U.S. may NOT shoot down missle

New development on the missle front. Read it on Yahoo! News through Reuters. Not sure if this should be combined with the other threads on the subject, but here goes...

US won't necessarily shoot down N.Korea missile

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
North Korea is far along in its preparations for testing a long-range ballistic missile but the United States would not necessarily use its missile defense system to shoot it down, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

After a week in which unidentified American officials had stoked alarm about activities at a missile site in eastern North Korea, the U.S. government appeared ready to ease tensions somewhat...

Read more...

Looks like the North Korea situation may be cooling down. Something must have happened to convince Washington this is no biggie. A few days ago, people were talking about shooting down a missle that had the capability of nuking a city on the West Coast at all costs. I wonder what happened to spur this sudden change of heart. Any thoughts?



mod edit to apply external quote code

[edit on 27-6-2006 by DontTreadOnMe]

Our main concern is Iraq and Iran- the middle east. "We" also know that if there is no real reason to shoot anything in Korea, we better leave sleeping dogs lie.
We may be stupid, but not that stupid.

My best guess is that there was never a threat at all. More "fear and terror" instilled in the minds of Americans- yea, thats it. They kicked up the story for awhile, until they got the word to shut their traps.

Lets focus on the "real" thing. Iran.

Leave the NK's alone for now. Keep the pressure on them but stand back a little. If they up and fire it they can monitor the trajectory and if needed then take it out of the air. We got bigger problems that a po-dunk nation ran by a flippin looney.

Either that or the US isnt sure the missle defense system will actually work. They did however send their Patriot interceptor missles to Japan for the first time so they are motivated enough to move them and have them installed in Japan, which is where NKs missle will be flying over.

Assuming that NK launches their missle (which i highly doubt), i think the US will try to intercept it, if they fail or miss they will just decline having taken any action and say somethiong like "after looking at our sattellite images and closely examing North Koreas intentions, we have come to the conclusion it was a safe enough test" or some crap like that

If they hit it they will say "we told you so, any other countreis want to try testing missles?"

Its not like anyone is going to be recording the missle flight from beginning to end, so whatever happens none of us will really know, only what we hear on various news channels, which is the same information they will be "cleared" to publish from the govt.

If NK launches and we try to intercept and fail, you will never hear it on the news.



[edit on 27-6-2006 by H34T533K3R]

Lets just hope the missile won't malfunction and land into Japan territory

They wond knock it down. Perhaps they would rather try to recove th missile to study it. From my understanding the warhead bus for a nuke is easy to spot when you get a look at it and who knows what other technical data it would yield.

The USN has a long history of recovering derbits from such tests.

Theres much better ways to deal with N Korea then say Iran. With N Korea we have a resonable force to negotiate with China. N Korea is like Chinas misbehaved step son if you get China one the right page N Korea with have little option but to listen to daddy less they get one heck of a spanking.

I'm going to go with H34T533K3R on this one. If they fire the interceptor, and it fails (which it's likely to do) then we're screwed when they decide to do it for real.

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
I'm going to go with H34T533K3R on this one. If they fire the interceptor, and it fails (which it's likely to do) then we're screwed when they decide to do it for real.

Why would be screwed when we try it for real? Infact it would be invaluable real world testing for such a system. Lessons learned in real world test would likely improve a system as you apply that info to future designs.

The real problem with a attempt and miss is from a PR standpoint as it would look bad for the US to fail in such a public way and N Korea would never let us hear the end of it.

Im a fan of any missile defense systems even its on works 25% of the time. Without any missile defense you have 0% chance of shooting down a missiles.

0% vs 25% im no mathematician but I know what odds I like better

the world is run from a PR standpoint.

NK wouldn't let us live it down, neither would any other possible treats. It would also be an open invite to shoot your missles at the US, because chances are we can't stop them. It was an obvious attempt at a bluff, and we were called on it.

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
It was an obvious attempt at a bluff, and we were called on it.

I dont how we where called on a bluff since they havent launched their missile. Calling our bluff would involve N Korea shooting their missile.

Believe me the military is not close to showing everything it has up its sleeve to the public. Theres been lots of money poured into tech the public has no clue about. Anyone here that claims to know everything about the US capability in terms of missile defense is a liar or breaking the law because lot of the tech is top secret.

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
It would also be an open invite to shoot your missles at the US, because chances are we can't stop them.

Are you kidding? A open invitation to shoot missiles at the US a few thousand thermo-nuclear weapons would beg to differ. If you dont mind your nation being turned to glass then yeah theres a open invite to shoot missiles at the US

Originally posted by ShadowXIX

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
It was an obvious attempt at a bluff, and we were called on it.

I dont how we where called on a bluff since they havent launched their missile. Calling our bluff would involve N Korea shooting their missile.

Believe me the military is not close to showing everything it has up its sleeve to the public. Theres been lots of money poured into tech the public has no clue about. Anyone here that claims to know everything about the US capability in terms of missile defense is a liar or breaking the law because lot of the tech is top secret.

Originally posted by Rasobasi420
It would also be an open invite to shoot your missles at the US, because chances are we can't stop them.

Are you kidding? A open invitation to shoot missiles at the US

a few thousand thermo-nuclear weapons would beg to differ. If you dont mind your nation being turned to glass then yeah theres a open invite to shoot missiles at the US

I agree. I saw the military spending percentages of the world before America launched its war in iraq. And guess who paid 52% of the world's military spending? Yup America. The reason is, is because our strongest thing we have is the military, and we will keep it as the strongest at any cost.

Originally posted by H34T533K3R
Either that or the US isnt sure the missle defense system will actually work. They did however send their Patriot interceptor missles to Japan for the first time so they are motivated enough to move them and have them installed in Japan, which is where NKs missle will be flying over.

The patriots dont work, they had an appalling success rate but this was hidden in the Iraq war and they were made out to be a huge success.

It was ether part of the governments apparent phycological war on "not being scared". Or it was because the North Koreans did'nt want to fire see it pass a few meters over their borders and watch it explode as some sort of Patriot missile hits it.
I think the reason the North Koreans would be against this is because of all the trouble it would cause. Meanwhile are there any islands round korea the U.S military can buy? Keeping that aircraft carrier there for a few years has got to be kind of expensive and not good for it.

Originally posted by Flyer

Originally posted by H34T533K3R
Either that or the US isnt sure the missle defense system will actually work. They did however send their Patriot interceptor missles to Japan for the first time so they are motivated enough to move them and have them installed in Japan, which is where NKs missle will be flying over.

The patriots dont work, they had an appalling success rate but this was hidden in the Iraq war and they were made out to be a huge success.

I remember a while back the U.S had their missle defense system up and accidentally shot down a friendly jet which i believe prompted them to shut it down, i dont recall what kind of missles they had or what kind of jet, i think it was during this Iraq war however im not sure. Does anyone remember this?

There is so much riding on the success of an interceptor or missile defense system. Failure at this juncture on the largest stage of them all, would prove disasterous to the USA.

Spend billions of dollars on a system that works only 20% of the time, stir up hornet's nests in the Middle East and basically start jobs we can't finish. All we have become instead of the democracy spreading juggernaut that we once were good at, is becoming a money making machine for different political groups.

It isn't profitable to shoot down the N.K. missile if they do launch it and we could intercept it. If the money was big enough, it would get shot down like Rosie O'Donnell on a live edition of Howard Stern.

Nuff said