The more worrisome danger with an unhinged and unpredictable Trump is not so much a pre-emptive attack on NK in my opinion. I think it's more likely that he humiliates Kim -- through bullying tweets or false military movements or the fanfare of some special Senate WH meeting or whatever -- into thinking his only out is a first strike against the US or its allies.

Yea, the problem with Kim is he is 100% brainwashed institutionalized. With his father/grandfather, they were more cognizant of the fact they were dictators first and not actual Gods. They were obviously brainwashed too but not to the extent lil Kim is. With Kim, it seems to be the opposite.

Then again, the dude likes the NBA and Disney. So WTF do I know.

Speaking of brainwashed, we don't often understand the full impact of the THAAD defense system here in the US. Most people only know it's controversial, and that NK and China are against it, but they don't know why. From what I've heard, the North Korean people have been brainwashed to believe that the US's deployment of THAAD was for invasion purposes and not self defense. The system was deployed yesterday or the day before, and they're saying it will be operational within days. We can probably expect some heated exchanges after that.

I don't know one way or the other about intent, but missile defense systems would be an important part of supporting an invasion of NK.

Does it really take brainwashing for a North Korean to imagine that's the purpose when every year for 40 years we participate in the largest war games in the world around fighting NK and on even numbered years there's a huge practice invasion?

Contingent plans like leave the island or build a bomb shelter?

You are talking about 500 million people. Where should they all go?

Maybe humiliated was the wrong word. Threatened is more like it, yeah.

North Korea will never start a war for a non-existential reason, eh? :thinkingemoji:

Just in time for Trump to blow **** up on Day 100.

Nobody switch THAAD's power on?

Looks like it was a failure (the missile, not THAAD).

https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/858069182159753216

Cite?

The THAAD and Patriot systems are impressive but bear in mind it's essentially like trying to hit a bullet with another bullet, except for the fact that both missiles are moving a hell of a lot faster than a bullet. Plus if the incoming projectiles are all nuclear tipped then you basically need a 100% success rate to avoid death.

Also, if they ever get space based weapons then forget it. Those re-enter the atmosphere at something on the order of 25,000mph and deploy as multiple re-entry vehicles, each one nuclear tipped. Hitting even one is pretty much impossible, hitting them all is ridiculous.

The whole thing is madness. Buy the little idiot off and forget about him.

Kim may not be crazy or suicidal, but he is certainly imprudent and reckless if he remains committed to a weapons program that, according to you, virtually guarantees an attack from the US.

We've been trying to do that since the 90's.

Kim Jong-un became the supreme commander of the army in December 2011.

Sure, the leadership has changed but North Korea agreed to suspend nuclear work in exchange for aid in 1994, and there were subsequent deals: https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/dprkchron

NK did halt testing and perhaps the nuclear program until the highly unreliable Bush administration made unverified claims that they didn't and stopped following the 1994 agreement.

This happening right after both China and the US seems to be getting tougher on them may not be the bad sign it appears to be. If a bully is confronted on a playground by a powerful adult who gives him one last public warning, he might well lash out one last time to give the impression that he can't be intimidated so as to not be humiliated. But secretly he knows the game is over and will behave from now on. Hopefully this test simply means that something similar is going on in Kim's head

I'd love to know if the US was responsible for sabotaging either or both of the last missile launches. Failures aren't reported by NK media, so we're unfortunately stuck with the narrative of US officials.

David, what do you mean by behave from now on? It may be possible to get Kim to pause his nuclear program with enough pressure from enough directions for enough time, but I doubt he would surrender it completely and risk giving up his whole regime.

NK is such an insanely closed society that it's almost impossible to get assets on the inside to do that kind of work. Possible that there was a Stuxnet-style hack, but even then I think the most plausible explanation is that the rocket just failed, as many early rocket tests in the 50s-60s did.

I think people overestimate the kind of James Bond **** we can pull with NK. Like, John Kasich recently suggested "taking out" Kim with some kind of Seal Team 6-style raid (which is kind of an astonishing thing for a politician to say). I have no idea how you pull that off without eyes on the ground.

And the drumbeat for war begins. Gotta save those poor concentration camp victims, by killing 100s of 1000s of other N. Koreans and putting the same # of S. Koreans at risk. It's our moral obligation!

I'm actually surprised that we haven't gone in that direction yet.

IIRC, there is a treaty against it but when has that stopped us from doing what we wanted.

Lol

American mass incarceration/War on Drugs 60 years+