I doubt we’re doing that good of a job of tracking all NK subs. I suspect the higher-value targets, like the ballistic missile submarines, get more attention, but even then, I wonder how well we do at tracking ballistic missile submarines from adversarial countries. There are the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, etc. and we only have so many attack submarines to go around, plus some of those are protecting CBGs, and presumably doing other clandestine things.
Where did North Korea obtain a submarine that can launch ICBMs?
They built them themselves, although, to be totally fair, no one believes the missile it launches is capable of inter-continental flight. It’s estimated range is between 500 and 2,000 km.
Yeah, a 1950’s era obsolete Soviet sub modified with launch tubes. The US Navy can probably hear it moving through the water without even looking.
And they have not successfully launched a missile out of it.
But yes, that is their goal, to be able to sneak up on the US and launch missiles right off our coast to minimize any warning or possible intercept.
False, they successfully launched one in August.
You believed that? Fake news scores again!
*Footage released last week by North Korea purporting to show the firing of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) appears to be fake, according to studies by U.S. experts.
…
“The rocket ejected, began to light, and then failed catastrophically,” Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the Middlebury Institute’s CNS, said in an email. “North Korea used heavy video editing to cover over this fact.”
*
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missile-analysis-idUSKCN0UQ0CC20160112
No, you are mistaken. The story you linked to, and quoted, references a failed / faked attempt in December of last year. If you would kindly re-read my previous post, you may notice that I mentioned a month, and it wasn’t December. Try reading this story (same source, so since you believed them before, maybe you’ll believe them now) and comparing the dates of the two news stories.
My bad, that was the March test.
That said, the NK navy has 0 chance of slipping a sub by modern acoustic monitoring systems. And even less that 0 of getting a sub within striking distance of CONUS without being detected.
Agreed. I don’t think their subs + missiles even have the range to hit Guam, let alone Hawaii, and they’re still a long ways from being able to hit CONUS. The bigger threat would be that they sit off the coast of South Korea and decide to hit Seoul, which I suspect is about all the accuracy their missiles can muster.
That being said, to North Korea’s credit, they’ve shown a lot of persistence, and progress, in weapons development. Their first nuclear bomb tests were dismal failures, but they seem to have learned from those and now appear to have functional nuclear weapons. Likewise, their first SLBMs were terrible failures, but they’ve learned from their mistakes, to the point where they’ve now finally launched (once) a semi-credible SLBM. I suppose the threat of ISIS-like cruel executions for failures has a clarifying effect on the minds of their weapons program personnel.
“The English occasionally shoot a few admirals to encourage the others.”
-Voltaire? :dubious:
No country that wants to continue exist will take the side of a country that launches an NBC attack on the US, and China very much wants to exist as a country. And doing anything more than making speeches urging restraint or asking to be a part of the occupation forces would qualify as ‘taking the side’. And that goes double when we have a president who’s apparently looking for an excuse to use nukes on somebody.
After a nuclear attack by North Korea? They’d denounce Kim and volunteer to assist in the regime change.
China has a lot of people and land area, and likes the USA only as a customer for cheap products.
IMO this misses the point… the flaw is you are assuming that NK thinks like a civilized nation and not like a terrorist state. While I concede that they are not similar I would posit that NK is closer to a “martyr state” like ISIS or Al Qaeda than traditional government like South Korea.