No. This year - carved out of real wood. Tree trunks. Painted up really good. Maybe some extra fins. Sidepipes and spinner hubs, too. Awesome! Really scary, too! Scare even Count Floyd. OK, next year - really scary! Oooooooooooooooooooo!

Seems like a wasteful way to test deep sea exploration devices.

Sounds as if Kim Jong Un is just a chip off the same same moldy block of wood as his father.

Luckily, the term North Korean technology is an oxymoron.

I hope the day will never come when we have to drop one of our nukes near them to help them understand why they do not need rockets and nukes. They want to launch by dec 17, a catelest to the dec 21 doomsday scenario anyone ??

Wounder how many feet these new rockets will fly ???

Wish I could be there to watch them blow up or crash into the ocean. They have not yet come to understand that MADE in NORTH KOREA means it's pure junk. Made by North Korean Craftsmen means that it was untouched by human hands.

One day the North Korean people will look back on this part of their history and be deeply angry. Until then, all the rest of us can do is feel sorry for them.

Roger, it's not "catelest" - the proper spelling is catalyst.

Is the US still giving NK aid so they can feed their people? CANCEL IT and stop giving in to these infantile tantrums which are designed to get MORE money/goods out of Washington.

The article is way off base in several areas:

1) A three-stage liquid-fueled rocket has very little military application. The reason is that it requires several days, exposed to satellite reconnaissance and offshore slant photography while it is being assembled and fueled. This is plenty of time for a Tomahawk to destroy it. Another reason is that a three-stage rocket has nine times the failure exposure of a siongle-stage rocket. That's why all military ICBMs are single-stage. The rocket undoubtedly is intended to try to put a satellite in orbit.

2) Because of their isolation, the North Koreans have no idea what they are doing. Even the Chinese and Russians are very familiar with, and learn from, NASA protocols and procedures. But the isolated North Koreans have to learn for themselves everything that NASA knows. There is simply no exchange of information between any country with a valid space program (including China) and North Korea. And China especially wants to keep it that way. This causes North Korea a lot more problems than you might think.

3) The North Koreans are, however, trading nuclear weapons research and components along with technical and practical engineering data on site hardening to Iran for assistance with single-stage solid-fuel military rocket development. They are also selling lots of reverse-engineered anti-ship missiles to a number of countries, including Iran. This is a situation tha bears watching since they North Koreans had previously been peddling nuclear technology to Syria and God knows who else.

4) The North Korean Army is extremely well equipped and trained for the type of combat they would be exposed to. They are a ground-based army with very high levels of logistical self-sufficiency. They would be extremely difficult to attack because they have had over 60 years to harden every military target in the country. These sites are hidden and numerous ones are decoys that cannot be distinguished from real sites. It is estimated that bomb-proof underground depots hold a year's supply of food, water, ammunition, and spares for a full-tilt conflict. The USAF has nothing in its inventory that can effectively destroy these targets. Until chemical weapons were removed from the inventory, the USAF planned to use those. Since then, "dirty" nukes are the only option the US has to really destroy these thousands of sites.

5) North Korea holds all the aces. In a shooting war, thousands of heavy mortar, guided and unguided missiles, and artillery pieces are hidden in peek-and-shoot caves and bunkers. They are all pre-surveyed on targets which include the entire Seoul-Inchon Corridor and the DMZ. Within about 15 minutes of the beginning of any serious conflict, about 80% of South Korea's industrial capacity, along with its political and financial capital, and around 40% of its population would be destroyed along with around 20,000 US and 120,000 ROKA military. 'Tain't a pretty thought to contemplate.

6) Thinking of the North Koreans as stupid or petty or ignorant is completely counter-productive. They aren't. For over 60 years they have been playing a high-stakes game of brinkmanship and they are very very good at it. Every President from Truman to Obama has tried to come up with some way to "tame" the North Korean threat and every one has come up empty. The closest was Clinton and Bush Jr. undid every thing Clinton had accomplished. Sun Tze's First Rule of War is "Never underestimate your enemy."

7) The North Koreans wil continue to do things that are provocative. They especially love to aggravate the US because of its current and past miloitary involvement and the Japanese because of hatred left over from WWII. They love to do these things around anniversaries of various people and events. To an American, these seem like senseless acts. But the North Korean leadership uses these provocative acts to exercise the chain of command that would also be used in wartime. They watch every participant in a rocket launch, but also put the military on alert and watch every officer and soldier involved. Even a hint of hesitation is enough to send a person and his family to concentration camps from which no one ever survives. This is a major way in which the leadership constantly sees who is unquestioningly loyal and who might not be. Pure Stalinism --- so what if you have to kill a few million loyalists to do it. They gave their lives in a good cause.

another great post by Chris. Keep up the good work.

As I read the headline, an image of Wile E Coyote flashed through my head...

Meep Beep

KA-BLAM!!!

Oh no.....another International Crisis.

Maybe this administration will have the Chinese or Russians talk to N.K. ....that will do the job. Then there could be more U.N. sanctions against N.K. .....that will also help.

Time to use that "I will have more flexibility after the election" theme.

This missile test if probably due to his angst about Hostess closing down- no Ding Dongs for you!!

Chris- Enlightening and frightening at the same time. You obviously know what you are talking about and it scares the hell out of me. I'm thinking the South Koreans must have some doomsday scenario involving mutually assured destruction. No matter how many hardened sites NK has, if they are buried below a smoking, radioactive crater will it truly matter? ( Except of course to shut down the region's- maybe the world's- economy ) No matter how impulsive and provocative the NKs may be however, I can't see their geopolitical neighbors letting them duke it out in this fashion. Not to argue your fifth point but...Yes? No?

if it rains the fuse will go out and they only give the Monkey one match

Chris-749391 Grow up and read. The NK army is not well equipped. Show me one country that has supplied modern arms to NK. The U.S. has tactical nuclear weapons in SK. Satellites and planes monitor NK 24/7. The tunnels that the NK build under the DMZ are blown up as fast as they dig them.

Do you know what the state of their air force is? If not look it up. They are low on fuel and spare parts. The pilots are not familiar with latest tactics and do not get the training they need to be even on a par with the SK much less the Americans. SK is well aware that the U.S. has tactical nuclear weapons and have permission to use them in the case of an invasion of SK.

Needless to say one of the targets will be the safe houses of the "BIG RULER". Of course what is left afterwards might be an improvement over what is there now.

@ Grumps

Thanks, my spell checker missed it, or I forgot to run it. Thanks again :)

North Korea has nukes, weaponry and no money. Islamist terrorists have money and no nukes. Lets hope they don't meet at a cocktail party.

Chris, a well worded and well thought out comment...one observation though

"Within about 15 minutes of the beginning of any serious conflict, about 80% of South Korea's industrial capacity, along with its political and financial capital, and around 40% of its population would be destroyed"

Assuming this to be accurate, and from the little I know about the NKA it most likely is, after destroying 80% of the industrial base of it's prosperous neighbor, there doesn't seem to be much worth keeping after "winning". Granted there would be more arable land, but the North Koreans don't seem to be able to use it very well.

If you look on the inside corner of one of the tail fins, you'll see in small black lettering "Manufactured by ACME".

Really? What will we do? Attack N. Korea and China?

NK getting their aid from China? I like that idea, but the situation seems in the mold of the Palestinian problem: 'ally nations' (Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, etc) will threaten war and devastation to anyone railing against them (Israel, the West), but no one is willing to ACTUALLY HELP them by extending citizenship to them, giving them monetary aid, nor does it seem that they want to feed or take care of them. It is looking like China sees NK in the same light that Palestinian 'allies' see the Palestinians (we'll bark loudy - but DON'T expect any tangible support).

You vastly overestimate the amount of influence that a country like China has over a rougue state like North Korea. We can't even control Israel ---- clearly a similar rogue state, and you are expecting China to control North Korea. It will never happen. (And China is far, far from being as rich as the US. Period. Where did you get that stupid idea?)

AlexTheBlade

Actually, unless China wants us to conduct another war within reach of their borders they better think twice.

Chris-749391

I think China is 10 trillion up, whereas we are 16 trillion down, soon to be 20, and rely on China, among others to finance our overspending. In the scheme of things, they have a much more rosy outlook. Even if we actually tried, it would take us 20 years to get rid of that debt, and at the same time China is investing its money making them all the more richer.

Have you not read any articles that state that China's economy will pass ours in less than a decade?

Where did you get the stupid Idea that the US can't fail? We are not omnipotent and are failing. In many many ways. We think for tomorrow, whereas China thinks out decades and actually plans ahead.

@john,

The Chinese economy is stagnating currently and the growth has really falled off. But have you ever wondered wy the Chinese are so willing to buy US debt? It is because the Chinese know that the US economy is far more active and stable than theirs (in addition to being many times larger.) The Chinese actually have two currencies --- the reminbi and the yuan. The yuan is pegged to the US dollar by the debt. (The reminbi is for domestic use and floats somewhat.)

It makes a good politcal talking point, but the debt is not as high as many people think. For example the US government owns $188 trillion in "stuff" --- roads, bridges, buildings, national parks, public lands, patents, and lots of other tanglble assets. The government could raise $16 trillion is a year if it had to by simply selling off unexploited assets that people really don't care about such as public lands and disused buildings. While China is investing madly in infrastructure, it is decades behine the US and is only that close because the US is failing to take care of its infrastructure and is letting it decay because of penny-wise pound-foolish budgeting.

This country is still the wealthiest in the world and stil has the largest and most vibrant economy. Period. And the only reason that China gives any aid to North Korea at all is that they ant to avoid having hundreds of thousands of North Korean refugees in their southern provinces.

It was never my intention to slight the US, just how it is managed. China's GDP is half of the US, and many economists believe it will pass the US in a few years. I don't see them as heros, I see them as better money managers. While we are giving out freebies to our citizens and expect nothing in return, they are creating a climate to give them jobs. While some may claim that they are low paying jobs, at least they are jobs.

I understand the 200 trillion in obligations the US has but consider this. There is not 200 trillion in existence............yet. And that 200 trillion is backed up by the US Government, and thereby backed up by the US taxpayer. The US taxpayers don't have 200 trillion in total. How does that math work?

Did you miss the whole farce in April? And it's not 'their right', it's 'his right'. Big difference. And while that's a nice idealistic view it's certainly not true in an international community, particularly for a small, belligerent, dictatorship. Right or wrong that's the real world we live in.

Roland, come back when you have at least a basic understanding of the situation.

You have no clue.

How about YOU take a break and come back when you have mastered the art of thinking for yourself and nurturing an original thought.

Ever been to the North? While the US may be able to "smoke North Korea in less than 1 hour", the North can do the same to Seoul in 30 minutes. I would not underestimate the North's capabilities or resolve.

And how many hours to smoke China?

The US could NOT smoke NK in an hour. That is absolutely absurd. NK is the most tunneled country in the world. China would not stand for nukes being dropped on their border and they CAN retaliate.

@Okeeboy,

If you think we can "smoke" the North Koreans in an hour, you are sadly mistaken. I was a North Korean intellligence analyst with the Far Eastern Watch Center in Tokyo for a number of years and it will never happen. If you have a plan in mind, you are badly mistaken. The North Koreans have one of the most extensive tunnel and cave complexes ever built. These are tunnels and caves so deep that even bunker-buster bombs are ineffective. There are literally thousands of these "peek-and-shoot" emplacements along the DMZ, especially the western DMZ. Only about half the emplacemets are manned at any one tims with the remainder serving as decoys. All these are pre-surveyed indirect fire that cover every target within 40nm of the DMZ with artillery, heavy mortar, guided and unguided missiles, and even bofors cannons.

The 5th Air Force has tried unsuccessfully to form a retaliatory or pre-emptive conventional weapons strike plan without any real success. Between the Korean War and the removal of chemical weapons from our inventory, 5th AF planned on massive use of nerve gas to deal with the massive amount of hardening of North Korean targets. But since then, there really is no conventional response. And even a nuclear strike would be up against Nrth Korean targets that are so hardened that only a "dirty" bomb that would accomplish "area denial" would be effective. Every US President since Truman has tried to figure out how to keep the North Koreans from using their ability to utterly destroy South Korea without a shred of success.

I got to especially watch the entire political/military process when the NKAF shot down an American EC-121 90nm offshore in the Sea of Japan with the loss of all hands. I had friends on that aircraft. And there was simply nothing the American or South Korean military could do to retaliate. Absolutely nothing! If we fired a single shot in retaliation, the North Koreans would immediately take out the entire Seoul-Inchon Corridor and every military target within 40nm of the DMZ. That would mean 80% of South Korea's industrial capacity, its political and financial capital and around 40% of its entire population.

But also there are about 120,000 ROKA troops and 20,000 or so American GIs along the DMZ. In military parlance, these are called "sacrificial" or "tripwire" forces and are never counted in any Order o Battle for general hostilities because they simply would not be there.

While the North Koreans have little air power and are mostly a "ground-pounder" army, this would operate to allow North Korea to call all the opening shots. Their equipment might be old Cold War stuff, but it is cheap, reliable, and well-tested. And they have lots of it.

One thing that is making the North Koreans much more dangerous is their cooperation with Islamic countries. In the past they have given/sold nuclear technology to Syria and binary nerve gas production to both Syria and Libya. They have exchanged nuclear secrets and missile technology with Pakistan. But lately they have become very close to Iran. The bluffs along the Straits of Hormuz and all the little "fortress islands" in the Persian Gulf have been tunneled along the lines of the Korean DMZ. Massive numbers of very low-tech weapons have been pre-deployed. And the North Koreans are the designers. They have also shared nuclar technology wih Iran in return for solid-fuel rocket (and guidance system) technology with Iran. It is this deep involvement with Islamic countries that is giving North Korea even more leverage while limiting China's influence over North Korea's activities.

Hasn't it ever occurred to you that you might not be as smart as every President and general since Truman? They have never found a key to the North Korean puzzle, and you haven't either.

Israel???? No They promise to turn Seoul into a "SEA OF FIRE".

Private companies don't have a million-man army or a violent distrust of their neighbors.

The iron dome doesn't work against artillery shells or tanks and rifles.

@Melskid,

Iron Dome is not a potential answer for South Korea or Japan. It is an incredibly expensive weapon to shoot with each missile costing $140-160,000 each (and they're almost always fired in pairs) as an expendable, and an estimated $600,000 each in fully-booked costs. The number of Iron Dome systems that woulkd be required would bankrupt South Korean.

And the Iron Dome's high technology is its very Achilles heel. Each launcher only carries 20 missiles. If fired as they were in Israel, that's only ten missiles intercepted. Then it takes over an hour to reload the launcher. (Mostly the Israelis seem to want to just use spare launchers as long as they have them.)

It is called the Piper Cub Paradox when the expense of high-tech weaponry actually makes them vulnerable to being cheaply and easily overwhelmed. Even the Gazans could easily defeat Iron Dome by the simple expedient of coordinating the rocket attachs (by cell phone most likely) so that they fired bursts of rockets that were "n+1" the number of Iron Dome rockets at ready divided by two. That they did not do it is a strong indication that the Palestinians wanted the public recogition more than actual damage to Israel.

Another issue is the accuracy. Israel is claiming about 85% kills. But Pentagon people think that it can be no higher than around 30% and is more likely in the 15-30% range depending on weather conditions.

These ultra-expensive systems would be mostly trying to shoot down $40 apiece Grad 122mm rockets that were mixed into a hailstorm of artillery, mortars, guided and unguided missiles, and even everything from small arms to cannons. And don't think for an instant that the Iron Dome launchers themselves wouldn't be high priority targets.

The Iron Dome system was developed using US expertise and American taxpayer money. The Israelis will not even share the technology with us. And you think there is a snowball's chance that they would share it with South Korea? I don't think so.

When was the last time you were in China?

How do you know what they think?

You can forget about North and South Korea ever uniting. To even say that shows you don't understand the situation.

Read up on the Korean War, Joe. You don't seem to understand much about it.

On Chinese news they say N. Korea already has ICBM's

I guess the fact that they go 75 miles and crash isn't advertised.

Or maybe our government isn't telling us everything.

@Joe,

One of the main reasons that there will not be a unified Korea in the foreseeable future is that the South Koreans are very much against it. And this sentiment grows almost daily. The reason is that the South Koreans watched the process as West Germany tried to absorb the former East Germany. Even though East Germany was the most technologically-advanced Bloc country, the West Germans were not prepared for the lack of education, the lack of basic skills, the state of decay of the infrastructure, the state of decay of society itself, the lack of modern industry and above all the massive amount of pollution it found. The original absorption was cancelled as undoable and potential bankruptcy for the country. They are still proceeding with the adsorption, but on a vastly slower timescale.

The North Koreans are may times worse off than the East Germans were. There has been enough malnutrition in North Korea that the average North Korean is a full 15 IQ points duller than the average South Korean. They don't have crumbling infrastructure --- they don't have any to crumble in most cases. They completely lack all modern industrialization and use manufacturing methods that belong to 1930's pre-WWII times. While literacy is high in North Korea, education is poor and there isn't much of it.

When the Korean War happened, Korea was much like Vietnam. The industrialized north was vastly more wealthy than the south. But the south was large agrarian and fed the country with enough left over to export food. But when the two countries were partitioned, the north in both cases found itself unable to feed itself. North Vietnam continued its industrialization and could export enough goods to buy the extra food it needed. North Korea was not so lucky. Too rigid Stalinist-type industrial planning led to the collapse of their industry and without the south as a breadbasket, North Korea ended up without much industry and without the ability to feed its populatin. And if you combine North Korea's "military first" policy you get the current situation where most of the population is starving and the only real industry left is military in nature.

South Koreans look at North Korea and all they see are people who would all be on a massive form of welfare for decades, if not generations. More and more they are unwilling to compromise their standard of living just to have reunification. And North Korea knows that this is the case.

Chris, wow. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was that bad.

A desperate country with nuclear weapons and 1.2 million active soldiers and China as an ally.

pretty funny.

It's not a satellite.

I hope you didn't believe that.

Actually, after the last, failed, launch, the general consensus was that North Korea was indeed trying to launch a homemade stellite. The rocket's path indicated that it was a low earth orbit satellite and not in the polar orbit that would characterize a military satellite. The danger is not that they want to launch a satellite, but that they will gain both a cover for military activities and will gain considerable with orbital dunamics necessary to use an ICBM. Otherwise, a three-stage liquid-fueled rocket has military value that is approaching zero.

We haven't given them anything since 2009.

It took les than a month to break the last deal.

I told them what I would like to do is throw Japan and Korea under the bus.

Make a deal with China. They completely walk away from N. Korea and we completely walk away from Japan.

I know that won't happen but I'm tired of playing Big Brother to the stupid little countries.

Don't forget we have a mutual defense treaty with Taiwan. That keeps China plenty mad enough.

So, when are you going to be appointed "Secretary of State" ?

Japan is hardly a "stupid little country" It is the third largest economy on earth with a highly educated populace.

Says the US with 12 million unemployed and no universal health care.

Not even close to the same thing. It amazes me how people can gloss over the atrocities of dictatorships to bash the U.S. I suppose the US could do like N. Korea and force people to work at torturous manual labor with little or no pay instead of paying them not to work. Then America could be just as "good" as they are.