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North Korea launches a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile that can reach distant US bases (apnews.com)

submitted 9 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

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North Korea fired a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile toward the sea on Sunday, South Korea’s military said, two months after the North claimed to have tested engines for a new harder-to-detect missile capable of striking distant U.S. targets in the region.

The launch was the North’s first this year. Experts say North Korea could ramp up its provocative missile tests as a way to influence the results of South Korea’s parliamentary elections in April and the U.S. presidential election in November.

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[-] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 12 points 9 months ago

That is a picture of a guy who’s going to live a long, long time.

[-] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

He supposedly already has plans for his... sister? to take over if he dies.The bigger peoblem is they're a bigger warhawk than kimmy.

[-] hark@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Isn't that the same sister that western media was fawning over when they thought the current leader had died?

[-] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

Surely. I doubt they'd fawn over anyone else.

[-] Neil@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 months ago

She may already be the actual decision-maker/leader and he's just a figurehead. There's quite a bit of evidence that's the case.

[-] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Hmm, that'd definitely explain the rise in warhawkery.

[-] MisterSteve@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

Title SHOULD read...

"North Korea launches a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile that can reach distant US bases...ONCE."

NK would be a smoldering pile of radioactive ash before it made a second launch. And Lil' Kim knows it.

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 2 points 9 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that it detected the launch of a ballistic missile of an intermediate-range class from the North’s capital region on Sunday afternoon.

The Japanese coast guard, quoting the Defense Ministry, said the suspected missile was believed to have landed in the ocean.

In mid-November, North Korea’s state media said it had successfully tested solid-fuel engines for a new intermediate-range ballistic missile that observers say is likely designed to hit U.S. military bases in Okinawa, Japan and the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam.

Leader Kim Jong Un, during visits last week to munitions factories, called South Korea “our principal enemy” and threatened to annihilate it if provoked, the North’s state media said Wednesday.

Experts say Kim likely wants to see South Korean liberals pursue rapprochement with North Korea while maintaining a parliamentary majority status and for former U.S. President Donald Trump to be elected again.

In a key ruling party meeting in late December, Kim vowed to expand his nuclear arsenal and launch additional spy satellites to cope with what he called U.S.-led confrontational moves.

The original article contains 535 words, the summary contains 183 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[+] Altofaltception@lemmy.world -15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Wonder how much of this is in response to US war hawks screeching about Iran and Yemen. It's a pretty good deterrent for a nuclear capable country to say, "if you try anything on us we can target your cities."

[-] xhieron@lemmy.world 11 points 9 months ago

What's there to deter? Anything NK could do to the US that would serve as a deterrent would immediately result in the US glassing Pyongyang. Lil Kim isn't Putin. He doesn't have a half-century of stockpiles to rattle at the US to pretend MAD is still a thing. And neither Putin nor Poohbear would lift a finger to stop it either, because NK's friendship just isn't that valuable, and it won't be for another several decades of pouring the entire GDP into buildup, if ever. US war hawks don't care about North Korea because they don't have to.

[-] Altofaltception@lemmy.world -2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

A deterrent means they don't strike first. The US remains the only country to strike first.

[-] xhieron@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

Citation needed.

[-] hark@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

[-] GBU_28@lemm.ee 5 points 9 months ago

He means nukes

[-] Altofaltception@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Please tell me how many countries have used nuclear weapons, and how many countries have invaded other countries with nuclear weapons.

[-] xhieron@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

So you're suggesting that North Korea is demonstrating its ballistic missiles solely in order to deter the United States from unilaterally launching an unprovoked surprise nuclear strike against North Korea. ...

Okay.

Let's talk about this, I guess.

In the universe in which the US launches an unprovoked surprise nuclear attack against North Korea, I'd like to think we could all agree that the rest of the world, including other nuclear powers, would be united in retaliating, NK ballistic missiles or not. Sure, it's not impossible that the US government could become irrational, but that's I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that nuclear deterrence is about more than that.

Even allowing ad arguendo a Hiroshima-like escalation scenario, we don't actually need the US's nuclear arsenal to do that (see: Tokyo and Berlin bombing campaigns). That is to say--to the extent that NK being a nuclear power might play in an actual deterrence scenario, it's redundant. In all other scenarios, we're not using 1945 military doctrine anyway.

[-] Altofaltception@lemmy.world -1 points 9 months ago

The US has invaded countries for made up reasons. See Iraq, 2003.

[-] xhieron@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

US bad. Got it.

[-] Altofaltception@lemmy.world -1 points 9 months ago

Still waiting on those WMDs.

[-] takeda@lemmy.world -2 points 9 months ago

Because they built them first.

I prefer the US using them and then realizing it is too powerful than Nazis using it to conquer the rest of the world.

[-] Altofaltception@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

TIL there were Nazis in Hiroshima.

[-] hark@lemmy.world 6 points 9 months ago

There was a lot more rhetoric against North Korea in the 00s until they confirmed having a nuke.

[-] takeda@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Care to elaborate?

[-] hark@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

The news at the time talked a lot about hostile nations which included "the axis of evil" that originally comprised of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea for whatever reason. More and more alarms were ringing about how they were going to get a nuke and how much of a problem they are, then they got a nuke and it's been mostly silence except for the occasional news piece like this one. At the time it seemed like the US was ready to go to war with several countries in the name of fighting "terror".

[-] Altofaltception@lemmy.world -3 points 9 months ago

Exactly.

[-] jimbolauski@lemm.ee 1 points 9 months ago

I think it's just Guam they can hit with this rocket. The big news is it uses solid state rockets, those are harder to detect on radar.

[-] VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf 13 points 9 months ago

Old fashioned spinning disk rockets are still best for media storage, though.

[-] takeda@lemmy.world -1 points 9 months ago

Like anyone would be interested in that shit hole.

Nuclear weapons work best if you don't use them as a threat every other week.

[-] Altofaltception@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

Number of nuclear weapons in Iraq = 0. Number of times Iraq has been invaded = 2

Number of nuclear weapons in North Korea = >1. Number of times NK has been invaded = 0.

[-] Nastybutler@lemmy.world -1 points 9 months ago

Yes. Because those are the only factors that matter 🙄

this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024

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