# North Korean missile launch **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 15, 2021, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703 "2021-09-15T15:07:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/1 "2021-09-15T15:07:58Z")
Does North Korea have a particular beef with Japan, or is it just a convenient place at which to shoot? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/2 "2021-09-15T15:13:42Z")
Koreans in general still resent Japan for WWII. More so in North Korea where propaganda has kept the hate stronger. Japan actually ruled Korea before the war and Korea only gained independence with the Japanese surrender. Japan had annexed Korea back in 1910 in fact. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/3 "2021-09-15T15:14:08Z")
Yes, North Korea regards Japan as a longtime enemy due to WW2 and prior history. Never mind the fact that Japan is totally a zero-threat to North Korea. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/4 "2021-09-15T15:15:35Z")
Thanks. By that train of thought, we and just about everyone else should be shooting at them. Chill out and buy their DVD players. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/5 "2021-09-15T15:19:43Z")
It is different. Japan held Korea longer than other places they took during the war. Japan took decades to make a weak apology for the Comfort Women. {Korean women and girls forced into servicing the Japanese military and officials} It is a lot more serious than US and Japan relations as an example. * * * There is a lot to it and a little reading could be illuminating. Think of it as closer to the Europeans coming to America and taking the Native’s land. A good reason to be resentful and/or even hating. The Koreans in the end were probably the most mistreated by the Japanese. The Japanese have rarely shown remorse for it either. ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/6 "2021-09-15T15:44:07Z")
There are factors beyond history, of course. If they launch towards the sea (so that the landing point is free of potential accidentally damaged or injured things), they have to either launch into a narrow strait towards their close and current friend China, or into a more spacious sea towards Japan. Pragmatically, which would you choose? Furthermore, Japan is a critical ally of the hated US and if a war breaks out the US’s military action will almost certainly launch from Japan, just like during the Korean War. You practice like you intend to fight, so launching a ballistic missile toward your probable enemy’s forward bases constitutes “realism in training.” ---
**Author:** ![Limmin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f04885/32.png) [@Limmin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limmin)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/7 "2021-09-15T18:02:37Z")
Let me add to this: North Korea has tried to lob a missile or two into orbit, and to do this, generally you have to launch to the East, to take advantage of the Earth’s rotation (roughly 700 mph to the East at the latitude of NK). Which once again takes us over Japan. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/8 "2021-09-15T18:20:08Z")
Add to all the above, NK doesn’t actually want to start a shooting war over a missile test. If you look at a map, shooting over Japan vs. shooting over South Korea is a much longer distance, which gives everyone involved more time to figure out if the missile is aimed over Japan, as opposed to at Japan. South Korea would have to react to any missile launches much quicker than Japan, which increases the chances of a mistake. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/9 "2021-09-15T18:23:35Z")
That seems rather sophisticated for Kim Jong-un. ---
**Author:** ![Horatius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/horatius/32/3572_2.png) [@Horatius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatius)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2021, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/10 "2021-09-15T18:35:20Z")
Yeah, I don’t really buy into the notion that the son and grandson of dictators who have controlled the country for more than 70 years, despite the best efforts of the US to stop them, who was educated in Switzerland before returning home to take control after his father’s death, who finally realized NK’s long-standing desire to be a nuclear power, is actually “crazy” or “stupid” or “unsophisticated”. He might be brutal, but he’s not an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2021, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/11 "2021-09-16T00:31:38Z")
I’d put more money on his sister being intelligent than he. She oversaw things when he signed something with Trump, and made sure that he used her pen instead of the one that Trump offered him. ---
**Author:** ![Mnemnosyne](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mnemnosyne/32/3347_2.png) [@Mnemnosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mnemnosyne)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2021, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/12 "2021-09-16T07:49:18Z")
How is the pen thing a sign of intelligence? Seems like an odd quirk. Unless you’re suggesting she was afraid they would try to assassinate him with a trick pen or something, KGB style? And if that was the fear, then I’m not sure I see it as a sign of intelligence. Not in that assassinating him is unthinkable, just that if that was the plan it definitely wouldn’t happen with a pen that the president personally gave him. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2021, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/13 "2021-09-16T10:57:37Z")
I was thinking of the CIA trying to poison Castro with a scuba suit. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2021, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/14 "2021-09-16T11:04:28Z")
> **[Korea under Japanese rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > Korea was ruled as a part of the Empire of Japan between 1910 and 1945. Joseon Korea had come into the Japanese sphere of influence with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1876; a complex coalition of the Meiji government, military, and business officials began a process of integrating Korea's politics and economy with Japan. The Korean Empire, proclaimed in 1897, became a protectorate of Japan with the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1905; thereafter Japan ruled ... The above article should help you with background, especially the section titled Pre-World War II (1910-1941). ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2021, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/15 "2021-09-17T02:04:20Z")
The Japanese were bastards in WWII, and the young Japanese have no idea of the war crimes commited. George Bush’s crew were captured and eaten by the Japanese. [How George H.W. Bush Avoided Being Eaten by Cannibals in World War II (businessinsider.com)](https://www.businessinsider.com/how-george-hw-bush-avoided-being-eaten-by-cannibals-in-world-war-ii-2017-12) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2021, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/16 "2021-09-18T22:27:57Z")
Plus, the main purpose of a “test” like this is to show everyone else in the world what you can do. Launch a missile over Japan, and you definitively prove that your missiles have enough range to reach Japan. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2021, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/17 "2021-09-18T22:57:05Z")
Bush did exact some measure of payback by puking over a Japanese minister decades later. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2021, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/18 "2021-09-18T23:03:51Z")
An interesting [link.](https://www.businessinsider.com/how-george-hw-bush-avoided-being-eaten-by-cannibals-in-world-war-ii-2017-12) ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2021, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/19 "2021-09-18T23:09:31Z")
North Korea’s missiles over Japan have little to do with settling old scores; they want to intimidate the U.S. and their allies. It’s a form of blackmail, a way to put pressure on the US and allies to come to the negotiating table and give them just enough money to keep the regime afloat, soldiers fed. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2021, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703/20 "2021-09-18T23:14:59Z")
More likely, Kim’s thinking “I can scare everyone into giving my regime money by ending sanctions” or maybe some fuel oil or food so that his army doesn’t turn on him. Japan’s particularly useful because Japan and South Korea don’t always see eye to eye, which absolutely does go back to Japan’s occupation of Korea. North Korea wants to break the US/Japan/South Korea alliance - as does China. If anyone’s interested in following Korean peninsula security issues, I recommend this website: [https://www.38north.org/](https://www.38north.org/) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/north-korean-missile-launch/950703.md?page=2)