So Trump's forthcoming tweets about Jong over this are really important?

Well, yes of course. But, not as important as little rocket man threatening to nuke the US.

Agree with you that this is a better topic. What should Trump do in your opinion?

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

If they launch one near any of our possessions or territories or even over the U.S. then that's sufficient casus belli to make war on the DPRK. Which would mean we'd end up in a war with China (unless the Chinese do something about Kim first, which I doubt), as well. And then it all spins out of control and becomes a huge sh*t sandwich.

Consider the Orange-Haired Wonder's bluff called, unfortunately. Now the ball's in our court.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Prepare to defend and retaliate.

You tell me, what should Trump do if the little fat man really does launch a nuke?

Why not? Trump said he "will handle it." So what's there to worry about?

That is an easy question for me, retaliate. Maybe not nuclear, but take out all the nuclear facilities and military facilities, and talk about it with China first.

China may not want or be able to control him, but China can't expect or ask us to allow a nuclear hit to us or an ally without response to North Korea. I don't think China has to, or will, defend NK at that point. They ain't stupid. We try to make a deal with China about the response, and who gets what of the former North Korea.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

Lets tell China, "we may have to put a nuke on every NK site we think is a threat, and every site we think Kim might be hanging out. We know this would upset you very much. Sorry. We can't let the threat of this maniac continue. We have no problem with you Chinese types. You guys work your ass off, you make all that stuff we buy at Harbor Freight, so we admire you very much. So nothing personal. We'll give you 15min warning so that you'll know that it's not a strike on you.

China will scream bloody murder at our private communication to them. But the bottom line is that they will not launch nukes at their best customer in retribution for NK. They'll try very hard to keep NK in check. And if they fail, we launch, If that happens, China will bitch bloodly murder, but they will have already decided that NK getting whacked isn't grounds for the end of the world.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

I would simply ask China if it was worth risking a nuclear war to keep the Kim regime in power. China worries more that it'll lose the North as a Communist state and buffer zone between its border and the democratic South. It couldn't care less if Kim stays in power or not, only that the North remain a Communist puppet state. Understanding that, one can see what sort of sub rosa communications we may now be having with the Chinese as regards the DPRK.

Unfortunately for the people of the North, that sort of realpolitik means they have little chance of liberation from Communism anytime soon, but that's probably the best we can do at the moment, because I don't think the South really and truly wants reunification and all the billions and billions of dollars such an event would cost them.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Agreed, and the main reason they will cry bloody murder is to set up their position on the negotiations for the remains of NK.

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It doesn't really matter what Phil is saying, the music of his voice is the appropriate soundtrack for a bicycle race. HTupolev

What harm is it to us if China takes NK land? They will have so much cost to rebuild a messed up country, could take international pressures off and perhaps even some market opportunity for the west that is now embargoed.

Agreed. China taking over NK wouldn't be a bad outcome. The S Korean's wouldn't like it, but it be darn good for both the NK people and also the current state of the Doomsday Clock.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

China doesn't want to sink even more billions of dollars into that cesspit than it's already doing. My guess is, IF (and that's a big "if") they decide to play along, they'll topple Kim and install a more amenable communist regime. One that doesn't have designs on nuclear weapons, that is.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

But hey, lets continue the discussion about the real important things like pocohantas and net neutrality..

This can't be true. Trump warned North Korea about launching another missile (again) and I heard that they now respect America and are afraid of the military power. He also said Obama was weak and the world's bad guys would take advantage of that fact and make America look weak.


I call fake news.

This might be a dumb question but when NK launches these things, how do the US and lithe countries know there isn't a nuke on them? I'm assuming they know they're not armed based on there being no attempt to shoot them down, nor any warnings or evacuations from possible targets that I'm aware of.

Is it just based on taking the trajectory, figuring out it's going to land in the sea, and therefore determining it's just a test? Or can a nuclear warhead actually be detected somehow? I assume we have some human intelligence assets in NK but you'd think they'd want more than that before determining a missile is harmless.

Don't cross that red line? Remember the pubs collective heart attack about that one? I'm more worried about Islamic terrorists killing me than NK ever attacking US mainland. Which is to say, not one goddamn bit.

If the missle type is known, or assumed, the speed and tragectory can give the probably impact site within the first few minutes of flight, to a decently high degree of probablilty.

It's been a handful of years but missile detection systems was something I worked on during my time in the Marine Corps. I'm sure those systems have improved greatly since my time.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

Don't cross that red line? Remember the pubs collective heart attack about that one? I'm more worried about Islamic terrorists killing me than NK ever attacking US mainland. Which is to say, not one goddamn bit.


I've been waiting since August for the fire and fury that Trump threatened in August. I can't imagine what he will threaten now.

Japan is saying the missile crashed in its maritime Exclusive Economic Zone. Looks like the North Korean missile test pause is definitely over.

North Korean missile lands in Sea of Japan, Pentagon says

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Should be able to ID pretty quick if the missile is a threat to the US or not. In order to come here, the missile would have to get a lot of altitude. I imagine that NK tries to avoid ambiguity on this issue because they know how badly we'd feel if we wiped out the ulcer, but maybe it could have been avoided if we'd just waited a little longer so that we were "sure" that the missile was headed for San Francisco.



Unlike terrorists (as far as we know), NK has nukes. Looks like they have the capability of getting one here, that is to say, 1950's technology. Our ability to intercept the nuke is iffy. Even if the nuke hit the corner of the US farthest from you, the impact to our economy would be huge. Heck, they could just do an EMP and do far worse. It would make all our previous depressions look like minor hiccups. Millions out of work, our country struggling to borrow money so that handouts could keep food on our tables, it'd prob be 50yrs before our economy recovered. Remember, during the "Great Depression" we were a "creditor" country, not a debtor country. Might be much harder for the government to borrow to feed us today. So they'd print money, which would soon become so devalued as to be of little value. All sorts of dystopic fiction books would suddenly seem prescient. And it all hangs on the whims of a nutjob.

Imo it's entirely reasonable to be concerned re. NK.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

I think the Norks are still expecting that they'll be successful in squeezing billions of dollars from the US and the West (in exchange for halting missile development), a tactic that's worked remarkably well for them over the last 20 years.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Because politicians choose happy sound bites over hard decisions. Because voters are dumb.

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Books @ Amazon
"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

I think the Norks are still expecting that they'll be successful in squeezing billions of dollars from the US and the West (in exchange for halting missile development), a tactic that's worked remarkably well for them over the last 20 years.


Yes, it's more of the same, just kick the can down the road and hope it goes away.

Pink, right? I had no idea that NK had become such a paradise. Here is an article from some obscure magazine ...

https://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/rick-newman/2013/04/12/heres-how-lousy-life-is-in-north-korea

Did I say it was a paradise? What I said was that North Korea has engaged in a tried-and-true tactic over the last couple of decades (since the mid-1990s), first with nuclear weapons development, then with ballistic missile development, and it's been very successful in squeezing billions of dollars from West -- most of which no doubt goes into the pocket of the favored Kims and the other power centers of the regime. The money -- call it whatever you like... "aid," "foreign aid," "aid to disestablish nuclear power plants," and so forth -- is something that the North has learned to stamp its feet and hold its breath over, until it gets what it wants.

Anyone who follows the doings of the Kim family and the DPRK has understood this for years. I'm mildly shocked that this is such big news here among the intelligentsia. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

That would be an incredibly fortunate resolution for the US. But, I doubt China wants the economic disaster that is NK.

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If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went. - Will Rogers

Emery's Third Coast Triathlon | Tri Wisconsin Triathlon Team | Push Endurance | GLWR

I can appreciate your concern. I'll go on with my blind view of us beating the war drum against yet more opposition we don't anticipate giving us much struggle. Gotta make that loot!!!

Does anyone seriously think that NK would use nukes against the US knowing that total obliteration of their country is the end result?

Yes. Many.

I get that they can track them and figure out destination pretty quickly and accurately. My question was whether there is more? I.e. Do they determine it's not a real nuke based purely on the fact that's it's pointed at the ocean and not a city, or do they have other means of distinguishing an armed ICBM from an unarmed one?

Let's say NK decide to step it up and start firing test missiles that set out towards San Francisco or Tokyo and then abort them before they get there. At that point does the US have to treat it like a serious nuclear attack and try whatever options it has for shooting it down, and start evacuating people or getting them into shelters?

There's a story about the run-up to WWI that many of us military officers learned during stints at this-or-that advanced training course or in getting a graduate degree in national security studies or similar. They used to teach it at the Command and Staff College, as well (though I don't know these days if they still do).

It has to do with the German monarch, Kaiser Wilhelm, and his military's chief of staff. After the archduke was assassinated and all the various countries who'd end up belligerents in the world war to come had invoked various treaty obligations and subsequently armed themselves and begun moving men and materiel close to what they anticipated to be their initial fronts, the Kaiser had a moment of what we'd now call sanity and inquired of his military chief if it would be possible to pull back or even call the entire operation off.

Remember: Germany was vastly well-armed in both men and armaments and long trains of troops and supplies, including artillery cannons and other weapons of war were even then making their way west, towards France, Belgium and other nations on what would become the Western Front.

The Kaiser's military chief informed the nation's monarch that, no, it wouldn't be possible to recall the troops and all their arms and that they'd have to proceed with war.

"But why?" asked the Kaiser.

"Because it would be impossible to mobilize such a huge machine of war again in the near or even mid-term future" the German military man replied, pointing out that the reserves had been issued equipment, that the trains couldn't be unloaded again and then quickly re-stocked if needed and should their enemies decide that negotiations had failed and war would need to be waged.

All of that machinery -- both actual and metaphorical -- could not now be stopped, the Kaiser was told. War it would have to be.

The Kaiser relented and ordered the military to proceed with with all haste, lest one of their enemies catch them unawares. And all because it was nearly impossible, in their view, to stop something so huge once it had gotten rolling.

What I'm pointing out here is that, in some ways, both the US and the Norks may feel that once the locomotive has gained such speed it would be impossible to stop it in its tracks.

This is probably why the Orange-Haired Wonder's response to today's missile launch has mostly been a restrained "We'll handle it" rather than an Indian chief war cry. You have to be careful that you don't add too much steam to an already rolling locomotive, or risk it gaining too much speed to stop it before it runs off the track.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

AFAIK, there's no good way to tell if an ICBM has a nuke inside.

The window of opportunity to take out an ICBM has to be pretty small. Once it gets going, it's moving really damned fast and really high. The time to take out the ICBM is in the boost phase. And that creates another problem. In order to take out a missile during boost, you have to have all the detection, interpretation, and anti-missile resources in place and functioning. That's the kind of stuff we can do pretty well, if we have a mind to. What we don't do well is making decisions in a hurry.

If some LT Cdr in a CIC in some ship off of S. Korea has the authority to launch something that can take out the ICBM seconds after it launches, then we might knock out the ICBM. But chances are, the Lt Cdr doesn't have that authority.....he probably has to contact higher to get approval. At each level of contacting higher for approval, someone has to go fetch the boss out of bed. Once boss gets to the phone he asks "are you sure?" That starts a cascade of "are you sure?" all the way back down to the originator of the request. Approval can take forever unless the Lt Cdr has the authority to hit the red button.

I was on the Korean DMZ for much of 1990. We, the platoons that patrolled the Z at night were supposed to have Bn Mortars in "Direct Support". That is to say, they were totally at our disposal. But......"Release" of those mortars was retained at "Army" level. That meant that the Plt Ldr who decided he needed mortars would have to call to Battalion who would call Brigade, who would call 2nd Infantry Division HQ, who would call 8th Army. At each level, we imagined, the "Are you sure?" would go down the chain of command and a "Yes, for christ's sake, I'm sure. Release the damned mortars." would go back up.

Me and my fellow Platoon Leaders figured that there was no way that all those leaders could get located, woken up, ask and receive answers to their questions, and direct Release of Indirect Fire, any quicker than 24hrs. So having the people, analysis, commo, and weapons systems all in place isn't enough if you don't give the guy at the red button approval authority to fire at his/her discretion.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

I can give Trump a thumbs up on this particular response. I have no idea what it means, but it doesn't matter. I'm happy he didn't stoke the fire even though if he did, it will still leave me with zero fear NK strikes the US. It was as reasonable a response we can expect from Trump.

Okay, so they got virtually nothing, except good ole corruption, while we got much slower development of their nuclear program. BTW, that approach pretty much went out the window in 2002 with the "axis of evil, .... Hey , let's invade Iraq!!" policy, which continues to pay real dividends in so many areas. NK sees nuclear weapons as their only way to survive, and we don't have any plausible policy that can dissuade them of that.

Let's say NK decide to step it up and start firing test missiles that set out towards San Francisco or Tokyo and then abort them before they get there. At that point does the US have to treat it like a serious nuclear attack and try whatever options it has for shooting it down, and start evacuating people or getting them into shelters?

Evacuate where? What shelters? We'd have maybe 30 minutes tops, maybe not even that much time. Best plan would be to put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.

Jump ahead to about the 2 minute mark

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I miss YaHey

Can you explain what they get out of that? They are intent on developing nuclear capability. they can show full capability by hitting a mark in the ocean. Sounds like a plan for ....

You know that he'll unleash the Super-Duper, Double-Dog, All-Out Twitter fire and fury on the North Koreans.
I'd hate to think of the harm his tweets will cause the regime.

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

That's probably not very smart. You realize North Korea is adjacent to Russia too? Real likelihood it'd start WWIII. Russia and China might not actually attempt to a nuclear retaliation to against the U.S., but they'd sure as hell form a very legit military alliance and take the opportunity to seize the the Korean peninsula (what's left of it), Taiwan, Ukraine, etc. If that triggered the activation of full NATO defenses then there'd be almost no conclusion not involving full-scale WWIII.. You'd be toying with hundreds of millions of lives with that adolescent-macho view of geopolitics.

No, decapitating North Korea would be a much more narrowly focused military operation, and there'd be quiet negotiations in advance with China so that neither side started the sort of chain reaction that could lead to open war between superpowers, which no one wants.

Put away the nukes and let the adults handle this before you fuck up the world.

Was really just using that scenario to illustrate the question I was asking, don't think it's particularly plausible.

Though I'm not sure I would want to base military strategy on Kim Jong Un behaving rationally...

North Korea is a very small plot of land. Taking them out is not the issue. China is very aware of the pollution implications of any nuclear conflict. The USA and China are obviously too intermingled to risk any differences. Kim has reached a point where his bluffs are pretty much used up.

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sometimes

Your solution might be of lower risk. Might not.

China and Russia haven't gotten along all that well in 50yrs. China is bound very tightly to us because they own our debt and we buy most of their products. They are bound to us much more tightly then they are bound to the Russians. All it would take is big trade sanctions between us and we'd both suffer badly. All that's keeping the Chinese Communist Party in power is that the people are comfortable enough to be docile. The Party has to worry that in the event of a serious economic crash, the people could rise up and take them out in a day.

The Russia angle is weak. They aren't going to seize NK because China wouldn't allow it. China could block Russian access to NK with a platoon of girl scouts. Nor will Russia see our action as a direct threat to them. Sure, they might use an attack on NK as an excuse to pull some shit elsewhere, but they could just as well to that tomorrow. If one wants to fabricate an excuse for aggressive action, no sense on waiting for some external trigger.

Knocking out NK's nuke potential with a conventional strike is risky. It would be very hard to be certain we knew about all targets, killed all targets, killed everyone with enough authority to initiate launch, and killed enough C^3 that the remaining leaders couldn't issue launch commands to the remote sites. Just takes one flaw in an otherwise conventional plan for the NK nukes to launch.

Re. negotiation with China. Of course.

I'm not saying that a nuke strike are a slam dunk. I'm saying that the various conventional ideas have serious warts because the targets are hard, dispersed, and our intel is probably not that strong. At some point a judgement call might have to be made. On the one hand a nuke strike will put great strains on our relationships with China and Russia. No matter the negotiations, they will not want us to strike, nuke or conventional. So it's not like the charm of a massive conventional strike is that China and Russia will be good with it. On the other hand we have to weigh the risk of a conventional strike that isn't 100% effective and as a result a nuke blows away Seoul, and/or Tokyo, and/or San Francisco.

I did admire your "let the adults handle it" snarky tone tho. See what you can do to get laid tonight. You'll have a sunnier outlook tomorrow.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

Out of curiosity, any sign of Tillerson on this topic?

Yes, that would be of great comfort in the event the DPRK regime launches a nuclear-tipped ICBM capable of hitting Japan, South Korea, Guam, Midway, Hawaii, Alaska or the mainland United States. Or simply launches a non-armed ICBM toward any of those areas and regions. As others have said, there's no real easy way to tell if a ballistic missile is nuclear-tipped or not for most of its flight path, and we can't take the chance that they're sending a missile and dummy warhead, only, our way. But at least it took them some time to get there, right?

My guess is if they're really crazy they'll launch on Japan first. Of course, that would trigger our response, though I don't know if we'd go nuclear, at least initially. Maybe we could degrade the North purely with conventional arms, though. That is, if China doesn't enter -- which they did when our forces crossed the Yalu River in 1950. No doubt, they'd look at any US or Western roll-up of the North as an unacceptable provocation, and they'd respond accordingly.

Seems to me all we did was kick the can down the road to the point where now the can is loaded with nitroglycerin and the next kick may blow it up. We can thank a succession of presidents going back 20 years for the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't choice we're now confronting.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Yes, but in 2002 we irredeemably filled the can with nitroglycerin with the biggest strategic error of a generation. For all of the problems of past efforts, we basically burned all bridges. Of course, hindsight is 20/20, except that way too many folks had foresight. While you are thanking various presidents, you can pretty much thank everyone who applauded those moronic choices at the time. There was too much stupid, and far too little actual regret and remorse. Luckily, I'm not bitter ;).

That's when I worry about little fat rocket boy.

The one thing the chinese leadership have demonstrated themselves to be is pragmatists (hypocrites?)

The person in NK is valueless. Kim goes they can get another one. The value to the chinese is trade and debt

I am sure that in the event kim wont take a long vacation in the maldives i am sure the chinese would be amenable to an outcome that does not pollute them (any more than they are already) and leaves NK as a communist state.

You owe the bank 5 dollars you have a problem. You owe the chinese 1.2 tn they have a problem.

What happens if they drop the MOAB type conventional weapon as opposed to a nuke?

How much real difference would their be in the damage inflicted

MOAB 11 tons TNT
Little boy 15 KT tons (15000)
Modern nuke is 1000x greater (TSARA 50 MT) 50000000 tons TNT

So 1000000x+ less powerful

No, not bitter in the least. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

So you don't trust your boy Trump to handle this?

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Apparently, this latest ICBM is capable of striking anywhere on the US mainland. That increases the pucker factor greatly.

Then, you have to look at what in military strategy is called "intentions and capabilities." When assessing whether an enemy (or even a friend) presents a credible threat you look for indications of possible intention to do so, along with the capability to fulfill or carry out their intentions.

This is why a NorK ICBM presents such a high threat. Kim and the North talk far too much about making war on the United States, for one. That's a possible good indicator of a credible intention. Then you have their capabilities. We don't know at present whether they've been able to scale down a nuclear weapon such that it can be placed atop one of their new ICBMs (or even made into a MIRV, or "multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle" (though there's no doubt they're trying hard to acquire the ability)), but it seems only a matter of time until they do so.

That gives them the capability, so we either move towards a MAD (mutual assured destruction) scenario with them, hoping they're not as crazy as they make themselves out to be, or we strike at them after allowing them to strike us first, taking a serious hit in the process, or we preemptively strike first them using conventional forces and weapons and hope we can keep the conflict from escalating into a war or, God forbid, a nuclear exchange with China or we remain at the current status, which cannot last for much longer, unfortunately.

None of the options above is palatable in the least, but it's where we're at.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Fair enough

What sort of power is really needed to deal with the targets they need to hit

Fixed it.

Is war with China really that big of a credible threat? China is interested in expanding their influence through business and culture, not so much through force. A war with the US would be very bad for business. They are not so short sighted. I can't see China getting dragged in to a war against the US, especially over the DPRK.

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Long Chile was a silly place.

All this heightened concern about the DPRK after this ICBM launch is misplaced. It actually reduces the overall threat level and makes progress on talks more likely. DPRK will possibly conduct some more tests on re-entry, but this milestone suggests further similar tests are unnecessary.

DPRK now has the strategic ambiguity it needs - its adversaries must now assume it has the capability to strike the US mainland, and with that the DPRK has a face-saving way to halt its ICBM tests. Kim Jong-un said as much, when he said after this test that the nuclear program was now complete. Trump can save face too, by referencing a better behaved North Korea and taking credit for it. There will be a better sense of stability in the region.

That would assume that either leader is capable of shifting their tone, or that they had a populace that was capable of accepting such a shift. Please point to any evidence of this.

They don't really need to shift their tone. I'm saying you will see a more well behaved N Korea and both sides will claim a 'win,' NK for obtaining an inter-continental nuclear threat, and Trump for forcing NK to stop all the missile tests. We'll see, but I think it's the most likely outcome.

They don't really need to shift their tone. I'm saying you will see a more well behaved N Korea and both sides will claim a 'win,'


Trump and Kim are cut from the same cloth. They don't need to do anything to claim a win.

You have me wanting to get my bug out bag and head for the nearest mountain range. Admittedly I don't pay that much attention to NK or the little nutjob running the place as he has been threatening for years. But, taking your word on it, this sounds like an escalation of things. Wonder where the doomsday clock is now.

A question to you military types and guys more in the know. So assuming Kim is able to launch a nuclear device ( the one he has shown on tv) and it is a direct hit on Los Angeles or San Francisco or Portland? What area of destruction would it cover? Would it reach to New Mexico or Colorado? Would it make California a wasteland? Nuclear fallout and the entire half or the US in inhabitable?

If you live in Cali should you make plans to move soon?

If you live in Cali should you make plans to move soon? //

Pretty sure one warhead is not going to lay California to waste, think it is more like a 30 mile radius?? But this is actually really good news for us here in CA, now that his missles can reach the White House I think we are in the clear now. My guess that little Kim's new primary targets are now Trump tower in NY, Maro Lago in FLA, and the White House.


Time to move back to CA I would say, Trump is not coming here and we won't let him build any of his palaces here either..

that was my main question: what is the radius of damage for what Kim has? Casualty estimates of direct hit on a major city.

If he can reach DC, agreed the Whitehouse is probably his target. I've been to cali many times, nice weather, great geography, too many damn people and too much traffic. :)

Wikipedia says that NK has detonated at 250KT weapon. This is a big deal because it means "fusion bomb" which is much more complex than "fission" bomb.

This site calculates effects radius of weapon. Put in the city and the size of the weapon. http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

I don't have any expertise in this kinda stuff.

At the website I entered an 250KT airburst over Los Angeles. Largest local affect is thermal. Burn you to death out to about 4mi. Site estimates >350k KIA with radiation affects included.

The economic melt down might cost more lives then the actual detonation.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

I trust our government and the President more than I trust little fat boy ..And I am very confidant our military will be prepared defensively and offensively as per the Presidents orders.

that leads to another question..assuming fat bastard gets a rocket airborne headed for the US, could the US shoot it down or prevent it from detonating and causing mass casualties? I have seen people say we are prepared and not to worry about it, but why? Do we still have a star wars system from the 80's? If we can't shoot down these warheads with high accuracy I think it is something to worry about quite a bit.

That site is awesome. I inputted Detroit and a 250 kt device. We're fine where we live right now, but bad news for one of my old neighborhoods in Southwest Detroit (Delray), though another one down there (Springwells Village) is just outside the farthest reaches of the thermal radiation radius. This isn't counting the inevitable fallout, of course. ;-)

As with all these Al-Qaeda/ISIS terror attacks, I think the two most-likely locations for such a missile though, are Washington, D.C. and NYC (political structure in one, financial in the other). Of course, the Russians and the Chinese have thousands of such missiles and we'd all get the chop if they launched.

The NorKs, though, would be committing suicide if they launched on us and I hope they know that. They simply don't have the throw-weight to win a nuclear exchange with us. Not even remotely close. We'd take a serious blow, no doubt about it. But one we could recover from in short order, even (loss of life would be horrendous, I freely admit). They, on the other hand, would become an extinct species about 30 minutes after hitting us.

Seriously, if they were really interested in trying to decapitate us, they'd sneak the device in somehow (and not saying they can... but after closely observing TSA all these years, I'm not saying they can't either ;-) and detonate it right smack in the area of the Capitol (taking out all three branches simultaneously) or do the same down in NYC's financial district.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

I worry that our nation's infrastructure is quite delicate. We're all so terrible dependent on elaborate systems that provide municipal and utility services, and make the basic staples of life available. Most of us have lots of debt and our assets are mostly in electronic form. Instead of being a self-reliant people, most of us are frail and needy, altho we fool ourselves otherwise. What a nuke strike started, our panic would expand.

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"If only he had used his genius for niceness, instead of Evil." M. Smart

We have technology to knock shit out of the sky, just haven't perfected it yet. It is a top priority though.

When I was on travel to a nice warm tropical place recently, I witnessed some of that testing. Smart MoFo's working on that stuff.

Not to worry. The POTUS knows how to prioritize his time.

Wow, Matt Lauer was just fired from NBC for “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” But when will the top executives at NBC & Comcast be fired for putting out so much Fake News. Check out Andy Lack’s past!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2017

So now that Matt Lauer is gone when will the Fake News practitioners at NBC be terminating the contract of Phil Griffin? And will they terminate low ratings Joe Scarborough based on the “unsolved mystery” that took place in Florida years ago? Investigate!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2017

http://deadline.com/2017/11/donald-trump-tweet-matt-lauer-fired-andy-lack-investigation-1202216352/

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

Of course they do. That's why they delegate, so they can get back to fucking with the minds of the weak!

PMRF, baby. Great Navy duty station. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Um you know this argument can be flipped very easily. China might decide that it is worth it. Besides that nuclear fallout is going to drift somewhere, it might be over China. They will not be happy about that either.

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2017 Cervelo P2
2017 Cervelo S2
itraininla.com
#itraininla

Damn, I just plugged in the two biggest Russian bombs and if they hit anywhere near LA it will wipe me out on the other side of the mountains in a blaze of glory. Looks like their biggest is about 3 times our largest. OF course when you have 1000's of them doesn't really matter, just have to push a couple more buttons...

Plug that one into your Detroit and see how you do..)-;

I did, believe me. You know what they say: you go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company. ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."