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Conspiratiorist posted:I wouldn't really be concerned about this since for the moment they lack the numbers to effectively get past continental US ABM. Any nuclear weapons they're producing right now will target NK/Japan to get past defenses by way of saturation along their MRBMs slash conventional munitions. There was an article in the NYTimes a few weeks ago about funding approved for a fleet of drones to essentially hover outside of North Korean territory constantly to shoot down ICBMS in the boost phase. Obviously something like that wouldn't work against Russia or China (because Russia and China are massive territories with thousands of ICBMs, and wouldn't tolerate our drones), but is there any reason something like that couldn't work in NK? I get that missile defense is a fool's errand against a country with the effectively limitless resources of a major superpower, but North Korea is reasonably small and probably can't realistically deploy more than a few hundred missiles. Also, since you seem to know what your talking about, is there any reason why we couldn't revive something similar to Brilliant Pebbles? I'm aware that Reagan's ABM SPACE LASERS are generally considered a failure, but a decent number of articles I've read seem to indicate that Brilliant Pebbles probably would have worked if the end of the Cold War didn't make it silly to fund. (Brilliant Pebbles was supposed to be a swarm of interconnected tiny satellites that launch a shitton of kinetic interceptors. I'd assume it'd be even cheaper to implement today due to the reduced price of putting things in orbit.)
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Dec 4, 2017 02:43
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Gnumonic posted:There was an article in the NYTimes a few weeks ago about funding approved for a fleet of drones to essentially hover outside of North Korean territory constantly to shoot down ICBMS in the boost phase. Obviously something like that wouldn't work against Russia or China (because Russia and China are massive territories with thousands of ICBMs, and wouldn't tolerate our drones), but is there any reason something like that couldn't work in NK?
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Dec 4, 2017 02:53
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Gnumonic posted:There was an article in the NYTimes a few weeks ago about funding approved for a fleet of drones to essentially hover outside of North Korean territory constantly to shoot down ICBMS in the boost phase. Obviously something like that wouldn't work against Russia or China (because Russia and China are massive territories with thousands of ICBMs, and wouldn't tolerate our drones), but is there any reason something like that couldn't work in NK? I get that missile defense is a fool's errand against a country with the effectively limitless resources of a major superpower, but North Korea is reasonably small and probably can't realistically deploy more than a few hundred missiles. The problem with boost phase interception is that ICBMs get moving very fast, very quickly. They are big, powerful rockets after all. Your missile has to catch a big, powerful rocket with a head start and that isn't easy without building a monster of a missile yourself, like Sprint. Lasers are reaching the point of being useful weapons, but not with the sort of range required to kill stuff 80 miles away or whatever. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 02:57 on Dec 4, 2017 |
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Dec 4, 2017 02:54
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Gnumonic posted:There was an article in the NYTimes a few weeks ago about funding approved for a fleet of drones to essentially hover outside of North Korean territory constantly to shoot down ICBMS in the boost phase. Obviously something like that wouldn't work against Russia or China (because Russia and China are massive territories with thousands of ICBMs, and wouldn't tolerate our drones), but is there any reason something like that couldn't work in NK? I get that missile defense is a fool's errand against a country with the effectively limitless resources of a major superpower, but North Korea is reasonably small and probably can't realistically deploy more than a few hundred missiles. You're not going to shoot ICBMs in the boost phase with drones. Not efficiently, anyway. And setting aside the geopolitical issues with placing weapons in orbit, the US is already very committed to GMD (though they could've gone explosive instead of KK to avoid the particular issue detailed in my post  ) so trying to revive a new space-based ABM program is not really justifiable. It's not going to be effective against China or Russia, and the existing system is already about as good as it gets against isolated actors like NK or (potentially) Iran. And there's a mountain of programs the Pentagon is or will soon need to start throwing money at (Blackhawk and Apache replacements, T-X, B-21, 6th gen fighter, various UAVs, hypersonics, the loving Zumwalts) and they've only got so much budget, so a program that wouldn't add significantly to the US's strategic capabilities is a hard sell. Really, the best policy is to do whatever possible to prevent proliferation  On the other hand, this is the Pentagon we're talking about, so I'm sure they can find a way to write a proposal that diverts funds away from sorely needed social and infrastructure programs, and into the ever-hungry maws of the defense industry.
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Dec 4, 2017 03:47
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Conspiratiorist posted:On the other hand, this is the Pentagon we're talking about, so I'm sure they can find a way to write a proposal that diverts funds away from sorely needed social and infrastructure programs, and into the ever-hungry maws of the defense industry.
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Dec 4, 2017 04:13
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Rent-A-Cop posted:Other than the fact that neither the drones nor the lasers currently exist? I never mentioned lasers, and as far as I'm aware the funding that was allocated was for drones with good old fashioned kinetic missiles. (Lasers are, as far as I know, impossible ATM, since they have a super limited range and you can't fit even a moderately sized one onto any existing drone.) I'll try to dig up the article and edit it into this post, from memory the plan was to adapt drones that are currently in production. I think the idea was to have a ton of drones really close to NK airspace and hope that our satellites give enough notice to either blow up the missile on the launchpad or shoot it down before it boosts to turbo speed. But yeah, I'm not saying this is the best use of our money or anything. On the other hand, if there's a serious risk of nuclear war, there are worse things to spend tax dollars on than making sure LA doesn't get irradiated. Edit: This is what I was referring to. (Sorry if it's paywalled.) Gnumonic fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Dec 4, 2017 |
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Dec 4, 2017 04:18
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Gnumonic posted:I never mentioned lasers, and as far as I'm aware the funding that was allocated was for drones with good old fashioned kinetic missiles. (Lasers are, as far as I know, impossible ATM, since they have a super limited range and you can't fit even a moderately sized one onto any existing drone.) I'll try to dig up the article and edit it into this post, from memory the plan was to adapt drones that are currently in production. I think the idea was to have a ton of drones really close to NK airspace and hope that our satellites give enough notice to either blow up the missile on the launchpad or shoot it down before it boosts to turbo speed. You'd need a loving lot of conventional missile equipped drones in order to be sure to block North Korean launches. At that point it might seriously be cheaper to just invade then try to build a million-drone swarm as you'd need.
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Dec 4, 2017 04:34
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So now that they have a missile that can reach all parts of the U.S., will they still need to test and manufacture it? Apparently not much miniaturization is needed for it Also, I heard it broke up when re-entering the atmosphere
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Dec 4, 2017 04:46
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mediadave posted:A reasonably interesting paper about recent North Korean TV drama and how it has changed under Kim Jong Un: Either the Elites have really loosened up, or some director's about to experience a 3am knock-knock.
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Dec 4, 2017 05:09
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WarpedNaba posted:Either the Elites have really loosened up, or some director's about to experience a 3am knock-knock. None of this was really new, and it was probably at least in some way or primarily a response to things I mentioned earlier. South Korean media had been leaking into the country and TV dramas and period pieces made in the south were extremely more appealing to anyone who could get their hands on them. What you could watch in the north was no comparison and it was very one-note and was overly fond of musical interlude into orchestral national musical pieces, and very absurdly overlaid lessons about proper behavior and militarism. The object intent hasn't really changed for the production except that there was probably now a sense of competition against illicit south korean media, and a desire to switch focus to family portrayal and encouragement of technological and material pursuit through diligent service to the nation. The older stuff in particular from the north was mostly just called 'quite boring.'
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Dec 4, 2017 05:49
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Warbadger posted:If these are interceptors launching from Alaska at missiles from North Korea heading over the North pole toward North America it seems super unlikely they'd land in Russia without slamming into something first. Most of what's downrange in that scenario is ocean. The ground tracks take them over but the actual apogee of the launch may vary. That give you all sort of fun stuff like russian detection radars pointed at us picking things up but them not seeing the North Korean launch.  To get around that you build an ABM site in Thule.  However ABMs are pretty cost prohibitive so long term that is not a race we will likely win without some new tech or methods. Our current system can reliably shoot down 11 to 12 missiles on paper. Past that we will need to add interceptors or cut down the number of interceptors per missile. Source for that work can be found here. https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/1204122/nuclear-deterrence-the-revenge-of-geography/
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Dec 4, 2017 06:39
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As I have already stated before, I don't think that a state of nuclear war will come from this. Neither side wants to start one.
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Dec 4, 2017 07:29
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Willo567 posted:the nuclear experts on twitter That's funny.
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Dec 4, 2017 08:27
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Grouchio posted:As I have already stated before, I don't think that a state of nuclear war will come from this. Neither side wants to start one. TRUMP!
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Dec 4, 2017 08:50
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Grouchio posted:As I have already stated before, I don't think that a state of nuclear war will come from this. Neither side wants to start one. Neither side wants to make the first move, but that doesn't stop either side from rattling sabers a lot, which can often lead to unintentional flash points. Almost all the really close calls to nuclear conflict during the cold war were accidental in nature or caused by one side taking the saber rattling by the opponent as an actual and imminent threat. Humans are just as stupid now, and we only survived the first cold war by sheer luck at times. That luck will eventually run out, and the dice are being rolled a lot right now. And then there's always trump getting convinced nk can still be neutered with conventional weapons, while desperate for something to distract from the russia debacle.
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Dec 4, 2017 09:33
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Yeah, Trump strikes me as the sort to Able Archer poo poo to the brink for the Whiskey Tango vote. Still, given that the WH staff are probably more than aware of what a nuclear exchange would result in, one can only hope that
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Dec 4, 2017 09:37
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People really don't seem to be clear on this. DPRK will not strike first - at least, not unless they genuinely believe they are on the verge of being attacked. They saber-rattle and violate the terms of the armistice in various ways, testing the other side, but they do not actually want to restart the war. However psychopathic and nationalistic their leadership is, they know a war wouldn't be to their benefit. The Allies do not want to strike first - SK does not want to restart the war (for reasons that should be painfully obvious), the US does not want to proceed without SK's support as that'd forever undermine the reasons why they're there in the first place (maintain a base of operations in the Pacific theater through guaranteeing the integrity of an ally) and, however people in this thread want to minimize it, the fact is that China's participation in the conflict is conditional on which side initiates hostilities. Then, does this mean that nothing will happen, because no one wants to fire the first shot? gently caress NO Setting aside the possibilities of the DPRK actually being an irrational actor and initiating out of the blue, or the US managing to wrangle SK into agreeing on a preemptive strike, all the posturing carries the risk of North Korea at some point genuinely believing they're about to be attacked and acting accordingly - and if the order actually comes from the top to really start poo poo, it's very easy for the US to provoke the DPRK into firing at them just so they can say "look, they started it!" This poo poo is for real. The US has no winning geopolitical move in this scenario, and they know it, so it's only a matter of choosing what they want to lose. Tick tock.
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Dec 4, 2017 10:28
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Dude, chill the hell out. They're not irrational actors, you're going to give yourself a stroke if you spazz out about this every time NK does a thing.
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Dec 4, 2017 13:09
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Tias posted:Dude, chill the hell out. They're not irrational actors, you're going to give yourself a stroke if you spazz out about this every time NK does a thing. Oh, it's not North Korea I'm worried about.
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Dec 4, 2017 13:45
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RaffyTaffy posted:The ground tracks take them over but the actual apogee of the launch may vary. That give you all sort of fun stuff like russian detection radars pointed at us picking things up but them not seeing the North Korean launch. "Overfly" does not mean "land in". Without something slowing them dramatically, those kill vehicles aren't landing in Russia. Even China is unlikely. The vast majority of what they will be flying over is the Pacific Ocean and the ballistic tracks of the missiles will not be in the direction of Moscow, St. Petersburg, or the vast majority of strategically important bases which happen to not be in the Eastern boondocks. "The Americans might be airbursting nukes in the stratosphere over Vladivostok and Buttfucknowhereski, Siberia" seems like an odd way to start WWIII. Russia is watching Japan/South Korea/etc. airspace and has some of their newest air defense RADARs deployed around Vladivostok close to North Korea for the S-400s. Ballistic missiles are one of the easiest things possible to see with RADAR because they kinda stick out as a bigass, fast moving chunk of metal against the backdrop of space. Russia is going to see any launch from that area of the world.
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Dec 4, 2017 14:21
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Tias posted:They're not irrational actors 
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Dec 4, 2017 14:31
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Rent-A-Cop posted:The 6th Gen fighter will be a hypersonic VTOL stealth anti-missile space superiority bomber that doubles as a cruiser for the Navy and a low-cost SHORAD platform for the Army. At least this would let the Army have one of the top 20 most expensive DoD programs.
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Dec 4, 2017 16:04
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Conspiratiorist posted:Oh, it's not North Korea I'm worried about. You can panic all day long like it matters, but there's not going to be a nuclear war between Korea and the US. I hope you're not this high strung about everything else.
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Dec 4, 2017 16:06
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Tias posted:You can panic all day long like it matters, but there's not going to be a nuclear war between Korea and the US. I hope you're not this high strung about everything else. There wasn't a nuclear war in the Cold War either, but it had nothing to do with both sides being rational actors who would never go to war. There were multiple instances where nukes were about to start flying due to technical glitches or misinterpretation and only stopped because people down the ladder hesitated instead of doing their jobs. Stanislav Petrov even disobeyed a direct order to begin nuking the United States because he made a judgement call that he legally wasn't allowed to make. Had Petrov done his duty as a soldier and followed orders, there would have been a nuclear war. Boris Yeltsin had his own nuclear football in his hands in 1995 when a Norwegian sounding rocket was mistaken for a nuclear missile, and had the ability to destroy the United States had he not been given further information that clarified that it was a mistake. In these cases, the two nations weren't constantly saying that they were about to nuke the other one. Gerald Ford wasn't talking about how he had plans to totally annihilate the Soviet Union "just in case" and Boris Yeltsin wasn't making weekly proclamations of washing away the United States in nuclear fire, and neither of them were suffering from dementia and narcissism. All it took were misinterpretations of incoming data to nearly wipe out civilization. There's no reason to believe that a similar situation has no way of happening, especially as the current American with ultimate authority to launch a strike against North Korea (nuclear or otherwise) is openly mentally unstable and has ordered a sudden cruise missile strike against a sovereign nation (Syria) in the past. Considering all the times in the past that nuclear war was only prevented by hesitation by individuals, I don't think it's all that unfathomable to consider that something like it could happen again between two leaders that are repeatedly saber rattling at each other. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Dec 4, 2017 |
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Dec 4, 2017 16:30
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It's not unfathomable, but from there to the gimmicky sauce of a user called Conspiratoist freaking out that the US will attack any day now is just wack. If you're at that level of paranoia, I don't even know what to tell you, honestly.
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Dec 4, 2017 17:11
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I think it's at least as likely and possibly more so than the possibility of the Cold War having gone hot. Even without constant threats, saber rattling, occasional small-scale conflict and attacks (like artillery strikes on populated islands or shooting and running over the border to catch a defector), and leadership suffering from dementia, there were at least two cases where nukes were within minutes of launch and likely far more. In a case where tensions are even higher and at least one leader is far more impulsive, inexperienced, and mentally deficient, there's definite cause for concern. Maybe not "Get in the bunker for the next 5 years" levels of concern, but not something that should be discounted as a possibility. My particular fears are: 1. North Korea does something provocative like a repeat of the Yeonpyeong artillery strike that leads to Trump escalating the conflict. 2. Trump thinks that he can do like he did in Syria and fire cruise missiles at North Korean territory, which leads to further escalation. You'll notice a constant thread in both of these. chitoryu12 fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Dec 4, 2017 |
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Dec 4, 2017 17:22
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If Trump thought doing something in Korea would be a domestic political victory he'd do it in a second.
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Dec 4, 2017 18:33
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Tias posted:It's not unfathomable, but from there to the gimmicky sauce of a user called Conspiratoist freaking out that the US will attack any day now is just wack. If you're at that level of paranoia, I don't even know what to tell you, honestly. "Freaking out"  My posts have been merely detailing that hostilities are a real possibility. Because they are. Personally, I'm mildly concerned about a minor economic recession and the effect on the tech consumer goods market, but a few hundreds of thousands of Koreans dying and the chance of the US getting embroiled in another Forever War don't really bother me that much (because I'm a horrible person). For the record, I hold the death of nuclear non-proliferation policy, and America learning to live with the chance to get a big bloody nose from one of those little backwards countries they're used to bullying if they engage in adventurism, an outcome that wouldn't surprise me. So, sorry if I've come off as alarmist?
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Dec 4, 2017 21:31
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I've read from two different angles (the Kristof report from NK, and various reports from people close to the US security establishment) that war is closer than most people think, so I don't think you're being alarmist at all. I think the state of 'being alarmed' is pretty reasonable.
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Dec 4, 2017 21:56
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chitoryu12 posted:I think it's at least as likely and possibly more so than the possibility of the Cold War having gone hot. Even without constant threats, saber rattling, occasional small-scale conflict and attacks (like artillery strikes on populated islands or shooting and running over the border to catch a defector), and leadership suffering from dementia, there were at least two cases where nukes were within minutes of launch and likely far more. In a case where tensions are even higher and at least one leader is far more impulsive, inexperienced, and mentally deficient, there's definite cause for concern. Maybe not "Get in the bunker for the next 5 years" levels of concern, but not something that should be discounted as a possibility. this. my worry is the north koreans do something really really dumb and fire a ICMB to fly over the states or maybe land in US waters just to prove they can do it and they are now fully armed. i doubt it will happen. but thats what i see. on your points. a combination of 1 and 2 is likeliest. NK does some poo poo and trump says gently caress it and drops a MOAB on NK. Mozi posted:I've read from two different angles (the Kristof report from NK, and various reports from people close to the US security establishment) that war is closer than most people think, so I don't think you're being alarmist at all. isnt that just lindsey graham saying that poo poo?
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Dec 4, 2017 22:04
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Dapper_Swindler posted:this. my worry is the north koreans do something really really dumb and fire a ICMB to fly over the states or maybe land in US waters just to prove they can do it and they are now fully armed. i doubt it will happen. but thats what i see. I don’t really have any worries about North Korea firing anything that legitimately looks like it’s targeting US territory. There would be sufficient time for the US to respond with a nuclear strike before anything hit or finished its flight over the country, so attempting a threat by overflying the Midwest would probably just end in an actual retaliatory strike. All of my fears are that Trump will continue with the precedent he’s already set and think that he can just order strikes at no consequence because he’s the president.
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Dec 4, 2017 22:12
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Dapper_Swindler posted:isnt that just lindsey graham saying that poo poo? I wish I could find what I was thinking about specifically. Not from Graham, but there are people who think like him. That negotiations obviously aren't working so might as well bite the bullet (as it were.) For the Kristof report, I recommend watching the video he made from North Korea. The opinion of the person on the street right now might not matter in the event of nuclear war but top to bottom they seem to believe that war is coming. If you're not aware of who Nicholas Kristof is, he has seen some real poo poo and I tend to believe what he says. Mozi fucked around with this message at 22:34 on Dec 4, 2017 |
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Dec 4, 2017 22:32
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Dapper_Swindler posted:isnt that just lindsey graham saying that poo poo? Definitely not just him, no. There are a number of experts saying this thing is closer to setting off than people realize. That doesn't mean it's going to happen (neither side actually wants a war), but just that casually assuming everything is fine is wrong. I think Dan Drezner's article about how you may as well behave as though everything's fine because there's nothing you can do about it anyway made sense for most individuals (and he does seem to think a conflict is unlikely just because of how awful the consequences could be even without a nuclear strike on the continental US), but it would be nice if Congress would decide a president who's clearly not cut out for the job and who makes things worse by spouting out stupid bullshit on twitter probably shouldn't be the current occupant of the White House though. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Dec 5, 2017 |
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Dec 5, 2017 02:07
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Sinteres posted:There are a number of experts saying this thing is closer to setting off than people realize.
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Dec 5, 2017 02:14
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Mozi posted:I wish I could find what I was thinking about specifically. Not from Graham, but there are people who think like him. That negotiations obviously aren't working so might as well bite the bullet (as it were.) thats discouraging. not surprised though. the whole thing as been a can thats been kicked down the road and now their are only 2 options left. neither of which are palatable to the US.
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Dec 5, 2017 02:27
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Rent-A-Cop posted:There's never any shortage of "experts" who will predict the end of the world to promote their blog/new book. Guess you'll just have to go with your gut instead, since it's not promoting anything. The reality is that if we were going to launch a (presumably non-nuclear) first strike of some sort, we probably wouldn't want to tell anyone we were going to do it ahead of time. North Korea has good reason to be concerned when we engage in military drills simulating attacks on them, because using one as cover for an actual attack wouldn't be the worst way to do it (though maybe North Korea's state of alarm when we do them would reduce the advantage of our own heightened readiness, who knows). Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 02:51 on Dec 5, 2017 |
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Dec 5, 2017 02:49
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Sinteres posted:North Korea has good reason to be concerned when we engage in military drills simulating attacks on them, because using one as cover for an actual attack wouldn't be the worst way to do it (though maybe North Korea's state of alarm when we do them would reduce the advantage of our own heightened readiness, who knows). I mean, as much fun as it is to get worked up over the Kim regime's 64th annual "We're totally gonna do it this time!" let's not pretend that anyone in the US wants to do anything but maintain the status quo. Blowing up Korea would make a lot of very rich people slightly less rich, and that's the cardinal sin of American politics. Rent-A-Cop fucked around with this message at 03:18 on Dec 5, 2017 |
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Dec 5, 2017 03:12
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Rent-A-Cop posted:If the US wanted to bomb North Korea it is perfectly capable of doing it from Nebraska. Sure, but not enough to take out multiple missile sites before they get a chance to launch something stupid and to take out the masses of artillery on the border with South Korea. A round trip from Nebraska takes a long time. Rent-A-Cop posted:I mean, as much fun as it is to get worked up over the Kim regime's 64th annual "We're totally gonna do it this time!" let's not pretend that anyone in the US wants to do anything but maintain the status quo. Blowing up Korea would make a lot of very rich people slightly less rich, and that's the cardinal sin of American politics. Nobody on either side wants a war, but that doesn't mean two blustery leaders can't bluster their way into one by accident. The Cuban Missile Crisis was bad, but most of the other close calls in the Cold War were accidents. Here's some support for the idea that the military exercises have North Korea on edge. That might be useful if they intended to back down from the path they're on, but they obviously aren't going to do that, so it's just amping up tension without any achieveable goal in mind. https://twitter.com/JChengWSJ/status/937864352958435328 https://twitter.com/JChengWSJ/status/937864605661089792 To be fair, North Korea's always hated those exercises, and would like to stop them permanently regardless of the current crisis. They're obviously more dangerous when things are tense though. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Dec 5, 2017 |
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Dec 5, 2017 03:17
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The U.N. political chief is headed to North Korea tomorrow until friday http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42232852 I doubt much will change
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Dec 5, 2017 03:52
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Willo567 posted:The U.N. political chief is headed to North Korea tomorrow until friday yeah, nothing is gonna change. the nukes/detrance are the only thing keeping them alive.
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Dec 5, 2017 04:06
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