North Korea (Superthread)

[57Chevy]

This might explain it......Larry

Those are all hatbadges from the units they served in.    with a few medals thrown in there.

TOP COLLECTORS  ;D

 

[Bird_Gunner45]

There's some outstanding North Korean articles on the chive this morning for anyone interested.

 

[GnyHwy]

Those are all hatbadges from the units they served in.    with a few medals thrown in there.

TOP COLLECTORS  ;D

No, I think that is their layaway plan for body amour.  Those guys have been around quite some time so they have had many installments.

 

[Old Sweat]

The North Koreans could look at the latest approach to medals and ribbons taken by the US Army, at least according to the Duffle Blog.

http://www.duffelblog.com/2013/04/us-army-to-cut-ribbons-medals-by-50-percent-in-cost-cutting-measure/?utm_source=The+Duffel+Blog+Email+Newsletter&utm_campaign=2f18dd5baa-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email

:irony:

 

[CougarKing]

Raptors deploy to South Korea for EX FOAL EAGLE amid heightening tensions:

Reuters link

U.S. F-22 stealth jets join South Korea drills amid saber-rattling

By Reuters

Published: April 1, 2013

The United States sent F-22 stealth fighter jets to South Korea on Sunday to join military drills aimed at underscoring the U.S. commitment to defend Seoul in the face of an intensifying campaign of threats from North Korea.

The advanced, radar-evading F-22 Raptors were deployed to Osan Air Base, the main U.S. Air Force base in South Korea, from Japan to support ongoing bilateral exercises, the U.S. military command in South Korea said in a statement that urged North Korea to restrain itself.

"(North Korea) will achieve nothing by threats or provocations, which will only further isolate North Korea and undermine international efforts to ensure peace and stability in Northeast Asia," the statement said.

Saber-rattling on the Korean peninsula drew a plea for peace from Pope Francis, who in his first Easter Sunday address called for a diplomatic solution to the crisis on the Korean peninsula.

"Peace in Asia, above all on the Korean peninsula: may disagreements be overcome and a renewed spirit of reconciliation grow," he said, speaking in Italian.

Tensions have been high since the North's young new leader, Kim Jong-un, ordered a nuclear weapons test in February, breaching U.N. sanctions and ignoring warnings from North Korea's closest ally, China, not to do so.

That test, North Korea's third since 2006, drew further U.N. and bilateral sanctions designed to pressure the impoverished North to stop its nuclear weapons program. Pyongyang responded to the new steps by ratcheting up warnings and threats of war.

North Korea said on Saturday it was entering a "state of war" with South Korea, but Seoul and its ally the United States played down the statement from the official KCNA news agency as the latest in a stream of tough talk from Pyongyang.

In a rare U.S. show of force aimed at North Korea, the United States on Thursday flew two radar-evading B-2 Spirit bombers on practice runs over South Korea.

On Friday, Kim signed an order putting the North's missile units on standby to attack U.S. military bases in South Korea and the Pacific, after the stealth bomber flights.

The F-22 jets will take part in the annual U.S.-South Korea Foal Eagle military drills, which are designed to sharpen the allies' readiness to defend the South from an attack by North Korea, the U.S. military said.

The U.S. military did not say how many of the planes were flown to South Korea from Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. The statement described Sunday's deployment as part of routine shifts of air power among bases in the Western Pacific that U.S. forces have been conducting since 2004.

Japan's Kyodo news agency quoted the top Japanese government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, as condemning Pyongyang for "aggressive provocation" after Kim's ruling party newspaper, the Rodong Sinmun, identified U.S. military bases in Japan as targets for attack.

The two Koreas have been technically in a state of war since a truce that ended their 1950-53 conflict. Despite its threats, few people see any indication Pyongyang will risk a near-certain defeat by re-starting full-scale war

 

[Pandora114]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJNBfBr-OGU&playnext=1&list=PLCF26FD21646C4B05&feature=results_video

Every Day They're Rattlin.

Sorry..I had to.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

And doesn't our own RCAF have the forage caps for wearing with dress uniforms and the blue berets for wearing with CADPAT? Please correct me if I'm wrong about the RCAF question.

Considered yourself corrected. 

 

[CougarKing]

China mobilizing troops, jets near Korea
Washington Times link
<snipped>


Reports from the region reveal the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) recently increased its military posture in response to the heightened tensions, specifically North Korea’s declaration of a “state of war” and threats to conduct missile attacks against the United States and South Korea.

According to the officials, the PLA has stepped up military mobilization in the border region with North Korea since mid-March, including troop movements and warplane activity.

 

[The_Falcon]

Interesting....maybe China will layeth the smacketh down on N. Korea. 

 

[Pandora114]

China needs to muzzle it's dog. 

 

[CougarKing]

National Post link

     

U.S. sends in $900M anti-missile radar array as North Korea vows to fire up nuclear reactor

As the rhetoric surrounding North Korea heats up, the United States has dispatched two key pieces of anti-missile hardware to the Korean peninsula.

The U.S. is sending in the USS John S. McCain, a guided-missile destroyer, to operate off the southwest coast of the Korean peninsula, a defence official who requested anonymity said on Monday. Meanwhile, a sea-based radar platform known as SBX has also been mobilized for what the official described as routine operations.

The moves aren’t related to the military exercises under way in the region, the official said by e-mail.

The SBX and the John S. McCain’s Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System are both specifically designed to locate and shoot down incoming ballistic missiles using methods similar to ones used by the Iron Dome system used in Israel.

It would be used to shoot down long-range Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles before they could boost into the upper atmosphere.

The SBX is a radar array mounted on a drilling rig and is a more advanced version of the same system, offering more accurate targeting data than the McCain, though it lacks the warships self defences.

The radar system cost almost $900-million and is ostensibly based out of Alaska, though the installation, with a crew of 75, has never actually gone to port there.

These moves came just before North Korea vowed Tuesday to restart a nuclear reactor that can make one bomb’s worth of plutonium a year, escalating tensions already raised by near daily warlike threats against the United States and South Korea.

The North’s plutonium reactor was shut down in 2007 as part of international nuclear disarmament talks that have since stalled. The declaration of a resumption of plutonium production — the most common fuel in nuclear weapons — and other facilities at the main Nyongbyon nuclear complex will boost fears in Washington and among its allies about North Korea’s timetable for building a nuclear-tipped missile that can reach the United States, technology it is not currently believed to have.

A spokesman for the North’s General Department of Atomic Energy said that scientists will begin work at a uranium enrichment plant and a graphite-moderated 5 megawatt reactor, which generates spent fuel rods laced with plutonium and is the core of the Nyongbyon nuclear complex.

The unidentified spokesman said the measure is part of efforts to resolve the country’s acute electricity shortage but also for “bolstering up the nuclear armed force both in quality and quantity,” according to a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

Pyongyang conducted its third nuclear test in February, prompting a new round of UN sanctions that have infuriated its leaders and led to a torrent of threatening rhetoric.

The United States has sent nuclear-capable bombers and stealth jets to participate in annual South Korean-U.S. military drills that the allies call routine but that Pyongyang claims are invasion preparations.

North Korea has declared that the armistice ending the Korean War in 1953 is void, threatened to launch nuclear and rocket strikes on the United States and, most recently, declared at a high-level government assembly that making nuclear arms and a stronger economy are the nation’s top priorities.

The threats are seen as efforts to force policy changes in Seoul and Washington and increase domestic loyalty to young North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by portraying him as a powerful military force.

“North Korea is keeping tension and crisis alive to raise stakes ahead of possible future talks with the United States,” said Hwang Jihwan, a North Korea expert at the University of Seoul. “North Korea is asking the world, ‘What are you going to do about this?’”

North Korea added the 5-megawatt, graphite-moderated reactor to its nuclear complex at Nyongbyon in 1986 after seven years of construction. The country began building a 50-megawatt and a 200 megawatt reactor in 1984, but construction was suspended under a 1994 nuclear deal with Washington.

North Korea says the facility is aimed at generating electricity. It takes about 8,000 fuel rods to run the reactor. Reprocessing the spent fuel rods after a year of reactor operation could yield about 7 kilograms of plutonium – enough to make at least one nuclear bomb, experts say.

Nuclear bombs can be produced with highly enriched uranium or with plutonium. North Korea is believed to have exploded plutonium devices in its first two nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009.

In 2010, the North unveiled a long-suspected uranium enrichment program, which would give it another potential route to make bomb fuel. Uranium worries outsiders because the technology needed to make highly enriched uranium bombs is much easier to hide than huge plutonium facilities.

But experts say plutonium is considered better for building small warheads, which North Korea needs if it is going to put them on missiles. Analysts say they don’t believe North Korea currently has mastered such miniaturization technology.

Scientist and nuclear expert Siegfried Hecker has estimated that Pyongyang has 24 to 42 kilograms of plutonium – enough for perhaps four to eight rudimentary bombs similar to the plutonium weapon used on Nagasaki in World War II.

It’s not known whether the North’s latest atomic test, in February, used highly enriched uranium or plutonium stockpiles. South Korea and other countries have so far failed to detect radioactive elements that may have leaked from the test and which could determine what kind of device was used.

“North Korea is dispelling any remaining uncertainties about its intention for developing nuclear arms. It is making it clear that its nuclear arms program is the essence of its national security and that it’s not negotiable,” said Sohn Yong-woo, a professor at the Graduate School of National Defense Strategy of Hannam University in South Korea.

“North Korea is more confident about itself than ever after the third nuclear test,” Sohn said. “That confidence is driving the leadership toward more aggressive nuclear development.”

 

[tomahawk6]

The PRC has bolstered its forces along the NORK frontier. I have watched North Korea do this act over the years.Increase the tension and then get food concessions from the US/ROK.The only thing that concerns me is the potential for one side overreaching.

 

[GAP]

The PRC has bolstered its forces along the NORK frontier. I have watched North Korea do this act over the years.Increase the tension and then get food concessions from the US/ROK.The only thing that concerns me is the potential for one side overreaching.

I don't see that scenario playing out this time......

 

[GeorgeD]

I don't see that scenario playing out this time......

Isn't that the problem though? North Korea might keep pushing until they get their aid or they push too far seeing as that is all they know and that is all they have done over the last couple of decades.

 

[BrendenDias]

So far it's kind of been "all talk" with North Korean threats of attack and nuclear launches. However that does not mean nations shouldn't take it seriously. K.J. Un is obviously an idiot, or he has some sort of ultra-plan up his sleeve... I believe in the first one myself. I have heard so much about the range of NK's missiles and nukes, but I hear they can reach the US mainland, and also hear that they would just fizzle off into the Pacific Ocean. Even if they do launch missiles off, US/SKorea/Japan would likely be able to shoot them down.. however KJ Un seems to be all talk thus far. Let's see if he's ready to back up what he says that North Korea will do.
If they do launch them off, and they hit somewhere... miraculously, the US wouldn't attempt another nuclear strike such as the ones in WWII, obviously killing oppressed civilians is not the answer. They would need to strike at the NKorean nuclear sites, and move in to kill KJ Un.
(I had a discussion with someone in my biology class today... hah, more interesting than bio I guess... but he was saying the US would nuke NKorea and attempt a cover up, which I called BS on hah)...

Also, KJ Un might just have a "Tsar Nicholas of Russia" situation on his hands in the future. One where his own soldiers are starved and turn on him... but that's just speculation.
:nod:
:2c:

 

[AliG]

I was going to say it was all bluster, and you only need to worry if they shut down the factories in the special economic zone.

Well, according to today's report, we may need to ratchet up the anxiety level a touch.

North Korea warns South Korea of ‘state of war,’ threatens to close joint factory park

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-korea-says-it-is-in-a-state-of-war-with-south-korea-in-latest-threat-against-rival/2013/03/29/84516940-98db-11e2-b5b4-b63027b499de_story.html?hpid=z1

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/us-korea-north-idUSBRE93002620130403

Somebody has to blink...

 

[GeorgeD]

The potential threat might be that North Korea backs itself in to a corner where they have to act on their threats. North Korea has been taught over the last couple of decades that a threat of violence will get them aid, if it does not work committing an act of aggression will usually do the trick until now that is...after the last couple of actions I can't see them making any more threats without some action, I mean there is only so many times you can say "I'll kill you" before you have to do it or your threats will lose all value.



Maybe it is me being naive or hopeful but the threats and escalations happening in the region might give the US and South Korea just the excuse to gather enough forces to take out most if not all of North Korea's artillery pieces aimed at Seoul so that this problem can be solved once and for all.

 

[BrendenDias]

I agree with you, but do you think Kim J. Un really cares about aid? If the country received aid for its people, he probably would take all the supplies/food, etc. and perhaps feed his armies (and himself of course).  :facepalm:

It could relate to when say the UN or Red Cross sends supply drops to troubled African areas.. they let the food go, and get out of there while poor civilians attempt to scavenge what is there, then the military rolls in and claims it all for the state...

 

[Robert0288]

North Korea pressures South by halting entry to industrial zone

PAJU, South Korea (Reuters) - North Korea on Wednesday closed access to a joint factory zone that earns $2 billion a year in trade for the impoverished state but will allow hundreds of South Koreans to return home, officials said, allaying fears they could have been held hostage.

Factories in the Kaesong Industrial Park were still believed to be operating, but North Korea's decision to block entry is a further sign of the growing tensions on the Korean peninsula. On Tuesday, Pyongyang said it would restart a mothballed nuclear reactor.

The industrial park has not formally stopped operations since it was inaugurated in August 2000 as part of efforts to improve ties between the two Koreas. It houses 123 companies and is staffed by 50,000 North Koreans and hundreds of South Korean business owners and managers.

More than 800 South Koreans had stayed overnight in the park, just north of the world's most heavily armed border. South Korea's Unification Ministry demanded the park be opened.

The ministry later said 46 workers would return by 5 p.m. with the remainder staying there, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

North Korea has threatened a nuclear strike on the United States and missile attacks on its Pacific bases after fresh U.N. sanctions were imposed for the country's third nuclear weapons test in February. Pyongyang has also said it was in a state of war with South Korea.

Excerpt from: http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCABRE93002620130403?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

 

[Edward Campbell]

I think we need to look at vital interests in and around Korea. My quesstimate is:

North Korea: a paranoid, isolated, "hermit kingdom" which feels the need to make a bold stroke to try to survive - see a useful summary in this article from today's Globe and Mail;

Russia: formerly a major player, not mostly on the sidelines but still capable of making mischief - and more than willing to do so because it sees gains, of sorts, in discomfiting either or both of the USA and China;

South Korea: a worried victim - worried about the potential for insanity in North Korea and worried about the resolve of the USA and about the intentions of China;

Japan: a near mirror of South Korea;

China: an exasperated rich uncle to North Korea. It wants and is willing to help pay for 1) a reunified and prosperous Korea, under Seoul's leadership, that is friendly to China, and 2) a withdrawal of US military forces from the Korean peninsula. But, for the time being, it is content to see as high state of tension provided there is no danger of war. Despite media reports there is no official word that the Chinese are building up forces near North Korea and there are plenty of reasons to think that they would not do that - fear of triggering further DPRK madness being just one; and

USA: a reluctant peacekeeper. There is every reason to fear a sudden, massive North Korean assault that would inflict massive casualties on forward deployed US and ROK ground forces and do massive damage to Seoul and vicinity. There is, equally, every reason to believe that the USA and ROK could and would blunt and, eventually, push back the North Koreans - but not push them back so far as to make China nervous. In other words: status quo ante except that thousands of Americans and many, many more Koreans are dead and the ROK is economically devastated.

Who gains anything from that?

No one. A war in Korea makes no strategic sense - but that doesn't mean that oner cannot or will not start by miscalculation.