North Korea threatens nuclear-capable ICBM launch, Trump tweets “It won’t happen!”
North Korea may be Trump’s first crisis.
In a New Year’s announcement, North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un stated that his nation was on the verge of launching its first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) – a missile capable of both carrying a nuclear warhead and reaching the United States.
This threat could President-elect Donald Trump’s first major foreign policy challenge, coming as it does after nuclear bomb tests of varying success by the North Koreans.
In response Trump tweeted that the launch “won’t happen.” In another tweet he chided China for not doing more to forestall the North Korea threat.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/816057920223846400?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
While acknowledging that American military experts doubt that North Korea is technologically ready to carry out its implied threat, CNN reported, “Trump may very well have to deal with an ICBM test and confront the danger Pyongyang poses to international stability.”
CNN continued:
The hermit nation poses a unique threat. While the nuclear nations of China and Russia are both pushing back against US power across the globe, they are more integrated into the international system and neither is as erratic or threatening. This all moves Pyongyang to Trump’s front burner as a simmering problem that might soon boil over.
Charles Krauthammer said that if Kim’s boast is true, North Korea would be the first “insane regime” with nuclear weapons.
But what can’t be forgotten is that just last week, an American company, Strategic Sentinel published photographs of a newly discovered North Korea missile launch site.
Satellite images (Source: Strategic Sentinel) of North Korea shows a structure that appears to be a missile silo similar to one in Iran pic.twitter.com/KRWfWfJLW5
— The Voice of America (@VOANews) December 29, 2016
What Strategic Sentinel pointed out is that the construction of North Korean missile site resembles a known one in Iran. While the company says that no conclusion can be drawn by the photograph, it is a reminder that North Korea and Iran has extensive military scientific ties in developing ballistic missiles and possibly nuclear technology.
Ilan Berman wrote in the National Interest in August 2015.
As long ago as 1985, the two countries had already launched cooperative missile development, with Iran helping to underwrite North Korea’s production of 300-kilometer-range Scud-B missiles. Their interaction expanded in the 1990s, when Iran and North Korea began joint development of Iran’s Shahab medium-range missile, which is closely based on North Korea’s own nuclear-capable No Dong.
Indeed, North Korea’s arsenal is the inspiration behind most of Iran’s ballistic-missile capabilities—including the Shahab 3 and Shahab 4, now in service, and its longer-range Shahab 5 and 6 variants, currently in development. And the collaboration continues today; the two nations are believed to be jointly working on a nuclear-capable missile of intercontinental range.
Two weeks ago investigative journalist Claudia Rosett wrote for Forbes that Sen. Ted Cruz (R – Texas) is trying to find out what the administration knows about North Korean nuclear collaboration with Iran.
In particular, Cruz had a question for Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Referring to the period since the Iran nuclear deal took effect on Jan. 16, Cruz asked: “Has the U.S. intelligence community observed any possible nuclear collaboration between Iran and North Korea…”?
That’s one of the huge questions looming behind the Iran nuclear deal, officially titled the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which President Obama has been urging President-elect Donald Trump to preserve.
It’s a question that deserves an immediate answer. If there has been any such nuclear teamwork between Tehran and rogue, nuclear-testing Pyongyang, that would be a violation by Iran that should immediately blow up the Iran deal — which the Obama White House currently touts on its web site as “The Historic Deal that Will Prevent Iran from Acquiring a Nuclear Weapon.”
So the Kim’s threat doesn’t just reveal a possible threat against the United States from an insane regime, but it could be a sign that a second insane regime is very much involved in developing that threat, despite a deal that was supposed to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.
[Photo: Twitter ]
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Can it reach California and is there a fundme account?
LOL
Thank you Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright, gigolo John Kerry and Jimmy Obama.
Don’t forget Bill Richardson.
Or Wendy Sherman, who did such a good job on the North Korea negotiating team, she got to lead the Iran negotiating team.
Showdown king overdue here.
The Norks are Red China’s cat’s paw, so the idea of dealing with them to “solve” the issue has been a non-starter since the Slick Willie era. Instead, we take our time, do the intelligence and then, with 10 minutes launch notice to the Chinese, mount a leadership decapitation strike, including launch sites, reactors, the works.
Clinton and Bush kicked the can down the road and Obama never met a national security threat that he couldn’t rationalize his way out of; but the Norks are becoming more hazardous to our health by the day and the Chinese aren’t going to a damn thing about it. San Diego disappears in a mushroom cloud? Beijing would applaud.
Time to act.
We always need to test our nukes… haven’t had the opportunity since 1945. If the Norks want to test nukes, we can test ours there…. at no extra charge to the Norks. Regime change in milli-seconds….
Well we’ve tested one or two since 1945 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY
Yeah, it sure is a shame Obama and John Kerry won’t be around to shut down the Norks, like they shut down Iran. Why, we’re even gonna miss out on the proven international leadership of Hillary Clinton and her bag full of plastic reset buttons!
The Norks aren’t insane. Not terribly realistic, but not insane. Unlike the Perks, the Norks don’t have Korans stuffed down their pants, so they don’t have that divine inspiration to be suicidally wacky.
The trouble for Korea is that it can’t play nuclear extortion with only one nuke (or two, or ten) any more than it could manipulate the world market in, say, silver with an investment of ten dollars. The Norks are just nowhere near big enough to play at international brinksmanship. Big enough to stampede the press, certainly, but not anybody who actually matters.
Insanity is defined culturally. From our point of view, their outlook on the world is insane, to them, ours is. Based on what we know, they are insane and do not respond to what we consider rational incentives/disincentives. At that point, eventually one or the other of us is going to have to be dealt with.
I know which I choose.
We have a new administration coming in and the NORKs are rattling the collection plate.
Obviously “Getting all their missiles warmed up in the bullpen”
Iran cannot carry out a nuclear attack on Israel without some sort of diversion, lest it risk incurring the United States wrath. It will likely use the North Koreans in some sort of attack, likely nuclear on the United States, in order to at least make it more difficult ascertaining from where the missiles came from.
Wendy Sherman was William Jefferson Clinton’s negotiator when Clinton sought his nuclear non proliferation treaty with North Korea. Wendy Sherman was also present when Obama claimed he sought nuclear non proliferation in Iran. Obama really wanted to make sure the Mullahs got all the nukes they desired.
The only bright spot is that most of the dead will be Democrats in the cities.
The Norks are a regional threat to South Korea (think N Vietnam v S Vietnam) and Japan. China will try to use controlling them as a bargaining chip to get what they want in the S China sea and Taiwan. There is talk by the Japanese of going nuclear to protect themselves. (Not a lot, but they aren’t real scared yet.) Since Iran got to go nuke, the Saudis are considering it. All this comes at a time when NATO is in crisis, western Europe is falling apart and seems to have no leadership worthy of the name, and S America’s economies are failing.
Makes one pine for the good old days of the cold war.
OK, I think I’m going to move my retirement $ into liquor and lead.
The New York Times made an article about this tweet. It sure had a lot of column inches devoted to the fantastical reaction by the Democrats instead of what actually happened.
No cite. Not worth it.
N. Korea hired Wile E Coyote to head up their ballistic missile program.
No Dong…No Fly….No Bang….