Oops, sorry, I meant to say "Earth-observing satellite".
Actually, no, I didn't:
North Korea on Sunday declared that it had successfully put an “Earth observation satellite” into orbit under the direct orders of leader Kim Jong Un, and said it planned to launch “many more.”
Both the South Korean defense ministry and the [Obam]agon said that the rocket, launched at 9 a.m. North Korean time from a launch pad near the [Red] Chinese border, appeared to have successfully reached space.
The United States, Japan and South Korea immediately condemned the launch, a move widely seen as another step toward North Korea mastering the technology for making a missile capable of striking the mainland United States. The U.N. Security Council called an emergency meeting for later Sunday to discuss how to respond to the country’s latest provocation.
They're already "responding" like they always do: impotently and ineffectively. Hell, "calling a meeting" is the tell-tale signal that nobody is going to do anything about this except continue to handwring and jibber-jabber until either my hometown....
....and/or the Proprietor's.....
and/or the major cities in between....
....one of which is destined to be my daughter's adopted hometown before the year is out.
Given both the gangsteresque nature of the Kim regime and the fact that they are most likely to use nukes as a means of forcing us to prop them up economically, I would surmise that these are the sort of attacks we face from the NoKos versus an electromagnetic pulse attack....
....that would kill their golden goose. Which wouldn't make my, Mr. Gibbs', or Intern Missius's near-term futures any easier.
What can we do about this? Short of initiating nuclear war with the ChiComms ourselves, not a whole lot. Ted Cruz laid it out at last night's GOP debate in New Hampshire:
With respect to North Korea and what we should do now, one of the first things we should do is expand our missile defense capacity. We ought to put missile defense interceptors in South Korea. South Korea wants them. One of the real risks of this launch, North Korea wants to launch a satellite, and one of the greatest risks of the satellite is they would place a nuclear device in the satellite. As it would orbit around Earth, and as it got over the United States they would detonate that nuclear weapon and set off what’s called an EMP, and electromagnetic pulse which could take down the entire electrical grid....potentially killing millions.
We need to harden the grid to defend ourselves, and we need missile defense to protect ourselves against North Korea.
That's about the only viable option, folks. If we can shoot down NoKo missiles, the only thing they can do as a counter is build way more of them to swamp us with numbers - like Vlad Putin is doing - and Kim jong-Un has only as many resources as his ChiComm patron gives him. Beijing could do that, but that would then expose how they use the NoKos as a "bad cop" catspaw against us, which they're probably not ready to do on their timetable of conquest yet. Building up and enhancing our missile defenses is the best way to counter this NoKo aggression and restore some measure of geostrategic stability. That and a crash-course hardening of the U.S. electrical grid.
Whether a President Cruz or President Rubio ever gets the chance to do so, since Barack Obama never will, is anybody's guess. That will determine for just exactly what Doug and I and our progeny get a front row seat.
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