Someone always loves a little more / And I think it’s me
The DPRK may be preparing to test-launch another missile:
The United States and Japan have detected signs that North Korea is preparing to launch a ballistic missile capable of reaching almost anywhere in Japan, Japanese government sources said on Thursday.
The preparations were detected after the reclusive communist state refused to take part in a fourth round of six-party talks on ending its nuclear ambitions and said it would never give up its nuclear deterrent.
Tokyo and Washington had detected the signs after analyzing data from reconnaissance satellites and radio traffic, the Japanese government sources said.
The Nikkei Japanese edition also reports that the North Korean central news agency was published as saying, “If the US brings about a nuclear war (on the Korean Peninsula), it is inevitable that US bases in Japan will draw Japan into the same nuclear war as well.*” Don’t you love that? The DPRK regime was just sitting there south of the Yalu, minding its own business, getting on with the quiet domestic tasks of deciding which citizens to imprison and which to let starve to death from its incompetent economic policies, when the US swaggered by and forced it to get all bellicose.
Fortunately, no one’s certain that there’s a launch planned; everyone’s just on watch. We’ll see. As far as the blow it might deal to the six-member talks goes, who seriously believes the DPRK would have been persuaded to give up its missiles, anyway? It has a notorious record for breaking agreements. I don’t think negotiations should be stopped, of course–things could get really ugly if everyone openly gave up speaking to each other–but I think the disruption of this particular round of talks is less significant than having yet another show of animosity in the region.
* Lit., “US bases in Japan will become a fuse that draws the flame of that nuclear war to Japan, too.” Evocative metaphor, huh?
Asia by Blog
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What I think were really need to do is post one or two Aegis cruisers near North Korea. Ones with whatever upgrades are needed to do a good job shooting downbalistic missiles.
Then, whenever North Korea does a missile test that leaves North Korean airspace, treat it like a live fire test, and shoot the missile down.
Yeah, my understanding is that the DPRK only has one launch site and we (naturally) know where it is. Whether that makes it practical to sit off the peninsula on watch all the time is debatable–and I caught the smiley face, so I know you’re not saying it does.