North Korea Successfully Tests Submarine-Launched Nuclear Missile

by JASmius



This certainly multiplies the apocalyptic possibilities:

North Korea has carried out a successful underwater test of a ballistic missile, the North Korean state news agency reported.

Leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the test himself, KCNA reported on Saturday (Friday evening, ET).

A submarine launched the missile at a location far from the North Korean mainland, according to the news agency.

Kim praised the test as a "miraculous achievement" and said his country is capable of producing this type of missile. This missile was a "time bomb which will go off on the backs of our hostile enemies at any time," he added, the KCNA report said.

The usual Kim bluster & spittle?  Of course.  But it does remind me of Dr. Zola's comment to Colonel Phillips::



Maybe the pot-bellied pig's target isn't quite "everywhere," but then again, it doesn't need to be.  And when it comes to holding that target - us - hostage, it seems that he can, indeed, "do it," and we'll never know it's coming:

[I]t’s almost impossible to intercept a ballistic missile after the nuclear delivery vehicle has left the boost phase. If North Korea were to park a submarine armed with nuclear-tipped SLBMs a hundred miles off the California coast, it would be infinitely harder for America’s continental anti-ballistic missile installations to intercept that threat. The prospect of a North Korean SLBM stockpile would also ensure that Pyongyang maintains retaliatory nuclear strike capabilities in the event of an American attack of any kind, virtually guaranteeing U.S. paralysis in the event that hostilities broke out again on the Korean Peninsula.

So, here is the nightmare scenario. [When] at some point in the near future....North Korea has managed to develop enough nuclear weapons, miniaturized warheads, and SLBMs to satisfy American skeptics that the DPRK has a modest but effective arsenal of deliverable nuclear weapons, it would not take much effort to hold the United States hostage.

In the event of a new crisis in relations with North Korea – an outcome that occurs with metronomic regularity whenever the starving criminal state needs a fresh infusion of American capital – the DPRK might find that U.S. pockets will again loosen if it puts a gun to America’s head in the form of a nuclear-armed submarine somewhere off the West Coast. American officials would try to soothe the frayed nerves of frightened Pacific Coast residents, but it would be hollow rhetoric. There would be almost nothing Washington could do to prevent North Korea from launching a nuclear warhead at a major metropolitan area [or in an EMP attack] save for threatening a massive retaliatory response; a threat that is already explicit, as it serves as the foundational doctrine of American nuclear deterrence strategy. In this scenario, the U.S. could only react to and not prevent a North Korean nuclear attack.

And, in other words, we could not deter the NoKos from launching a nuclear strike, because they know we would never retaliate.

Though U.S. officials would surely try to save face, in the end there would be concessions to North Korea in the form of renewed diplomatic engagement with likely financial incentives. This successful nuclear brinkmanship on the DPRK’s part would embolden other international bad actors to join the nuclear club if only to blackmail the U.S. or other regional actors in a similar way.

Or annihilate us and allies, in the case of....the Islamic Empire of Iran.  Which Barack Obama is helping to arm with a nuclear arsenal bigger than our own.

This one is Bill Clinton's fault, because twenty years ago the window of opportunity to disarm Pyongyang was open, and he blinked.  By the time sanity returned to the White House six years later, it was too late, and President Bush had to make the best of a very bad fait accompli.  And even he did far from a perfect job of it.

Now?  Do I really have to elaborate?:

[A] U.S. State Department official said more generally that "launches using ballistic missile technology are a clear violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions."

"We call on North Korea to refrain from actions that further raise tensions in the region and focus instead on taking concrete steps toward fulfilling its international commitments and obligations," the official said.

Maybe all that diplodiddling "wah wah wah" will put Kim and/or our other enemies to sleep, but it only by laughing themselves unconscious.

Maybe the NoKos will be the instrument of our demise, maybe they won't.  But with so many nuclear-armed enemies piling up thanks to the Obama Doctrine, whether they act individually or, more likely, in concert, the one burgeoning guarantee is that we will be destroyed - "at some point in the near future" - because O will take us beyond the point where the biggest ransom for three hundred million lives, or even unconditional surrender, will stay the enemies' nuclear blade.

And the biggest symptom of that terminal condition is that, as with the mullahs, we can trust Kim Jong-Un's words more than we can those of our own government.

As "The Other" told Loki:



"There will be no realm, no barren moon, no crevasse where we can't find you. You think you know pain....you will wish for something as sweet as pain."