North Korea Threatens War Against Japan Over Mis

[dilettante]

Wow...


North Korea Threatens War Against Japan Over Missile
By Jonathan Tirone


March 31 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea’s government vowed to wage war against Japan if Japanese defense forces try to shoot down a missile that the communist nation says will carry a communications satellite.
“Should Japan dare recklessly to intercept the DPRK’s satellite, its army will consider this as the start of Japan’s war of reinvasion more than six decades after the Second World War,” the official Korean Central News Agency (http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm) said today in an e-mailed statement. North Korea is also known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.


Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada (http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Yasukazu+Hamada&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:D:S:d1) ordered his forces on March 27 to shoot down any North Korean object entering his country’s airspace and deployed guided-missile units around Tokyo. Japan, along with the U.S., China, South Korea and Russia want to forestall North Korea’s plans to launch what the government in Pyongyang calls a “peaceful” satellite, and refocus on joint efforts to end its nuclear program.
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“The primary aim sought by Japan through this is to bring the six-party talks to collapse and delay the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and thus justify its ambition for nuclear weaponization,” according to the KCNA statement.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601080&sid=ac96M4KrdnAU&refer=asia

So, aside from being distressed by this, I also find it mildly amusing in two respects:
First, that the PRNK would consider Japan destroying a "peaceful" satalite that was in Japanese airspace not only to be an act of war, but a "war of reinvasion."
And, second, that North Korea is accusing Japan of having secret ambitions to develop nuclear weapons.

On a more practical/scary note, does anyone have a sense of what a war between North Korea and Japan would look like? What sort of military do they have to deploy, or would it be a war of ballistic missiles and little else? Or, more scarily, would a war between the PRNK and Japan simply be a stepping stone to a fight between the US and China?

[Michael]

For the record, both Japan and the USA, which both have some capability to launch ship-bourne missile interceptors, have positioned such ships in the neighborhood of the Sea of Japan strictly as a precaution in case the test fails or the missile/rocket/satellite goes awry (as has happened in previous N.Korean launches). The interest here is to protect the Japanese homeland from 'debris' or 'fallout' from any launch misshap.

Likewise, for the record, Japan is in a very small club of nations (that includes Canada) that are known and admitted to have 100% ability to construct nuclear weapons, but choose not to produce such weapons.

As always, this is a "mountain" of N.Korean rhetoric about a "molehill" of an event.

[Michael]

On a more practical/scary note, does anyone have a sense of what a war between North Korea and Japan would look like?
Same as the last one. US invades N.Korea and then gets chased out of Korea by China.

Technically speaking, it would be illegal and unconstitutional for Japan to make war on N.Korea.

[dilettante]

Same as the last one. US invades N.Korea and then gets chased out of Korea by China.

Hmmm. I can't see the US invading North Korea except possibly in the form of a few special forces units deployed to destroy nuclear facilities.

I'd be more concerned that the US would move a large naval force into the area to shield Japan from Korean missiles/aircraft and that China would follow suit, presumably to shield the PRNK from US firepower. That sets the stage for a rather nasty outbreak of hostilities between the US and China.


Technically speaking, it would be illegal and unconstitutional for Japan to make war on N.Korea.

I imagine if they were being bombarded with missiles, they'd find a constitutional interpretation that allowed for "defensive" air and navel strikes.

[Greendruid]

So, looks like we're getting closer to the threat issued back in March. No surprises that the North Koreans were intent on pursuing this course of action. Put a little man into platform shoes and you have a Napoleon complex. I cannot foresee any of this going well. There are going to be a lot of dead people from this conflict because I'm really not sure if Kim Jong-il grasps the concept of what he's toying with. Or, perhaps he understands it all too well and wants that power to get back what he feels North Korea is owed. It seems that the armistice effectively ending the Korean War is now null and void.

Perhaps the next, most relevant question is, who will make the first move? Will Japan make a pre-emptive strike? Will South Korea refuse to join in the 90 nation agreement to tackle sweeping of the unregistered ocean-going vessels going to and from the North? Will the US wait until one of these players makes a move? Will North Korea simply over-react and point a nuclear missile at either Japan or the South? Will China do something unprecedented and withdraw its support of the North in favour of its lucrative trade with Japan and the West? I think one or several of these possibilities may occur. Any ideas from someone better informed than I am about the situation?

[Margot]

Brinkmanship with halfwits is a terrible idea. Maybe they'll back down, though I think I'm with you, Greendruid. These are the Deliverance clan of the bad-guy world. It's terrifying to think that they won't stop until we squeal like pigs or we make them squeal instead.

[Michael]

Brinkmanship with halfwits is a terrible idea.
That doesn't quite cover it.

I think a better expression is "don't ever get into a pissing match with a skunk - because even if you win, you still end up losing".

Maybe they'll back down, though I think I'm with you, Greendruid. These are the Deliverance clan of the bad-guy world. It's terrifying to think that they won't stop until we squeal like pigs or we make them squeal instead.
Any response that goes beyond minimum indulgence of this petty regime is foolish.

They are potentially dangerous, but paranoid. They can be quashed like a bug if China so chooses. But no one but China can do this.

The US must be restrained from any act here. That is the real powderkeg. N.Korea acts the way they do because they are paranoid and believe that a full scale US invasion is inevitable and pending - just a matter of time. So they bluster to show off their strengths (which only shows how pathetically weak they really are). We must not laugh at them too loudly or obviously or that just makes the situation worse.

[Margot]

North Korea plans to test long-range missile (http://www.voanews.com/english/2009-06-01-voa7.cfm)

I can't tell if they're just stupid, or if they're evil geniuses trying to lure us to our destruction with an elaborate plan. I think it was Ren from Ren and Stimpy who said it best when he said "Don't push the shiny red button!"