Tag: North Korea

Kim Has A New Toy

Lil Kim has his share of toys, war toys, from rockets, missiles, nukes and now a eye in the sky.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un examined a finished military spy satellite, which his country is expected to launch soon, during a visit to his country’s aerospace agency, where he described space-based reconnaissance as crucial for countering the US and South Korea. As the AP reports, Kim during Tuesday’s visit approved an unspecified “future action plan” in preparations for launching the satellite, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said Wednesday. North Korea hasn’t disclosed a target date for the launch, which some analysts say may be in the next few weeks. That launch would use long-range missile technology banned by past UN Security Council resolutions, although previous missile and rocket tests have demonstrated North Korea’s ability to deliver a satellite into space.

There are more questions, however, about the satellite’s capability. Some South Korean analysts say the satellite shown in North Korean state media photos appears too small and crudely designed to support high-resolution imagery. Photos that North Korean media released from past missile launches were low resolution. Photos released by the Rodong Sinmun newspaper of Tuesday’s visit showed Kim and his daughter—dressed in white lab coats—talking with scientists near an object that looked like the main component of a satellite. The newspaper didn’t identify the object, which was surrounded by a perimeter of red tape. The visit was Kim’s first public appearance in about a month, following a previous visit to the aerospace center on April 18.

Kim said acquiring a spy satellite would be crucial for his efforts to bolster the country’s defense as “US imperialists and [South] Korean puppet villains escalate their confrontational moves” against the North, the KCNA said. He was apparently referring to the expansion of joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea and the allies’ discussions on strengthening their nuclear deterrence strategies to cope with threats from North Korea, which has test-fired around 100 missiles since the start of 2022. The next step in North Korea’s launch preparations, or the “future action plan” state media mentioned, could be installing the satellite on what would likely be a three-stage space rocket, said Kim Dong-yub, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies.

The launch could be conducted as early as mid-June, although Pyongyang might also time the event to major state anniversaries that fall in July, September, or October, the professor said. Spy satellites are among a slew of advanced weapons systems Kim Jong Un has vowed to develop. Others on his wish list include solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-powered submarines, hypersonic missiles, and multiwarhead missiles. North Korea has tested some of those weapons in recent months, including its first test flight of a solid-fuel ICBM last month, but experts say the North may need more time and technological breakthroughs to make those systems functional. In response to North Korea’s military spy satellite, Japan’s military last month ordered troops to activate missile interceptors and get ready to shoot down fragments from the satellite that may fall on the Japanese territory.

Kim keeps expanding his capabilities and eventually the US will have to come to terms with that….but right now China is the mind filling stuff the Pentagon has to deal with….for now.

How far will this go?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Advertisement

North Korea Expands Scope

While the world is paranoid over China and Russia North Korea keeps expanding its capabilities…..nukes, long-range missiles and now its own spy satellite…..

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country has completed the development of its first military spy satellite and ordered officials to go ahead with its launch as planned, state media reported Wednesday. During his visit to the North’s aerospace agency Tuesday, Kim stressed it’s crucial to acquire a space-based surveillance system to cope with what he called serious security threats posed by “the most hostile rhetoric and explicit action” by the United States and South Korea this year, the Korean Central News Agency said. North Korea has said its ongoing torrid run of weapons tests, including its first test-launch of a solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile designed to strike the US mainland last week, are a response to joint military exercises between the United States and its regional allies South Korea and Japan, the AP reports.

At the National Aerospace Development Administration, Kim said military reconnaissance was essential for North Korea to effectively use its methods of war deterrence, according to KCNA. Kim said “the military reconnaissance satellite No. 1” had been built as of April and ordered efforts to speed up final preparations for its launch at a planned date that he didn’t disclose. He said North Korea must launch several satellites to firmly establish an intelligence-gathering capability, KCNA said. Kim also accused the US and South Korea of expanding their hostile military campaigns in the name of bolstering their alliance. He accused the US of transforming South Korea into “an advanced base for aggression” by deploying strategic assets like aircraft carriers and nuclear-capable bombers.

A spy satellite is among an array of high-tech weapons Kim has been developing. The others are a solid-propellant ICBM, a nuclear-power submarine, a hypersonic missile and a multi-warhead missile. North Korea has conducted tests of such weapons, but it is not clear how close they are to operational. North Korea’s previous missile and rocket tests have demonstrated the country has a capacity to send satellites into space. But many experts question whether North Korea has sophisticated cameras to use on a spy satellite, because photos it has released from previous test launches were low-resolution imagery.

Instead of worrying about China and Russia maybe more attention should be paid to the situation and the possibilities around North Korea.

Just a thought.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A New NK Wrinkle

Keeping with the ‘nuke’ meme of the day.

We are always hearing about the the NK missiles and nuke tests and now there is a new wrinkle in the North Korean arsenal…..an underwater nuke drone……

North Korea claimed Friday to have tested a nuclear-capable underwater drone designed to generate a gigantic “radioactive tsunami” that would destroy naval strike groups and ports. Analysts were skeptical that the device presents a major new threat, but the test underlines the North’s commitment to raising nuclear threats, the AP reports. The testing of the purported “nuclear underwater attack drone” was part of a three-day exercise that simulated nuclear attacks on unspecified South Korean targets, which also included cruise missile launches on Wednesday. The tests came as the United States reportedly planned to deploy aircraft carrier strike groups and other advanced assets to waters off the Korean Peninsula.

Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said the new weapon, which can be deployed from the coast or towed by surface ships, is built to “stealthily infiltrate into operational waters and make a super-scale radioactive tsunami through an underwater explosion to destroy naval strike groups and major operational ports of the enemy.” The North Korean report came hours before South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol pledged to make North Korea pay for its “reckless provocations” as he attended a remembrance service honoring 55 South Korean troops killed during major clashes with the North near their western sea border in past years.

KCNA said that the drills were supervised by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who condemned US-South Korean drills that finished Thursday as invasion rehearsals and vowed to make his rivals “plunge into despair.” The drone is named “Haeil,” a Korean word meaning tidal waves or tsunami. KCNA said the North’s latest tests were aimed at alerting the United States and South Korea of a brewing “nuclear crisis” as they continue with their “intentional, persistent and provocative war drills.” KCNA said North Korea’s latest drills verified the operational reliability of the drone, which it said the North has been developing since 2012 and tested more 50 times in the past two years, although the weapon was never mentioned in state media until Friday.

This ought to help fund more adventurism in the Korean Peninsula…..

This is worth a watch for future military commitments from the US.

Let’s see if this news gets as much attention as the Russian nukes in Belarus.  (Any bets?)

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Could The US Be Overwhelmed?

The war in Ukraine has many bloggers predicting that if Ukraine loses then the Russian machine will not stop there and may even use nukes on the rest of the world….especially on the US.

All that may well be accurate but there is very few bloggers that have had anything to say about news that broke just last week (I waited a bit to see if the same doom and gloom would hold as much interest)…

The news to which I am referencing…..

North Korea hosted a military parade Wednesday night in Pyongyang, a celebration of the 75th anniversary of the modern-day Korean People’s Army. But one attraction in particular rolling down the streets of Kim Il Sung Square is now drawing international attention: what the nation’s government claims were a dozen or so Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missiles—the largest number of the nuclear weapons yet witnessed in that country, reports Reuters. “This is cumulatively more ICBM launchers than we’ve ever seen before at a North Korean parade,” Ankit Panda of the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace tweeted of the 11 missiles he counted in images released by state media (check out some of the photos here).

The Hwasong 17, North Korea’s largest ICBM, is believed to be capable of reaching the United States, and the number apparently seen Wednesday might be enough to “conceivably overwhelm the United States’ defense against them, blowing a hole in decades of denuclearization and homeland security policies,” per Politico. The outlet, which reports there may have been as many as 12 of the ICBMs spotted, notes that each one can theoretically hold four nuclear warheads. The US, however, has only 44 interceptors on the ground in Alaska and California to take out any incoming missiles—meaning “it’s possible Pyongyang can fire more warheads at the US than America has interceptors.” Also seen at the parade: vehicles carrying what some analysts think were prototypes of solid-fuel missile canisters, which don’t need to spend time fueling up, as they come preloaded.

In 2020, Chad O’Carroll, founder of the US-based NK News, predicted that North Korea would have “military parades with dozens of ICBMs” and “solid-fuel ICBMs”—by 2040. “We’re only at 2023 and this parade shows rapid progress on these two points,” he tweeted Wednesday. Politico notes that it hasn’t yet been shown that the Hwasong-17 missiles can actually survive reentry or hit a US target from such a distance. But Wednesday’s show “punches a hole in 20-plus years of US homeland missile defense policy predicated on defending against a ‘limited’ missile threat from North Korea,” Panda tells the outlet, which notes that “administration after administration has failed to stop North Korea’s march to this moment.”

Why is this?

Does this not feed their preconceived notions of war and international situations?

Or could it be that this information is just too much for them to retain?

I’ll wait until I see more interest on a subject that most bloggers think is dire…..I may have a long wait.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

North Korea….The Problem

Recently Russia/Putin made a comment about the possibility of the use of a nuke in or around Ukraine…..and the internet went batcrap crazy and the blogs exploded with the prediction of doom and gloom….the end of civilization was a tick away.

North Korea has the nuke capability and the delivery system to deploy the weapons as needed….I said reports…..recently NK responded to the drills that the US and South Korea were having….

North Korea issued a veiled threat Tuesday to use nuclear weapons to get the US and South Korea to “pay the most horrible price in history,” an escalation of its fiery rhetoric targeting the ongoing large-scale military drills between its rivals. Animosities on the Korean Peninsula have been running high in recent months, with North Korea testing a string of nuclear-capable missiles and adopting a law authorizing the preemptive use of its nuclear weapons in a broad range of situations. Some experts still doubt North Korea could use nuclear weapons first in the face of superior US and South Korean forces. North Korea has argued its recent weapons tests were meant to issue a warning to Washington and Seoul over a series of joint military drills that it views as an invasion rehearsal, including this week’s exercises involving about 240 warplanes, the AP reports.

North Korea has argued its recent weapons tests were meant to issue a warning to Washington and Seoul over their series of joint military drills that it views as an invasion rehearsal, including this week’s exercises involving about 240 warplanes. Pak Jong Chon, a secretary of the ruling Workers’ Party who is considered a close confidant of leader Kim Jong Un, called the so-called “Vigilant Storm” air force drills “aggressive and provocative.” He slammed South Korean military leaders over what he called “rubbish” comments that threatened to destroy North Korea if it uses nuclear weapons. South Korea’s military has warned North Korea that using its nuclear weapons would put it on a “path of self-destruction.”
 
“If the US and South Korea attempt to use armed forces against (North Korea) without any fear, the special means of the (North’s) armed forces will carry out their strategic mission without delay,” Pak said, in an apparent reference to his country’s nuclear weapons. “The US and South Korea will have to face a terrible case and pay the most horrible price in history,” he said. US and South Korean officials have steadfastly said their drills are defensive in nature and that they have no intentions of attacking North Korea. South Korean officials have said North Korea could up the ante in coming weeks by detonating its first nuclear test device since September 2017, which could possibly take the country a step closer to its goals of building a full-fledged nuclear arsenal capable of threatening regional US allies and the US mainland.

Lil Kim was thumping his chest, right?

Hours after threatening to use nuclear weapons in response to the US-South Korea joint military drills, North Korea fired a short-range ballistic missile that crossed the sea border separating North and South Korea—the first time that’s happened since the two countries divided in 1948, the BBC reports. Other outlets say the missile landed close to the disputed border, but are not clear on whether it crossed. What was clear was that the missile landed further south than any other since the division, the Guardian reports. Seoul says Pyongyang fired about a dozen missiles in total Wednesday, though apparently just one landed near the tense maritime border, the AP reports. It landed 37 miles from the South Korean city of Sokcho, triggering air-raid alarms on Ulleungdo island.

The North Korean missiles were launched from the east and west coasts, CNN reports. In response, South Korea conducted air-to-surface missile tests, firing three precision-guided missiles near the countries’ eastern border, Seoul said. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that North Korea’s actions were “very unprecedented and we will never tolerate it,” and that the country “will strictly and firmly respond under close South Korea-US cooperation.” National security meetings have been called in South Korea and Japan in response to the latest missile launches.

All that and yet the internet is NOT full of doom and gloom….why is that?

I mean Kim is actually firing missiles….Putin was just talk.

Why no predictions of the end of civilization as we know it?

Maybe it is just the American people falling for the BS of the MSM.

Whatcha think?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

That North/South Thing Again

It seems that the animosities between North and South Korea are heating up once again….this has little to do with the recent missile fired over Japan that got them worried….this time it is in the waters off the peninsula.

North and South Korea exchanged warning shots Monday along their disputed western sea boundary—a scene of past bloodshed and naval battles—in a development that raises worry of possible clashes after North Korea’s recent barrage of weapons tests. South Korea’s navy broadcast warnings and fired warning shots to repel a North Korean merchant ship that violated the sea boundary at 3:42am, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement. North Korea’s military said its coastal defense units responded by firing 10 rounds of artillery warning shots toward its territorial waters, where “naval enemy movement was detected.” It accused a South Korean naval ship of intruding into North Korean waters on the pretext of cracking down on an unidentified ship, the AP reports.

There were no reports of fighting, but the sea boundary off the Korean Peninsula’s west coast is a source of long-running animosities. The American-led UN command drew a boundary at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, but North Korea insists upon a boundary that encroaches deeply into waters controlled by the South. Among the deadly events that have happened in the area are the North’s shelling of a South Korean island and its alleged torpedoing of a South Korean navy ship, both in 2010. The two attacks killed 50 South Koreans. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the North Korean artillery firings Monday breached a 2018 inter-Korean accord on reducing military animosities and undermines stability on the Korean Peninsula. It said the North Korean shells didn’t land in South Korean waters but South Korea is boosting its military readiness.

 

 

Analyst Cheong Seong-Chang at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea said North Korea had likely intentionally plotted its ship incursion because it would be “unimaginable” for a North Korean merchant ship to cross the boundary that early in a day without the permission of the South’s military. The General Staff of the North’s Korean People’s Army accused South Korea of provoking animosities near their land border as well with its own artillery tests and propaganda loudspeaker broadcasts. South Korea has already confirmed it performed artillery firings last week as part of its regular military exercises, but denied that it resumed the loudspeaker broadcasts that both Koreas halted under the 2018 agreement.

Oh goody!

What will this cost the over-stretched American taxpayer to hep South Korea ‘protect’ itself from the aggression of the North?

Biden will promise them more aid, no doubt….like he always does.

This is such crap!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

US Vs North Korea

Four years ago when the other guy was president….the situation with North Korea was all rain bows and lollipops….hugs and love letters….and now those of fantasy are gone.

Since Biden has been elected president….the chest thumping and rhetoric has changed…..but not the tactics.

Since Biden became president he has tried to take a hard line with North Korea…..to which a response has been issued by Kim’s sister…..

For the first time, a high-level regime official in North Korea has addressed remarks directly to President Biden. The warning message took issue with the US and South Korea’s joint military drills, which began March 8, the Japan Times reports. “We take this opportunity to warn the new US administration trying hard to give off (a gunpowder) smell in our land,” Kim Jong Un’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, said. “If it wants to sleep in peace for (the) coming four years, it had better refrain from causing a stink at its first step.” Pyongyang says the drills are “rehearsal for invasion,” but the US and South Korea say the drills, which were scaled down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, are “defensive” in nature and don’t include field training.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made their first trip abroad, discussing North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs during talks in Tokyo and planning for similar discussions Wednesday in South Korea. The US continues to await a response from North Korea after weeks of attempts at making diplomatic contact, the BBC reports. The Biden administration continues to review former President Trump’s North Korea policy, and plans to unveil its policy in the coming weeks, a senior State Department official tells CNN.

The US decided to answer with strong statements….

North Korea conceded Thursday that the US had attempted to establish contact between the two governments. The Biden administration sent emails and tried several ways to deliver telephone messages, even involving a third country. But the Americans’ effort was nothing but a “cheap trick,” a foreign ministry official said, to buy time while the US tried to sway public opinion. “What has been heard from the US since the emergence of the new regime is only lunatic theory of ‘threat from North Korea’ and groundless rhetoric about “complete denuclearization,'” Choe Son Hui said. She also criticized the US for keeping sanctions against her country, Reuters reports, and for conducting military drills with South Korea.

“We don’t think there is need to respond to the US delaying-time trick again,” Choe said in a statement, per the AP. “We have already declared our stand that no US contact and dialogue of any kind can be possible unless the US rolls back its hostile policy toward” North Korea. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are in South Korea, where Blinken told Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong the US will work with his nation and other allies to get North Korea to denuclearize. It’s the first time the US secretaries of state and defense have met with their South Korean equivalents in five years. Blinken and Austin had similar talks in Japan before traveling to Seoul.

Now the Pentagon has joined the chest thumping…..

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned Thursday that American forces are ready to “fight tonight,” in response to North Korea slamming drills resuming between the US and South Korea.

The US and South Korean forces have resumed military drills after pausing the exercises more than a year ago over coronavirus concerns.

“Our force remains ready to ‘fight tonight,’ and we continue to make progress toward the eventual transition of wartime Operational Control to a [Republic of Korea]-commanded, future Combined Forces Command,” Austin said.

(nypost.com)

Tit for tat rhetoric…..chest thumping accomplishes nothing…..

Stop the war cries and let diplomacy step in.

Diplomacy….that means let South Korea take the lead and we need to advise and stand back…..

The U.S. and South Korea have reached two agreements about the near-term future of the alliance, the Biden administration announced before the recent meeting in Seoul. First, the two governments worked out a new cost-sharing arrangement for the extensive U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula. And second, Washington and Seoul assented to suspend many of their annual joint military drills.

The latter is a smart move. It could well lower tensions and make space for useful diplomacy with North Korea, which regards the drills as practice for invasion and often responds with its own provocations in turn. The value of the cost-sharing arrangement is more difficult to assess. On the one hand, its settlement may allow more important diplomatic matters to move to the forefront in the relationship, which is to the good. But this deal also represents a recommitment to counterproductive U.S. dominance of inter-Korean relations, which serves neither U.S. interests nor the cause of peace.

Time For South Korea to Take the Lead on North Korea

Since South Korea has the most to lose and/or gain….they should take the lead on any negotiations.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Biden And North Korea

It is not secret that I do not see much change in the US foreign policy under Biden……it will still be interventionist administration.

https://lobotero.com/2020/11/18/international-challenges-for-biden/

Since North Kora has unveiled a new missile we can start there….

North Korea displayed new submarine-launched ballistic missiles under development and other military hardware in a parade that underlined leader Kim Jong Un’s defiant calls to expand the country’s nuclear weapons program. State media said Kim took center stage in Thursday night’s parade celebrating a major ruling party meeting in which he vowed maximum efforts to bolster the nuclear and missile program that threatens Asian rivals and the American homeland to counter what he described as US hostility, the AP reports. During an eight-day Worker’s Party congress that ended Tuesday, Kim also revealed plans to salvage the nation’s economy, hit by US-led sanctions over his nuclear ambitions, pandemic-related border closures, and natural disasters that wiped out crops.

Kim, wearing a black fur hat and leather trench coat, waved and smiled widely as his troops chanted “Let’s defend Kim Jong Un with our lives!” Flag-waving spectators, unmasked despite a fervent domestic campaign to fend off the coronavirus, cheered as troops rolled out some of the country’s most advanced weapons, including submarine-launched ballistic missiles described by the official Korean Central News Agency as the “world’s most powerful weapon.” The new type of submarine-launched missiles is larger than the ones North Korea has previously tested. The North also displayed a variety of solid-fuel weapons designed to be fired from mobile land launchers, which potentially expand its capability to strike targets in South Korea and Japan, including US military bases there.

How will Biden handle North Korea?

Joe Biden promises to return U.S. foreign policy to its pre-Trump status quo, with a few tweaks. The Biden approach will restore relations with allies, champion multilateral approaches to global problems, reemphasize human rights and democratic norms, and promote selective engagement with major adversaries like China and Russia.

Although this return to the status quo ante is deeply reassuring to the Washington policy elite as well as key U.S. allies, the leadership in Pyongyang will not be so enthusiastic. North Korea has generally preferred bilateral negotiations with the United States, not multilateral talks. It has perceived closer U.S. relations with its allies (like South Korea and Japan) as an intensified encirclement. And it will view a restored emphasis on human rights and democracy as a challenge to its own sovereign right to control what goes on within its own borders.

Biden’s Approach to North Korea and the NPT Option

Then there is the leftovers from Trump….not to worry NK will always remain that other country that the US needs to deal with as soon as possible.

But will we?

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

 

 

Biden And North Korea

North Korea….remember them?

We have seen just how impotent the Trump policies have been in the curtailing of NK’s nuclear ambitions.

Well we have a new president and he has his finger on foreign policy….or so we are told….

What is Biden’s thoughts?

Look for familiar names from the presidency of Barack Obama to deal with North Korea after the inauguration of Joseph Biden as president on Jan. 20. Biden, having served as vice president for two terms under Obama, knows these old-timers well and may be inclined to name some of them to influential positions in hope, finally, of bringing North Korea to terms on its nuclear program.

The chances of Kim Jong-un saying, “right, we agree, and we’re giving up our nukes and missiles and the facilities for making them” range from nil to zero, but Christopher Hill, who led the Americans in failed six-party talks on North Korea’s nukes and then in frustrating negotiations with North Korea’s Kim Gye-gwan, never loses hope. In a Biden presidency, he said in a recent panel discussion, “There will be a little more focus on the substance of engagement and why we are willing to engage.”

…

…Biden’s “first order of business is going to be to fix the alliances.” No, he said, “it’s not just NATO,” the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that formed the bulwark of allied defenses against the old Soviet Union in the Cold War era and now faces Russia, whose president, Vladimir Putin, definitely would prefer Trump. For nearly four years, Trump did his best to undermine NATO, blasting its members for not contributing, cutting back on U.S. forces and, disgracefully, trying to finesse a trade-off with Ukraine on military assistance against Russia in return for Ukraine digging up dirt on Biden’s son, Hunter. 

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2020/11/353_299127.html

New president…will US troops stay in South Korea?  Will Kim remain the social outcast or will a new day dawn in US/NK relations?

It will be interesting to see just in what direction the policies involving the Korean Peninsula will travel.

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

It’s North Korea Again

We have not had much news abut North Korea in the last few months…all the air in reporting has been sucked out by the pandemic and the election…..so it falls on the Old Professor to bring you the news the MSM does not feel you should know.

The nuclear powers have been warned!

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned Saturday that his country would “fully mobilize” its nuclear force if threatened as he took center stage at a military parade in which the country unveiled what appeared to be a new intercontinental ballistic missile and other additions to its growing weapons arsenal, the AP reports. Kim, however, avoided direct criticism of Washington during the event, which celebrated the 75th anniversary of the country’s ruling party and took place less than four weeks before the US presidential election. Instead, he focused on a domestic message urging his people to remain firm in the face of “tremendous challenges” posed by the coronavirus pandemic and crippling US-led sanctions over his nuclear program.

Kim described the North’s continuing efforts to develop its nuclear deterrent as necessary for its defense and said it wasn’t targeting any specific country with its military force. But “if any force harms the safety of our nation, we will fully mobilize the strongest offensive might in a pre-emptive manner to punish them,” he said. Kim’s speech was punctuated by thousands of goose-stepping troops, tanks, armored vehicles, rocket launchers, and a broad range of ballistic missiles rolled out in Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Square. The weapons included what was possibly the North’s biggest-yet ICBM, which was mounted on an 11-axle launch vehicle that was also seen for the first time. The North also displayed a variety of solid-fuel weapon systems that highlighted how the North has expanded its military capabilities.

That huge rocket could be something new…..

We don’t have a name or specifications, just photos from the parade. A lot of the crowd that usually frets about North Korea’s weapons noted this to be the biggest one we saw, and seem to be drawing the conclusion that must mean it’s the most powerful and most dangerous.

Which is just a guess. Size doesn’t dictate power or level of advancement for an ICBM, and if anything this missile is just a huge version of existing designs. Presumably it will go farther because it’s got room for all that fuel, but the ICBM is still just delivering a warhead if it is used.

Since North Korea never tested such a missile, or even bragged about having it, it’s also possible that the point of this big, noticeable design was to be big and noticeable at a parade, and one for an important anniversary.

(antiwar.com)

North Korea and China have developed a more intense cooperation….

In a congratulatory message to Kim Jong Un for the founding anniversary of North Korea’s ruling party, Chinese President Xi Jinping said he intends to deepen relations with Pyongyang, North Korean state media reported on Saturday.

“We have an intent to successfully defend, consolidate and develop the China-Korea relations together with Korean comrades and propel the long-lasting and stable development of the socialist cause of the two countries,” North Korean state news agency KCNA quoted Xi as saying.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-northkorea-missiles-china/chinas-xi-says-intends-to-deepen-relations-with-north-korea-kcna-idUKKBN26U2K2

Yet another front for the US and China to stand-off on.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”