North Korea’s test

July 5, 2006

Americans usually love explosions in the sky on the 4th of July, but I don’t think this is what we had in mind.

North Korea has test-fired a seventh missile amid international furor over the regime’s launch of six missiles earlier in the day.

The Japanese Defense Agency said one ballistic [tag]missile[/tag] was fired Wednesday from southeastern [tag]North Korea[/tag] around 5:20 p.m. (4:20 a.m. ET), landing in the Sea of Japan about 10 minutes later.

The range of the missile has not been confirmed by CNN. However, Japanese news agencies said it was medium-range.

The seventh test came after North Korea launched one long-range and five shorter-range missiles shortly after 3:30 a.m. Wednesday (2:30 p.m. Tuesday ET). Those tests lasted about five hours.

But the closely-watched Taepodong-2 missile, which some analysts say is capable of hitting the western United States, failed after about 40 seconds and landed in the sea about 200 miles (321 kilometers) west of Japan, U.S. officials said. The short-range missiles also all landed in the Sea of Japan.

So, provocative aggression from a madman who blew off warnings from the world, or embarrassing failure of a weapons system that couldn’t deliver? Or both?

For that matter, to what extent are these test launches cause for panic? As Dan Drezner suggested, that depends, in part, on what the Bush administration decides to do next.

I suspect that the South Koreans — who have been in denial about North Korea for some time — will find a way to rationalize the DPRK’s behavior, and that the Chinese won’t be that perturbed. The fact that financial markets are reacting to the test by selling off yen suggests that they are ratcheting up the probability of something bad happening. As Dan Nexon points out: “The US and Japan have made all sorts of dark threats about punitive action if North Korea went ahead with the launch. Now we have to step up to the plate or risk having had our bluff called.”

We’ve waited about five years for the Bush White House to craft a coherent policy towards North Korea; maybe now would be a good time for the Bush gang to come up with one.

No doubt there’s a fear factor here (well, they made it off the launch pad, didn’t they?), so the GOP will probably exploit that. The lapdog press will go apeshit, as they do with all threats (e.g., kidnapping blondes, Congressman Jefferson’s transgression). The Democrats could point out the foolishness of all this – apparently, at best the NKs might be able to shoot a marble-sized weapon to the outer Aleutians – but they’re too busy trying to figure out how to get re-elected next November.

Aside: I probably heard more explosives all day yesterday than the NKs could hope deliver in missile-delivery bomb form. In CA, where I grew up, they had/have sane fireworks laws, essentially public display only. In WA where I have lived my adult life, you can buy almost anything from any “Indian” reservation. The incredibly thunderous booms and staccato bangs go on literally all day, all over town. My samoyed and three cats were fortunate: they got to tremble inside the house. It’ll be days before the they’re back to normal. A fine example of American mentality: impossibly loud noise and screw you if don’t like it.

  • We’ve waited about five years for the Bush White House to craft a coherent policy towards North Korea; maybe now would be a good time for the Bush gang to come up with one.

    Given the circumstances, probably not.The world is a whole lot safer with the Bushies doing nothing than letting them come up with excuses to do something. I’m sure they still want revenge for The Puebelo.

  • I’m not sure if Bush is now in a position to do much of anything. It’s been cowboy talk masquerading as diplomacy for the last 5 years. Were he suddenly get serious about NK, they’d see it as a sign of fear, and ratchet up their demands.

    Luckily, their test fizzled. So, they are a few years away from being able to launch anything of consequence our way. Bush could have dealt with this earlier, and indeed, he should have. I think the best we can hope is for Bush to spend the rest of his term treading water on this, and let the next admin approach it from a fresh perspective starting day one.

  • I’m not sure of the order of the launches, but I suspect that the Tapedong failed first, and then the NK launched a bunch of Scuds.

    If this is the case, there they (NK) had two motivations for the later launches (including the medium range missile).

    1) They did it on the 4th to piss-off the Bushites and get some attention (they crave our attention, the loons) and needed to add the additional launches to get some effect.

    2) They realized when the Tapedong failed in flight, their customers would not be impressed (missiles technology is North Korea’s ONLY export (well, refugees, but that don’t count) ) and they tried to cover it up.

    I think I wrote on this site a few days ago that I wanted the NK to launch their missile and not to have the site destroyed because I figured it would fail and I wanted the world to see the failure. Turns out that it did fail, but our Bushites are of course playing up the other missile launches and the ‘insult’ of their launching on the 4th of July.

    Republican’ts, Can’t see the silver lining in their dark clouds.

    The only really scary thing about this whole episode is how quickly they got the medium range missile ready and launched!

  • The question of the day: What silly diversion will the White House create to take attention away from this event?

  • To me, it appears as if North Korea would like this to be between the US and them only. I think they are trying to force Bush’s hand, but hopefully Bush will ignore their provocation and advocate returning to the six party talks.

    Of course, that’s not the ‘go it alone’ Bush we know. I’m in complete agreement with CB that this is the Administration’s crisis to make, and given their history, I fear for the worst.

  • 2Manchu says:
    “What silly diversion will the White House create to take attention away from this event? ”

    How about a bill that bans Atheist Gay Lesbian Married Hispanic Immigrants who use illegal perscription drugs from Canada while driving fuel efficient cars that have burning US flags on the back on their way to an abortion?

  • I keep hearing people discussing whether this is a threat and missing the larger point. Regardless of how far along NK is in its efforts to develop nuclear weapons and a long-range missle, the endpoint is the same – nuclear weapons in the hands of a dangerous leader. So whether this is a threat today, it will be a threat eventually. And the closer they get to realizing their goal, the more difficult it’ll be to disuade them.

  • How can North Korea be a real serious threat?

    They have lots of guns, tanks and planes but there is a bit of a problem. Not much fuel avaiable. At least not enough to keep them proficient (and for any military it takes a lot.)

    From what I’ve read, the Taepodong 2 is just another extended Scud. Plus it is liquid fuelled which means that it is a barely controlled Rube Goldberg contraption in defiance of Murphy’s Law.

    The reason why the US/USSR went to solid fuel is because it is way simpler/cheaper/reliable. Instead of a plumber’s nightmare, you have just a hollow tube filled with some electronic ignition systems and a lot of rubber putty like fuel.

    Kim Jong Il has his own problems. He’s gotta distract his poor citizens from noticing that while he and his buddies are fat on eating imported pizza and cognac, the poor citizens are rather skinny and on a bug diet. A missile show will do that.

  • “So whether this is a threat today, it will be a threat eventually.” – beep52

    North Korea already has the conventional capacity to kill millions of people and more Americans then died in 9/11. And we have the capacity to wipe the regime and most of its population off the map.

    Long range missiles only brings that threat to the continential United States, and that is years away.

    So they are a threat, and should be treated as such, but the change is in quantity, not kind.

  • How the South Koreans could forget what this gang of Stalinist barbarians did to them 56 years ago is beyond me. Then the looney tune in charge has enough artillery alongthe DMZ to wipe out Seoul in 12 hours, and forthe post about them not having gas and such to fight a war, they don’t need gasoline or anything, they have everything pre-positioned in deep bunkers they’ve been building ever since 1954.

  • It’s rather ironic, that I can go to the hobby shop at the local mall and buy a toy rocket that’ll fly longer than this newest “North Korean threat” could. Maybe that’s the message that should be put forth—another mountain, courtesy of our friendly, neighborhood mole-hill builders: the Bush Administration.

  • Rockets on the 4th..The world is going rocket crazy.
    The shuttle launch and the North Korean launches on the same day that…
    our traditional communities sound like war zones from “rocket’s red glare”. 4th of July celebrations now have an ugly Red/Blue undercurrent, so that a flag waving idiot shouting “support our president” turns my stomach.

    I went to the movies on July 4th and saw “An Inconvienent Truth”.

    Now when I see a rocket in flight, what I notice is the puffy clould it leaves behind in the atmosphere.

  • You know, it’d be kind of nice if Bush could develop some kind of policy for Iraq also.
    And why “Indian” reservation? What are the quotation marks for?

  • Tom,

    I screwed up. I’ve read somewhere (memory faded and or deluded) that NKs have had fuel problems due to cut offs from Russia and China.

    I forgot about the bunkers along the DMZ.

    As for the RoKs. My relatives who lived during that period can’t figure it out either. Especially considering they were merchants and landowners who were executed on the spot if captured by the NKs. A social form of CRS and denial.

  • Dan Nexon points out: “The US and Japan have made all sorts of dark threats about punitive action if North Korea went ahead with the launch. Now we have to step up to the plate or risk having had our bluff called.”

    Which kind of proves just how incompetent our foreign policy apparatus with the Bushites. Here they have a wonderful opportunity to laugh North Korea’s only export economy, missile technology, out of existance and instead they are going to go gaga about the launch of Scuds on July 4th.

    Fricking morons.

  • Keep an eye on what Japan does after this. It’s hard to predict, but the U.S. has been quietly trying to get them to build up their military for some time now, and this latest incident may shake them up enough to allow it.

    The main obstacles to that are that a) most Japanese are ardent pacifists, and b) their American-written constitution specifically forbids Japan from ever waging war again.

    It may come to nothing once the shakes settle down, but it will be interesting to watch for a while.

  • Dan,
    Wow, kocking off Ken Lay. That’s pretty extreme, even for this White House

    I, for one, did not see that one coming. This missile thing must be more damaging to Bush than I thought.

  • Defective Missile v. Defective Missile Defense.

    I’d say, since the defective missile didn’t go very far and the defective missile defense wasn’t used, that this round was forfeited. However, the BushCo. spinners in congress have begun to spin this test as showing the need for missile defense. Never mind that missile defense is not currently within our technological grasp.

  • merlallen (#17),

    I don’t know if this is stepping on toes; conditions vary from one part of the country to another. But in Washington State, what used to be Indian reservations are rapidly becoming gambling businesses, with no relation to Indians whatever. Until quite recently in the State’s history, no casinos were allowed, period. At first the casinos were on the Indian reservations (which, being above the law, are apparently not subject to it, the way the rest of the citizens are; e.g., smoking is prohibited in public places throughout Washington State, except in casinos). Now they’re going “off reservation” to snag gamblers from off the freeways. I used the quotes because it’s the only way I know to indicate the fact that our casinos are only nominally “Indian”.

  • “The reason why the US/USSR went to solid fuel is because it is way simpler/cheaper/reliable”

    Well, they each have their advantages. Solid fuels are more reliable, but you can’t throttle them. Once they go you can’t turn them off. Liquid fuels are throttleable, and they also have the advantage of having more energy, which is quite important in rocketry.

    Spaceship one made a hybrid engine that combined the two dynamics by throttling the oxidant into a solid core.

  • Bago says
    “Well, they each have their advantages. Solid fuels are more reliable, but you can’t throttle them. Once they go you can’t turn them off. Liquid fuels are throttleable, and they also have the advantage of having more energy, which is quite important in rocketry.”

    Agreed. No system is without its advantages/disadvantages. It isn’t a coincidence that all the major civillian rockets are liquid fueled while military rockets are primarily based on solid fuel.

  • Funny how nobody here has mentioned the researchable fact that North Korea’s missile program was improved exponentially after Bill Clinton gave them updated technology “for peaceful purposes”. Though Kim Jong Il already had a missle program, we cant thank Clinton for giving them better tools today. Thank you Mr “Traitor” Clinton. To think so many trully believe he was a good, productive President. What other harms weakend our nation during HIS two year tenure?

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