Who really likes North Korea? Very few if any nations. His own people don’t like him.
Who doesn’t worry what this insane leader might do, now that he has lower level nuclear weapons?
Just about everyone.
I highly doubt if a move is made it will be done by the USA alone. China and Russia would likely get on board, forming a new alliance of need for the future. When an insane dictator, religious nut, or terrorist group gets WMD’s and threatens to use them, you take them out before they can act.
Essentially there is no such thing as bluffing in nuclear poker. If you have the means and a very small arsenal and threaten to use them, you up the ante of the a nations in a much stronger positons to act first.
The 150k PRC troops allegedly on the border with Best Korea should be much more alarming for Dear Leader than one US CVBG. Based on previous USAF/USN air power campaigns, we’re not starting shit beyond treating the Yellow Sea (EDIT, or more probably, the Sea of Japan.) as the world biggest IRBM skeet range, or breaking a few of Kim’s toys, with only one carrier. Or even two, if Eisenhower does end up paying a visit too. IIRC, we used six for Desert Storm, and five for OIF.
OTOH, unlike a pure surface action group, a US aircraft carrier nowadays does allow for forward deployment of F-35s, which might be useful as stealthy forward communications, sensor, and ordnance deployment nodes, all of which might make a lot easier, the task of swatting PRK test missiles or other missiles launched at the US or SK.
According to NBC News, if the U.S. believes that North Korea is about to conduct another nuclear weapons test (possibly as soon as this weekend), they (the U.S.) is prepared to launch a pre-emptive strike, using conventional weapons.
I don’t believe the F-35C is scheduled for IOC until the year after next. Even when it does, I don’t believe it’s going to play a significant role in BMD.
That article seems like scare-mongering more than serious journalism (not sure if we’re allowed to use the #F***News epithet about actual pieces of journalism or not, so I’ll refrain). Yes, we’re “prepared” to launch a preemptive strike with conventional weapons against North Korea, but we’re always prepared. That’s what being the world’s sole superpower buys you: the ability for your leader to pick up the phone on any given Thursday and blow shit up anywhere on the planet, with small bombs, medium-sized bombs, or big bombs, dealer’s choice.
The article has a lot of hyper-ventilating about the US positioning “destroyers capable of shooting Tomahawk cruise missiles in the region”, but that’s pretty routine. I suspect the US has had at least a pair of destroyers in the region more often than not over the last few decades. Same for “American heavy bombers are also positioned in Guam to attack North Korea should it be necessary”. Guam is one of the few places on Earth that B-2 bombers routinely deploy to. Here is an article from a deployment in 2016. In 2008, the Spirit of Kansas crashed there.
The same goes for the Carl Vinson CSG. It’s routine for the USA to deploy carriers to hot spots around the world, and it doesn’t always (or even usually) indicate we’re about to bomb the place.
All that being said, I’m not predicting that we won’t bomb North Korea for certain, because the possibility is certainly there. It’s just that I don’t see a pair of destroyers, a handful of B-2’s and a single CVN as the looming apocalypse. If the military thought stuff was about to kick off their, I suspect they’d be moving a LOT more equipment to the region.
FWIW, there’s a tweet out by Jen Griffin, a FNC correspondent, that says DoD officials say this NBC report is “wildly wrong” “crazy” and “extremely dangerous”
If we back in to a shooting incident however minor it will be mostly driven by social media and breathless overblown conventional media trying to out-bloviate the viral facebook “sharing” of propaganda originating gosh knows where.
It’d be par for our F’ed up course if some pimply teen in a basement ends up triggering a hot war with a dozen (un)lucky lulz posts that go viral.
Article discusses testing done with NIFC-CA and the F-35, -B model, which entered IOC in late 2015. No idea if -Bs are strictly a Gator Navy toy or whether some have been temporarily deployed on CVNs. You’re right that -C isn’t projected to be available until Feb 2019.
I was originally thinking of something like NCADE for the AIM-120 family, but the above F-35 test link makes it look like they can shorten the kill chain enough, utilize their Distributed Aperture System, and use Burkes/Ticos to provide the missiles, to still allow boost phase intercepts of IRBMs and shorter range rockets. Instead of waiting for AWACS or a SPY-1 to acquire the ascending booster.
F-35 is “probably” (hopefully) stealthy enough to get close to the launch site, loiter, and thereby avoid relying on a stealthier UAV like RQ-170 to get eyes on launches. F-22, I thought, was even stealthier, but AIUI, the networking links, computing power, and communications gear on the -35 is that much better. And you gain a few hundred NM staging from a carrier, vice someplace like Osan.
Like the last few posts, I really hope that conventional strikes (or another Dora Farms-esque decapitation strike) don’t happen. I also don’t think they will this time around. Un is China’s dog, and I suspect China, not the US, is going to put him down quite soon.
I’ll be extremely shocked if we try to use ABM technology against any North Korean missile that isn’t headed for U.S. possessions/territories or allies. Otherwise we risk failing it and “exposing” the technology. Most people (myself included) are skeptics of the efficacy even of our newest/best ABM tech (THAAD), for dealing with high-altitude and long range missiles. THAAD has had successful techs, but has never been used in battle. Other systems like the Patriot iterations have showed that battlefield conditions can be different, the first generation Patriot depending on who you asked (this was the one used in the Gulf War) either missed all of its targets or hit 1-2 [there’s a long explanation about why we aren’t 100% sure that isn’t germane.] Upgraded versions of the Patriot and I believe another ABM tech were used more extensively during OIF and the subsequent occupation, and did have successful “combat kills” of enemy missiles, but it had misses too, as well as hits that didn’t fully stop the missile (i.e. it blew the missile up but the missile still fell and caused damage, albeit the ABM interrupted its flight path and protected the intended target of the strike at the cost of collateral victims), I don’t necessarily doubt THAAD would ever work, but I doubt it works at 100%, and it’ll only get one bite at the apple in this situation.
I have to wonder if the use of the MOAB in Afghanistan that just happened was also meant to be a warning to North Korea. There is a deep network of tunnels under Pyongyang, so by showing the damage they are indicating to lil Kim that he won’t be safe even in his tunnels.
To be clear I’m sure there was some legit military target where they dropped it, but its killing two birds with one stone.
The MOAB isn’t a tunnel penetrating weapon. The US does have a large conventional tunnel penetrating weapon, the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, but that’s not what was used.
It’s not a penetrator but it can still be used against tunnels. From wiki:
“The MOAB is not a penetrator weapon and is primarily intended for soft to medium surface targets covering extended areas and targets in a contained environment such as a deep canyon or within a cave system.”
AFAIK the MOAB is also a Thermobaric weapon, so it would kill those inside the tunnels both from shockwave and from the vacuum created bursting peoples lungs inside:
With any other POTUS, probably no intercept attempt. With Trump…
If the intercept probability is high enough, though, it might be worth the gamble. It would be a big PR coup. Knocking a North Korean missile out of the sky would boost confidence in the US and US technology, and also among US allies - and probably boost sales orders for ABM tech as well. Of course, it might also simply push North Korea to develop its missile tech further so as to circumvent the ABM defenses in the future.
The irony of this of course is his health care “reforms” would cause plenty of suffering and preventable deaths from low income families who now can’t afford health care for their children. Effectively he is saying to the US population that Syrian’s childrens life threatened by chemical weapons are more important than the lives of his own citizens.
This is Trump, he’s flip flopped and been incoherent on so many issues, one more ain’t anything surprising. The rumor (which may or may not be true) is that Ivanka saw the footage of the chemical gas attack and convinced Trump he had to respond. He also explicitly mentions Syrian children when he announced the attack.
Anyway back to NK, I see the world hasn’t ended (yet).
So another new development. Chinese proxies who are widely thought to speak unofficially for the government have said that China is not obliged to defend NK if it’s attacked.
Specifically NK’s development of nuclear weapons is a breach of their 1961 mutal defence treaty. An editorial in the communist parties daily newspaper (again widely regarded as a way for them to unofficially announce things) then says that if NK gives up it’s nuclear weapons program the treaty will be valid again and China will guarantee it’s defense. Since China has a solid nuclear deterrent that must be a pretty tempting offer for little kim.
