North Korean girls on a bus, chatting up naive South Koreans.
Posted on 05/23/2005 1:17:10 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
N. Korea Nuke Test Would Pose Challenges
By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 10 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - A nuclear weapons test by North Korea would reverberate around the world, altering the nuclear balance in Asia and posing stark new challenges for U.S. policy-makers and military planners.
Yet, it could also induce China, Russia and other powers to join the United States in seeking U.N.-approved penalties against the hard-line communist country, analysts and diplomats suggest.
With U.S. officials increasingly concerned that North Korea may conduct a test soon, how would Washington respond?
First, the Bush administration probably would try to involve the United Nations. Less clear is whether President Bush would consider a risky military strike ? given North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's million-man army, heavy conventional weaponry and perhaps several nuclear weapons.
"The North Koreans are basically hellbent on proving to the world that they need to be taken seriously. That's dangerous," said Rep. Curt Weldon (news, bio, voting record), R-Pa., vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
"A North Korean test would embarrass China and might actually rally other nations to our position. But the result might push Kim Jong Il to take whatever steps he felt were necessary to rally his people into war," Weldon said.
Weldon, who led a delegation to North Korea in January, said he met last Monday in New York with North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador, Han Song Ryol, and told him, "If you do a test, you're going to set this process back years and years, and it's going to lead to consequences neither of us want."
U.S. officials want China to exert more pressure on its longtime ally. China says bullying rhetoric by the U.S. makes it harder to coax the North Koreans back to the negotiating table.
"The potential downside of a test is enormous," said Kurt Campbell, former assistant secretary of defense for Asia in the Clinton administration. "It would set off a chain reaction in the region with completely impossible-to-predict consequences."
It could even lead South Korea and Japan to rethink their current policy against nuclear arsenals, Campbell said.
North Korea says it has removed fuel rods from a reactor at its main nuclear complex ? a step toward extracting weapons-grade plutonium. U.S. officials say spy satellites spotted the digging of a tunnel and the construction of a reviewing stand in northeast North Korea, possibly suggesting an upcoming test.
Bush's national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, has asserted without elaboration that "action would ... have to be taken" if North Korea went ahead with a test.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters last week, "Escalation on the part of the North Koreans is going to deepen their isolation a lot." She went no further.
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Richard Lugar (news, bio, voting record), R-Ind., said he concluded from a recent meeting with Bush that the president expected other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council ? including Russia and China ? to join him in seeking U.N. penalties against North Korea if there were a test.
China has indicated it opposes such action as a means of leverage over North Korea.
But Lugar said Bush "feels the Chinese ... would take a dim view of the test, to say the least, and would be prepared to go to the U.N. if that is required."
In 1998, India and Pakistan surprised U.S. intelligence analysts with an exchange of underground nuclear blasts. That led to U.S. military and economic penalties against both; most of them have ended.
While the United States knows the location of North Korea's main nuclear complex, it does not know where the North is storing plutonium or atomic bombs that may already be assembled.
"We also suspect that North Korea has some early uranium enrichment capability. We don't know where that is," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
"So a surgical strike is not likely going to be effective. Furthermore, any military action creates the high risk that North Korea will respond using its substantial conventional forces, specifically its artillery, to pulverize Seoul," he said.
About 10 million people live in the South Korean capital, 40 miles south of the border with North Korea.
With U.S. troops heavily involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new front in North Korea would present a nightmare for military planners.
The nuclear standoff with North Korea is potentially more worrisome than one with Iran, also a member of Bush's "axis of evil."
Iran is believed to be several years away from having nuclear-weapons capability.
While a nuclear-armed Iran would most directly threaten Israel, North Korea is believed to have missiles that could deliver nuclear warheads to South Korea and Japan.
North Korea shocked the world in 1998 by test-firing a Taepodong-1 missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean. U.S. and South Korean officials are more concerned about a possible test of a Taepodong-2 missile, which analysts believe is capable of reaching parts of the western U.S., though there are widespread doubts about its reach and accuracy.
Ping!
Why are you still up?
the 'why are you still up' was meant for all, not just you TigerLikesRooster- I'm not singling you out, really...
Which way will Kim wake up with
his hair parted ?!?
ping
Because I live in a completely different time zone.
What does having troops in Iraq have to do with anything?
Does this fool think we would invade? The Airforce and Navy can keep the N.Koreans at bay, and in the dark ages as taking out their electrical infrastructure would date only a few days, and I can guarentee that every important target is already locked into the sights of a Tomahawk somewhere.
Personally, I think we should shoot down the next missile they test with the anti-missile system in Alaska just to put them on notice.
U nuts? They have Seoul within Arty range. It would be a massacre.
I don't think they understand how seriously we do take them..
Personally, I take them as seriously as finding a grizzly bear at my door.
That bear can walk away.. I will then consider a "live and let live" policy..
The bear can attempt to enter the house..
I have only one answer to that..
Kill or be killed..
The US should make it clear to the entire world, at the UN, that even a TEST of a nuclear weapon will be considered an Act Of War which will be met with all the force the US can muster..
Then, the US should be prepared to instantly react by taking out all known NK military targets capable of reaching Seoul.. That includes missile sites as well as artillery, armor, and air bases..
One opportunity to surrender would then be made, and if refused, Pyongyang should be "taken out"..
Additionally, any known or surmised hideouts, bunkers, command quarters, should also be removed..
There is a probability that Seoul will be hit no matter what we do..
That is a price we must decide whether it is worth paying..
Personally, the prospect of NK successfully detonating an Atomic Bomb is the deciding factor..
Once NK proves it has the capability to produce a working WMD, then it will have BUYERS lining up to purchase them..
Buyers that do not have US interests in mind..
Buyers that will more than willing to use said weapons, if not in the US proper, then in IRAQ, Afghanistan, Spain, Italy, France, or any number of nations..
Up to the present, there were only two sources for our enemies to get an atomic weapon.. China, or Russia and a few of it's former satellites.. ( Ukraine comes to mind )
Both of those sources know there is enough "signature" to their weapons that they could probably be identified..
And both sources know enough about international power politics and concepts like "Mutually Assured Destruction", that they control their atomic weapons very carefully..
Recently, Pakistan has been quietly "called on the carpet" and warned about proliferation of atomic weapons technology..
They seem to have gotten the message.. only time will tell.
North Korea, however, is another story..
Due to what appears to be the unbalanced nature of it's leader, the actual proliferation and sale of nuclear weapons technology is the first thing that comes to mind.
Under such circumstances, I can only conclude that the US will not "signal" their intentions to NK, they will strike the first instant a nuclear device is detonated..
And they may use tactical nuclear weapons in a last resort..
It is a battle that must be won, and won quickly..
To do otherwise would (not could, Would) result in great loss of life..
Must bomb NK , its people run to other countries , and if U.S. airforce bomb NK's nukes base , NK will fail . If U.S. don't stop NK , then Iran , Venezuelan will ready take nukes ! That's meaing WWIII !
Ok, yeah, well in that case, lets let them get the bomb, and let them get long range delivery vehicles capable of hitting American cities, and that will make it all better, RIGHT?
And they are going to shell Seoul because our ABM Missile in Alaska takes out their test shot toward Hawaii or Japan?
Hmm.. i think i misread your post.
What I meant to say was that a pre-emptive strike is a huge risk. Even a conventional war wil finish South Korea. If you Nuke NK 1st, the fallout will still kill millions in SK.
Clinton fucked up... but i wonder what options he had...
North Korean girls on a bus, chatting up naive South Koreans.
First you misread the thead. I was being faciecious, as a way of suggesting that simply because Seoul is with in artillery range of North Korea is no reason that we have to bend over backwards and let them acquire the bomb. Please read carefully.
Second, as far as Pakistan being held with kid goves, you need only look at the map to realize that for the US to get to Afganistan (and after 9/11 there was NO QUESTION that we we NOT going to "GET" to Afganistan) we were going to have to go thru Pakistan.
You may call it Kid Gloves, but leading up to the air campaign in Afganistan I can assure you Pakistan was taken into a back room and told, we are flying over you whether you like it or not, - get in the way and we will take you out.
No other route was available, as even your prize India stood in the way of allowing access thru Kasmir, even though that route would have been unsutiable anyway.
Evenutally we arranged access thru Tajikistan and Uzbekistan (at great cost) but only after it was already clear we were going to take the place in less tha 40 days anyway.
Pak it just barely controllable, As soon as the US stops leaning on them they will be uncrontrollable. As soon as Mush leaves the place becomes a free fire zone.
Why did u not give Halliburton a chance to reconstruct Pakistan?
:-(
If North KOrea does this you have Japan talk about nuke South Korea China here domino effect
Kim would see backlash that he never saw before he going very roaney
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