North Korean Military.

Japan Made No Attempt to Shoot Down 'Unprecedented' Launch
They probably couldn't even if they wanted to, given the trajectory so far North, or were afraid of debris falling back on Japan & its ships at sea. This latest test may be a warning to Japan that it will not be spared if all hell breaks loose.
The rising American chorus for a nuclear Japan If Japan gets nukes, SK will certainly feel the need to get nuclear armed as well. There is an outstanding territorial dispute on top of unfinished Korean War.

Tsavo Lion said:

Japan Made No Attempt to Shoot Down 'Unprecedented' Launch....There is an outstanding territorial dispute on top of unfinished Korean War.

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Did you bother to investigate facts before posting your assumptions backed by watered down commentary articles?

I would like to point to some aspects that might help:

The reported apogee was about 550km. You can assume that that was somewhere in the middle of the traveled distance which roughly puts it over the territory of Japan. The boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space is assumed by FAI at altitude of 100 km. Everything above is called outer space.The US would fly its shuttle at about 80km over sovereign nations without asking their permissions. The ISS maintains orbit between 330 and 435 km. NK missile was probably traveling way into outer space during its passage over Japans territory.

The trajectory of the missile and its ballistic nature put it outside of the designed intercept envelope of SM3 and Patriot PAC-3's. Most probable intercept would be in the boost phase or on reentry.

They certainly knew what they were doing choosing this type of ballistic parameters for the missile.

Intercepting the missiles would have needlessly escalated the situation (then you have two sides firing missiles). Not sure how everyone (including South Korea and the US, heck the rest of Japan) would feel about that. While annoying to Japan, at this stage it won't provoke a response. It would also be expensive and risky. No doubt everyone will be watching to see how the interception occurs and how effective it is.

If there is going to be any first interception it will be by US forces or with formal approval of the US.

North Korea is playing a very dangerous game. If Japan is hit by any of these missiles and they cause casualties, even if by accident, it may trigger a very quick escalation of the situation. Effectively that would count as a first fire against the US and its allies. I would imagine the US would then expect China to uphold their public comments about standing aside in that situation, and the US and allies would act most likely with some sort of strike against North Koreans capabilities. North Korea and interpret that how ever they want but the facts are still going to be there.

I hope the Chinese are aware of the situation. It seems perceptions are very different between nations now.

A nuclear armed Japan basically signifies a break down of the NPT. This would be very bad for everyone, particularly China. It would set off a regional arms race and with in a few years, every state would be nuclear armed. A lot of those states would pre-position their strike force towards the most likely regional threat (North Korea and China). Not all of these nations would be US aligned, or particularly wealthy or stable.

The Quite Rational Basis for North Korea's Japan Overfly: as of today, only the PAC-3 system could intercept that BM, if certain conditions are met. The Sun Tzu's advice, "know your enemy", is followed by NK. And they know us, Japanese & Chinese better than we & Japanese know them. Implications of the Hokkaido missile miss. The NORAD sats. watch NK 24/7; no doubt the US informed the Japanese as soon as that BM left it's launching pad of its trajectory & probable impact point, so there was no military reason to attempt an intercept, with added bonus of intel collected from this test &/ debris picked up from the water.

lowgo said:

Did you bother to investigate facts before posting your assumptions backed by watered down commentary articles?

I would like to point to some aspects that might help:

The reported apogee was about 550km. You can assume that that was somewhere in the middle of the traveled distance which roughly puts it over the territory of Japan. The boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and outer space is assumed by FAI at altitude of 100 km. Everything above is called outer space.The US would fly its shuttle at about 80km over sovereign nations without asking their permissions. The ISS maintains orbit between 330 and 435 km. NK missile was probably traveling way into outer space during its passage over Japans territory.

The trajectory of the missile and its ballistic nature put it outside of the designed intercept envelope of SM3 and Patriot PAC-3's. Most probable intercept would be in the boost phase or on reentry.

They certainly knew what they were doing choosing this type of ballistic parameters for the missile.

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Given the above, why the noise? If indeed NK did not violate anyone's airspace, why all the noise? What's apparently missing in our press are these facts and coherent discussion of exactly how to deal with a nuclear armed NK.

Hopefully common sense prevails.

Art

Testing missiles over other countries is considered reckless at least, & potentially a hostile act. Sometimes missile tests fail, & the missile falls short.

Note the locations of satellite launch sites. They tend to have a large sparsely populated area downrange, or the sea. They aim to be in orbit by the time they pass over populated areas, or other countries.

swerve said:

Testing missiles over other countries is considered reckless at least, & potentially a hostile act. Sometimes missile tests fail, & the missile falls short.

Note the locations of satellite launch sites. They tend to have a large sparsely populated area downrange, or the sea. They aim to be in orbit by the time they pass over populated areas, or other countries.

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You're right if the test failed. But it did not. That was my poin. Every other nation that launches either missiles or satellites follows these protocols. that was my point.

Art

swerve said:

Testing missiles over other countries is considered reckless at least, & potentially a hostile act. Sometimes missile tests fail, & the missile falls short.

Note the locations of satellite launch sites. They tend to have a large sparsely populated area downrange, or the sea. They aim to be in orbit by the time they pass over populated areas, or other countries.

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They want ICBMs. They have to test it somehow. Geographically they only have a couple of options. After all its all about ballistics. Search for maps with plotted paths of their missiles. Their choice of ballistic parameters is not that bad. They also need to worry about debris from 1st and 2nd stage. From the past launches, it looks like more than not their choice was made to minimize directly impacting neighboring countries. I am not trying to cherish the devil, but from an engineering point they show signs of sane thinking. Which in its own proves to me that they are far more capable and dangerous than expected at this point.

Now besides dangers of lobbing missiles into space over other countries lets not forget that the last launch reentry occurred in the middle of the busy NOPAC CRS that handles air traffic between Alaska and Asian/Pacific rim nations.

Tsavo Lion said:

... as of today, only the PAC-3 system could intercept that BM, if certain conditions are met...

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come on...this is why I report your posts. You formulate copy-paste abstracts from opinionated articles without doing any research...

The PAC-3 can get to an altitude of about 20km with a range of 40km. There is nothing PAC-3 can do about the NK missiles unless they are going terminal within that envelope or you park it in the vicinity of the NKs launcher.

If anything SM-3 could be used as it can reach targets at altitude of 240 kilometers as proven before by destroying USA-193 satellite from a US Navy ship in the Northern Pacific in 2008. But again the interception would have to happen in a favorable location for the interceptor since the maritime version lacks range. Thats why Japan is looking to install Aegis Ashore with extended range.

It has just been reported on the BBC that North Korea have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. Surely this is just as bad as missiles because if you had a military jet with a unguided bomb on going supersonic by the time it crossed the border even if you where alert it could travel quite a distance before it was engaged

Yes...
https://nos.nl/artikel/2191113-noord-korea-houdt-kernproef-naar-eigen-zeggen-een-waterstofbom.html
North-Korea claims its a hydrogen bomb. According to the Japanese and South-Koreans the explosion is 6-10 x more powerful than the one before...causing an earthquake of 6,3 Richter.

So if its true what NK claims (be able to make ICBMs, being able to produce hydrogen warheads and make them small and light enough to put them on top of their ICBMs), than its 100% mission accomplished.

If the US doesn't do anything after this, then there is no reason to do something in the future. Reactions like what SK did, dropping free fall bombs with four F-15 during an exercise as a 'show of force ' is just pathetic...

Pathetic is exactly the right term. There are enough reasons to go to war with N.Korea regardless of civilian deaths. Or future generations will have to live under a new age of geopolitics where nuclear proliferation will prevent the current "might makes right" US strategy, where they are toppling regimes left and right and bombing government bases and forces in Syria on their president's whim, because they are spanking some US-backed rebels.

Same goes for Israel when Iran will get some nuclear tips for their missiles. No more illegal airstrikes on their arab neighbours, no matter how many F-35s they get.

To clarify, I consider the US strategy in the Middle East to be catastrophic for the arab and the western world but I am not anti-US and I don't want US enemies to wield nuclear weaponry. I am also sympathetic to Trump (from an anti-liberal and anti-political-correctness standpoint) but when it comes to geopolitics he is just flailing around for the moment, he even dropped US credibility lower when he said that there was a military option on the table for Venezuela. Eh, what? Ridiculous.

I get the "there's more than enough reasons to go to war with NK NOW" thing but I think the "do nothing" approach might be the best thing.

This has the power to throw a few countries in the course of war IMO. So let's say US, and S.Korea go in and take out him.....then what? China and Russia would NOT allow a US occupied North Korea. So to rewind, does Russia and China take sides with North Korea in a US and South Korean invasion?

It's soooooooooooo many factors to consider. You can't just go in and "figure that out when we cross that bridge" of the other potential problems.

Besides, I doubt NK wants to actually nuke anyone. Almost all the "experts" at this point believe that they're chasing their nuclear ambitions in order to get assurance of regime stability.

If enough time passes by in peace, people tend to forget the merits of the balance of terror which prevented major conflicts between great powers after 1945. and then start to question the necessity of deterrence altogether forgetting how they came in need of deterrence in the first place. Often times historical studies revolve around the events that happened but seldom the events that didn't happen. How many disasters have been averted thanks to nuclear weapons? Hard to tell.
As for NK, it's strategically defensive regime which can't be said for the US so perhaps we're in the middle of process that might give birth to long term stability based on the balance of terror.

supercomrade said:

Besides, I doubt NK wants to actually nuke anyone. Almost all the "experts" at this point believe that they're chasing their nuclear ambitions in order to get assurance of regime stability.

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If that was the case and it is about regime survival, there's no need for threats against Guam Japan or Sth Korea playing the MAD card is all it needs.

If the US was hell bent on regime change they could of acheived that long ago.

t68 said:

If that was the case and it is about regime survival, there's no need for threats against Guam Japan or Sth Korea playing the MAD card is all it needs.

If the US was hell bent on regime change they could of acheived that long ago.

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Tell that to Trump. He has repeatedly boasted that his "unpredictability" is a strength and has engaged in a game of chicken with a regime who has mastered the art. If anyone makes a misstep IMO it won't be the NKs.

colay1 said:

Tell that to Trump. He has repeatedly boasted that his "unpredictability" is a strength and has engaged in a game of chicken with a regime who has mastered the art. If anyone makes a misstep IMO it won't be the NKs.

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Trump is unpredictable, but also fairly ineffective. North Korea was a problem of course long before Trump ever came onto the scene. I agree that regime change is a thin excuse for North Korea. Arguably the better tactic for North Korea would be not to directly threaten the US with nuclear war.

Now that North Korea arguably has effectively deploy-able thermonuclear weapons do we all think that things will deescalate and North Korea will become an relaxed and confident in its deterrent? Will it modernize its economy and open up its social freedoms?

Of course not, the regime will continue to threaten the US, South Korea, Japan, other US allies and likely even China with Nuclear war. It will do what it has done for the last 50 years, extort concessions out of everyone through fear.

Trump said a couple of weeks ago be respects the 'fact' that NK respects him more after his tough stance. NK immediately shows what they think of him firing off 3 missiles and now detonating their most powerful nuke yet.

Mattis has it right. Keep pursuing diplomacy, talking is better than fighting. At the end of the day, the US has lived with the nuke missile threat from Russia and China for decades. They will get used to NK. They can invest in a more robust missile defense to mitigate the threat and achieve a greater degree of deterrence vs a limited NK strike capability. KJU is already well aware of the US offensive capabilities.

colay1 said:

Trump said a couple of weeks ago be respects the 'fact' that NK respects him more after his tough stance. NK immediately shows what they think of him firing off 3 missiles and now detonating their most powerful nuke yet.

Mattis has it right. Keep pursuing diplomacy, talking is better than fighting. At the end of the day, the US has lived with the nuke missile threat from Russia and China for decades. They will get used to NK. They can invest in a more robust missile defense to mitigate the threat and achieve a greater degree of deterrence vs a limited NK strike capability. KJU is already well aware of the US offensive capabilities.

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Mattis IMO is one of the few respectable people in that administration. He is right. I'm not sure anyone listens to Trump from an international perspective. I don't think anyone seriously believed Trump was key to a solution in North Korea.

But North Korea also shouldn't treat the US like it does South Korea (or to a lesser extent, Japan). Firing missiles at the US will likely directly lead to conflict.

Acts like:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROKS_Cheonan_sinking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Yeonpyeong

Are unlikely to be tolerated by the US, if they occur directly against US assets and territory. Launching missiles at Guam or the continental US is a serious escalation. Even if they aren't armed with anything.

I am not sure that is understood by the North Koreans, who seem to think the silliness that is tolerated at and around the DMZ is tolerated globally. That they are an unchecked nuclear power.

There is no end goal for North Korea, they have to keep escalating.

Those who think diplomacy and constraint are the best solution will be singing a different tune 20 years from now. Allowing this kind of nuclear proliferation to avoid a possible conflict in the peninsula, or angering the chinese? A geopolitical blunder of epic proportions.

And anyone who thinks they will use their trillions of dollars to create some ballistic missile shield to cover up their past mistakes is just trying to sweeten this bitter pill. You will never have a credible defense against ballistic missiles with MIRV warheads.

Like Trump says, SAD!

So predictable....as a 'revenge' South-Korea has performed again an exercise, and it demands more sanctions....
https://nos.nl/artikel/2191266-zuid-korea-reageert-met-militaire-oefening-op-kernproef.html

Even if such sanctions were effective in the past, it is now way too late. NK will just laugh at such exercises and sanctions, and it will continue to provoke other countries, suppress their own people and develop and improve their nuclear arsenal.