We wrote the rules for Japan at the end of WWII. They have nearly no military ability in exchange for our heavy military presence and defensive shield.

South Korea also has been allowed to develop its economy with minimal defense expense as we also provide their military shield.

The enmity between China and Japan is palpable. It is hard for the Chinese to forget how the Japanese brutalized them. Add to this mix the strong belief in Mainland China that Taiwan is not a legitimate separate country.

China supports North Korea to the extent that it can keep their starving masses from crossing Yalu River and flooding China with starving peasants added to its own peasant masses.

Our best hope is that Kim Ill Maniac will crumble under his own regime. We can buy the fidelity of the rest of the country with food aid and infrastructure improvement in the fabled New York minute.

A major part of the equation, is to get China to allow it to happen. Their price, undoubtedly, is Taiwan and a promise to keep Japan from rearming.

Thanks for the info! That Wikipedia chart is perfect.

I’ll hold my tongue now…

We are being used and sucked dry by freeloading “democracies” who hide behind our protection and S–t on us all day long.

north korea is not our problem; it is japan’s problem. and iran is not our problem; it is isreal’s problem.

W is a moron. and he just keeps taking the bait.

Thanks very much.
Mister Ghost

http://tinyurl.com/ogftb

Advertising. NK needs a cash inflow. They have no real product, but if they have nuclear capability, there are numerous terrorists that have money to burn and will pay for the product. For two weeks or so, the whole world focussed on NK and its test. Assuming that it was a valid test, and not just a fake, every terrorist in the world now knows that NK has a nuclear weapon and also knows it’s going to be for sale. It should be easier for us to control NK’s borders than our own…
China doesn’t feel threatened. There must be a reason – and I suspect that it’s because they know Kim doesn’t really plan on using that bomb.

The major powers united in their condemnation of North Korea’s claim to have tested a nuclear weapon

Ping-pong diplomacy hasn’t amounted to much, if this is how it’s gonna be from now on.

Only the Russians are saying that it equaled “between 5 and 15 kilotons”.

Other sources are saying it looks to have been more like 1 kiloton or so.

Nobody has mentioned logging an EMP event either.

However, in a few more hours the initial analysis of seismic data from around the world should be able to tell us if this event was nuclear derived — or not. There is a problem in that the explosion was so small that background noise may make the analysis Mich more difficult, though. But the Japanese already have planes taking samples over the Sea of Japan, looking for the telltale increases in radiation that must be there if a nuke went off. Even if it was underground.

This very well could be nothing more than conventional explosives set off in an attempt to feign a successful nuclear device test.

And it may not be subterfuge of the type intended to fool other countries, in a dictatorship where the dictator also masquerades as a god, the scientists may well have good reason to let the old dog eater have a boom happen when he orders one.

They tried this trick once before in the past, it was proven to be nothing more than conventional explosives.

Even if it turns out to have been a real fissile chain reaction (nuclear explosion), one kiloton would be even less than a firecracker when compared to the nuclear firepower of the US’ “Arsenal of Democracy”. A while back the Defense Department ordered 50 land-based ICBMs of the MX class taken offline in order to save money and put it to good use in other places due to the present war efforts.

That left us with “only” 450 ICBMs in the hole and ready to go. Which ones are multiple-warhead and which are single is classified information.

And that does not include our Navy’s “boomers” — the nuclear submarine fleet — nor the nuclear bombs that our Air Force has.

Perspective.

Under the leadership of Kim Jong Il, what would be the further impact placed upon this region, in the event of accidental launchings, or hushing the effects of a underground test accident?

China and Russia have nutured this runt as a proxy for hegemony in the Far East. Taiwan is but one object of desire. They’ll surely reap the whirlwind as the power of balance changes for the worse in their eyes. Do they really think that Japan will stay the course on passive defenses?

Whether they acknowledge it or not, NK gives Japan and several other countries, the pretext for developing 1st strike capabilities against NK. The same capabilities that will also enable them to bloddy China/Russia’s nose as well if need be. It would behoove them to concentrate on expanding personal freedoms & rights via rule of law, instead of perpetual ‘manhood’ envy.

At the same time, it’s rather ironic that the runt keeps shooting off one dud after another. If that test explosion was truly a fission dud, rather than a ‘rope-a-dope’, then potential clients really have to wonder about the capabilities of the NoKo so-called scientists & expertise.

On a conspiratorial level, what if the rockets & nuke tech and everything else was really sourced from China — as in NoKo has no homegrown talent? Is NoKo just a ‘plausible-deniable’ stooge for testing Chinese tech? After all, where did the guidance system for the rockets come from?

To wit, there’s no point in letting a rocket complete its test profile, if within minutes of launch, the telemetry confirms the trajectory and other key metrics. Better to self-destruct over home-turf, than risk the wreckage falling into US hands for forensic testing and determining the source of the tech.

Then again, it’s all speculation since our intelligence capabilities, particularly HUMINT (human sourced intelligence), have been so gutted by the Dem Church committee and subsequent hostility by the libs, it’ll take years before we’ll ever get any measure of confidence in our intel.