War in the US; when will it come?

[MinutemanCO]

North Korea has the largest fleet of submarines in the world, with 78 currently in its arsenal, according to the Global Firepower Index of the Business Insider based in New York.

I'm certain they are some pretty sweet machines too.

[vector7]

North Korea shows progress in missile-launching submarine


January 9, 2015



Rick Gladstone



North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Photo: AFP

Washington: North Korea has displayed its cyberattack capabilities and advances toward making nuclear warheads, the country's adversaries say. Now, the North appears to have shown progress in fitting submarines with missile launchers.

A report posted on Thursday on the website of 38north, a prominent research group that focuses on North Korea, said commercial satellite imagery of a North Korean submarine, taken less than a month ago, indicates the vessel may have one or two vertical launching tubes for either ballistic or cruise missiles.

The submarine, first seen last July, could be an experimental test bed for underwater missile launching, which would be harder to detect than land-based launchers, the report said. It was written by Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., an arms expert and authority on North Korea's defence capabilities.

Mr Bermudez cautioned, as have other Western defence experts, that North Korea is not believed to currently have the ability to launch missiles from submarines.
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"Moreover, an effort by Pyongyang to develop an operational, missile-carrying submarine would be an expensive and time-consuming endeavor with no guarantee of success," Mr Bermudez wrote in the report.

Nonetheless, he wrote, "North Korea's development of a submarine-launched missile capability would eventually expand Pyongyang's threat to South Korea, Japan and US bases in East Asia, also complicating regional missile defence planning, deployment and operations."

Reports of North Korea's apparent quest to develop a missile-launching submarine are not new. Mr Bermudez said last year that the North appeared to have built a ground-based test area at its Sinpo South shipyard on the east coast to research and develop single-stage, liquid-propellant missiles fired from a submarine.

Bermudez's report, which coincided with the 32nd birthday of Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, was the latest in a series of indications Kim is ramping up his country's military capabilities despite international sanctions and ostracism.

On Tuesday, South Korea's Defence Ministry said the North appeared to have made a "significant" advance toward perfecting a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on a long-range missile that could reach the US West Coast. The ministry also suggested the North possessed a missile that could fly that far.

US officials also have said, as recently as Wednesday, they believe North Korean hackers were responsible for a series of destructive cyberattacks in November on Sony Pictures, the Hollywood studio responsible for a comedy about the fictional assassination of Kim.

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A Doomsday Plane Reminder: Nuclear Weapons Haven't Gone Away





Here’s a news item you may have missed over the holidays. The “doomsday planes” are being upgraded. Four E-4B flying command posts that would be used by U.S. leaders to manage military operations in a nuclear war will receive communications upgrades to enhance their “connectivity” during a conflict that could spell the end of civilization as we know it.

The reason you may have missed the story is that almost nobody besides InsideDefense.com reported it. National media were too busy covering more weighty matters like the efforts of North Korean agents to suppress a Sony film farce that insults the Dear Leader, and the attack on a French satirical magazine by a motley crew of extremists. How could nuclear Armageddon compete with that?

In fairness, the proposed upgrades to the “national airborne operations center” are just part of a routine reprogramming request that the Pentagon has submitted to Congress. But how often does any facet of the nation’s nuclear complex see the light of day in national media? Other than cheating scandals and an occasional misplaced weapon, the media have ceased paying attention to the most likely way in which America might one day disappear forever.

America’s military hasn’t. One of the four doomsday planes is kept on continuous alert and manned at all times. The planes are designed to stay airborne as long as a week with aerial refueling. All of the on-board equipment is hardened against nuclear effects, including the cockpit windows which are covered with mesh similar to that on your microwave oven. If called into service because of a nuclear crisis, the heavily modified Boeing 747s could each carry a crew of over a hundred specialists for managing the conflict, with communications transmitted through satellite uplinks and a wire antenna trailing five miles behind the plane. If the president and defense secretary have been killed, there are plans in place for devolving command to the most senior official still available.

U.S. military planners take this threat so seriously that when the president goes overseas, one of the doomsday planes always follows. It needs to be nearby at all times, as does the military aide within a few yards of the president carrying nuclear launch codes and communications gear. Similar provisions have been made in Russia, which maintains most of its intercontinental ballistic missiles on a high state of alert for fear of losing them in an American first strike.

The Russians are improving the survivability of their long-range missiles by deploying more of them on mobile launchers that can’t be targeted as easily as fixed silos. But you probably haven’t heard about that either, so let me tell you a bit about them. Most of the missiles will likely be equipped with four warheads that can be independently targeted. We don’t know what the explosive force of each warhead is, however a typical yield for the Russian strategic force is around 500 kilotons — equivalent to half a million tons of conventional high explosives.

There’s nothing conventional about nuclear weapons, though. When a conventional munition is exploded, it heats the immediate vicinity by a few thousand degrees. The heat of a nuclear blast at its center is more akin to tens of millions of degrees. So if one of those 500-kiloton warheads is exploded a mile above Boston or Dallas, everything within a one-mile radius is destroyed, heavy damage extends to three miles, and fires will be widespread out to five miles. Not that it will matter to most of the people near ground zero — they will be killed immediately by blast effects or a wind-spread firestorm that expands faster than they can escape (initial wind speed: 700 miles per hour). People further away will linger longer before succumbing to the effects of prompt and delayed radiation. Electronic devices will be shut down for a hundred miles in every direction due to the electromagnetic pulse generated by the blast.

And that’s just the effects from one nuclear warhead. Russia has over 2,000 nuclear warheads capable of reaching America, a fact that will not change materially if pending arms-control agreements are implemented. That’s actually a big improvement from where things stood at the end of the Cold War, when Russia had over 40,000 strategic and tactical nuclear weapons in its arsenal; the number has shrunk by 90% today if you don’t count the weapons awaiting disassembly.

However, there things are likely to sit for the foreseeable future, because as you undoubtedly have heard, Washington and Moscow aren’t getting along these days. In fact, the relationship is going so poorly that many in the Russian capital fear an attack from the West, which is one reason why strategic rocket forces are kept on a high state of alert. The likelihood of new arms agreements in such circumstances is not high. Besides, U.S. arms-control strategy is grounded in a series of assumptions about how to stabilize the strategic balance that requires giving Russia an “assured destruction” capability against America, so arms agreements aren’t going to eliminate the specter of nuclear war. U.S. military experts figure that if the arsenals on each side fall much below a thousand “deliverable” warheads, cheating would be encouraged by the prospect of achieving military advantage in a future nuclear exchange.

Thus the main protection Americans have against Russian nuclear aggression today is Moscow’s awareness that the U.S. force could ride out a surprise attack and then retaliate by laying waste to the Motherland. That strategy appears likely to work well as long as Russian leaders are rational and don’t make miscalculations in a crisis. If they are crazy, or prone to mistakes, or lose control of their arsenal during a period of instability — well, then all bets are off. You see, a corollary assumption of the way the U.S. currently practices nuclear deterrence is that America’s own homeland can’t be well-defended. That might make Russians worry about the credibility of their deterrent, leading to a destabilizing arms race.

So here we are, apparently doomed to live with the possibility of nuclear war indefinitely. Just ten of the warheads in the Russian arsenal, optimally targeted, could collapse the U.S. electric grid. Fifty would be sufficient to render uninhabitable every U.S. city with a population of over half a million souls. Two hundred would effectively wipe out the U.S. economy, destroying all major transportation, communications, medical and financial networks. There is no guarantee that the nation could ever recover from such a catastrophe (maybe China could pick up the pieces).

Why doesn’t this story get more attention, since it’s the only manmade threat that really could wipe out our civilization? One possible reason is that people think nuclear war is very improbable – a failure of imagination, as Thomas Friedman put it after the 9-11 attacks. Another reason, perhaps, is that they’ve simply gotten used to the danger, and prefer not to think about the unthinkable. But a third possibility, which would be worth testing, is that a majority of Americans believe they are defended against nuclear attack, even though in the common-sense definition of that term they are not.

Somehow, Americans have arrived at a time in their history when they spend hundreds of billions of dollars shoring up the security of countries on the other side of the world, but have almost no protection against the one danger that could obliterate everything they cherish. This isn’t just a catastrophe waiting to happen, it is a political cause waiting to be embraced.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorentho...ent-gone-away/

[Ryan Ruck]

Considering Obama is the President, I have mixed feelings about upgrading these planes to ensure survivability.

[American Patriot]

I have a problem with a "discussion" on "Arms Control" "changing numbers".

One assumes the worst about an enemy. They won't reduce anything.

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Russia Plans Joint Military Drills with North Korea

Russia has announced plans for joint military drills with North Korea this year, VOA reported on Saturday.

Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said at a meeting with top brass at the Russian Defense Ministry on Friday that he would hold talks with defense ministry officials from Brazil, Cuba, North Korea and Vietnam, adding Russia would stage joint drills with those countries mobilizing its Army, Navy, and Air Force.

North Korea holds drill targeting US aircraft carrier

• Staff Reporter
• 2015-02-02
• 17:00 (GMT+8)

US aircraft carrier USS George Washington. (File photo/CNS)

Kim Jong-un personally commanded a North Korean military exercise in late January, which was centered around the attack of a US aircraft carrier, reports China's Global Times.

Kim urged the Korean People's Army to increase its combat readiness against US aircraft carrier striking groups. The dictator is confident that the carriers can be beaten if the army diligently studies and improves its strategies for guerrilla warfare and looks for weaknesses in the enemy, the report said.

During the exercise, Kim learned about the deployment methods and orders in an island invasion scenario. The island reportedly doubled as an mock aircraft carrier. The first order that Kim gave was sending out the North Korean Air Force.

He said the country's enemies have been arrogant because of their state-of-the-art military technology. However, a country's military power should not simply be assessed by its weapons and physical strength alone but also on its spirit and ideology, said the report.

Kim denounced the group of "mad dogs" calling North Korea's ideology and system totalitarianism and claiming that they will change the country's socialist system, the report said. Kim said the country will face the US in any war, in any battle and prepare for any condition, conventional or nuclear.

South Korea's Arirang TV said the exercise was the second one that Pyongyang has held in last month. The first was held on Jan. 23.



North Korean pilots vow to use suicide attacks

Feb 03,2015



Amidst growing tensions between North Korea and the United States, Pyongyang issued Monday yet another threat that it will destroy enemies with suicide attacks by its military pilots.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un met with a group of fighter jet pilots who showed outstanding performances during the first combat exercise of this year, the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Monday.

During the meeting, the pilots pledged their commitment to “completely destroy the enemies with the most powerful weapons - their commitment to guard the leader with suicide attacks.”

Kim also told the pilots to continue their exercises to turn enemy strongholds into infernos, the report said.

The threat came as tensions between the North and the United States worsened over recent weeks.

Over the weekend, Kim said his country is ready for any kind of confrontation with the United States including a nuclear war, and declared that Pyongyang won’t make any more efforts to talk to Washington.

“We no longer have an intention to sit down for talks with crazy dogs that openly said they will destroy the socialist system,” Kim was quoted as saying by the North Korean state media on Saturday.

“We are capable of countering all kinds of wars, operations and combat that the U.S. imperialists want,” Kim said. “We are prepared to go into any kind of war, including a war using conventional weapons or even a nuclear war.”

The comments came after a military drill involving fighter jets and submarines armed with torpedoes took place to practice combatting American forces, including an aircraft carrier.

The North’s escalated threats appeared to be an expression of its frustration toward the United States.

Washington has named the North as being behind a cyberattack on Sony Pictures Entertainment, although Pyongyang has denied it.

Last month, Obama also warned that the authoritarian regime of Kim will eventually collapse. “It’s brutal and it’s oppressive and as a consequence, the country can’t really even feed its own people,” Obama said in an interview on YouTube. “Over time, you will see a regime like this collapse.”

The United States also recently turned down the North’s offer to stop a nuclear test in return for a promise to stop annual South Korea-U.S. military drills.

The North also complained that the United States was blaming it for the stalled dialogue.

“We proposed that Sung Kim, special representative for North Korea policy of the State Department, visit Pyongyang, but Washington turned it down,” a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said Sunday.

“During his Asia trip, Kim expressed his intention to meet with us, so we invited him to Pyongyang. The United States has turned it down, and it is now blaming us by giving the impression that the talks could not take place because of our attitude.”

Kim visited Japan and China last week to discuss North Korea issues. A trilateral meeting in Tokyo involving U.S., Japanese and South Korean officials also took place during Kim’s trip.

Kim said in Beijing on Friday that the question is whether the North is ready for any serious and productive discussions on the nuclear issue, stressing that Washington is open for substantive engagement with Pyongyang.

He, however, did not mention a possible trip to Pyongyang or an invitation by the North.

“When the United States announced its plan to improve relations with Cuba, the North began to have a high expectation,” a South Korean official said.

“But Washington repeatedly turned town Pyongyang’s offers, including the invitation to Kim. Now it is beefing up its armed demonstrations.”

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North Korea Threatens US With 'Final Doom'

The warning to the "cesspool" Obama government comes ahead of US-South Korea military exercises branded as invasion preparations.

09:28, UK, Wednesday 04 February 2015

North Korea has warned it will meet any aggression by the "gangster-like" US with conventional weapons, nuclear strikes and cyber warfare.

In a statement headlined "US imperialists will face final doom", the National Defence Commission (NDC), North Korea's top military organisation also ruled out face-to-face negotiations with Washington.

The rhetoric appears to be a reaction to US president Barack Obama last month describing North Korea as the "most cut-off nation on Earth" and speaking about the regime's eventual collapse.

Describing the Obama administration as a "cesspool", the NDC said the president's remarks were a threat to bring on North Korea's downfall.

"Since the gangster-like US imperialists are blaring that they will 'bring down' the DPRK (North Korea) ... the army and people of the DPRK cannot but officially notify the Obama administration ... that the DPRK has neither need nor willingness to sit at negotiating table with the US any longer," the statement said.

It added that the North was capable of bringing about the "final ruin of the US" with its "precision and diversified nuclear striking means".

North Korea is known to have a capable cyber warfare unit, which was blamed for the hacking of Sony Pictures' computer network over the production of The Interview.

The comedy, in which two journalists travel to the country to interview its leader Kim Jong-Un but are recruited by the CIA to assassinate him, caused a revival in tensions between North Korea and the West.

The statement came after reported discussions about the idea of reviving de-nuclearisation talks between Washington and Pyongyang broke down.

North Korea carried out nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013.

It also comes weeks before the beginning of annual US-South Korea military exercises, which usually cause a surge in tensions in the divided peninsula.

North Korea claims these are rehearsals for an invasion, while South Korea and the US say they are purely defensive.

US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said that Washington's position had not changed and that it "continues to offer Pyongyang an improved bilateral relationship" provided it takes action on de-nuclearisation.


North threatens to nuke U.S. in a broad campaign

Severe saber rattling is interpreted as end to effort to hold talks

Feb 05,2015

North Korea threatened Wednesday a nuclear strike against the United States using advanced atomic weapons in an official message to Washington issued by the country’s highest decision-making body headed by its leader Kim Jong-un.

The National Defense Commission released a statement through the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency to declare that it is no longer interested in having talks with the Barack Obama administration.

The statement, issued at the “authorization” of the regime’s young ruler Kim, was the latest in a series of threats issued by Pyongyang against Washington.

Complaining that the Obama administration is trying to induce the North’s collapse, the North threatened “retaliatory action of justice” including a strike on the U.S. mainland.

Americans “should be mindful that the time of nightmares is coming nearer when they will meet the most disastrous, final doom on the U.S. mainland,” the commission warned.

It promised an eye-for-an-eye retaliation campaign against the United States using all possible means, including “smaller, precision and diversified” nuclear weapons. The North said it will operate all its ground, maritime, underground, air and cyberwarfare capabilities strategically to defeat the United States.

The statement appeared to signal an end of recent efforts by the North and the United States to resume talks on ending Pyongyang’s nuclear arms development. It was reported earlier this week that the two countries tried to arrange a meeting but failed.

The North’s threat of a nuclear strike against the United States also came amidst growing concerns in Washington that the young ruler may order another nuclear arms test.

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, chairman of the Defense Intelligence Agency; Mark Chandler, acting director for intelligence for the Joint Staff at the Pentagon; and Lt. Gen. William Mayville, director for operations at the Joint Staff, submitted joint testimony to the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday expressing their concerns, the Voice of America reported.

In the statement, the three top security officials said the North “continues to develop its nuclear and missile programs which pose a serious threat to the U.S. and regional allies.”

They also expressed concerns that the North is developing longer-range missiles capable of hitting the U.S. mainland and trying to develop technology to place miniaturized nuclear warheads on them.

They said the North may conduct another nuclear test, which will be its fourth. In November, the Kim regime already warned that it will conduct a nuclear test in protest of the international community’s pressure over its rights abuses.

Military tensions on the Korean Peninsula are expected to worsen as the South and the United States start a joint military exercise next month. The North has protested the annual drill.

South Korea said it will continue efforts to talk with the North. “The government’s stance remains unchanged,” Lim Byeong-cheol, spokesman of the Unification Ministry, said Wednesday.

China Warns Korea Against U.S. Missile Defense

Chinese Defense Minister Chang Wanquan has warned against indirect U.S. attempts to include South Korea in its missile defense system, which is widely believed to be aimed at containing Beijing.

The U.S. Forces Korea wants to deploy the so-called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, which forms the core of Washington's global missile defense.

Chang was speaking at a South Korea-China defense ministers meeting in Seoul on Wednesday.


Chinese defense minister Chang Wanquan (left) and his South Korean counterpart Han Min-koo salute during a parade in Seoul on Wednesday.

But a ministry spokesman said Chang "virtually accepted" joint annual South Korea-U.S. military exercises, which regularly provoke the ire of North Korea.

This was the first time the Chinese defense chief has formally expressed his views on the THAAD system to his South Korean counterpart.

The matter was not originally on the agenda.

But Defense Minister Han Min-koo said the U.S. has made no decision or held formal talks with Seoul about the deployment, and even if it did it would not target China but only provide a defense against the North's ballistic missiles, the spokesman added.


N.Korea 'Staging Biochemical Warfare Drills'



North Korea has boosted biochemical warfare drills as part of its regular winter exercises, intelligence agencies here believe.

"Military intelligence believes that the North has carried out at least a dozen massive biochemical drills since late last year," a senior South Korean official said Thursday.

"We believe that could pose a real threat."

The North has often staged small-scale biochemical warfare drills, chiefly in summer, but not in winter when strong winds could potentially wreak havoc with any hazardous substances that escape into the air.

"These are clearly offensive drills planning a biochemical attack," a military officer here said.

Soldiers frequently practice firing multiple rocket launchers wearing gas masks.

The U.S. Air Force in South Korea has started supplying troops with personal protective equipment as the threat of biochemical attacks from the North mounts

The North is believed to rank third in the world in terms of biochemical warfare capability, with an estimated 2,500 to 5,000 tons of chemical weapons that could kill the entire population of South Korea.

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'Tear to pieces the Stars and Stripes' North Korea orders army to PREPARE FOR WAR with USA

NORTH KOREAN tyrant Kim Jong-un has told his army to prepare FOR WAR – sparking fear across the globe.

Published: 18:04, Sat, February 28, 2015 By Cyrus Engineer

REUTERS

North Korea has been told to prepare for war

The brutal dictator made the chilling threat after the US and South Korea staged a joint navel drill involving nearly a dozen warships.


"The prevailing situation where a great war for national reunification is at hand requires all the KPA (Korean People's Army) units to become (elite) Guard Units fully prepared for war politically and ideologically, in military technique and materially," he told troops according to Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).


Kim, who commands one of the world's largest armies, told his forces to train so they can "tear to pieces the Stars and Stripes" – a reference to the American flag.


The US and South Korean drills were a prelude to an eight-week exercise called Foal Eagle which will involve air, ground and navy field training.


It will also involve some 200,000 South Korean and 3,700 US troops.


Both Washington and Seoul insist the military exercises are defence-based in their nature.

AP

A South Korean army K-2 tank fires during a live firing drill at a fire training field in Yangpyeong

GETTY

The US and South Korea regularly conduct war games in the Korean Peninsula

It was recently revealed that North Korea could have as many as 100 nuclear weapons by 2020.


A report released by a US research institute predicted the rogue state's nuclear arsenal could dramatically increase in the next five years.


The report's author, Joel Wit, said: "This is a pretty scary scenario."


Sung Kim, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy, told a Washington seminar said concern over North Korean advances was driving international diplomatic efforts "to find a

credible path to negotiation so that we can stop North Korea's development of their nuclear capabilities."


He said Washington was "under no illusions" about North Korea's willingness to denuclearize voluntarily and would "continue to apply pressure both multilaterally and unilaterally" though
sanctions to increase the cost of failing to do so.

GETTY

North Korea has huge numbers of troops to call on

Last year North Korea threatened to "blow up" the White House during a sabre-rattling attack on the US in the wake of the Sony hacking scandal.


A post published on KCNA called the US a “cesspool of terrorism” and said it had “clear evidence” that Hollywood blockbuster The Interview - featuring the assassination of the North
Korean - was a “propaganda attack” by the US.


The film was temporarily pulled by Sony before its scheduled release after hackers threatened cinema goers who saw the comedy.


The statement, translated from Korean, carried an implicit threat to American institutions and “citadels”.

GETTY

North Korea's nuclear missile programme is a huge risk to the world's security

GETTY

Last year North Korea made implicit threats against the US

“The DPRK [North Korea] has already launched the toughest counteraction,” it said.


“Nothing is a more serious miscalculation than guessing that just a single movie production company is the target of this counteraction.


“Our target is all the citadels of the US imperialists who earned the bitterest grudge of all Koreans.


“The army and people of the DPRK are fully ready to stand in confrontation with the US in all war spaces including cyber warfare space to blow up those citadels.”



Pyongyang vows 'merciless strikes' against the South and US

North Korea tested missiles and warned it will carry out "merciless strikes" against the US and South Korea. The allies are launching joint military drills.




Military officials in North Korea fired two short-range missiles off their east coast on Monday, the South's military reported.

Pyongyang vowed to carry out "merciless strikes" in a move being seen as a protest against US and South Korea joint military drills that were scheduled to begin the same day.


"The situation in the Korean peninsula is again inching close to the brink of war," the North's official KCNA news agency quoted a spokesman for the Korean People's Army (KPA) as saying.


"The only means to cope with the aggression and war by US imperialists and their followers is neither dialogue nor peace," the statement continued, adding that the US and South Korea "should be dealt with only by merciless strikes."


Pyongyang has repeatedly expressed its dislike of the US-South Korea joint military drills, the largest of which is an eight-week exercise called "Foal Eagle," involving air, ground and naval fleet training. Around 200,000 South Korean and 3,700 US troops will participate in the drill.


Washington and Seoul insist that the drill is defensive in nature, but Pyongyang has warned of "counter-actions" in the event that "even a single shell drops on any place over which the sovereignty of the DPRK is exercised."


Nuclear-armed, communist North Korea has continued developing ballistic missiles and rockets despite sanctions and warnings from the international community. The South has claimed that its northern neighbor has developed missile technology to launch nuclear attacks on Seoul, but Pyongyang's nuclear program still remains shrouded in mystery.


mg/bk (Reuters, AFP)

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Why China Accepts North Korea's Nuclear Ambitions

Comments 11
May 21, 2015 1:41 PM EDT
By Noah Feldman

Asia has gone nuts for nukes this week. On the heels of a Pentagon report that China is loading multiple warheads onto its intercontinental missiles, North Korea announced Wednesday that it has developed warheads of its own, making the transition from a nuclear-capable power to a nuclear-loaded one.

The North Koreans may be lying or exaggerating, of course. But even so, the announcement augurs a new stage in the complex relationship between China and North Korea. China regards the north as an unruly client state, annoying in practice but necessary as a buffer between the U.S. forces stationed in South Korea. Now, apparently, China may be prepared to treat North Korea as an actual nuclear proxy, strengthening Beijing's regional position by counterbalancing America's allies in Seoul.

The difference between an irritating ally and a valued proxy can be difficult to discern, so let’s start there. Since China began its transformation from communism to a unique brand of state-directed and state-owned capitalism, North Korea has increasingly become an irritant. Ideologically, North Korea is hidebound, a reminder of the bad old days of personality cults and mind control. Economically, it’s a disaster zone -- and needs a steady flow of food and other aid to keep its citizens from starvation.

But from China’s perspective, what’s worse than the archaic politics is North Korea’s crazy-seeming attitude of confrontation with South Korea. Repeatedly, North Korean provocation has brought the countries dangerously close to conflict. A war between them would be a disaster for trade -- China’s main concern for the last 25 years.

Throughout China’s peaceful rise, North Korea’s confrontationalism was also bad for the image Beijing was trying to project. Protecting a belligerent regime made China seem belligerent by association, risking Western distrust that could have spilled over into economic relations.

Still, Chinese leaders realized they were stuck with North Korea for geostrategic reasons. If the north collapsed, and was swallowed into South Korea, then U.S troops could have been stationed on the banks of Yalu River -- unacceptable proximity from the Chinese point of view. So the Chinese approach was to whisper or hint to the West that North Korea was like an unruly child, and couldn’t be completely controlled. By implication, China was communicating that it wished the North Koreans would behave reasonably -- like the Chinese themselves.

For North Korea to boast that it had developed missile-capable warheads would have been unacceptable to China’s leaders during that period of annoyed tolerance. The North Koreans don’t run every key announcement by Beijing; but they’re sophisticated enough to know that their actions will have consequences, and they always anticipate Chinese reaction. In the past, China would almost certainly have felt the need to pressure North Korea to back down from such a claim -- much as China participated in years of multilateral talks aimed to stop North Korea from becoming a full-fledged nuclear power.

This week's events show how starkly circumstances have shifted. The North Koreans apparently judged that, a few days after China’s MIRVs made headlines, Beijing's leaders would be in no position to chide them for publicizing their own nuclear strength.

North Korea clearly interpreted China’s aggressive announcement of multiple warheards as a sign that China wants to project itself as a militaristic regional and global power. The reason, the North Koreans know, is in part to respond to a slowly emerging U.S. containment strategy that involves strengthening the military capacities of America’s Pacific allies such as Japan and South Korea. While Washington insists its goal is simply to ensure free passage throughout the region's economically vital sea lanes, China is feeling boxed in.

In this changed -- and charged -- "cool war" environment, China no longer sees North Korea’s belligerence as an irritant. Instead, it looks like a useful tool. With the U.S. encouraging Japan to give up its constitutionally mandated pacifism, China can now look on with approval, or at least without disapproval, while North Korea brags of weapons that can target not only South Korea but also Japan.

If so, the Chinese need not have approved North Korea’s move in advance, or have abandoned their concerns about a super-charged, hypersensitive, aggressive North Korea. It’s enough that China will realize the benefits of North Korea’s move -- and will refrain from chastisement. Strategic logic will do the rest.

A good theory -- and my interpretation is certainly a theory -- should be falsifiable. This one is. If China now takes identifiable steps to rein in North Korea’s claims or otherwise signal its displeasure, then I -- and perhaps the North Koreans, too -- will have miscalculated.

But if China makes no move to distance itself or to criticize North Korea's announcement, even implicitly, that’ll be a strong indication that a new Beijing-Pyongyang relationship is emerging. A global power confronting another global power needs proxies, as the U.S. and the Soviet Union showed during the Cold War. North Korea was once such a proxy -- and it may be again.

[vector7]

Pentagon readies for cyber ‘war games’ against China, Iran, N. Korea, Russia

In this photo taken March 10, 2015, George Zenner, team captain of the Marine Military Academy CyberPatriot team, practices his security skills before the competition this week in Harlingen, Texas. (AP Photo/Valley Morning Star, David Pike) [URL="http://www.washingtontimes.com/multimedia/image/ap_6b1d457046d4750b700f6a7067009a41jpg/"]more [/URL
By Andrew Blake - The Washington Times - Friday, November 13, 2015

The revised Department of Defense spending bill cleared by Congress this week will see to it that the U.S. Cyber Command is ready for a digital war as cyberattacks continue to strike American computer networks.

Buried deep within the 1,300-plus-page National Defense Authorization Act approved by lawmakers Tuesday is a provision calling for the Pentagon to ensure the U.S. is capable of avoiding a cyber Armageddon with any adversaries.

Specifically, Section 1646 of the bill singles out China, Iran, North Korea and Russia as the nations that the Pentagon’s cyber warriors should be best prepared to fend off.

“The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in consultation with the Principal Cyber Advisor, shall conduct a series of war games through the warfighting analysis division of the Force Structure, Resources, and Assessment Directorate to assess the strategy, assumptions, and capabilities of the United States Cyber Command to prevent large-scale cyber attacks, by foreign powers with cyber attack capabilities comparable to the capabilities that China, Iran, North Korea and Russia are expected to achieve in the years 2020 and 2025, from reaching United States targets,” the section states.

On the heels of recent cyberattacks that allowed hackers to gain unauthorized information from protected companies — including the high-profile breaches of the Office of Personnel Management and Sony Pictures Entertainment — Peter Singer, a strategist and senior fellow at the New America Foundation think tank, said the U.S. ought to be prepared for an online assault capable of crippling entire infrastructures.

“If there was a war with states like a China, Russia, Iran or North Korea, we’d learn ‘cyber war’ is far more than stealing Social Security numbers or email from gossipy Hollywood executives as too often it is used to describe, but the takedown of the modern military nervous system and Stuxnet-style digital weapons,” he told Nextgov, a website covering technology and government.

“Worrisome for the U.S. is that last year the Pentagon’s weapons tester found every single major weapons program had significant vulnerabilities to cyberattack,” Mr. Singer said.

The new NDAA aims to make sure the nation’s arsenal of weaponry can’t be compromised in an offensive cyberattack, either. Elsewhere in the spending bill, the secretary of defense is ordered to “complete an evaluation of the cyber vulnerabilities of each major weapon system of the Department of Defense by not later than December 31, 2019.”

The latest iteration of the 2016 NDAA is expected to be signed by President Obama as early as next week. Previously, the commander in chief vetoed an early attempting to pass the spending bill over restrictions that aimed to keep him from closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

[vector7]

U.S. Says North Korea Rhetoric a Prelude to Attack

New long-range missile or nuclear tests likely

North Korean soldiers walk past statues of deceased leaders Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il / AP

BY: Bill Gertz

March 14, 2016 5:00 am

Escalating threats from North Korea’s communist regime are indicators of a future military attack or another nuclear test in the coming days, according to a recent U.S. intelligence assessment.

Intelligence agencies issued the assessment last week warning that threatening rhetoric from Pyongyang in response to large-scale U.S.-South Korean military exercises and new U.N. sanctions had reached the highest level in years.

The unclassified assessment circulated within government states that the intense language suggests North Korea is preparing for a surprise military strike or a demonstration of strategic capability, such as a new long-range missile test or underground nuclear blast, according to U.S. officials familiar with the report.

On Sunday, North Korean state news media warned its missiles could destroy New York City in a thermonuclear attack.

“Our hydrogen bomb is much bigger than the one developed by the Soviet Union,” the outlet DPRK Today stated.

“If this H-bomb were to be mounted on an inter-continental ballistic missile and fall on Manhattan in New York City, all the people there would be killed immediately and the city would burn down to ashes,” the report said.

Such threatening rhetoric from Pyongyang is typical of the communist regime’s propaganda. However, in the past several weeks the tone and level of threats has been unusually harsh, according to the officials, and that is increasing fears among intelligence analysts that the stepped-up threats are a prelude to military action or nuclear and long-range missile tests.

Official North Korean statements issued March 4 in response to U.N. sanctions said nuclear forces will be bolstered, but gave no specifics. Other references to possible “incidents” on the peninsula were interpreted as North Korea considering military action.

The United Nations imposed new sanctions on North Korea last month for its underground nuclear test and missile tests. The sanctions required all aircraft from North Korea to be inspected and allows North Korean ships to be stopped and searched for illegal goods.

North Korea last conducted a military provocation in August, using mines to severely wound two South Korean soldiers on patrol in the demilitarized zone separating the two countries.

The deadly attack in March 2010 involving a North Korean submarine that torpedoed the South Korean navy patrol boat Cheonan near the sea border with North Korea, killing 46 sailors, was the last major provocation.

That attack was followed in November 2010 by North Korea’s artillery shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, killing four South Koreans and injuring 19.

South Korea took no action in response to the attacks, other than temporarily broadcasting propaganda into North Korea.

Senior Obama administration officials are worried the next military provocation by North Korea will prompt South Korea to drop its past posture of restraint and conduct a major military counterattack against the North that could trigger a new Korean war.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye announced the adoption of a hardline policy toward North Korea following the recent nuclear and missile tests. The new policy included a cutoff of all trade ties with the North.

The current level of North Korean rhetoric against both the United States and South Korea is not unprecedented. But officials said it is the highest seen since 2013 when North Korea issued threats but did not take action in response to the annual U.S.-South Korean exercises known as Key Resolve and Foal Eagle.

An estimated 290,000 South Korean troops and 15,000 U.S. troops are taking part in this year’s war games, which U.S. officials have said include a scenario for how the two allies’ would carry out a military response to the collapse of the Kim regime in Pyongyang.

North Korea’s verbal fusillade this year included denunciations of what Pyongyang called preparations for a preemptive “decapitation” strike against the North Korean leadership.

North Korea has steadily escalated threatening statements over the past several weeks that have included announced plans for nuclear attacks on both South Korea and the United States.

The most worrying statements were authoritative threats attributed to the National Defense Commission, the regime’s most senior organ in charge of military forces, as well as statements directly from North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.

The commission warned Feb. 23 that North Korea would take military action in response to the South Korean exercises, including strikes on the presidential compound in Seoul and attacks on the United States. It also warned that more nuclear and missile tests were likely and that it could conduct military attacks on ships and shell border regions, as occurred in 2010.

Kim also threatened to turn Washington and Seoul into “flames and ashes” last week, according to North Korean state media.

The 33-year-old dictator said he would order an immediate nuclear attack if the U.S.-South Korean military drills harmed a single tree or blade of grass in North Korea.

“I will issue a prompt order to launch attack with all military strike means,” Kim said.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday that the U.S. government takes North Korea’s threats seriously.

“We have to,” Kirby told reporters. “But nothing’s changed about our resolve in terms of, again, acting in concert with the international community to raise the costs on him for this behavior, and inside the alliance to continue to stand by our South Korean allies in defense of the peninsula.”

The Pentagon’s most recent report to Congress on North Korea warned that the Kim regime remains a major threat to the region.

With the world’s fourth-largest military in the world, North Korea could strike with little or no warning, despite shortages of goods and aging equipment, the report said.

“North Korea’s special operations forces, growing artillery, and missile forces provide significant capabilities for small-scale attacks that could rapidly escalate into a larger scale confrontation,” the report said.

North Korea is believed to have between 10 and 20 nuclear weapons, although details of the arsenal are not known.

Its missiles include 620-mile-range Nodongs and intercontinental-range Taepodong-2 missiles that the Pentagon says are disguised as space launchers.

North Korea also is developing intermediate-range missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, the outgoing commander of U.S. Forces Korea, said in a prepared statement to the Senate recently that North Korea is building up nuclear, missile, and cyber forces for its plan of re-unifying the peninsula under its control.

“Similar to his father and grandfather, Kim has likewise demonstrated that violent provocations remain central to North Korea’s strategy,” Scaparrotti said Feb. 23.

The most recent example was the North Korean land mine attack that showed “North Korea remains a credible and dangerous threat on the peninsula,” the four-star general said.

On a possible new Korean conflict, Scaparrotti issued a dire warning: “If deterrence fails, full-scale conflict in Korea would more closely parallel the high intensity combat of the Korean War than the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Furthermore, any conflict with North Korea would significantly increase the threat of the use of weapons of mass destruction.”

Adm. William Gortney, commander of U.S. Northern Command, which is in charge of U.S. missile defenses, told a Senate hearing last week that North Korea is capable of hitting the United States with a nuclear missile.

“As the commander accountable of holding the trigger to defend the nation against that particular threat, I assess that they have the ability to put an ICBM in space and range the continental United States and Canada,” Gortney said, adding that he regards North Korea as having the capability to put a small nuclear warhead on its long-range missiles.

Kim last week was photographed with what he said was a metal sphere identified by the North Koreans as a missile-sized nuclear warhead. Nuclear experts, however, said they doubted the sphere seen in the photograph was an actual warhead.

Adm. Cecil Haney, the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, testified along with Gortney, warning that North Korea would face a devastating nuclear counterstrike if it were to use nuclear arms.

“I can’t tell you exactly what Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, thinks today, this very minute,” Haney said. “But he has to know that he faces a very credible response across our joint military forces if he decides to do the unthinkable.”

The U.S. military recently deployed two U.S. nuclear-capable B-2 stealth bombers to Asia and keeps nuclear missile submarines within range of North Korea during current times of tensions with North Korea.

Kirby, the State Department spokesman, said Friday that the United States has a wide range of tools to prevent North Korea from conducting additional nuclear tests.

“I wouldn’t rule anything in or out at this time,” Kirby said. “I’m not gonna speculate about anything that might happen in the future.”








N. Korea leader orders nuclear warhead test, missile launches

By Giles Hewitt March 15, 2016 2:12 AM

Seoul (AFP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un has ordered an imminent nuclear warhead explosion test and multiple ballistic missile launches, just weeks after being slapped with tough, new UN sanctions, state media reported Tuesday.

The order came after Kim monitored the successful lab-test of the warhead re-entry technology required for a nuclear strike on the US mainland, the North's official KCNA news agency said.

Kim's comments were the latest in a series of daily statements and warnings by Pyongyang, talking up the North's nuclear strike capabilities and threatening attacks on Seoul and Washington.

The main focus of the threats have been ongoing, large-scale military exercises by South Korea and the United States that Pyongyang has condemned as rehearsals for invasion.

In order to boost the reliability of the nation's nuclear deterrent still further, Kim said a nuclear warhead explosion test and test firings of "several kinds" of ballistic rockets would be carried out "in a short time".

The warning came days after state media released photos of Kim posing with what was claimed to be a miniaturised nuclear warhead capable of fitting on a ballistic missile.

Kim had said last week that the North was planning to conduct new tests to gauge the "destructive power" of the new, miniaturised warheads.

While North Korea is known to have a small stockpile of nuclear weapons, its ability to deliver them accurately to a chosen target on the tip of a ballistic missile has been a subject of heated debate.

- Re-entry test -

There are numerous question marks over the North's weapons delivery systems, with many experts believing it is still years from developing a working inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could strike the continental United States.

Others have doubted whether any miniaturised device the North has designed so far would be robust enough to survive the shock, vibration and temperature change associated with ballistic flight.

Tuesday's KCNA report said Kim had personally monitored a test simulating the intense heat and vibration that a nuclear warhead would undergo during atmospheric re-entry.

Using "newly developed heat-resisting material" the warhead was subjected to thermal flows five times hotter than those associated with ICBM flight

The test was a complete success, the agency said, and provided a "sure guarantee" of the warhead's ability to withstand re-entry.

Tensions have been rising on the Korean peninsula ever since the North conducted its fourth underground nuclear test on January 6, followed by a long-range rocket launch a month later.

The UN Security Council responded by adopting a resolution earlier this month laying out the toughest sanctions imposed on Pyongyang to date over its nuclear weapons programme.

The resolution broke new ground by targeting specific sectors key to the North Korean economy and seeking to undermine the North's use of, and access to, international transport systems.

For all Pyongyang's recent claims, most experts rule out the prospect of North Korea launching any sort of nuclear strike with a largely untested system, saying it would be tantamount to suicide given overwhelming US technical superiority.




North Korean leader says will soon conduct nuclear, missile tests

SEOUL | By Jack Kim and James Pearson

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country would soon conduct a nuclear warhead test and a test launch of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the North's official KCNA news agency reported on Tuesday.

Such tests would be in defiant violation of United Nations sanctions that were recently strengthened with the backing of China, North Korea's chief ally.

Kim made the comments as he supervised a successful simulated test of atmospheric re-entry of a ballistic missile that measured the "thermodynamic structural stability of newly developed heat-resisting materials", KCNA said.

"Declaring that a nuclear warhead explosion test and a test-fire of several kinds of ballistic rockets able to carry nuclear warheads will be conducted in a short time to further enhance the reliance of nuclear attack capability, he (Kim) instructed the relevant section to make prearrangement for them to the last detail," the agency said.

South Korea's defense ministry said there were no indications of activities at the North's nuclear test site or its long-range rocket station, but that North Korea continues to maintain readiness to conduct nuclear tests.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye said the North would lead itself to self-destruction if it did not change and continued the confrontation with the international community.

The North's report comes amid heightened tension on the Korean peninsula as South Korean and U.S. troops stage annual military exercises that Seoul has described as the largest ever.

In the apparent re-entry simulation, the official newspaper of North Korea's ruling Workers' Party carried pictures on Tuesday of a dome-shaped object placed under what appeared to be a rocket engine and being blasted with flaming exhaust. In separate images, Kim observed the object described by KCNA as a warhead tip.

The North has issued belligerent statements almost daily since coming under a new U.N. resolution adopted this month to tighten sanctions against it after a nuclear test in January and the launch of a long-range rocket last month.

In 1962, the United States launched a ballistic missile with a live warhead in what was known as the Frigate Bird test. China conducted a similar test in 1966.

"What would be terrible is if the DPRK (North Korea) re-enacted Operation Frigate Bird or the fourth Chinese nuclear test and did a two-in-one," said Jeffrey Lewis of the California-based Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

"For now, though, it looks like a nuclear test and several missile tests in close succession," he said.


TECHNOLOGY DOUBTS

South Korea's defense ministry said after the North's report that it still does not believe the North has acquired missile re-entry technology, which should include the ability to guide the rocket after it re-enters the atmosphere.

U.S. and South Korean experts have said the general consensus was that North Korea had not yet successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead to be mounted on an intercontinental ballistic missile.

More crucially, the consensus is that there have been no tests to prove it has mastered the re-entry technology needed to bring a payload back into the atmosphere.

Kim said last week his country had miniaturized a nuclear warhead.

The North, which has conducted four nuclear tests, also claims that its January nuclear test was of a hydrogen bomb, although most experts said the blast was too small for it to have been from a full-fledged hydrogen bomb.

The North also says the satellites it has launched into orbit are functioning successfully, although that has not been verified independently.

North Korea rejects criticism of its nuclear and missile programs, even from old ally China, saying it has a sovereign right to defend itself from threats and to run a space program putting satellites into orbit.

The new U.N. Security Council resolution sharply expanded existing sanctions by requiring member states to inspect all cargo to and from North Korea and banning the North's trade of coal when it is seen as funding its arms program.

The foreign ministers of South Korea and China discussed the new sanctions against North Korea by telephone late on Monday and agreed it was important to implement them "in a complete and comprehensive manner", China said on Tuesday.


Nukes They Can Use? The Danger of North Korea Going Tactical

By Van Jackson
15 March 2016

On March 2, 2016, Kim Jong Un gave direction to the military to “get the nuclear warheads deployed for national defense always on standby so as to be fired at any moment.” The North reiterated versions of this formulation for days afterwards, including a “preemptive nuclear strike of justice.” These threats drew international attention because of concerns about the prospect of imminent violence, particularly in the wake of unprecedented UN sanctions and the kickoff of Key Resolve, the combined US-ROK annual military exercise.

But focusing on the possibility of near term violence obscures a potentially more dangerous longer term shift: Is North Korea signaling an intention to embrace tactical nuclear weapons? The answer is still unclear, but that option seems increasingly plausible. This should become a serious line of debate for Korea watchers because such a turn has critical consequences for how we think about deterrence and war-fighting on the Korean peninsula.

Why a Tactical Nuclear Turn Is Plausible

The threat of preemptive strikes from North Korea is hardly new. In 2010 alone, North Korea threatened a “preemptive nuclear attack” 20 times. And the typical formulation of North Korean threat rhetoric has often been to establish some “red line” condition—the imposition of sanctions in the 1990s, for instance—that would lead to North Korea launching a full attack, even at the risk of suicide. Scholars (including me) have likewise argued that North Korea has strong incentives to launch preemptive strikes if it believes the survival of the regime is in jeopardy.

While Kim’s recent nuclear threats are in keeping with the types of vitriol the North has unleashed in the past, they are also suggestive—in part because it has a continuous track record of these types of threats—of a North Korea that sees its nuclear weapons as inherently usable. Declaring the deployment or operationalization of nuclear weapons is as close as outside observers are likely to get to North Korea offering doctrinal specificity, and such statements imply Pyongyang may see its nuclear arsenal as something more than a symbolic shield against an invasion (notably, the North also links—rather than decouples—its references to nuclear attacks with the Korean People’s Army, which leaves open the interpretation they are an intrinsic part of warfighting).

But the plausibility of North Korea going down the path of developing tactical nuclear weapons derives from more than merely parsing its external messaging in a particular way, or the fact that Kim made the nuclear readiness statement during the unveiling of a new multiple rocket launcher system. A tactical turn for North Korea would also reflect the dictum that credible threats are usable threats. North Korea must know that it has a credibility problem thanks to a history of bluster. Nuclear-armed missiles do not help remedy that problem; their only plausible kinetic use would be to try to stave off imminent invasion or regime decapitation. North Korea has many goals beyond just survival though, and the military instrument has long been one way it pursues these goals. The question is whether the Kim regime believes that nuclear weapons can be used for something other than survival. The answer, unfortunately, may well be that North Korea believes employing nuclear-armed artillery, rockets, landmines or anything else that would result in low-yield nuclear detonations against localized targets in South Korea will not trigger massive alliance retaliation.

In the past, most crises on the Korean peninsula have been triggered by an alliance caught off guard by North Korean violence despite, in many cases, receiving advanced and explicit warnings from the North about what it intended to do. The reason for the alliance’s historical dismissal of these threats, of course, was entirely due to the latter’s track record of empty threat-making; it was impossible for American and South Korean officials to separate meaningful signals from oceans of noise. Tactical weapons do not make up for this history of hollow threat rhetoric, but they are generally thought of as more employable during combat scenarios than nuclear-armed ballistic missiles.

Our own history of developing tactical nuclear weapons for the European theater originated with the goal of usable—and by extension, more credible—options to counter a Soviet invasion of Europe without automatically being boxed into launching intercontinental ballistic missiles (and therefore unrestricted nuclear war). Minimally, the development and deployment of tactical nuclear weapons makes their use thinkable; militaries will plan to use them if they have them. So to the extent North Korea wishes to shore up its threat credibility problem or attempt to extract coercive leverage from its nuclear arsenal beyond just existential deterrence, tactical nuclear weapons may seem a logical (if mistaken) way of doing so.

The Danger of a Tactical Nuclear Turn

North Korea is on a trajectory with its nuclear and missile programs to achieve an assured second-strike nuclear capability. But if North Korea develops tactical nuclear weapons, it opens the door to operational first-use for reasons of both battlefield efficiency (i.e., the most damage for the least effort) and deterrence (i.e., the implied threat that things may get out of hand). The purpose of its missile forces—a kind of mutually assured destruction—would remain unchanged but there may be a doctrinal distinction between strategic and operational forces.

This path poses a distinct danger because, for the United States, it should not matter whether the nuclear threshold is breached with strategic or tactical weapons. Nuclear first-use—even if only with low-yield, non-strategic weapons—would force the United States into a nuclear warfighting posture, or more precisely, fighting limited conflicts even as an adversary employs nuclear devices. This increases the risk that the United States would resort to nuclear retaliation, which the last formal US Nuclear Posture Review (conducted in 2010) continues to permit as an option. And even if the United States avoids nuclear options itself by limiting alliance counter-attacks to conventional ones, it has no experience fighting nuclear-armed adversaries. We do not know how to “win”—or even what “winning” looks like—when waging military campaigns against nuclear-armed adversaries. What is more, North Korea’s early use of even one low-yield nuclear device may be sufficient to trigger a full-scale US or alliance invasion. Therefore, North Korean employment of tactical nuclear weapons would pose a greater risk of miscalculation and conflict escalation on the Korean peninsula.

Unless North Korea comes out and plainly describes its intentions with regard to operational nuclear employment, the task for Korea watchers is to think through what types of evidence would confirm or disprove suspicions that it is considering a tactical turn with its nuclear doctrine. Unfortunately, past scholarship has not offered much to work with; there is no reliable set of indicators for predicting tactical nuclear developments.

Nevertheless, North Korea’s rhetoric suggests the idea that nuclear weapons are usable. That may be a mere bluff given North Korea’s track record of cheap talk and its emphasis on a strategic deterrent (ballistic missiles), but that future possibility should be taken seriously by the United States and South Korea. Specifically, the possibility of a tactical turn requires preparing for limited military campaigns despite the specter of nuclear threats, waging such campaigns should North Korean adventurism require it, and thinking through how the alliance might react to tactical nuclear scenarios. The most dangerous periods on the Korean peninsula have historically been those brought on by surprise. We should avoid such a fate again by preparing for what may appear unthinkable but remains entirely plausible.




Magnitude 2.2 artificial quake detected in N. Korea: KMA
2016/03/16 15:07

SEOUL, March 16 (Yonhap) -- An artificial earthquake occurred in North Korea Wednesday, presumably due to a blast, South Korea's meteorological agency said.

According to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA), a 2.2-magnitude tremor was detected in an area some 34 kilometers southeast of the country's capital of Pyongyang at around 12:30 p.m.

Considering the depth of the seismic center, which was only about 1 kilometer, the quake seems to have been caused by some sort of blasting work, it said.

"The quake is not believed to be the result of a nuclear test, considering its location or magnitude," a KMA source said.

A 4.8-magnitude earthquake was detected near the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in North Korea in January after the North conducted its fourth nuclear test. Punggye-ri is situated in the northeastern part of the country.




North Korea's nuclear threat not all bluster: analysis

With Pyongyang suggesting it has mastered new technology, it’s time to take nuke threat more seriously.

By: Eric Talmadge The Associated Press, Published on Tue Mar 15 2016

TOKYO—Skeptics of North Korea’s nuclear threat, and there are many, have long clung to two comforting thoughts.

While the North has the bomb, it doesn’t have a warhead small enough to put on a long-range rocket. And it certainly doesn’t have a re-entry vehicle to keep that warhead from burning up in the atmosphere before it could reach a target like, as it has suggested before, Manhattan.

North Korea on Tuesday suggested it will soon show the world it has mastered both technologies.

That would require a huge jump in the North’s suspected nuclear capabilities, so it may be just the latest case of Pyongyang saying with vitriolic propaganda something it cannot demonstrate in tests. But if it delivers, it will put to rest one other comforting thought: that it’s safe for policy-makers in Washington and elsewhere to take North Korea’s claims as mainly just bluster.

“We have proudly acquired the re-entry technology, possessed by a few countries styling themselves as military powers, by dint of self-reliance and self-development,” North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was quoted as saying. The authoritarian country’s state-run media reported he made the comment after meeting scientists and technicians, following what it said was a successful ground test of a re-entry vehicle.

The report said Kim ordered the commencement of preparations for a “nuclear warhead explosion test” and test-firings of “several kinds of ballistic rockets able to carry nuclear warheads” to be conducted soon.

As with all such reports, it’s hard to separate Pyongyang’s wishful thinking from the current reality.

North Korea’s most likely candidate for an intercontinental ballistic missile is generally known as the KN-08 — in North Korea it’s called the Hwasong. The three-stage rocket has an estimated range of 5,000-6,000 kilometres (3,100-3,700 miles), longer if modified further.

That range would be ample for attacks on U.S. military bases in Japan, but not the U.S. mainland. A militarized version of the rocket used to put a North Korean satellite into orbit last month is believed to have — potentially — a much longer range that could reach the U.S.

A new version of the KN-08 was displayed at a military parade in October. IHS Jane’s Defense weekly said it featured a smaller and blunter warhead shape “that could confirm U.S. intelligence assessments and North Korean claims of success in miniaturizing its nuclear warheads.”

But the Pentagon has often expressed incredulity over the reliability of the KN-08 because North Korea has never tested it “end-to-end” — meaning from launch through re-entry and warhead delivery — to prove it works.

Just last week, photos of Kim, splashed across the front page of the ruling party’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper, showed him standing in a hangar filled with ballistic missiles and looking happily down at a silvery orb about the size of a disco ball.

Experts say the object looks very much like a credible nuclear weapon, though it was clearly a mock-up of whatever device the North may have. Kim and his scientists certainly wouldn’t have stood so close to the real thing without radioactivity protection gear. Nor would Kim, a chain smoker, likely have been holding a lit cigarette right next to it.

The message, however, was obvious: We know what you think our weaknesses are, and you might consider thinking twice.

“Every time the North Koreans test another bomb or a missile, I get calls asking what message the North Koreans are trying to send,” wrote Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, in a recent op-ed in the influential Foreign Policy magazine.

“Well, let’s see: They’ve paraded two different ICBMs through Pyongyang, conducted four nuclear tests, showed us a compact nuclear design sitting next to a modern re-entry vehicle in front of one of those ICBMs, and hung a giant wall map of the United States marked with targets and titled ‘Mainland Strike Plan,’ ” he wrote. “Here’s a wild guess: They are building nuclear-armed ICBMs to strike the United States! Why is this so hard to grasp?”

The timing of Pyongyang’s recent moves is crucial.

It’s facing a new UN sanctions package after its Jan. 6 nuclear test — which it claimed was of an H-bomb — and has significantly amped up its rhetoric amid unprecedentedly large-scale war games between the U.S. and South Korean militaries. Those exercises continue through April.

The country is also conducting a 70-day “loyalty campaign” ahead of a once-in-a-generation ruling party congress in May. The congress could be something of a coming-out party for Kim, a venue to emerge from the shadows of his father and grandfather and more firmly establish himself at home and abroad as North Korea’s supreme leader. He could also lay out his own long-term domestic and international agenda.

Kim presumably wants to face these challenges from a position of power — and making nukes his cause célèbre serves that purpose.

Standing firm on nukes bolsters his credibility with hard-liners in the military and reinforces his regime’s defiant, dangerous reputation with Washington and its allies. It also has domestic propaganda value, showing how North Korea, single-handedly and against all odds, can make breakthroughs few countries have accomplished.

Of course, that logic breaks two ways: If the country hasn’t made major advances, exaggerating them is the next best thing, since its technology is notoriously difficult to evaluate.

But Lewis and other experts have expressed concern that Washington, in particular, has a pattern of not taking the North’s purported capabilities seriously enough until a successful test proves their complacency to have been misplaced. While North Korea might declare success prematurely — most outside experts doubt the recent H-bomb claims — it has an established track record of eventually getting there.

Seoul, meanwhile, was holding to its skeptical line.

Its Defence Ministry said Tuesday it remains unconvinced the North has achieved re-entry vehicle technology. Spokesman Moon Sang Gyun said the assessment is based on South Korean and U.S. intelligence. He refused to elaborate.

[vector7]

General says Army at high risk in war against China, Russia
By RICHARD LARDNER
Associated Press
Mar 16, 1:29 PM EDT



WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army's top general says military forces on the ground face a high level of risk if the United States gets into a large-scale conflict against a power such as Russia or China.

Testifying Wednesday on Capitol Hill, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley says years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, constrained budgets and troop cuts have had a cumulative effect on the service.

Milley says the Army is ready to fight the Islamic State group and other terrorist organizations.

But what Milley describes as a "great power war" against one or two of four countries - China, Russia, Iran and North Korea - would pose greater challenges.

Milley says the Army's readiness is not at a level that is appropriate for what the American people expect to defend them.

Flashbacks:

Sounds familiar...
snip...
After both China and Russia support and foster NK to upset US/SK maneuvers, at what point should any aggressive reaction be a surprise coming from Russia, China or their surrogates as we have failed to react defensively on any level?

I adjusted the title to encompass more posts on the ongoing development of Iran's drone program.

It looks like the Axis are networking and sharing technology in this field.

When new technology shows up in Iran, Venezuela, North Korea or even Cuba these surrogates are getting help from both Russia and China to develop and build up these growing arsenals.

Companion Threads:

• Iran capture of US spy drone 'would be significant blow to military'
  
• Iran ‘shows Russia downed U.S. drones’
  
• Venezuela building drones with Iran, Russia, China
  
• N. Korea developing unmanned attack aircraft from U.S. drones: source
  

So, Iran Has a Drone ...

By Brian Fung
Tweet Sep 25 2012, 6:33 PM ET

Don't worry about it -- yet.

Both Russia and China are becoming united as one military force. They now openly train together with their allies complimenting each others tactical strategic operations in Land, Sea and Aero Space.

Their actions are subtle but if carefully followed they both have infiltrated much of Central / South America and the Middle East. Russia controls almost all of the gas and oil pipelines to Europe and is a growing influence in Eastern Europe.

Both Russia, China and their surrogates vote alike in the UN creating an almost impregnable anti-American block that protects much of the United States enemies.

[Ryan Ruck]

15 years of wearing down the military with minimal acquisitions of new weapons systems, save for those specially geared toward anti-insurgency (i.e MRAPs), all the while making budget cuts.

No surprises.

[vector7]

Final Moments (Short Film) Incoming Nuclear Warhead


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2iaorMgKAM

Published on Sep 18, 2015
Dallas TX
Drake wakes up to sirens, and soon finds out that he is facing the dark reality of nuclear war. Could these be his final moments?

[American Patriot]

I don't think it will be like that for most people. They will be going about their business, waking up or going to bed, or even sleeping when it comes.

[vector7]

Operation Gotham Shield: U.S. Gov’t To “Simulate Nuke Blast Over Manhattan” As Actual War Nears

Mac Slavo April 20th, 2017

False flag watch is now active.

A general alert is out for something major in the near or immediate future. Hopefully, it is just another false alarm, instead of another false flag. Either way, and danger is at hand.

Given all that is going on in the world, it is downright eerie to discover that the federal government is once again staging mock disasters that draw disturbing parallels with current world events.

In just a few days, during April 24-26th, Operation Gotham Shield will commence.

It is a tabletop, joint agency exercise involving FEMA, Homeland Security and a myriad of law enforcement and military agencies. WMD, chemical and biological units will all be on hand as a response is tested for a “simulated” nuclear detonation over the United States’ foremost urban center, in the iconic and densely populated island of Manhattan and nearby shores of New Jersey.

The potential for a more explosive false flag to spin out of control, by hijacking and ‘converting’ the simulated actions, is all too real.

This is closely related to the mechanism that many researchers believe was at work on the day of 9/11, nesting a false flag attack inside of a series of large-scale training operations which invoked emergency powers and simulated attacks in locations that were actually hit.

According to the Voice of Reason:

On April 18th thru May 5th, 2017, state, local, and federal organizations alike are planning for Operation Gotham Shield 2017 — a major nuclear detonation drill in the New York-New Jersey area, along with the U.S.-Canadian border. During this exercise, 4 nuclear devices, 2 of which are rendered “safe” during the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Vital Archer Exercise, and one successful 10kt detonation in the NYC/NJ area, along with one smaller detonation on the U.S./Canadian border are to take place.

Among the organizations involved are:
– U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
– U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)
– U.S. Domestic Nuclear Detection Office (DNDO)
– U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
– U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
– U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM)
– State of New Jersey Office of Emergency Management
– State of New York Office of Emergency Management
– City of New York Office of Emergency Management

The following document comes form The Nevada National Security Service. Their primary role with the government is to help ensure the security of the United States and its allies by supporting the stewardship of the nuclear deterrent, providing emergency response capability and training, and contributing to key nonproliferation and arms control initiatives.

Will anything catastrophic happen during or after that window of time? Will North Korea really attack the U.S. mainland? Will someone else do so, and blame their overseas enemies?

No one who knows the answers to these questions is willing to talk. For now, all we can do is watch, wait and listen.

Don’t jump to fear and speculation, but don’t lie down or look away either.

These will be trying times.

Read more:
If nuclear war breaks out, which U.S. cities would be targeted first?
Here’s How the Deep State Is Trying to Lead Trump into a Nuclear War
Nuclear Power Plants On Alert Following Credible Cyber Threats: “Terrorists May Have Developed Ways Of Bypassing Safety Checks”
DHS Prepares For Nuke Attack With Massive Order For Radiation Detectors: ‘To Ensure Nuclear Devices Aren’t Secretly Being Transported In Public Areas’

http://www.shtfplan.com/conspiracy-f...nears_04202017

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TRUMP CONSIDERING TESTING NUCLEAR WEAPONS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN DECADES



May 23, 2020

By Duncan Smith

President Donald Trump is reportedly considering testing nuclear weapons for the first time in decades, as some have questioned the reliability of the country’s aging atomic infrastructure.

According to the Washington Post, the last full-scale nuclear weapons test was done underground in the Nevada desert in 1992.
As usual, the Left-wing Post put a negative spin on the idea, claiming new tests would have “far-reaching consequences for relations with other nuclear powers.”

The paper added:
The matter came up at a meeting of senior officials representing the top national security agencies May 15, following accusations from administration officials that Russia and China are conducting low-yield nuclear tests — an assertion that has not been substantiated by publicly available evidence and that both countries have denied.

A senior administration official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the sensitive nuclear discussions, said that demonstrating to Moscow and Beijing that the United States could “rapid test” could prove useful from a negotiating standpoint as Washington seeks a trilateral deal to regulate the arsenals of the biggest nuclear powers.

The fact that the Post has no “publicly available evidence” could simply mean that no one in the Trump administration has leaked proof of Russian and Chinese tests.
But nevertheless, tests would certainly prove the U.S. still has the ability to rapidly deploy its nuclear arsenal if, God forbid, it became necessary to defend the country.

“It would be an invitation for other nuclear-armed countries to follow suit,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, told the Post. “It would be the starting gun to an unprecedented nuclear arms race. You would also disrupt the negotiations with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who may no longer feel compelled to honor his moratorium on nuclear testing.”

Maybe. Or it would send an unmistakable message of power, which, of course, is useful when it comes to discussions aimed at trying to convince your nemeses that resistance is futile.

But the fact is, other experts say testing may be necessary in order to ensure the functionality and reliability of the nation’s nuclear stockpile.

Investors Business Daily reported in August 2018 that U.S. nuclear weapons lab scientists questioned the quality and performance of the arsenal in an alarming study.

Some excerpts:
Here are some excerpts from the scientific paper:

“Nuclear tests gave decisive, direct evidence about the behavior of new weapons destined for the stockpile….Virtually no comparable data exist on the nuclear performance of stockpiled weapons in their current state.”

“The nuclear weapons laboratories have a continuing responsibility for maintaining the safety, performance and reliability of these weapons as long as they remain in service….This responsibility cannot adequately be met within the SSP.” (Stockpile Stewardship Program)

“But this approach does not take into account the facts that in the past some serious problems were revealed only as a result of a nuclear test, or that nuclear test data are required to develop and validate the scientific judgement and computer codes that must be used to assess the nuclear performance of weapons .”

“We note further that in the absence of testing the current stockpile maintenance program inevitably promotes a shift in the standard of assurance for the performance of stockpiled weapons from ‘decisive, direct evidence of proper performance’ to ‘absence of evidence of unacceptable performance.’

In so doing, the nuclear weapons program is clearly flying in the face of extensive experience concerning the standards that must be met to confirm the safety, performance and reliability of complex, high-consequence systems.”

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[I]“… it is sometimes claimed that modern codes can provide the basis for accurate and reliable assessments of nuclear performance, so that vital information formerly obtained from vital nuclear tests is no longer needed…. But the claim is not correct….During the nuclear testing era there were generally significant discrepancies between the output of these codes and the nuclear test data to which they were compared.”

“Current performance predictions thus rely on codes, and scientific judgement in the use of those codes, that have never undergone an actual test to see how well they work.”

“However, the ability to make such predictions of the nuclear performance of weapons in their current state has not been demonstrated, and cannot be demonstrated, without a nuclear test program.”

“In the absence of nuclear testing, the nuclear weapons program is exposed to the uncontrolled risk that assessments of the safety, performance, and reliability of weapons in the stockpile are significantly in error.”

“Those who dismiss the need for nuclear test data pert

https://www.thenationalsentinel.com/...me-in-decades/

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The Preparatory Period

May 1, 2020

The generals in Moscow and Beijing were educated under war-fighting principles antithetical to ours. Marxism-Leninism borrowed its military theory from Clausewitz; especially believing that “war is simply the continuation of politics by other means.” (Ibid, p.2) Though Americans will refuse to believe this, Russia’s strategists have long held that nuclear war is no exception to Clausewitz’s rule.

In The Philosophical Heritage of V.I. Lenin and Problems of Contemporary War, edited by Gen. Maj. A.S. Milovidov, we read on page 37 that American strategists are mistaken in their beliefs about nuclear war. The “overwhelming majority” of those who discount nuclear war as a continuation of policy are making a purely “subjective judgment.” This judgment, says Milovidov’s text, “expresses mere protest against nuclear war.”

Moscow’s generals, and Beijing’s generals, have long understood that nuclear weapons are asymmetric. Totalitarian society is adaptable to conditions of nuclear war. Bourgeois society is not. To the American mind, nuclear war makes no sense. Therefore, Americans do not take Russian strategists seriously when they write, “preparation and waging … [of nuclear war] must be regarded as the main task of the theory of military strategy and strategic leadership.” (See the Harriet Fast Scott trans. of Soviet Military Strategy, p. 195.)
Denying that Russian and Chinese strategists are serious, American strategists think in terms of deterrence. Once deterrence fails, America has no strategy. Being uniquely vulnerable, our thinking devolves into denial; that is, the denial of nuclear war, the denial that the enemy means what he says, and that adjustments must be made.

Naturally, the Russian and Chinese strategists agree it would be best to avoid a nuclear war. But the avoidance of war, for the communist bloc, has a completely different meaning than it does for the free world. For the communist, the only alternative to nuclear war is political and social convergence on communist terms. Such may be disguised under the auspices of “sustainable development,” by way of “climate change” treaties, or through trade. There is also the possibility of convergence by way of pandemic — through “global health governance” and the “managed” depopulation of entire regions (i.e., the United States). The present Chinese communist pandemic may be exactly such a device — to accelerate “convergence.” It may also be a nuclear war precursor, deployed to divert and disrupt target societies in advance of the mass use of nuclear rockets. Of course, a pandemic may serve both functions. If the free world does not embrace China’s plan for global health governance, Moscow and Beijing lose nothing. In that event, the turn to war could be seamless, the maskirovka undetected.

Given the central role the Chinese have given to biological attack (as described by Defense Minister Chi Haotian), the communist bloc would have long ago targeted, for infiltration and subversion, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control. America’s engagement with China would provide an even more powerful opening for attack; namely, the American pharmaceutical industry — current bedfellows of China’s military-industrial-medical complex, providing medical ingredients and vaccine-related “precursor” elements (opening a path for binary biological/chemical attack, combining medicines and/or vaccines with a viral weapon, enhancing the lethality of each vector by combination.)

If the West should balk convergence, drawing back from mandatory vaccinations and medical martial law, full-on nuclear war may follow. Sabotage, in this context, is not an imaginary activity of the Chinese and Russian special services. It is one of their specialities, designed for the “preparatory period” in advance of nuclear strikes. The presence of Russian and Chinese agents in our government pose a special danger during this period. The enemy’s operations in Washington, evident in the recent impeachment fracas, are as yet unchecked. In all probability, their attack on the country’s institutions will intensify. Perhaps the most devastating sign of impending attack will be news that hundreds of officials, generals and legislators are in the pay of the enemy.

According to GRU defector Vladimir Rezun, the Russian special services will betray all their high-level agents on the eve of the war — to sow a maximum of distrust and confusion. They will also prepare false allegations against innocent persons — a prewar tactic underway since 2016.

What inclines to the suspicion we are now in the “preparatory period,” is the disappearance of various communist leaders. Vladimir Putin fired his government in January, immediately before the pandemic hit China. Yet the fired Russian prime minister, Dmitri Medvedev, retained his position on the Russian security council. The Russian cabinet vanished (with sparkly nobodies in their place). And now Putin has disappeared as well.

The communist leaders of Nicaragua and Venezuela have also vanished from view. If this is not a strange coincidence, consider the case of Kim Jong-un of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — missing for more than two weeks. Meanwhile, intelligence sources in Asia report that top Chinese leaders are bunkered somewhere in northwest China.

I quote from an Asian source as follows: In Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, “our intelligence organs can confirm: … key leaders … [party and military] have been hiding alternately.” The Asian source adds that China and Russia are studying the West’s reaction to the virus, preparing for “their next moves in more aggressive coordination towards the final phase of thunderous war….” The timing, says the source, will be sudden.

According to Marshal of the Soviet Union K. Moskalenko, writing in Voyennaya mysl’ (January 1969), “The employment of qualitatively new weapons … will create conditions in a future war for the achievement of results in its beginning period which cannot compare with the results of … the past war. The first nuclear strike can immediately lead to the disorganization of the government, military control, and the whole rear area of a country and to stopping the systematic deployment of the armed forces and all measures being conducted for mobilization. All of this will have a telling effect….”

The present situation is not one of peace. When countries of the East Bloc maintain strict secrecy, prohibiting investigations and inquiries, hiding their leaders in remote locations, we ought to set all naive assumptions aside. We have been under intensive ideological attack for many years. Advanced methods of psychological warfare have been deployed against our institutions. Our media has been subverted and used against us. But we elected Donald Trump anyway, and Trump defied the mechanisms of convergence. He balked the communist plan.

So here we are.

https://jrnyquist.blog/2020/05/01/th...ratory-period/

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Omegaman | Episode 7461 - China, Russia and the Future of America - J.R. Nyquist (3hrs)

JR Nyquist talking about what's motivating China and Russia to move now.

Jeff exposes and maps out a lot of dots of the End Game for America....V V V



Here's a Recap of the JR Nyquist Interview posted above ^^^

@8:00min: CCP believes only 60% of the worlds population can be sustainably supported in the future.
40% must be eliminated: Africa, India and America polulations together come to this 40% number. Bio-weapons will be used against Americans to remove the population. Russia has agreed to this and will get Alaska and parts of Canada. The lower 48's most fertile areaas will mostly go to China to feed and house their people.

@21min: BLM Roots, Followed by CCP ties to BLM, Followed by CCP will liquidate these Useful Idiots.

@43min: A rumor from Jeff's sources says a communication was intercepted from China to Pakistan, if they launched a strategic nuclear strike against India; China would back them.

@1:23hr: CCP says Americans must be liquidated inside the US. Followed by the Russian source says a more virulent strain coming in September. Followed by the roots of Communism in America.

@1:37hr: CCP and Russian plans on post fallen America with other participating countries for looting rights and to strip areas and take women. Followed by Red Dawn discussions. Followed by Hitler's leadership was infiltrated by Stalin, post Nazi Germany controlled by Russia.

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[RED DAWN ALERT] ----
RUSSIA LAUNCHES MISSILES NEAR ALASKA, CHINA CLAIMS CONTROL OF THE SEA (9min)