At approximately 3:30 AM local time (2:30 PM EDT, just minutes after the launch of the space shuttle Discovery), North Korea began its testing of seven missiles. Six appear to have fired successfully; these were Scud and Nodong missiles, which have been part of the North Korean arsenal - and available for sale on international markets - —for years.
The remaining missile was a Taepodong 2, which has been on its launch pad since May. A fully functioning Taepodong 2 missile could potentially strike the western United States, according to defense estimates. But North Korean ICBM technology is not yet fully functional. Roughly 40 seconds into its flight, the Taepodong 2 failed and crashed approximately 200 miles west of Japan in the Sea of Japan. This is good news in the short term, but the North Koreans will be able to analyze what went wrong and use that information to attempt to fix it. This test, despite the missile's failure, is a step towards an operational North Korean ICBM.
And what I've just heard is that there is a Chapter Seven resolution in the UN Security Council. This is a statement of intent that they warrant the ability to respond militarily. Though most of the news commentators are of the opinion that this won't go anywhere due to Russia and China.
There also seems to be a lot of comments that this is just a show because most of the launches were SCUDs. Though the test launch of the Taepodong 2 was certainly of some development value, even in it's failure.
I wonder why China isn't being more restraining on North Korea? They must be seeing the change in the US and Japanese military posture to give Japan their own military and defense systems. Do they really think it would take Japan any time to develop a nuclear capability and they already have missile capability. Japan has a lot of Plutonium that could easily be fashioned into a war-head. Does China really want a nuclear armed neighbor that close?
No comments:
Post a Comment