Well. The politics threads may pick up. NK launches...

Your link didn't work, Lash.

Maybe the missle hit it?

That crafty little bastard!! He's detached the bayou from the internet.

542 articles to choose from

Another

sheesh 542 articles vaporized

that's some powerful

So Asherman!! What do you say about this??

Them rocekts are rice burners, run out of fuel in one hour.

I have a sick feeling that when Bush hears about this he will invade Chad.

Or Salt Lake City.

Does anybody have a bomb shelter?

This could escalate.... Really. Even if bombs don't fly, I want some Pepto.

We've been aware that a TD-2 test was imminent, and might have guessed they'd pick the 4th as a good PR date. Folks should note that this was an apparently failed test. Short burn, and probably no stage separation. Missile test failures aren't uncommon. Sometimes the "fix" is simple, inexpensive and fast. Sometimes a failure shows a fundamental weakness of design that takes some time to remedy. We'll have to see how long it takes the DPRK to stack another test missile. We might see another test firing as early as January '07, or as late as 2009.

In any case, no one should forget that the TD-1 and some shorter range missiles known to be in the DPRK inventory are capable of delivering a nuclear warhead on Japan, Okinawa, Russia, China, or the seas surrounding the Korean Peninsula. We suspect that folks in Northern China and Easter Russia aren't losing too much sleep over it, though Japan especially must remain uncomfortable.

Don't expect any conciliatory moves by the DPRK over this. Their negotiating stance will remain aggressive, bullying, and threatening. If anything, the DPRK rhetoric may even become more belligerent as a face saving gesture.

My son and his family are due on new assignment to Japan from Seoul by the middle of the month, but we have a number of in-laws who aren't likely to ever leave Seoul. I'm not worried that a resumption of Korean War hostilities is likely so long as the U.S. maintains its presence there. The absolute worst thing for everyone concerned would be for the U.S. military to move off of the Peninsula. We can be pretty confident that this administration will not make that fatal mistake. I'm less sure of what would happen under a President H. Clinton, or any of the other recent candidates.

Asherman, I strongly object to this crass bit of partisan bluster (and you will forgive the fact my response is perhaps almost as crass and partisan and blusterish).

Bush's foreign policy has made the US weaker and his policies-- specifically in Iraq, have restricted our options and made any military deterrent almost laughably empty. This is why both Iran and North Korea are now opposing the US with an exceptional belligerence.

I don't get why everyone is fixated on Hillary. She is a not the liberal she is painted as. She is a centrist.

Hillary has shown herself as completly capable of the type of mindless hawkishness you seem to be advocating. She has annoyed the true liberals in the Democratic party with warlike policies, from support for the Iraq war, to support for the wall in Israel. I don't think you need to worry about Hillary following a foreign policy any more nuanced than the current one.

If Bush hadn't squandered US military power and foreign goodwill with his adventure in Iraq, it is quite possible that things would be much better on the Korean peninsula-- as least as good as the equilibrium maintained by the previous administrations.

Bush's actions have made the situation much worse than they have ever been-- to worry about what a president from the other party would do seems silly since it would be hard to think of how it could be worse.

I am hoping that the next president will be someone solidly to the left of Hillary, especially in his or her ability to think intelligently about foreign policy instead of reacting with mindless arrogant nationalism.

Thanks, Ash. I know you follow that situation closely, and I appreciate your comments.

Bolton is reported as saying he's jangling the Security Council. What do you think his goals are...? What consensus is he trying to put together?

Ebrown, it is precisely Hillary's husband's inaction in 93 that has put NK in the position they now occupy. Turning the blind-eye while mass-murderers aquire WMD, is a sorry substitute for leadership.

What would you have suggested... Should Hillary's husband sought a regime change in NK?

NORAD on alert. A2K scrambles for Velveeta.

His advisors advised taking out the reactor at Yongbyon prior to him extracting enough spent fuel to make a bomb. I concurred. Instead Carter negotiated the Agreed Framework (with no authority to do so), and Clinton agreed. Now we have millions more dead North Koreans and Kim is a bigger threat than ever he was.

"Bush's foreign policy has made the US weaker and his policies-- specifically in Iraq, have restricted our options and made any military deterrent almost laughably empty. This is why both Iran and North Korea are now opposing the US with an exceptional belligerence."

The DPRK has been a belligerent since at least 1950. With the approval of Moscow and Peking, the DPRK invaded ROK in force. They quickly captured Seoul, and tens of thousands were brutally executed as a danger to the complete subjugation of the South to the North. U.S. forces were unprepared, poorly equipped and not nearly equal to the DPRK in numbers. U.S. forces were quickly pushed down into a small pocket at the tip of the Peninsula. Many were captured, and later found executed.
McArthur in Japan was given command. He mustered whatever forces he could and planned an audacious amphibious landing near Seoul, but miles north of the main portion of the DPRK's invading force. The Inchon Landing was a success, and many North Korean soldiers were captured. McArthur aggressively moved northward and soon passed the old dividing line between the two Koreas. Many expected that McArthur at the head of UN forces would stop there and things would return to what they had been prior to the invasion.

McArthur didn't stop, or even slow down. DPRK forces were on the run, and as they retreated deeper into the North they burned villages and executed everyone who might not remain loyal to Kim Il-Sung. McArthur could smell victory, and he didn't want to share it with the Navy and USMC. The forces were split, with the Corp landing on the North east coast of North Korea. The Army was west of a mountainous spine that made cooperation between the two divisions virtually impossible. As US/UN forces neared the Yalu River, the Chinese became increasingly worried that McArthur would enter North China. The threatened to come into the war if pressed. Truman told McArthur to be wary of the Chinese. McArthur rejected the idea that the Chinese were capable of entering the fray in force. He was wrong, and suddenly human waves of Chinese infantry overwhelmed advance US/UN forces. Many of the Chinese were poorly armed and equipped, but they prevailed by sheer numbers. The Army staggered and began to fall back with increasing losses.

East of the mountains a second echelon of Chinese forces caught the Corps at the Chosin Reservoir. The Marines suffered terrible conditions out on the frozen lake and on its shores where winds kept the whole place locked in snow and ice. The Chinese took the high-ground and the Corp could only pull back along a road under Chinese guns. Heroism was everywhere, and so were the casualties. "No Sir! We are not retreating, we are attacking in a different direction." A bit of legend.

West of the mountains things were just as tough for the Army, but they contested every bit of ground, and fought for truly useless mountain tops repeatedly. The U.S. owned the air, but the Chinese light infantry was replaced as fast as it was decimated ... and the front lines moved steadily South. The Cease Fire established a DMZ just where it sits today over 50 years later.

North Korea doesn't need any help from any U.S. administration to hate us. But, they fear us too and that has maintained an uneasy "peace" since the Eisenhawer administration. It is a serious mistake to think that problems involving the DPRK have much to do with any modern Presidency, Kim doesn't care who is President beyond how far they can be pushed. Ideally, Kim would love to see U.S. forces as far away from the Peninsula as possible so that the ROK can be forcibly seized ... again.

"I don't get why everyone is fixated on Hillary. She is a not the liberal she is painted as. She is a centrist.

Hillary has shown herself as completely capable of the type of mindless hawkishness you seem to be advocating. She has annoyed the true liberals in the Democratic party with warlike policies, from support for the Iraq war, to support for the wall in Israel. I don't think you need to worry about Hillary following a foreign policy any more nuanced than the current one."

No, Hillary isn't a centrist, or even a Socialist, she is a politically ambitious opportunist. Why mention Hillary, because she appears a popular choice for the Presidency for the Democrats. Hillary is moving to the center, because she realizes that there aren't enough on the far left to get her elected dog catcher in Gopher Springs, Kansas. Would she retain those carefully cultivated centrist stands once in office, or would she revert to policies designed to make the country even more socialist than it is now?

"If Bush hadn't squandered US military power and foreign goodwill with his adventure in Iraq, it is quite possible that things would be much better on the Korean peninsula-- as least as good as the equilibrium maintained by the previous administrations.

Bush's actions have made the situation much worse than they have ever been-- to worry about what a president from the other party would do seems silly since it would be hard to think of how it could be worse."

Maybe, but the situation on the Korean Peninsula isn't any better or worse than its been at other times in the past half century. The one thing that has changed is that Kim now has a nuclear weapons capability. Thats it, and so long as U.S. Presidents continue the policies of the last 60 years things need not come anything like a nuclear exchange.

"I am hoping that the next president will be someone solidly to the left of Hillary, especially in his or her ability to think intelligently about foreign policy instead of reacting with mindless arrogant nationalism."

Which candidate meets your idea of the perfect candidate? If you can't name one, then describe a bit more about what that candidate would likely do about the gang of international Islamic terrorists who are waging war on us? What would your candidate do about Iraq? About Iran? About the National Debt? About Illegal Immigration? About Abortion? About global warming? About all those issues that are of consuming interest to some one or other?

When the American People elect someone from the far left to the Presidency, I'll begin to worry more about the state of the nation.

Bush clearly differs from Clinton on NK policy. Clinton adopted the Sunshine Policy of the S. Korean president Kim Dae Jung...actually sending his Sec of State to NK to stress that US intentions to the communist state were benign. From these overtures issued a number of ineffective nuclear agreements in the 1990's.

What Clinton and Kim failed to recognize was that NK does not honor agreements....never have...never will. The North Koreans see agreements as leverage to gain concessions from other nations, but not necessarily binding to themselves. In fact, if they must make concessions themselves, they see it as an affront and a challenge to their self-independence (Juche), therefore their concessions are only valid until they strengthen their position sufficiently to no longer require the reciprocal offering. Only one thing holds them in check and that is the threat of extinction. The fact that other nations can destroy them is the weakest chink in their armor. That is why they are so bent on acquiring a nuclear capability. In doing so they mitigate another weakness.

As long as North Korea exists, they will be a threat. Any amount of pandering to them will only weaken our own position. The best policy is to challenge them to spend and bluster and spend, until their economy cracks under the strain. Of course, liberals everywhere will gnash their teeth that our saber-rattling will lead to war, but instead, much like the USSR, North Korea will eventually impode under the weight of its own oppression and paranoia.