Back in 2008, US Pacific Command scored big when they knocked down a decaying US satellite with a sea-launched interceptor. Now ABC reports that CINCPAC, Adm. Timothy Keating, is ready to break out the flyswatter again — this time under operational conditions.
In an exclusive interview with ABC News’ Martha Raddatz, Adm. Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Pacific Commands, said that the military is prepared to shoot down any North Korean ballistic missile — if President Obama should give the order.
If a missile leaves the launch pad we’ll be prepared to respond upon direction of the president,” Keating told ABC News. “I’m not a betting man but I’d go like 60/40, 70/30 that it will, they will attempt to launch a satellite. There’s equipment moving up there that would indicate the preliminary stages of preparation for a launch. So I’d say it’s more than less likely.”
With plenty of Aegis assets floating around the ring of fire, ground-based interceptors at Vandenberg AFB, CA and Alaska, and a whole mess of radars that put Superman’s x-ray vision to shame.… there’s no doubt we could pull this off. But, like with all things defense, the question is whether or not we should.
Sure, the idea might appeal to those of us whose responsibility for national security and statecraft stop at the “publish” button on our blogs — watching the Norks hopes for both a space program and a credible nuclear deterrent dissipate in a cloud of interceptor smoke sure to hell appeals to me– but what about the State department wonks who are responsible for turning off the North Korean nuclear program? What happens if the North Koreans step up raids along their borders, seize an American ship, or send nuclear scientists and supplies to Iran — or Syria?
The North Koreans are, by nature, aggressive creatures. But that doesn’t mean they’re stupid. In the fifty plus years since the ceasefire, they’ve frequently pushed us right up to our absolute, no shit limit, then quickly backed down. It’s a strange amalgamation of diplomacy, politics, and warfare –a harsh calculus of slaps and handshakes– that the Norks have mastered in their half-century of dealing with the West.
In other words, Kim Jong Il is damned good at being a gigantic pain in the ass.
So do we provoke him? Is it necessary? Does the benefit outweigh potential cost? I venture a cautious yes (let our new CiC play a little hardball), but what say you?
–John Noonan
{ 42 comments… read them below or add one }
It would just be a huge shame if the dang thing blew up as it was lifting off. You know these launches can be pretty touchy you know. Heck, how many has America lost on launch? It’s just the way it goes sometimes.
I am sure it wouldn’t be because of some classified US space based laser. I mean we don’t even have anything like that. Nope, operator error that what it was…
K I L L
aww poor kimmy hes just rownry oh so rownry!!
Bambi would never order it. But I’d like to see the 747 laser take a shot during boost.
send him some glass and sand.
At $10 million per shot, just ignore the stupidity. But do send a card that says something like, “Congratulations! I hope your satellite can grow food, because we’re not sending you anymore. Cheers!” After which the US breaks all ties and ignores them.
“Japanese Comedy: North Korea Textbook (english subtitle)”
[best parts @ 3:30 & 5:00]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udUkI3Q6Ny4
Camp has a point, why waste money on a missile shot? Their missile has a snowballs chance in hell of NOT blowing up midflight. Remember that test a few years back where the Norks fired off 7 missiles and 6 of them blew up?
I’m more worried about the nuclear material they’re selling to the Syrians. Anyone remember the Israeli video that shows Norks in the Syrian nuclear plant they blew up in ’06? Or the Nork scientists who were killed on a Syrian missile pad when a warhead full of Sarin gas cracked open?
Here we go again. We(the US) knows what’s best for the rest of the world. Haven’t we learned our lesson from our latest mistakes(Iraq & Afgan)? Let’s show the rest of the world that what we say goes. Shot down the NK missile and next bomb Iran
Russians will definitely piss liquid rocket fuel if Americans are successful with this.
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In agreement with Camp. Lets just tell NK that in exchange to halt nukes, all the US taxpayers will pay for their mortgages… h00raY! I wish I could decide where my tax money went, go towards more F-22′s or shot down a NK bottle rocket. =\
Better yet, why don’t we have a bunch of our 13 year old cyber geeks hack the Korean Playstation 2′s that they use as guidance computers?
They can re-program the missle to crash into the Kremlin. Of course they will use a proxy in Iran to make it look like Tehran is involved. Then sit back and watch the show. That should get rid of a couple of our headaches…
Act of war against North Korea
Yea, the head of Pacific Command is obviously an idiot. Obama needs to get rid of these Bush era losers and put in place people who are living in the modern world.
Good call, Oblat.
The concern I have is that their launch will fail and they’ll blame us even if we didn’t take a shot. People don’t roll their eyes when KJI begins spouting such bold-faced lies, they worry what it’s a pretext for.
They would be able to tell the missile’s trajectory within a few moments of launch. At the point at which it ceases to be a satellite launch our assets can do what they need to do. An act of war? Against us or our allies maybe. Even if it was what is NK going to do? Get their ass handed to them by ROK forces and lose their vintage 1950′s or 60′s equipment. Definitely a good show of ability for just about anybody who’s lookin. NK goofiness is what the system was built for. Use it if necessary.
Firing on an attempted satellite launch, even by a regime as insane as the DPRK or Iran, would set a very bad precedent against the freedom of access to space.
I get fully annoyed, o.k. pissed off, every time I read that the U.S. should be careful not to offend some pathetic tin-pot dictator somewhere. F^#k them. Too many of the world
My initial thought was to shoot the missle down and that was reinforced after reading the weasel worded appeasement statements in the Japanese press.
After (calm) reflection I now believe that we shouldn’t interfere with the launch. 1) Even if it succeeds we’ll probably learn more about NK rocket design than the Norks will. 2) The entire DPRK NCA is warped; provoking them isn’t worth the potential gain. 3) The lessons of Reagonomics vis-a-vis the Soviet Union may apply: the NK powers that be are so close to fiscal collapse that spending money on a “space” program may be enough to finish them off. 4) If the Norks actually manage to get something into space maybe it will cause us to relook and invigorate our rudderless space program.
You can kill it anytime on the orbit, if you want it. No need to hurry.
To the Crytography Technician 1st Class–this isn’t freeperville, where we fantasize about the mass murder of people who look different from us. When I’m not running around Iraq and Afghanistan outside the wire and earning my CIB and other such, I post at DailyKos. I don’t sit in a nice climate controlled cabin on a ship or in the middle of a FOB like your job requires you to do. I fight the enemy directly and I’m a liberal. So why don’t you actually post something useful to the discussion instead of your wet dreams about nuclear bombardment and crap political attacks?
Just remember that any game we can play, others can play, too. If not now, later.
If sometakes a potshot at a shuttle, one of our satellites, or the ISS, who will we be to complain?
Just because you *can* do something doesn’t mean you should.
And by that same flip of the coin everything Kim does should be met by a response more adequate than condemnation in ink and paper (sanctions and clamping down on money and aid heading north tends to do the job though)…
Even so, we need to pick an appropriate time and place to show that we mean business.
blow it up on the launch pad, dont even let them launch it.
All those Aegis assets, satellite monitoring, and various intelligence gathering technologies aimed at the DPRK will ensure we learn a huge amount from a missile launch.
Solving the North Korea problem without a massive loss of life is a difficult problem and all attempts to date — economic, fuel, and food aid — have only served to extend Kim’s regime.
I would be shocked if Obama attempted to shoot it down. He definitely wants to kill missile defense so would not risk a successful shot. Unless he has some inside angle and *knows* we are going to miss he is not going to approve it.
Hey /b/, you’re a bit overly sensitive there dude, but your angry, kneejerk reaction to a statement descriptive of the character of North Korean actions over the past 50 years seems to show that not just Nth. Koreans, but humans in general are “by nature” agressive creatures.
Now, some may accuse you of being a North Korean internet troll, but its unlikely there’d be enough North Koreans with net access to even know about this site given the horrific repression, starvation and mass murder of the North Korean people by the DPRK police state. So I guess you are just one of those netizens who is, by nature, stupid.
Correct me if I am wrong, but there are two different issues here.
If NK launches a satellite-we are on the wrong side of International law if we shoot it down. There is a treaty, I believe that allows nations to shoot satellites into space.
Now if it is just a ballistic shot down range-we have to make a judgment, is the missile threatening the US homeland? If its not, then its just another missile test and we do not want to have nations shooting down our missile when we do the same.
Personally I think its going to be a satellite launch to keep up with Iran’s. If we did not shoot down their rocket, why should we shoot down the NORKS?
Let’s take this in a different direction–
What is the subjective bayesian probability that the missile will be shot down, for each stage of flight (Boost, Midcourse, Re-entry)?
Cheers,
MT2(SS)
This post has been linked for the HOT5 Daily 3/1/2009, at The Unreligious Right
Unnecessary muscle flexing.
soonergrunt:
There are several inconsistancies within your comments which suggest that you are not all that you claim to be, except liberal. No, I will not tell you what they are. The careful reader will also find them.
We do not “murder” other people because they LOOK different. That
Give the man and his successor another stroke with a powerful infusion of the mysterious freq ray.
Sometimes I think comments here should be moderated…
There is a very good reason the US still exists after the cold war. We never let it become hot. You know-we don’t nuke whole societies simply because their leader pisses us off. In so doing, we don’t aggravate other countries which do possess the ability to destroy us.
And no, it’s pretty much racism. I read Ace of Spades, Little Green Footballs, Free Republic, Confederate Yankee, and other sites on your end of the political spectrum. Eliminationist rhetoric abounds, typically aimed at people who look different-Asians, Hispanics, Africans, and of course, Arabs, but almost never at Europeans, including Russians and other Slavs who do, in fact, think differently.
As for your throw away assertion that I’m not all I claim to be-well, I’m under no requirement that I know of to justify myself to anyone, but if any of the site mods want proof, I’ll be more than happy to present certified copies of my latest DD-214 and my latest LES. I haven’t ever claimed to be more than I am.
Pardon the hell out of me if I get pissed off at people who call me or others with my philosophy traitor and other such, or question my patriotism. I just find it ironic that the loudest mouths have either never served at all, or served as REMFs if they did.
Iran just put some junk in orbit using Nork technology and assistance so its arrogant to assume the Nork’s can’t duplicate that feat. I assume this launch has a decent chance of flying true for at least 30 seconds. Of course the US should take a shot if its trajectory is a threat to US soil or it endangers a populated area.
Obama would have to take the shot, otherwise he is at risk of losing his halo should people be killed by an errant Nork shot.
soonergrunt:
Oops. Good catch on the typo . . . 56M. (It was 71M when I graduated AIT. Now there
Yeah. Mmmmm. Not buying it. This is a public forum so you are definitely allowed your own political ideology, such as it is, but so is everyone else. Just who the hell are you to call anyone a traitor because he said something you disagree with? You attack his patriotism because you think he’s a liberal. Well I am definitely a liberal so you’re questioning mine as well. And when you question my patriotism, you get to kindly go screw yourself. And that goes double for your half-assed assertions of dishonesty on my part. Either man up and post what you think you have or shove it.
If you want to have an honest intellectual conversation then I’m all for it, because I might learn something. I might even change my opinion. It’s happened before. But when you try to shut down voices you disagree with, particularly with vile crap like questioning someone’s integrity or patriotism you’re going to get called on it. For far too long conservatives have gotten away with that shit. No more. I’m not going anywhere.
soonergrunt:
While you go back to “drinking the kool-aid, I will return this blog back to their regularly scheduled programming.
signing off . . .
I’m sure I’ll be seeing more batshit crazy irrelavence from you soon. Don’t worry. I’ll be right there when you do. Staying on…
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I’m thinking that this would be a perfect opportunity to test the Airborne Laser system. Our plane could be flying plenty far away, target the missile – ahem; ‘peaceful, satellite-carrying rocket’ – and shoot it down with the laser. What should appear to happen (I’m guessing the ABL is a non-visible laser) would be the missile spontaneously combusting/exploding/disintegrating all on its own. End of threat, no “You shot down our peaceful satellite launch! That’s an unprovoked act of war” 13ull5h1t from Kim Jong-Il.
That article makes a top rank look heroic?Its a
duty station people!Wake up!