... of Korea.

The following is an abbreviated synopsis of what happened.

As WWII was ending the Soviet Union and the Americans were in agreement about what was going to happen with Korea. Neither Japan nor China would get it, nor would it be left alone to be gobbled up by either. There was no way the Soviet Union would allow the US to control all of Korea and there was no way that the Americans would allow the Soviet Union to control all of Korea, so it was tentatively agreed that the two nations would split Korea into two areas with the good guys on one side and the bad guys on the other side. But where the actual division would be was TBD.

On 10 Aug 45 two US army officers Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel were ordered to designate the division. There was little expectation that the Soviets would accept this so it was just an initial negotiating point.

Neither Rusk nor Bonesteel had any experience with Korea and its culture or history, nor did they consult any Korean experts or anyone from Korea. They did know that they wanted Seoul to be in the South portion.

So they took an old National Geographic map of Korea and roughly measured out two somewhat equal size portions of land. This incidentally fell on the 38th parallel. which matched a previous agreement concerning the disposition of Soviet forces.

Since Korea is more a NW/SE oriented country, they slanted their division line SW/NE.

They did not consider geography, population nor culture in this division. It was just a line for initial negotiations.

It came as a surprise when the Soviets accepted this division line. The US really expected a dispute.

Unknown to Rusk and Bonesteel, The Russian Empire in 1905 had negotiated with Japan about dividing Korea and independently came up with a similar division of a slanted line around the 38th parallel.

So this spur of the moment initial draft suddenly became a fact.

Korea was divided, but hardly equally. While the general land masses were similar, the geography was very different. North Korea had most of the mountains and the minerals and the South had the most of the arable fields.

The south had approximately twice the population of the North. But the majority of the Japanese nuclear weapon program facilities were in the North and that was a very attractive prize for the Soviets.

So two guys just drew a line on a map with no real research on what they were doing or what the effect might be was a big starter in this North/South Korean issue. What could possibly go wrong?

I might have to modify my hypothesis to read a foreigner with a map and a pencil making arbitrary borders. :D

That would depend on the altitude of the missiles in the boost phase once they pass over the Territorial border of Japan.

Strange as it may seem, there is no internationally recognized vertical boundaries of airspace sovereignty.

It is pretty much agreed that above 100km sovereignty ends and it is pretty much agreed that below 30km is sovereign. But where between 30 and 100km is the official line of sovereignty has not been set... at least not internationally accepted.

The flight profile of the Hwasong 12 is pretty steep

https://s16-us2.ixquick.com/cgi-bin/...ticache=792754


By the time it passes the Japanese territorial limits, it may be above the 100km point. It all depends on how the Koreans configure the flight profile.

This source's computer models have the H-12 missile reaching 200km three minutes after launch

http://www.38north.org/2017/05/hwasong051917/

But again, it depends on how they choose the flight profile.

North Korea hasn't shown that they have developed a nose cone on their missiles that can stand the heat of reentry. Till then, their warheads won't survive the reentry phase.