North Korean Military.

[gazzzwp]

It's not like the Ukraine or Russia had a very extensive program to help the North Koreans. More likely bread crumbs off a table via individuals.

NK are experts at getting stuff. They bought 87 MacDonald Douglas 500 helicopters from the US and armed them by deceiving the US and other countries. They captured an AN/FPS-117. Or a Chinese lumber truck converted to missile carrier. If north Korea could pull one over the US during the cold war, its entirely believable they could deceive Chinese/Russian/Ukrainian authorities.

Really the key technology transfer North Korea getting scud missiles. Which they got from Egypt, but could have gotten from almost a dozen countries through corruption, theft, abduction, black market, there is scud stuff all over the place etc. Most of the successful part of their missile program was based off upgrading scud missiles.

Arguably the most help they got was money, from Iran, but when they are both on the sanctions list, what else is going to happen? Arguably a better policy of dealing with Iran would have seen them not so engaged with North Korea. Easy to say with hindsight.

But Iran wasn't alone, UAE and others have purchased North Korean equipment. UAE was trying to lock in an exclusive deal to keep weapons from going to Iran and Houthi rebels. But $100 million in cash in 2015 would have gone a long way in North Korea.

Why Did the UAE Purchase Weapons From North Korea? | The Diplomat

North Korea is the very definition of rouge. It undermines everyone. Everyone has made bad choices with North Korea.

Look no further for answers:

US targets Chinese, Russian entities funding North Korea's nukes - CNNPolitics

I suspected as much. Looks like the world of geo-politics is far more savage than people realise.

 

[Tsavo Lion]

MD 500 -welcome to the small world!
From last spring: Why Did North Korea Just Threaten Israel?

It has been suggested that North Korea has sought to model its nuclear weapons programme on Israel's, as "a small-state deterrent for a country surrounded by powerful enemies; to display enough activity to make possession of a nuclear device plausible to the outside world, ..
From the Israeli point of view, security relations with South Korea will not only advance bilateral intelligence and military cooperation, but also promote trilateral cooperation with the United States, thereby helping to prevent North Korean breaches of nuclear and missile proliferation which endangers Washington, Seoul, and Jerusalem. Seoul is also considering cooperating with Israel on developing a missile defense system.
In 2013, the two countries signed an agreement, exchanging Zimbabwean uranium for DPRK arms.
Pyongyang and Tehran have cooperated on missiles, as the resemblance between Iran’s Shahab-3 and the DPRK’s Nodong missiles makes clear. ..The similarities between the missiles tested by Pyongyang in the last few months and Iran’s technology suggests Tehran is contributing to North Korea’s nuclear buildup.
Moreover, the Islamic Republic has strategic interests in cooperating with the DPRK in this field: improved naval capabilities with sophisticated ballistic missiles enhance Tehran’s deterrent power toward the U.S., both in terms of creating high costs for a military confrontation with Washington and in Iran’s ability to threaten U.S. ships in the Straits of Hormuz. And should Iran obtain a 2500-mile strike range, its capability to military threaten Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. will increase considerably.
..nuclear arms are an essential tool, one that can allow for reduced spending on conventional weapons, funding that can then be used for economic development. North Korea’s welcome emphasis on improving its economy could also be a “breakout” strategy by which North Korean leaders may believe they can survive as a nuclear weapons state.

North Korea- Iran relations: Military & weapons
NK ship seized with Cuban weapons returns to Cuba
NK can also strike Saudi Arabian oil facilities to bring oil prices (that were artificially lowered by it) up, thus helping Iran, Venezuela, & Russia. They, in turn, would be able to help NK more with finances,etc.
Both Koreas are essentially Nationalist Confucian societies, with some Buddhist & Christian influence which isn't uniform everywhere.

Economic sanctions, military pressure, and intemperate threats, on other hand, will ultimately prove counterproductive, doing little but to intensify the nothing-to-lose mentality of the regime, while failing to encourage the changes already ongoing. By continuing to isolate an already isolated land, the United States is only strengthening the very wall against which it’s been banging its head for so many years.

 

[swerve]

No Christianity in North Korea, & South Korea is a democracy (of sorts), while North Korea is a hereditary monarchy ruled by divine beings. The weather acknowledges important events in their lives, e.g. by pauses in storms (according to the N. Korean press) & the first of the dynasty still reigns over the state from the afterlife.

They're not really similar.

 

[Tsavo Lion]

That's their official spin, but in private, most of the people in NK may not subscribe to any of it & some may be agnostic or secret Christians, Buddhists, etc., like in the PRC now & in the USSR before Perestroika. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many defectors! Given its location & history, Confucianism has the strongest influence (even if only subconsciously) followed by Buddhism & Christianity, esp. in the South.
View from Russia
Kim orders more production of ICBMs
Apparently they have the rocket motor production line, or pretend to have.
North Korea Photos Suggest New Solid-Fuel Missile Designs:

“The Pukguksong-3 is definitely new,”.. The missile might be designed to fly farther and to be launched from protective canisters, which allow missiles to be transported more easily and makes them more difficult to locate and destroy in advance. Solid-fuel engines add to that difficulty because they allow for quicker launches than liquid-fuel missiles. It could possibly also boost the North’s submarine-launched missile capabilities.
North Korea successfully tested the submarine-launched Pukguksong-1 in August last year. It then followed up with a successful test of the land-based Pukguksong-2 in February this year. Both are believed to have intermediate ranges that could target Japan and the U.S. bases there but not the mainland United States.
The submarine and land-based technologies overlap, and developments in either can benefit both.

 

[swerve]

They defect because life is terrible & they know it's much better in the south. Some sneak into China & do menial jobs, exploited & badly treated because at least they can eat.

No need to invoke religion as a reason.

 

[Tsavo Lion]

If they really believed in their "infallible" semi-divine leaders, hardships are no excuse to defect. Ethnic Koreans in the RFE emigrated to SK, not PRC (with many ethnic Koreans there) or NK, in masse after finally being allowed to leave, even knowing that Korea was liberated from Japanese by the Soviets with Kim Il Song, who later became NK leader, among them. OTH, there's a large pro-N. Korean diaspora in Japan but they too are not eager to resettle in NK.
Korea, Afghanistan and the Never Ending War trap:

Meanwhile, that “plan for an enveloping fire” around Guam remains on Kim Jong-un’s table. It is essential to remember the plan was North Korea’s response to Trump’s “fire and fury” volley. Kim has stated that for diplomacy to work again, “it is necessary for the US to make a proper option first”. As in canceling the Ulchi-Freedom Guardian war games – featuring up to 30,000 US soldiers and more than 50,000 South Korean troops. South Korean President Moon Jae-in dutifully repeats the Pentagon mantra that these Hunger Games, lasting until August 31, are “defensive”. Computer simulations gaming a – very unlikely – unilateral Pyongyang attack may qualify as defense. But Kim and the Korean Central News Agency interpret the war games in essence for what they are: rehearsal for a “decapitation”, a pre-emptive attack yielding regime change. ..The Global Times reasonably argued that “if South Korea really wants no war on the Korean Peninsula, it should try to stop this military exercise”. ..
A China-North Korea mutual defense treaty has been in effect since 1961. Under this framework, Beijing’s response to Trump’s “fire and fury” was a thing of beauty. If Pyongyang attacks, China is neutral. But if the US launches a McMaster-style pre-emptive attack, China intervenes – militarily – on behalf of Pyongyang.
As a clincher, Beijing even made it clear that its preference is for the current status quo to remain. Checkmate. ..the rhetorical war in the Korean Peninsula did decrease a substantial notch after China made its position clear. ..
“There’s no military solution, forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that 10 million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.”
And extra evidence in the “they got us” department is that B-1B heavy bomber “decapitation” practice runs – out of Andersen Air Force Base in Guam – have been quietly “suspended”. This crucial, largely unreported fact in the air supersedes rhetoric from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Pentagon head James “Mad Dog” Mattis, who previous to Bannon’s exit were stressing “strong military consequences if North Korea chooses wrongly”.

SK is now trying to sit on 2 chairs at the same time. I don't think they'll succeed for long. Those exercises are due again next year, triggering another crisis. If they don't declare neutrality in the run up to hostilities (if it comes to it), it would be another fratricidal war in which S. Koreans will be cannon fodder & "dying over there" (possibly along with the Japanese civilians & US troops in E.Asia) once again. After all, why they must kill each other for other's interests?
Absent a new war, the NK artillery, nukes & BMs will cause SK to drift away from alliance with the US & Japan & bring reunification closer, "without firing a shot".

 

[t68]

SK is now trying to sit on 2 chairs at the same time. I don't think they'll succeed for long. Those exercises are due again next year, triggering another crisis. If they don't declare neutrality in the run up to hostilities (if it comes to it), it would be another fratricidal war in which S. Koreans will be cannon fodder & "dying over there" (possibly along with the Japanese civilians & US troops in E.Asia) once again. After all, why they must kill each other for other's interests?
Absent a new war, the NK artillery, nukes & BMs will cause SK to drift away from alliance with the US & Japan & bring reunification closer, "without firing a shot".

I'm all for one expressing a view point, but I'm waiting for sanity to prevail in your ramblings

 

[swerve]

You're not the only one.

 

[colay1]

There was this European guy doing a TV series of his travels to different countries. He was walking on a street in Pyongyang when a woman just walked up to him and smacked him in the face. She explained later that she thought he was an American.

Nor surprising considering that generations of NK have been conditioned by decades of anti-Western propaganda and rhetoric.

 

[John Fedup]

Hell, why didn't he have a flag on his lapell or more importantly why was he wasting his time there. Nothing pi$$es me off more than bleeding heart types demanding their governments go rescue these fools.

 

[gazzzwp]

Russia flies nuclear capable bombers over the peninsula. God only knows why that are getting involved?

Russian nuclear bombers fly near North Korea in rare show of force | Reuters

My best guess is that it is in retaliation for the US sending bombers to Europe at the same time as the war games in Belarus.

Edit:

Also this maybe something to do with it; US vowing support for Ukraine.

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/24/politics/ukraine-us-mattis/index.html

 

[STURM]

It might just be intended to show that the U.S. and its allies aren't the only ones capable of flexing muscles in the region and to show that Russia is also keeping a close watch on the situation as it also has concerns and interests to safeguard.

 

[colay1]

Russia wants to be a player. If and when the time comes to negotiate, they hope to have a seat at the table and leverage this to their benefit.

 

[ngatimozart]

Russia wants to be a player. If and when the time comes to negotiate, they hope to have a seat at the table and leverage this to their benefit.

Well they have a common border NK so they're an interested and affected party.

 

[swerve]

A short border, just 17 km, with the most remote part of North Korea. It's not exactly a big deal.

 

[STURM]

Colay,

The fact remains that Russia has concerns and the Korean peninsular is in its backyard (the same can't be said of the U.S). Like everyone else Russia doesn't want a war to erupt and is extremely worried that the current tensions and beating of war drums from both sides could lead to something much worse. As to Russia wanting to be a player, it already is.

 

[Stampede]

A short border, just 17 km, with the most remote part of North Korea. It's not exactly a big deal.

A short border, a short distance to Russia's Eastern Naval base at Vladivostok.
Those 17 km's will always be of Russian interest.
Russia will always take note of events in in Asia and Europe,after all this large country straddles two continents.
As to how much the Russian bear wants to be an active player n the Korean peninsular time will tell.

Maybe time for less bravado and some adult leadership.
The problem is of the payers involved I don't know if that is possible.

Troubling times ahead for the Korean Peninsular.

Regards S

 

[Tsavo Lion]

North Korea: The Grand Deception Revealed - some of their propaganda fed to them here. From at least 7 years ago:

N. KOREA PLANS MASSIVE RETALIATION IN A WAR WITH THE US: About 90% is without any proof and is the sole writing of 1 individual.

I also wonder if those figures are reliable & reflect the real state of affairs.
North Korean Submarines Must Be Considered A Threat To The U.S.
What Russia's Bombers and 'Flying Radars' Were After in Asia- A clear message that the RF (& PRC) won't allow NK to become another Iraq.
Should SK to choose to withdraw from the NPT, thus avoiding sanctions, before getting her own nukes (even with sanctions, SK will lose a lot less than in a war with NK), the US military there will have more of an excuse to leave, especially since Mr. Trump suggested it himself before becoming president.

 

[swerve]

North Korea: The Grand Deception Revealed - some of their propaganda fed to them here. From at least 7 years ago:
I also wonder if those figures are reliable & reflect the real state of affairs.
North Korean Submarines Must Be Considered A Threat To The U.S.
What Russia's Bombers and 'Flying Radars' Were After in Asia- A clear message that the RF (& PRC) won't allow NK to become another Iraq.
Should SK to choose to withdraw from the NPT, thus avoiding sanctions, before getting her own nukes (even with sanctions, SK will lose a lot less than in a war with NK), the US military there will have more of an excuse to leave, especially since Mr. Trump suggested it himself before becoming president.

Some of what it says is obvious nonsense. E.g. 18,000 heavy guns, & the ability to produce 3,000 per year, & over 7 million fully trained & well armed troops & militia. I.e. the entire male population between 15 & 54 years old.

 

[gazzzwp]

After the missile flew over Japan today and caused an outcry surely it's time now for the US alliance to use it's assets to intercept them?

It's a risk I agree because of they fail then no doubt Kim will feel even more empowered, however nothing would work better as far as I can see than letting the regime know that it's advances in technology are still ineffective against modern missile defences.