Posted on 05/06/2017 12:37:03 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
Japan has started contemplating future deployment of cruise missiles in response to North Korea’s repeated ballistic missile launches and nuclear tests, a government official said on Friday.
The government is eager to set aside spending to study the potential acquisition of a capability to strike enemy launch sites, possibly in a draft state budget for fiscal 2018, the official told Kyodo News, speaking on condition of anonymity.
However, there are concerns within the government and ruling parties that adoption of strike capability would run contrary to Japan’s exclusively defence-oriented posture and trigger a backlash from opposition parties.
According to the official, the envisaged type of missile is the Tomahawk cruise missile, which was used in a US strike on an airfield in Syria in April.
The Tomahawk is a long-range, all-weather, subsonic cruise missile. It would have enough range to hit any part of North Korea from the Sea of Japan, or East Sea, flying at extremely low altitudes and thus making it less noticeable to radar.
The government is considering deploying Tomahawks on the Maritime Self-Defence Force’s Aegis-equipped vessels, the official said. If they are actually introduced, the ships will also need renovation to carry them.
(Excerpt) Read more at scmp.com ...
What if mistakes were made and a certain well in Qom were spiked?
Designating a weapon system as defensive or offensive is a subjective and mostly useless exercise.
Is a deterrent capability such as cruise missiles, inherently offensive or defensive?
Yes, and who cares.
I thought this policy was connected to a Treaty somehow.
“I thought this policy was connected to a Treaty somehow.”
It is most likely one of the rules imposed by America after WW2 and is in their constitution, like not having nuclear weapons or air craft carriers. (They have a huge helicopter carrier which skirts the constitutional barrier.)
However, if they haven’t developed nuclear weapons, especially after they had to officially protest Obama’s policy of removing nuclear weapons from their supposed umbrella, they’re idiots.
I would not be surprised to learn they had developed but not officially deployed a nuclear deterrent. Because of his ultra-idiot nuclear policy Obama will likely go down in history as the greatest nuclear proliferator in history. He proved that any liberal could, without asking, remove the nuclear umbrella and renounce first use; which will likely guarantee a nuclear war.
Japan could have nuclear weapons in the time it takes to assemble nuclear weapons!
“Japan could have nuclear weapons in the time it takes to assemble nuclear weapons!”
I have no doubt you are correct. However, if Japan assembles nuclear weapons because they need nuclear weapons they will likely have already suffered a first strike that has killed much of their population.
The greatest use of nuclear weapons has been as a deterrent against attack. If you actually build them because you need them, you have already suffered tremendous damage. For the weapons to work as a deterrent they need to be widely advertised and demonstrated. This is one reason I don’t support the testing freeze. Those tests were of old weapons about to be decommissioned. (They go bad over time because the electronics is vulnerable to radiation damage.)
Because of the data the US got from its nuclear testing it is unlikely that our weapons will fail, providing they have been maintained and regularly rebuilt. Did that happen under Obama? I’d guess no. We need to completely revamp our arsenal after each Democrat leaves office.
I suspect, because of Obama, Japan will join a new defense group to protect itself from China whether the US has a Democratic president or no. The new group would likely contain India, Israel, Taiwan and South Korea. (Yes, I am aware the politics of this is daunting. But, necessity and invention...etc.)
Agreed!
But I bet the Japanese already have nukes. However they have constructed them in a clever way so they can nuance their existence in a way that only the subtleties of the Japanese language can convey.
That “alliance” would never, ever happen.
As to the article itself, I find this very interesting. The bigger the first strike is, the more effective it will be. But the timelines on all of these things are what gets me. Is Trump seriously considering striking soon or not? How many years is he planning to wait in order to maximize local forces? How long is he going to give the DPRK to up its air defenses and improve its missiles and nuclear weapons, and increase their numbers?
One of the Military leaders said last week that they still have “tools” yet to go to increase the pressure on Kim...that the degree is about 5 or 6 now....
If this ends up a go...it will be far more detailed in the various things they will be doing all at the same time. As I believe when and if it’s a go it will be to end the Kim Regime in full. So there’s a lot being positioned to act if it comes to that.
“The bigger the first strike is, the more effective it will be. But the timelines on all of these things are what gets me. Is Trump seriously considering striking soon or not?”
There are numerous issues, probably most of which we don’t know. What we do know is North Korea has launched three satellites which cross over the continental US every ninety minutes. They aren’t for communications and their orbits would suggest they aren’t spy satellites. Since it is unlikely the Koreans launched dead weight we can probably assume they are EMP weapons. If they are detonated probably most of the people on life support or who required refrigeration or air conditioning would die. Virtually all automobiles running at the time would be fried. The electrical grid might be offline for days or weeks, as few trucks would be available. No phones. No computers. No internet. The cities would dissolve in riots. ‘
Several times the government has proposed legislation on power companies that would limit the damage. Each time power companies have engaged their lobbyists who contacted their pet Senators and each time the legislation has died in committees.
Most people suffer from normalcy bias. Because something has never happened it will never happen. Well, the North Korean dictator executes family with flame throwers and antiaircraft guns. Do we think he won’t kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of Americans if he could?
I’m okay with Trump’s schedule. Imagine if Obungo was still in charge. We are lucky they weren’t used when he was president. If they were somebody would have written a strongly worded protest...with a ball point pen.
Trump probably has an accelerated program for a weapon to take out those satellites. Nothing will happen until he is certain they won’t kill Americans. (I am okay with that.)
I read somewhere that they have enough high-quality fissionable material to make hundreds of nuclear bombs, and that they could assemble components in a few days. Their stockpile of weapons-grade fissionable material is huge. If need be, they can quickly go into offense mode (once they do away with the constitutional limits).
I think you & I read the same article.
“What we do know is North Korea has launched three satellites which cross over the continental US every ninety minutes.”
This is not true. They’ve only had one (small) successful satellite launch, but it doesn’t appear to have actually transmitted any pictures:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-satellite-orbit-idUSKCN0VI1XN
Furthermore, the DPRK may not even yet have the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon on any ballistic missile (miniaturization is difficult), let alone on an ICBM, let alone all the way to orbit.
Third, the US can (and has proven that it can) shoot down satellites. If there was any suspected weapon of mass destruction in the skies, they’d shoot it down; it’d be a violation of the Outer Space Treaty.
Lastly, your description of the effects of an EMP explosion are hyperbole. EMPs are bad, but they’re not “end of civilization” type chaos that you’re describing. Particularly, EMP effects primarily focus on long lines. Cars, even modern ones with sensitive electronics, are not generally considered to be at significant risk from EMPs. It’s mainly things like power and telephone lines that are at risk. In addition to having only short wiring runs, a car’s metallic body is an electromagnetic shield.
I appreciate your informative post and pray you are correct. The article contained a word that, to me, means the press is in protection mode; “Obama.” I tend not to believe anything published in the Obama era that sounded like it wasn’t a threat to our safety. But putting that aside...I was the Honeywell engineer who wrote all the test procedures for their equipment that went on B-52’s. EMP was problematic as the Air Force would not supply us with the test levels, which were classified. Rather than conduct the tests I had to hand over the equipment to a test facility. We set it up and got it running and they performed the test with none of us present. We were only told either it passed or to go back to the drawing board. Anything that went to the outside world was an antenna. The EMP could also get past clamshell enclosures so we needed metal impregnated gaskets. (What a pain they were. the metal particles needed to be dense with no gaps or the equipment failed. That was some of the most expensive gasket material in existence. Excessive handling destroyed the EMP resistance and we had no way to test that in production.)
I have no idea what level of EMP it takes to damage infrastructure today or even what a bomb would produce from orbit. Here’s a report on the Carrington Event from a solar flare in 1859.
https://owlcation.com/stem/massive-solar-flare-1859
Below is an article describing the effects of an EMP device used in the Iraq war.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-drops-e-bomb-on-iraqi-tv/
I would feel much better if there was some way to test our critical infrastructure to ensure it would survive (Or could be easily reset) an orbital blast.
Here is an article on EMP’s although you write like you’re well past the primer stage on this subject.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-power-grid-20170315-story.html
(Oh, and it’s a Time article. I generally skip them, but the more authoritative sounding sources also mentioned Climate Change and put it in the same category. Incidentally, in one article CC looked like it had been inserted with no background and not apropos to the rest of the article. Another article mentioned that these (EMP) types of attacks are always judged as a 1% probability until they happen; normalcy bias.)
Again, I really hope you’re right.
Regards.
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