
North Korea now making missile-ready nuclear weapons, U.S. analysts say - rbanffy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/north-korea-now-making-missile-ready-nuclear-weapons-us-analysts-say/2017/08/08/e14b882a-7b6b-11e7-9d08-b79f191668ed_story.html?utm_term=.26853f6f9979
======
readams
For those unfamiliar with how intractable this problem really is, this article
provides an excellent summary:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/the-
wor...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/the-worst-
problem-on-earth/528717/)

~~~
jseliger
A useful link. Boiled down, there are really two options: attack NK or leave
them to slowly but surely advance missiles and warheads. The former is a bad
idea because it is likely that millions of people will die, most of them in
South Korea. The latter is a bad idea because it may mean that millions will
die in the future.

But war is not inevitable, anymore than it was with the Soviet Union, and it's
possible that the regime will eventually collapse. So rather than pursuing the
near-guaranteed path, we delay and hope.

~~~
jessriedel
Seems strange to not mention leaving 25M people in abject poverty under a
dictatorship for half a century.

~~~
angersock
My conviction is that, in about 20-40 years, the rest of the world is going to
find a mass grave of what used to be a nation in the Korean Peninsula. When
asked about this, world leaders will scratch the backs of their heads and
stare at their shoes.

~~~
Sangermaine
That's unfair. As the other comments have noted, this is a difficult situation
with few options, all of them bad. It's easy to say we should do something
about the people suffering there, but what can be done without either war or
the regime's cooperation?

~~~
jessriedel
I would probably start by giving non-negligible weight to the 25M people who
are currently suffering. Essentially every analysis I hear is about preventing
hypothetical attacks in the future on the wealthy countries making the
decisions.

~~~
Sangermaine
You're dodging the point. What, exactly, would you have done for these people?
Invade to free them? Sparks a war of mass death across the peninsula. Try to
convince the Kim regime to close the prison camps and end the totalitarian
brutality? They don't seem very keen on doing that anytime soon.

So what's your plan?

~~~
jessriedel
Im dodging nothing. I have no expertise on any of this, so I can't possibly
have an informed opinion. But if I'm listening to people who claim to have
such opinions weigh various plans and they never once mention the North Korean
people, I can reasonably infer they don't much care about them. Given that the
North Korean probably fare better under military intervention, I suspect that
military intervention is a better option than most people think.

~~~
angersock
You've summed it up nicely--it is basically a nation-size concentration camp.

There are all kinds of wonderful _realpolitick_ reasons for not invading or
assassinating or taking direct action. It suits China, it suits the US, it
suits the UN, it probably even suits South Korea. And the maintenance cost is
just a bunch of dead nork civilians.

Those reasons will make a fine plaque at the memorial for the dead. Our
children will wonder how we could let such a thing happen.

EDIT: If somebody would like to explain how the combined armed forces of China
and the US couldn't forcibly remove the malnourished and undertrained folks
cannibalizing their own country, I'd love to hear the theory.

Least of all since any proper insurgency requires food and support of the
locals, which it sounds like may not exist.

~~~
Sangermaine
I can't tell if you're just pretending to be this stupid.

The ability to defeat North Korea isn't the question, the question is what the
cost would be. North Korea, before being inevitably defeated, could do
enormous damage to South Korea and Japan.

You make smug comments about "plaques at the memorial for the dead"; what will
you put on the memorials for the people of Seoul or Tokyo if they're destroyed
in the war? "Sorry you had to die in a conventional/nuclear attack, but I'm
sure you'll agree your deaths were worth it! Thanks for your sacrifice!"

~~~
angersock
With a navy group next door and the massive amount of anti-missle and anti-
artillery stuff that's doubtless setup on the peninsula, I don't think the
risk of a strike on Japan or S. Korea doing any significant damage is that
high.

------
samfriedman
For those who want more of this "analysts' insight", I can heartily recommend
the blog and podcast, Arms Control Wonk [0]. The researchers and experts there
work to perform analysis into most new missile launches in the interest of
non-proliferation.

Since the recent ramp-up of NK missile tests, I've found their writing and
(largely less formal) podcasting extremely interesting and valuable both as an
expert opinion on the capabilities of NK (and other proto-nuclear states), and
as a look into the research that feeds journalism like this piece.

[0] [http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/](http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/)

------
dbatten
The uncomfortable conclusion I've come to recently: the world (and especially
the US) has come to terms with a nuclear-armed North Korea being the least bad
option in this whole ordeal. Sure, we still need to pass sanctions and throw
around words like "unacceptable" a lot for PR purposes. But we've ultimately
accepted that there's nothing we can do to stop Kim from getting nukes that
doesn't involve laying waste to most of the Korean peninsula, a massive
refugee crisis, and the potential that the conflict will already go nuclear.

~~~
bitL
I frankly doubt so. The same problem will happen with Iran within 10-20 years.
Either USA resigns on maintaining its own safety/defense or it will use NK as
a beta-test for all future wars. With SU you could have still expected
rational actors; these days it seems like insanity is the new normal and
future looks unstable.

------
jonknee
The Economist has a piece in the current issue about how war with North Korea
could develop without either side wanting it. It's worth a read:

[https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21725763-everyone-
wo...](https://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21725763-everyone-would-lose-
how-nuclear-war-korea-could-start-and-how-it-might-end)

> Mr Trump, however, was undaunted. He tweeted: “Nuke attack on Seoul by evil
> Kim was BAD! Had no choice but to nuke him back. But thanks to my actions,
> America is safe again!”

------
grandalf
It is strongly in N. Korea's interest to develop nuclear weapons. NK is acting
highly rationally in every respect.

I simply can't handle the statements from US officials accusing Kim Jong-un of
being "insane" or "irrational". That sort of nonsense is an indication that
there is a propaganda story being told.

The real question is why the US keeps blustering about N. Korea and why US
hawks keep fanning the flames.

US sanctions have helped NK become an insular place where reality is distorted
and basic famine prevents much dissent from occurring.

There is absolutely zero reason to have any trust/faith in US leaders who are
calling for the same hawkish nonsense that they did about Iraq, Lybia, Syria,
etc. It simply doesn't work and it costs the US tremendous amounts of money to
effectively genocide those populations with "pre-emptive strikes".

Like playground bullies, US politicians need small countries to push around to
make themselves feel powerful. Sadly the real message that is being sent is
that if you want the US to back off nukes are an absolute necessity.

We in the US need to realize that when we allow our leaders to do wars,
sanctions, and bombing campaigns we are complicit in the massive amount of
suffering those policies cause.

We should be truly confident that such policies are sensible and not get
caught up in the simplistic narratives they offer us. Just say no!

~~~
scottLobster
North Korea is highly rational? If they get a nuclear missile we'll really
find out. Their overblown threats can be tolerated as long as their
capabilities remain conventional, as US/South Korea has substantial
conventional defenses in the region. If they start making the same threats
with viable nuclear missiles, how can we not take them seriously? Or should we
just normalize countries threatening to nuke each others' major cities?

Also, the US committed genocide in Iraq/Lybia/Syria? Just goes to show you how
little people know of history. I'm pretty sure the US killed many times more
Germans and Japanese in WWII and no one accuses us of "Genocide" there,
because by the definition of the word it wasn't. And it sure as hell isn't in
Iraq/Libya/Syria. Hell what have we actually done in Syria besides provide
support to some native factions, launch a few cruise missiles, some air
strikes, and some special forces operations? If that's genocide then we're
going to need a new term for the holocaust.

Reminds me of the BBC broadcast talking to the Somali ambassador about recent
US drone strikes against Al-Shabbab and civilian casualties. The interviewer
seemed aghast that the ambassador actually supported the strikes in the face
of civilian casualties. The ambassador responded that they were at war, and if
they'd sent in conventional ground forces the civilian casualties would have
been much worse.

People in the west seem to have forgotten the nature of war. I sometimes
wonder if western populations would have the will to fight Russia if they
invaded Lithuania or something.

~~~
grandalf
> I sometimes wonder if western populations would have the will to fight
> Russia if they invaded Lithuania or something.

Let's hope not. I certainly don't think it's worth anyone I know dying to
protect Lithuania from Russian aggression. But anyone in Lithuania who wants
to immigrate to the US should be welcomed.

> People in the west seem to have forgotten the nature of war.

We haven't forgotten, it's kept hidden from us by officials who do drone
strikes and secret raids. War should be abundantly obvious. What we are doing
is more appropriately called terrorism because it's focused violence intended
to instill fear in people to achieve a specific political outcome. In many
cases the desired outcome is removing a leader from power so that one of the
militia groups who oppose him can take power, but with little thought to the
consequences.

War is obvious and any brave citizen would likely be happy to fight in an
actual war that was necessary to defend his or her homeland! What we do today
is simply not war, it's high tech terrorism and political meddling.

> I'm pretty sure the US killed many times more Germans and Japanese in WWII
> and no one accuses us of "Genocide" there...

This is a straw man. Even if we assume WW2 was perfectly justified it is
perhaps arguable that the US used "just enough" force to win. But if you
consider the many civilians killed in Japan both through nukes and fire
bombing of the mainland, is it really fair to say that the US killing of
civilians weren't war crimes? We spend extra money (smart bombs, etc.) to make
our war morally clean. But we didn't do that in WW2, we killed as many
civilians as we could to break the will of the Japanese to keep fighting.

That sort of moral/economic tradeoff is why we consider a $50 suicide vest
morally abhorrent and a $1M smart bomb acceptable, so by that standard the US
committed massive war crimes in WW2. To win the war without crimes, kill only
soldiers, period.

We've had decades of propaganda telling us that the US was heroic in that war,
but war is ugly and men had to be drafted (mostly poor people) to fight a war
they didn't consent to.

The difference with the modern stuff is that the US foments political chaos in
countries and intentionally escalates violence. The net effect of this is that
more and more fighting age people die off. It's hard to say that the massive
number of Iraqi civilians killed isn't a useful byproduct of the US invasion.
Sooner or later the people are simply psychologically broken from all the loss
of life and chaos around them. The US strives to create this situation around
the world. It has nothing to do with American values, freedom, enlightenment
values, etc., and is simply about creating compliant people in oil producing
regions.

The worst part of all this is that oil is likely to decline so much in
importance in the next 30 years that US "investments" in all this middle east
chaos is perhaps the most outrageous misallocation of capital in the history
of the world. If you believe oil is going to be highly relevant and extremely
scarce for 1000 years then perhaps the invasions are economically prudent, but
we've got at best a few decades during which to reap the spoils of Bush and
Obama's war escapades. Money doesn't grow on trees, lots of people's paychecks
and future security is being raided to pay for these wars, which are only
weakening the US and propping up oil regimes and dictators, all for only a few
years more internal combustion dominance.

Why does NK make threats? Because they work. That's rational. They are keeping
the US at bay. Obviously if the US could launch a few hundred missiles on NK
and make the problem go away it would have done so long ago.

~~~
scottLobster
Lithuania is a NATO country. For NATO to mean anything it has to have teeth,
and I don't think collapsing in the face of Russian aggression would set a
good precedent. If they sensed weakness and gained momentum I doubt they'd
stop no matter how many Baltic countries we fed them.

So what, you'd have us return to the traditional "obvious" war and fire-bomb
cities to the ground, with long-term and oppressive occupational forces? The
Russians tried that in Afghanistan in the 80s. Didn't work out so well for
either side. Many more innocents and soldiers died. Why resort to those
tactics when drones/special forces can arguable be more effective with less
blood on both sides?

It's not a straw man. Genocide has a very specific meaning: the intentional,
total destruction of a particular ethnic group or nationality. Not all war
crimes are genocide. We can debate whether US strategy in WWII constitutes war
crimes, but by definition it did not involve genocide. Nor have any of our
actions in the wars since. We were not trying to wipe out all Germans, all
Italians, or all Japanese.

I'm not even going to get into the "war for oil" conspiracies. The Iraq war
was a mistake, but if we did it for oil then we did a really shitty job.

And North Korean threats don't keep the US at bay, their massive conventional
forces stacked along the border do. Their threats merely inflame the situation
and make their own position worse. They come off as childish temper tantrums
at best and invite direct retaliation at worst, and only serve to make it
clear that North Korea has zero desire to peacefully co-exist with the rest of
the world.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if, upon obtaining a reasonably large nuclear
stockpile, they threaten to use it in order to extort food aid among other
concessions.

~~~
grandalf
> I'm not even going to get into the "war for oil" conspiracies.

The only reason the middle east is relevant whatsoever in US politics and
world affairs is because of the large concentration of petroleum beneath the
sand. Once oil loses relevance the middle east will essentially cease to exist
as we know it.

Middle Eastern life has been dramatically influenced by Western intervention
for generations, so it's hard to imagine what it would be like if allowed to
settle into a stable state. Pan Arab movements are a force of progress in the
sense that they create a solidarity movement that is less vulnerable to
manipulation on the basis of ancient ethnic and religious distinctions.

> The Iraq war was a mistake, but if we did it for oil then we did a really
> shitty job.

We wanted to control Iraq, the most important land mass in the middle east,
both to project power throughout the middle east and to prevent Russia from
taking it. At the time of the invasion, Russian and German firms had extensive
oil extraction and refinement contracts with Saddam's government, but the Bush
administration redistributed the spoils to US and coalition firms.

Don't tell me you think the US invaded Iraq for terrorism related reasons. At
the time of the first US invasion (GW1) the US had normal diplomatic channels
with Iraq and the US ambassador didn't think the US would care if Saddam
annexed Kuwait. The US allowed diplomatic relations to degrade simply because
doing so made selling the war easier. But no serious person would think that
Saddam would step down just because GWB demanded it in a blustery (and
humiliating to the US) speech.

> the intentional, total destruction of a particular ethnic group or
> nationality

This was done to Baath party members in Iraq, who mostly happened to be Sunni
muslims. The US looked the other way after the forces we armed decided to do
it. Sunni are a minority in Iraq.

> We were not trying to wipe out all Germans, all Italians, or all Japanese.

I have not argued otherwise. I focused my comments on WW2 to war crimes.

The US has created conditions in many countries that have led to tremendous
loss of life of fighting age people. This may not technically be genocide, but
the distinction doesn't really matter.

We go in and destroy infrastructure and create a cesspool in which we arm and
pay people to kill each other. It's a sick way to thin a population, and we
have all sorts of justifications and silly terms for aspects of it, but it is
abhorrent.

As we should have learned over the past few decades, nation building rhetoric
and "regime change" rhetoric is nonsense. We destroy infrastructure and then
blame the victims when they don't all turn out to be Thomas Jefferson and John
Adams, or when they or their injured or grieving family members are less
enthusiastic about more suffering after the US-funded regime change effort
leaves them in chaos.

It's not just stupid and ineffective foreign policy, it's morally abhorrent
conduct that has cost the US significant respect around the world, and (quite
ironically) created a reality distortion in the minds of many Americans where
American actions are considered somehow appropriate or normal. It's
reminiscent of the sort of absurd beliefs posited to N Koreans.

~~~
openasocket
> At the time of the invasion, Russian and German firms had extensive oil
> extraction and refinement contracts with Saddam's government, but the Bush
> administration redistributed the spoils to US and coalition firms.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Iraq#Ser...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_industry_in_Iraq#Service_contracts_licensing_results)
seems to contradict you. US companies only control two oil fields, and in
terms of gross revenue China actually receives more than any other country.
Russia, Malaysia, and China have more service contracts than any coalition
nation.

------
bitL
I am just wondering - if this were a computer game, it would be like the last
moment when I still could strike the enemy to wipe out their capabilities
before they acquire the capability to hit me and cause unreasonable damage.

So this looks to me like war is unavoidable as after NK manages to get
ICBM/MIRV/submarine launch done, nobody would be able to stop them ever again
(baring some virus) and they could ramp up their requirements. While having
nuke capability as means to prevent an invasion is understandable, the
question is if other nuclear powers would like to invite another member (I
doubt so).

------
cjsuk
This is going to end in a war again.

~~~
mathperson
No it won't. The united states will never put boots on the ground against a
nuclear capable state willing to use them. maybe it will end in a nuclear
exchange by mistake..but if we (the human race) survived the cold war with a
vastly more threatening posture this will be fine in the end.

~~~
TomMarius
The big difference is that back in the day, the opposing side was consisting
of fairly reasonable people.

~~~
exhilaration
I think the unreasonableness of the North Korean regime has been blown far out
of proportions by Western governments and their media.

~~~
jonknee
Who's to say the OP was talking about North Korea's regime? I certainly don't
trust Trump to deal rationally.

~~~
mathperson
This is also a good point.

~~~
muninn_
No it's not. Even if you despise Trump this isn't reasonable. This is just
hyperbole and nonsense.

~~~
jonknee
How so? Trump has shown time and again that he acts out against sound advice.
I could see things spiraling out of control with reactions and counter
reactions to nuclear/ICBM testing.

Obviously I don't think he's going to wake up one day and obliterate NK, but
what happens when NK does another test--maybe an aerial test to really flout
the world and show off a mushroom cloud--and Trump's reaction is to lob some
missiles at their known nuclear sites? Lobbing missiles is what he did when he
got angry seeing dead kids on cable news, it's not out of the realm of
possibility. Is that when Seoul starts getting shelled? What do we do if
thousands of people in Seoul start dying?

Update: This is Trump's statement about the news...

[https://twitter.com/AP/status/895003246372294657](https://twitter.com/AP/status/895003246372294657)

> If NKorea escalates nuclear threat, 'they will be met with fire and fury
> like the world has never seen.'

Still want to bet on his rational reaction thought process?

~~~
muninn_
Yes. Just because he's taking a tough stance doesn't mean it's irrational.
What else should he say? Nothing? Maybe "well if they Lee threatening us we
will just do nothing"? What exactly is an appropriate response? Does it even
matter anymore? You're paranoid and you don't understand the political nature
of this discussion. Saying "he got mad and launched missiles because he saw
dead kids on TV" just highlights this.

------
etaty
Well, with so much effort to isolate North Korea and bring them on the path of
war with repeated threat, I would not expect less from them. And knowing the
past history of the USA in deescalating conflict, I would expect war at some
point.

~~~
throwasehasdwi
Well, North korea has been working on nukes for like 40 years and there hasn't
been a war yet so I don't think the US is as eager as you think.

You don't see anything wrong with a madman in a country always on the edge of
collapse that's constantly threatening to turn the USA into a crater having
nuclear weapons?

Kimmy is over there threatening to bomb out the US and Japan and put
everyone's heads on pikes pretty much weekly. I don't recall even our crazy
fucker president Trump saying anything remotely close to that.

~~~
bitL
It's different if you have baby nukes you can't launch, and if you have MIRV
ICBMs with mastered launch from submarines; i.e. one submarine capable of
wiping out the whole west coast. There was recent noise that NK is testing (so
far unsuccessfully) submarine launch for their new ICBMs; once they are
successful, it stops being kindergarten stuff but a global issue.

~~~
throwasehasdwi
They have nukes and working ICBM's... It's not that hard to put the two
together.

Submarine launch is harder and the warheads must be smaller, but ICMB's are
already considered unstoppable so it doesn't matter.

------
bluthru
"The Libyan disarmament issue was peacefully resolved on December 2003 when
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi agreed to eliminate his country's weapons of
mass destruction program, including a decades-old nuclear weapons program."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disarmament_of_Libya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disarmament_of_Libya)

US foreign policy has shown that the only leverage you have is nukes. Libya
disarmed and the government was still overthrown because Gaddafi threatened to
start a new gold-backed African currency.

~~~
scottLobster
Actually US foreign policy is demonstrating right now that large conventional
forces are an equally effective deterrent. If they weren't we would have
overthrown North Korea by now, given the continuous threats they've made over
the years.

Also perhaps I'm just a "sheep" but I'm pretty sure the Libyan people didn't
rebel over a theoretical currency change. Or was that a CIA job like 9/11?
/sarcasm

~~~
bluthru
>Actually US foreign policy is demonstrating right now that large conventional
forces are an equally effective deterrent.

I don't understand your point. North Korea has had nuclear bombs for over a
decade.

>Also perhaps I'm just a "sheep" but I'm pretty sure the Libyan people didn't
rebel over a theoretical currency change.

Of course not, but it was a reason for us to care. Lose the attitude. It's
obvious you're not familiar with this topic:

[https://news.vice.com/article/libyan-oil-gold-and-qaddafi-
th...](https://news.vice.com/article/libyan-oil-gold-and-qaddafi-the-strange-
email-sidney-blumenthal-sent-hillary-clinton-in-2011)

[http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/09/20/349549267/w...](http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2014/09/20/349549267/when-
the-u-s-backs-rebels-it-doesnt-often-go-as-planned)

[http://www.salon.com/2014/03/08/35_countries_the_u_s_has_bac...](http://www.salon.com/2014/03/08/35_countries_the_u_s_has_backed_international_crime_partner/)

~~~
Sangermaine
>I don't understand your point. North Korea has had nuclear bombs for over a
decade.

The point is they didn't have them for 60 years after the Korean War and
weren't attacked. They've long had enough conventional forces to make war with
them a guaranteed disaster for the Korean Peninsula.

The idea that nuclear weapons are what's keeping them from being attacked is
simply stupid.

~~~
bluthru
>The idea that nuclear weapons are what's keeping them from being attacked is
simply stupid.

I guess you think the top experts are "simply stupid" then:

[http://www.npr.org/2017/03/29/521909787/the-u-s-has-an-
activ...](http://www.npr.org/2017/03/29/521909787/the-u-s-has-an-active-cyber-
war-underway-to-thwart-the-north-korean-nuclear-thre)

[https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/must-we-accept-a-
nucl...](https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/must-we-accept-a-nuclear-
north-korea)

~~~
Sangermaine
I'm not sure what your point is, since neither of those links espouse the
position that nuclear weapons are the only reason North Korea hasn't been
attacked.

No one is saying NK having nuclear weapons isn't a threat or a danger. It's
just simply an oft-repeated idiocy that you have to have nukes or the US will
attack you. The US didn't go to war with NK for the 60 years prior to them
having nukes, either, because other deterrents exist in the situation.

It's a childish understanding of what's going on.

~~~
bluthru
Who has the US attacked with nukes?

~~~
qbrass
Besides Japan twice?

------
pyroinferno
China would never allow it. A massive influx of SK/NK refugees would
absolutely destroy their economy. They also do not want to give the US a
reason to gain a stronger foothold in the East, especially with Trump, who has
been very critical of China, as the current president.

------
AndrewZM
And here it goes... Someone (guess who) definitely needs a new war to distract
people from his own problems.

------
neves
The Washington Post usually is the official voice the USA Gov. Can someone
tell my why the allegations this time are different than Saddam's WMD?

~~~
alva
A very worthwhile thing to question. I think I am more likely to believe the
accusations as they have been reaffirmed by those who are "on NKs side". China
and Russia have confirmed the various missile and nuclear tests, despite
having a strong incentive to dismiss them.

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
Well externally measurable events such as actual nuclear tests are easier to
verify that allegedly covert operations. And it helps when NK publicly
documents successful tests in their media.

------
ge96
I wonder if there are geosynchronous orbital strike platforms aimed at North
Korea you know those God's rods. Maybe they are more effective when in low
earth orbit higher kinetic energy.

Edit: seeing that one autonmous vehicle that landed after being in orbit for 2
years wow.

Edit: I will admit I am ignorant to politics, in general a dim, barely lit
bulb. I don't get the whole thing, not care about his people, yet they get aid
from outside. I could understand the "bully" or "ominous threat" the outside
world nuclear threat. Wanting your own to be sure you're safe. But the thought
that you'd risk your own country but hey what does he have to lose. I saw that
copy of OSX.

Also sound conspiracy but I've never been there myself. I'd like a real time
satellite stream of North Korea or something. I just see what is in the
media/assume it is true. Not much of a "deep web" user to "find the truth"
haha. I don't know I'm a sheep. Nothing.

