http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,146950,00.html N. Korea Admits to Nukes, Backs Out of Talks Thursday, February 10, 2005 SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea (search) publicly admitted Thursday for the first time that it has nuclear weapons, and said it wouldn't return to six-nation talks aimed at getting it to abandon its nuclear ambitions Diplomats have said that North Korea has acknowledged having nuclear arms in private talks, but this is the first time the communist government has said so directly to the public. "We had already taken the resolute action of pulling out of the (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) and have manufactured nukes for self-defense to cope with the Bush administration's ever-more undisguised policy to isolate and stifle the DPRK," the North Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. DPRK refers to the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. North Korea's "nuclear weapons will remain (a) nuclear deterrent for self-defense under any circumstances," the ministry said. "The present reality proves that only powerful strength can protect justice and truth." Since 2003, the United States, the two Koreas, China (search), Japan and Russia have held three rounds of talks in Beijing aimed at persuading the North to abandon nuclear weapons development in return for economic and diplomatic rewards. But no significant progress has been made.
thats a rather optimistic view from the NK side for instance, the same rough terrain that is supposed to make life difficult for american tanks also provides cover for AH-64's which was exposed in the open desert of Iraq, indeed, any copter moving slowly or hovering kicks up huge neon sand clouds announcing their presence. The North Korean air force would be a threat for no more than 2 months if they actually take to the air, as less than 10% of their fighters are modern. Short term, they would give the 5th Air Force trouble due to sheer numbers but the U.S. Navy give them almost instant backup and USAF can conservitively put 30 fighters plus an equal number of bombers/support aircraft, per 36 hours on scene... depending on what airbases are available to us (likely- Yokota, Misawa, Taipei Int. Tai Chung, Kao Hsiung, Manila, Kota Kinbalu, and Brunei) possibly Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka, Sakhalin and I doubt we'd have use of Kai Tak, HK... Later we'd probably open Udon and Korat north of Bangkok which will take some elbow grease this is all to say that the North Koreans wouldn't be messing with our close air support for very long. Further, U.S. B-52's are now capable of CAS with the addition of JDAMS to their arsenal and can reach DPRK from right here in Louisiana with tanker support (B-2's as well) likely among first on scene would be the 30 or so brand new F-22's which, in my opinion, are capable of putting a serious dent in DPRK's air force by themselves IF we go to war, and assuming no nukes are fired, DPRK has about 4-6 months before being strategically defeated, 8-12 tactically depending on how big of a target they make themselves The DPRK offensive against the ROK will consist of three phases. The objective of the first phase will be to breach the defenses along the DMZ and destroy the forward deployed forces. The objective of the second phase will be to isolate Seoul and consolidate gains. The objective of the third phase will be to pursue and destroy remaining forces and occupy the remainder of the peninsula. we see Inchon, again When/if things go nuclear, things get hairy. NK definately has ballistic missiles, whether or not they have nukes small enough to be launched from said missiles is a bit of a debate but not one where you want to be optimistic and wrong. I don't think we know how many they have either. I do know that we have prototype ballistic interceptors for some of our Aegis ships (Raytheon made STANDARD Missile-3), but how many/ how well they work is beyond me and another more secretive system in Fort Greeley, Alaska with classified ranges and capabilities of course It's pretty widely known that the US wants "Bunkerbusting nukes" for the command and control tunnels NK has been building over the years and not for caves in Afganistan and this is likely a big cause of friction between the US and NK can't imagine why lol
Too bad the U.S. has limited resources and a limited political leash to address this since we used up all our "good will" in Iraq.
There have been 4 infiltration tunnels found between North and South Korea. Apparently there are 15-25 more that have yet to be found. The 4 found so far can move 30,000 NK troops per hour. Those 4 are no threat since they can be dynamited at a moment's notice should NK activity be detected, it is the undiscovered tunnels that are the problem.
Of course, since they deceived the UN and the Clinton administration (who supposedly had plenty of "good will" throughout the world) and had been working on Nukes since before Bush even thought about running for president goes to show you that they were going to develop Nukes regardless and are just using Bush as an excuse. Same with Iran. My point here isn't to critisize the Clinton administration but to point out that those nations were going to work at nukes regardless of the United States attitude or popularity. There is NO WAY the US is going to invade North Korea (we aren't going to invade Iran either, folks). Do you really think China would just stand there while US forces invaded their next-door neighbor? Not a chance. Our best bet with North Korea is for China to deal with them. Do any of you really think China wants North Korea to have nuclear weapons?
Do you really think China would just stand there while US forces invaded their next-door neighbor? Not a chance. Hell ya, most people in China think the country did the wrong thing last time by protecting North Korea. It is not like N.K. have done anything good for China over the last 50 years, S.K have done alot more for China. Do not use the old view on China from the Mao period. The only thing that China would go to war with US in the near future would be over Taiwan and nothing else.
When I say "good will," I am not just talking about world wide. I am also talking about with our own citizens. I don't think America would put up with this administration and even a susequent administration taking us into another war as the aggressor. Now, suppose Iran or NK attacked us. Then Americans would definately support a war effort. Even in this scenario, our ability to respond forcefully has been severaly hampered because we are stretched out as it is. The shame is we used our resources and "good will" to attack what turned out to be a relative non-threat. If we are going to invade somebody, make it count. But of course stopping terrorists wasn't our main objective. There is no oil in North Korea.
North Korea will never be attacked. Reason: they have the bomb, its only countries that don't yet have that will have to fear.
That's assuming they don't go on the offensive first...or directly support somebody else that goes on the offensive...like Iran. If NK or Iran invade somebody else...all bets are off. WWIII.
Hey, if NK has admitted to having nukes, then give SK some nukes. Turnabout is fair play. If the peninsula is going to be nuclear, then the bottom half should have theirs. Give SK some nukes and get our troops the hell out of there. NK is likely doing this to try to scare and get more out of talks later but this may backfire on them. The international community is not going to like this or want to deal with a beligerent regime so they only isolated themselves further.
What's to worry about. Let China, the EU, and the UN handle it. If that fails Japan will rearm and flatten NK.
I can't see us credibly telling Japan not to rearm. They have the technology to, from what I recall, go nuclear within 6 months if they nead to. Given that NK loves testing missles that freak out the Japanese, I can't imagine the Japanese sitting back. And this is China's biggest fear, a nuclear Japan, not a nuclear NK. This should be the thing that brings more pressure from China, but who knows.....
EU don't give a crap about NK, not even in their realm. China knows that NK is building up the nuke to deter U.S. current policies (naming them part of axis of evil and then attacking one of the axis and thinking about attacking another . So it's easy to see why they're starting to get defensive). China will take the approach of watching two tigers fight and then picking off the remains. If anything, China likes a crazy NK as it gets the worlds attention away from it's own internal problem. What China would care about would be an armed Japan and might react with some millitary actions against Japan if Japan gets armed. U.N. is useless without U.S., especially after U.S. went against it and no one does anything. So it's nulled now. IMO, we should've just kept buying them off with aid. The U.N. nuclear inspectors would still be allowed to be there and even if they're trying to develope, their success would be hindered and we'd have a better idea what they really have.
Except we did exactly what NK wanted back when Carter signed a treaty with them and they went ahead and devloped nukes anyways (probably using technology we gave them so they WOULD'NT develop nukes). One thing to remember... as much as we'd like to believe that if we're nice then people will be nice back. That is simply not true. Some people will be nice back but others will simply use our "niceness" (or anyone's for that matter) as an oppotunity to further their agenda regardless of what we (or anyone else) feels about it. North Korea was going to develop nukes no matter what the US did or who was president or how nice and popular that president was (i.e. they went ahead with the nukes despite Clinton and Carter who most people consider "nice"). You can try diplomacy or sanctions or whatever and sometimes that works but, just as often (more often?) it doesn't (i.e. North Korea or Iraq). What do you do then? Do you make threats and then not keep them? You have no credibility (i.e. paper tiger). Or do you keep your threats and alienate the peaceniks of the world. What do you do?
The biggest fear hear isn't whether NK has nukes and will use them on SK or Japan. My fear is that they will sell the nukes to someone else. You put the nuke on a ship and then sail it into say Tokyo Bay or Puget Sound and then BOOM!
What I said was that if we kept buying them off, they wouldn't have outed the inspectors and we would have a better idea of their nuclear capability to deal with it. Not to mention buy us sometime to deal with it.
No no no. The UN is the arbiter of international disputes. They'll take care of it. Failing that I'm pretty sure Canada will step up.
