Little fat boy is still trying to look like the baddest boy on the block.

He had better watch his back door. As China will not take kindly to his action.

I imagine China is getting tired of covering North Korea's tochis...

Screw North Korea. The whole place could be bombed back into the stone age in one night.

Troy, if you knew anything about them, you'd know that MOST of North Korea IS ALREADY living in the stone age. Its only the people in 'charge' who are 'living' in the 'modern' era (so to speak).

The article had one very bad assumption:

"Pyongyang maintains that the test was purely “for peaceful purposes. U.S. officials disagree, saying the test was the latest attempt to develop multistage ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads."

If you look at the history of ballistic missiles, particularly ICBM's, you will find that there are very few liquid-fueled or multi-stage rockets. The few that did have had extremely short service lives, usually meaning that they were unsuccessful inb some way. The reasons are 1) liquid fuel propellants tend to be extremely difficult to handle and extremely dangerous, 2) A three stage liquid fueled rocket such as the one NK shot recently has 36 times the risk of failure as a single-staged liquid-fueled rocket of similar design, 3) It takes days to weeks to prepare a three-stage liquid-fueled rocket for launch. During most of this time the missile is in an extremely exposed and vulnerable position for a pre-emptive strike. These are the reasons why no one serious about long-range ballistic missiles ever fooled around with either muiltiple stages or liquid fuels.

While I do not believe that the satellite launch poses any additional threat to the US or anyone else, and I readily admit that there is some small amount of engineering information that NK can derive from such shots, I do believe that they are legitimate space shots and are intended to solidify Kim's hold on power by demonstrating new military technologies and to give their arms sale business a solid advertising cachet.

But what we have to watch is the cooperation between NK and Iran. While there is little religious love lost between North Koreans, presumed athiests, and rabid Islamists like Iran, they have developed a serious arms-length cooperation. North Korea is exchanging nuclear design information and data as well as site hardening experience and design for Iranian solid-fuel and guidance technology. If NK comes into possession of, or develops, a single-stage solid-fuel rocket with intercontinental range, then it will be a serious threat to everyone they can hit with it.

Angela,

Which is why the remainder of it could be bombed into the stone age in one night.....thanks for letting me know that though....I thought they were all living like Americans....who knew...lol.

Troy, North Korea cannot be bombed into the Stone Age; not in a night, not in a year. They've been preparing for us to try for the last sixty years (remember, technically we're still at war with them and have been since 1950). The last two years of the Korean War were basically WWI-style trench warfare, only with the addition of air power. We had the better air force, so they got very good at digging. They buried everything. Today NK has the most extensive tunnel system known to man. Where are the targets? We don't know. How deep? We don't know. Can we pierce them, even with a specialized bunker-buster? We don't even know that.

Every time one of these "upstart" nations does something, people say we should just bomb them and be done with it. I wish they realized how difficult wars actually are to win.

I read the headline and laughed outloud. They proclaim the same thing every year until they recieve just compensation to pretend they won't do it again.

Once Chinese works start making over $1 per hour we could see N.Korea making IPhones next.

We'd also care more about N. Korea if they had large supplies of oil.

If they had oil, we cerainly would.

This entire article can be summed up like this - World - NK our weenie is bigger than yours. NK of yeah watch this....

And they would glow in the dark too.

yeahbuhwha,

I hardly think we would subject ourselves to the cold war tactics and trench warfare. I'm pretty sure that the entire military/industrial might of widdle ol' NK could be wiped out in hours...not even the whole night.

And unless they are incredibly stupid and suicidal, which they might be, they won't be lobbing nukes at the US. The retaliation would be vast and all-encompassing. Anybody in NK to survive will be giving birth to six fingered, three eyed babies with gills and the entire place would glow for a thousand years....or we would just take it.

NK is like a little impotent man with a big mouth! They can't even feed their people and develop nukes. They have to choose between the two. NK may be a threat...but it is a small one and any damage they could inflict would be very localized. They do not have the capability to bring down any country except their own.

Hey Troy1101...we tried that once in the Nam...It' really hard to bomb them back to the stone age when they only got one foot out of it.

The real problem with controlling North Korea, is that they have nothing to loose except the Kim dynasty.

It is like fight someone who is not afraid to die, what deterent do you have other than killing them.

An attack by North Korea on South Korea would destroy the South Korean economy, with the exception of a preemptive strike, there is no way to stop them before they reach Seoul.

Over a 20 year period, I have spent 7 years in South Korea, they are a hard working people, but like our younger generation, their kids don't take North Korea's threat seriously.

The generation that lived through the Korean War, are dying off, when they are gone who knows what will happen?

China has been busy--busy--busy-------------They now own 33 % of all oil and natural gas rights that lie beneath Colorado and Wyoming--800,000 acres involved--China's CN00C Ltd -----also CN00C Ltd now owns the Canadian energy firm -----NEXON----The Buzzard oil field and assets in the Gulf of Mexico---Chesapeake Energy Corp. sold the property to CN00C Ltd in Colorado & Wyoming--QUESTION---WHO WILL FINNALY OWN AMERICA------MEXICO OR CHINA----Many Americans have lost their jobs--being replaced by cheap Mexican labor.

Actually, they must be very scared of the UN. Technically, North Korea is at war with the UN (and not actually the US.) It is the fear of the UN that keeps them on the north side of the DMZ and has done so for 60 years. In the event of war, over 60 countries in the UN are already pledged to send troops immediately to fight. Yep, I think the North Koreans might fear the UN. lol

Because you can't have countries with tyrannical governments with the power to drop such devastating weapons upon it's own, or other countries people.

You know what, we should get rid of them too!

Before anyone says something, yes, I'm being sarcastic.

Then how come the facist warmongering israel which is worse than NK has nukes.

heinrich - They have nukes because they need to protect themselves against people like you. All your posts, and in every chance you get, your vile remarks always justify why israel need to be strong.

Iran also needs to be strong and have nuclear deterrent against any zionist pre-emptive strike.

There are many righteous people like me who are against the ill policy of israel in the theft of Palestinian land and subjugation of Palestinian people. The world will not sit quiety and let israel to continue their occupation and oppression.

No money to buy guns or ammo !!!

That and the fact that the military has all the guns and fire power. Starving bodies with sticks and stones does not a revolution make.

@bandjammer,

North Korea will never revolt based on a popular revolution. The hold of the elite, with its network of spies, is simply too great. Little children are taught to turn their parents in for making casual remarks that could be construed as "lacking in revolutionary fervor." The only possibility of regime change would come from the military and any change there would likely be much worse than young Kim.

"No," say the same chickenhawks that invaded Iraq for no reason, "let's wait til they get like the Axis powers of the thirties Control of sixty percent of the world." Both North Korea and Iran are one column crack away from collapse, but Russia and China keep holding them up. Provacation towards a decisive war is something we are good at. Let's get it on, as you say, NOW!!!

The #truth is: The US military does not have sufficient power to "take out" North Korea. Every President since Truman has wrestled with how to deal with NK and no one has yet come up with any serious ideas as how to deal with NK except to sit down and shut up.

I was a North Korean intelligence analyst when the NKAF shot down an American EC-121 90nm out from NK over the Sea of Japan. All aboard were killed, including some RIOs that were drinking buddies. I watched as the 5th AF battle staff tried to put together a response and all they could ever come up with was a massive chemical attack. So massive that it eoulf have reguired about 4 times our entire stockpile of nerve gas. Chemical weapons are now outlawed. Because of the hardened targets and the terrain, nuclear weapons would not work very well. If you look at the dmage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, you can see how much moun tains degrade a nuclear blast. And conventional weapons are pretty close to worthless against the thousands of hardened targets in NK.

But the worst thing is that if the event of any attack by US forces against NK, or even a miscalculation by either side, the entire Seoul-Inchon Corridor and the area about 50 miles deep from the DMZ would literally become a "sea of fire." There are thousands of artillery pieces, guided and unguided rockets, heavy mortars and other weaponry in peek and shoot caves and tunnels along the DMZ. All these are located on the back sides of mountains for indirect fire and are pre-surveyed, meaning that they are already sighhted in on specific targets. In about 15 minutes, Soputh Korea would lose its political and financial capital, about 40% of its population, and about 80% of its industry along with its major port. The area along the DMZ would not fare much better --- around 120,000 ROKA troops and 20,000 American troops would become "tripwire" or "sacrificial" casualties. Military planners believe that there would be no combat-effective American main battle units left in South Korea after an attack, leaving the ROKA to carry the load.

I want something also. First, I want the Pueblo for starters. That's a non negociable item. It's ours and we want it. Then we want those nukes. Then we want their political prisoners delivered to us, in good shape. Then they can open the border for anyone that wants to leave their miserable country. All this and Kim gets to keep his head. I think we know where he sleeps. No problem dropping a hellfire greeting on him. Seems fair.

@C,Moakler,

Too bad. The North Koreans own the Pueblo and, considering that they took it legally as a prize of war, they are likely to be keeping it. But be of good cheer --- they are taking good care of it and have it on display in Pyongyang as a tourist attraction. As for political prisoners, they are likely to ever be in "good shape" for a long time. The nature of being a political prisoner in North Korea is that you and your family will be worked and starved to death. The only way out ofd those camps is to a grave.

Both South Korea and China are very scared of a regime change in North Korea. Both countries fear a massive flood of refugees if borders were to become leaky. We're talking about billions of dollars a year to feed and guard them. And younger South Koreans are opposed to reunification and that opposition is growing rapidly. South Korea saw what the integration of East Germany into Germany cost (and is continuing to cost.) North Korea is in even worst shape than East Germany was. It is estimated that the average North Korean is 15+ IQ points lower than the average South Korean because of malnutrition. It is likely that reunification would cause South korea to drown in a sea of unskilled, not too bright, sapslingers who would have to be supported by the South Korean worker. It will never happen.

Eat Nukes !!!

I like that one. If they can. Then that would make them easier to spot, because they would glow in the dark. Or we could detect them using a Geiger-conter.

Maybe you can eat your own excrement you sick selfish uncaring moron ....

What a sick, inflammatory and obscene remark by CONRAD who was not insulted by other posters. Typical anti American, radical muslim or communist.

North Korea does not have the capability to hit any country further than Japan with a missile. Period. And it is doubtful that they have the capability to hit Japan with a nuke and only the norther half of South Korea would be in range of a nuke. And they have had the same missile capability for around 40 years. The problem for North Korea is that early-stage nuclead devices such as the two that were dropped on Japan are very heavy. Reducing them to a size and weight that a missile could transport would require decades of constant development. Until then, the best NK could do with one would be to hit northern South Korea with a nuke mounted on a SCUD at a very degraded range.

There has been a full blocade for years. All banned materials are confiscated. But North Korea has been selling arms to other countries (including Syria and Iran) for years. Their anti-ship missiles and SCUD variants are biug sellers. The problem with blocades is that they catch only a small portion of illicit materials. Look at the US efforts to stop sea-borne drugs. Sure , they catch a fes ships and mini-subs, but the vast majority of illegal drugs make it through. Shutting off China would destroy the US economy almost instantly.

Something wrong with this picture?

Yes, you're right, something is. It's utterly ridiculous. If you submitted this premise to a publisher as a teaser to a science fiction novel you'd like to write for them, they'd laugh you out of the room.