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North Korea Missile Appears to Have Flown Over Japan, Abe Says

206 points by schintan 9y ago

countryqt30 9y ago
It's actually clever because the U.S. is also struggling with the hurricane now
quazar 9y ago
fgjlkfdgjkfldsjlkgfjdslkgfdgfd
- jayess 9y ago
  ^ this
M4v3R 9y ago
> Several missiles were fired by North Korea, NHK cites Japan’s government as saying. > Missile likely landed off eastern coast of Hokkaido, NHK says. Thank goodness.
lucb1e 9y ago
They crossed airspace. Nowhere do I read that they were aimed at land, or any place with people. This particular source (Bloomberg) is most sensational of them all (comparing to nu.nl, Al Jazera and Reuters), but they all agree that it only crossed airspace and dropped into the ocean. I remember reports of Russia's fighter jets crossing (I think) Finland's airspace, which were explained as "one nation testing another's response time and alertness, common events even in peacetime". This was back when there were more Russia-related tensions (the Ukraine annexation thing). I wouldn't be surprised if North Korea is doing that with Japan's airspace. Flagged for (1) picking the least clear source available (can happen by accident) and (2) editing the title from "appears to have passed over" to "appears to have fired towards" (that's definitely sensationalizing it).
- bArray 9y ago
  Russian aircraft semi-regularly test British air response times.
dev_throw 9y ago
It seems like the Kim regime is backed into a corner where only the capability to launch nuclear weapons will ensure that they aren't wiped off the face of the planet.
- itbeho 9y ago
  Or they could spend some of their treasure on feeding their own people instead of pursuing weapons of war. Anyone looking for a fight will eventually find one. http://www.newsweek.com/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-starving-his-people-pay-nuclear-weapons-573015 http://www.newsweek.com/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-starving-hi...
  - btilly 9y ago
    The problem is that on the path from "our people's lives suck" to "our people have good lives" there is an inevitable step where "our people learn how badly their rulers have screwed them over". NK leadership doesn't think that they'll survive that step.
    - jethro_tell 9y ago
      Another issue, is that China and Seoul, and by extension the US, would be a lot more willing to step in and probably help with reunification or a regime change with open borders if it didn't also mean a massive financial effort/refugee crisis on the border.
      - btilly 9y ago
        My understanding is that it is all China. China's two concerns are avoiding a refugee crisis, and not having a US ally directly on such a sensitive border. Seoul would certainly face hardship, but is currently willing to help. (Plus they would be happy to have solved their fear of immanent invasion.) However allowing Seoul to help would leave a US ally directly on China's border. However Seoul's support is faltering as memories fade. In public polls, 56% of South Koreans think that supporting reunification as "essential", but support is much stronger among older generations. If the stalemate lasts a couple more generations, the two countries may not want to reunite.
smaili 9y ago
Does anyone ever wonder if these missiles run their path due to glitches/malfunctions in the code rather than what's instructed by the operator? It's just hard for me to fathom why a country would intentionally fire missiles at other countries, especially when it's a battle they cannot win.
- awinder 9y ago
  Sabre rattling?
- kbenson 9y ago
  I actually had the same thought. What if North Korea had a mishap and wasn't intending to cause an incident (or at least, not one quite this extreme)? Would they feel like they could admit it was an accident, or would they play it off as intentional even if it wasn't?
  - JKCalhoun 9y ago
    Maybe it does not in fact matter what they say.
    - kbenson 9y ago
      Given that at least one nuclear strike was closely averted because of better information being available later during a misclassification of a launch of research rocket1], I think it definitely can matter. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls#1990s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls#19...
- Clubber 9y ago
  You are assuming rational actors. Some of them aren't. Also, know, that as soon as war starts with NK, they will start shelling Seoul with traditional artillery within a few minutes before we could do anything about it. I think Bannon estimated it at 10M deaths within the first 30 minutes with conventional weapons. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/north-korea-artillery_us_58f631a4e4b0b9e9848eb990 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/north-korea-artillery_us... Edit: Bannon casualty estimates and link. “Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten 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.” https://www.vox.com/world/2017/8/17/16162332/bannon-american-prospect-north-korea-military https://www.vox.com/world/2017/8/17/16162332/bannon-american...
coolswan 9y ago
Japan PM needs a strong show of support and response to North Korea from Trump and the US.
patates 9y ago
Don't most countries (especially the neighbors to those with violent tendencies) have automatic defenses against missiles? If Japan has such a system, did it fail to trigger? I just find it very weird that a missile would be able to pass across a country uninterrupted.
- clarkmoody 9y ago
  If the missile were on a ballistic trajectory that would not impact anywhere on land, perhaps it's better to let it fly on over into the ocean? Shooting it down could reveal anti-missile capabilities that may be saved for a more serious impact threat.
  - patates 9y ago
    This makes total sense. Well, unless the missile makes an unexpected turn :) Are there any past examples of such "tests"? I couldn't figure out how to google it.
    - khuey 9y ago
      Unlike a cruise missile, ballistic missiles are not really capable of turning in that way.
- rroriz 9y ago
  Maybe NK had this exact same question
- freehunter 9y ago
  Shooting down a missile with another missile is very difficult, especially if it's an ICBM moving at full speed. Couple that with the fact that Hokkaido is as far north as you can get in Japan (as far from Tokyo and other major population centers further south, so there may not be missile defense systems there. Israel's Iron Dome only has a range of 70km, so I doubt, even if Japan had better technology, that they'd have one of these set up everywhere across the islands. Being that Hokkaido is so far north, if you look on a map it's very very close to Russia. Not knowing the exact trajectory that it took, it's plausible that it went over Japanese airspace but was obviously not on a trajectory to impact the island itself. The article doesn't say where it was headed, just that it was in Japanese "airspace", and that it landed off the coast. So plenty of reasons why it wasn't shot down. I'll add one more: the last thing you want to do is try to shoot down a test rocket and fail. Because if you fail on the test, the enemy will be more willing to believe you'd fail on the real thing, too.
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
North Koreans are the build an accurate rocket like the British build a reliable car. They were probably aiming for Seoul. I don't feel bad making a wisecrack since there isn't a substantive story about this on the handful of news outlets I checked.
- gph 9y ago
  >I don't feel bad making a wisecrack since there isn't a substantive story about this on the handful of news outlets I checked. What does that have to do with anything? And the story was broken by NHK, what other news sources would you need to confirm this?
- kbenson 9y ago
  > I don't feel bad making a wisecrack since there isn't a substantive story about this on the handful of news outlets I checked. This story ends with "Developing...", so not having a substantive story might be more a factor of it being a very recent development rather than it being poorly reported or not worth reporting. I'm not sure that's a good metric by which to judge whether it's okay to joke about, at least in the early stages.
verelo 9y ago
So I'm a little confused, what's all this talk about anti-missile systems? Are they even real or just seriously over-stated? If you look at where Hokkaido is I feel it's hard to believe that some protection system wouldn't activate when the missile lands on the eastern side if the island.
- verelo 9y ago
  Thinking more about it, perhaps it makes sense. If they know it's going to miss the area, why blow it up and give away information about your defence systems. I bet that is a risky and nail biting call to make...
- elihu 9y ago
  It landed "Off the eastern coast of Hokkaido", which is a pretty ambiguous location. It might not have been very close to land, or on a trajectory that was particularly threatening.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    NHK reports it landed about 1200km straight east of Hokkaido in the sea.
- Hasknewbie 9y ago
  The anti-missile system being talked about recently is in South Korea, not Japan.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    No, Japan is supposed to have some too.
    - zaphirplane 9y ago
      Wonder why the did intercept, that has to have been a lively debate
- Analemma_ 9y ago
Shivetya 9y ago
the danger in this world has always been the day irrational leaders of insular states gain the ability to affect any other nation at will. the issue seems to be, no one wants to be the one that is preemptive in fear of being blamed for setting the whole thing off. long term is, how does the world protect itself from such as this? is there any true protection possible at this time. Just as the USSR and the USA had too much to lose during the Cold War the US and China, if not Russia, in the mix, all have too much to lose, but smaller states or failing states are a danger. Pretty sure we can list out states of increasing risk. Can any of them be permanent bought off or that a stupid fantasy?
- sudoscript 9y ago
  Can someone explain why it's so hard to build a missile shield around the US? We've been at it for decades and it's still not reliable. Meanwhile, Israel has the Iron Dome. I know we're a lot bigger, but I feel like this should still be possible, yes?
  - freehunter 9y ago
    Last time I checked, Iron Dome was only 90% effective and only had a range of 70km. The area that is constantly lobbing missiles at them is very small and easy to cover with overlapping missile defense systems. It'd be much harder and more expensive to cover Japan, and Japan is super tiny compared to many other countries that are targets for NK missiles (like the US). It's really hard because of the massive amount of area you need to cover with a system that's basically like shooting a bullet out of the air with another bullet.
  - burkaman 9y ago
    We have one, but intercepting long range missiles is very hard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-Based_Midcourse_Defense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-Based_Midcourse_Defense There are also lots of political issues around weaponizing space and deploying interceptors where we would need them. The US had to withdraw from a treaty with Russia in order to build the current system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ballistic_Missile_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ballistic_Missile_Treaty
mrtksn 9y ago
Sometimes I wonder, how it is to be an engineer working for a crazy dictator. I would guess you get some special privileges, you are not tied to any regulations but your constrains are budget and supply chain efficiency. The dictator does not need to explain things to the public, does not need to obey the law so you can have a crazy idea about that machine you want to build and if you can convince one guy, you have it all.
- cabaalis 9y ago
  I don't know any specific examples, but I wonder how much of our knowledge today came from people working under these conditions. It's terrible, but do we now retain knowledge learned from people experimenting on humans under Hitler, for example? How many warfare techniques were developed by kings or other absolute leaders asking engineers to build novel weapons with no constraints?
  - sacheendra 9y ago
    Yes we did. A lot of textbooks on human anatomy are from that time. There is even an ethical issues section on the wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation
    - tptacek 9y ago
      I'm not sure that you've provided evidence for the extraordinary claim that textbooks on human anatomy are based on Nazi experiments.
      - sacheendra 9y ago
        True. I was grossly exaggerating. I was thinking of Pernkopf's anatomy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Pernkopf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Pernkopf) when i was making the comment. It is not true to say textbooks are based on his work. But apparently his work is used in books. The argument is that it we use results and data from nazi experiments.
tmh79 9y ago
Does the US have a THAAD installation in South Korea? If so, is it possible that the THAAD missiles launched and missed these? If they weren't launched, why not?
- anarazel 9y ago
  The US reportedly knew beforehand about the launch: https://twitter.com/nktpnd/status/902286999855476736 https://twitter.com/nktpnd/status/902286999855476736 But besides that, THAAD is for the terminal phase, so that'd not really work well for something that landed ~1000km east of Hokkaido.
archagon 9y ago
I don't get it. Why would North Korea do something this provocative? Surely they realize that the US president is unstable and would be more than capable of lobbing a missile their way out of anger and/or for ratings?
- spuz 9y ago
  Because they don't believe he is that stupid. After all they did not harm anyone in this "test". Trump cannot claim retaliation if he or an ally was not attacked.
  - cmurf 9y ago
    Trump has said, his own words, that threats are sufficient to provoke retaliation, not merely an attack. Whether this is sincere is still an open question. But is insincerity useful? Because what Kim is successfully doing if there's no response is proving Trump's insincerity. And if an attack is provoked, he's proving Trump's bad judgment. Either way, it's bad for everyone.
rilmayer 9y ago
In Japan, I think that I couldn’t do anything if missile landed. Because J Alert, alerting system that announce emergency for Japannese people, alerted missile fired at 6:02 am and informed passing throgh hokkaido at 6:06 am. We cannot do anything while missile passed through japnese sky.
dboreham 9y ago
fwiw a friend of mine worked in this field during the cold war. He told me that the Soviets would routinely test their missiles (as did the US) by test launching a randomly picked rocket from the fleet. The difference was the US always launched from Vendenberg whereas the Soviets would just launch from whatever silo the missile was in. Not so different from this scenario really.
- nradov 9y ago
  The US and Soviets usually notified each other in advance of ballistic missile tests in order to prevent unpleasant misunderstandings.
__sha3d2 9y ago
So, is Missile Defense vaporware? How come these systems are always part of the conversation until there are real missiles to stop? Am I just missing all of the successful takedowns?
- JKCalhoun 9y ago
  I thought missile defense was well-known vapor-ware.
- CodeWriter23 9y ago
  The Patriot Anti-Missile system had plenty of successes and a few failures broadcast on live TV during the first Gulf War. But I think the idea is to only use them when the launched missile is on a trajectory to hit a target you want to defend. First, it costs money. Second, each time a defensive missile is deployed, there is inherently some information leakage about the defensive capability. So if you're going to make such a disclosure, you want it to count.
  - LyndsySimon 9y ago
    Patriots in the Gulf War were pretty good at shooting down incoming Scud missiles - but Scuds are fairly slow short-range missiles, with a range of ~200-700km depending on the version. This was probably a Hwasong-12, with a range of ~5,000km. It would be a much more difficult target to hit, especially at maximum altitude or on terminal approach (where it would be traveling very fast indeed). Patriots have gotten much better since the first Gulf War and we have other systems designed to shoot down ballistic missiles, but it's still a very hard problem that we've not completely solved. It seems likely that the reason we've not shot down a North Korean test missile is that there is a high enough possibility of failure that it wouldn't be worth the risk.
    - CodeWriter23 9y ago
      I'm sure there is great optimization possible from 80's tech, which out of computational necessity, communicated by satellite to mainframes at NORAD. And if you think about it, a defensive missile doesn't have to outrun an offensive one. It just needs to be in the right place at the right time. It doesn't have to have pinpoint accuracy either; errors can be corrected by sizing and/or clustering the defensive payload.
Havoc 9y ago
Someone is getting bombed to hell...
- KGIII 9y ago
  Statistically unlikely. It may not even make political sense to do so. Send Un some Scotch, wheat, and rice - he will settle down for a nap.
  - Havoc 9y ago
    >Statistically unlikely You forget that the US is run by someone that makes policy 140 characters at a time and is proud to be "the most militaristic person there is". So while I agree with your Scotch plan being better I still think they're getting bombed to hell.
    - KGIII 9y ago
      I'm kinda old. Trump is president, not dictator. He doesn't scare me. He talks a lot, and I don't agree with much if what he says, but he's just a public face to a country that had been running for more than two centuries. At this moment in time, I see bombing as being unlikely. The Norks leaders have been batshit insane since before I was born, and I was hatched in the 50s.
      - cmurf 9y ago
        Pretty much the sole basis for considering DPRKs leaders crazy is the Kim family's ridiculous rants. The rants use weird language, and insincere threats. And so now the U.S. president is modeling that behavior: Weird language (fire and fury) and it seems designed to be insincere, and just for laughs. It factually hasn't changed the calculus of KJU.
        KGIII 9y ago
        At risk of offending, I don't believe Trump is modeling that behavior. I don't think his rants are ridiculous, meaning that I believe there's a (sane?) reason behind them. I feel I need to stress that Trump doesn't scare me. I don't believe he is dumb, I believe he is a fan of gamesmanship. I don't think he is insane. I don't think he is going to cause society to collapse. He scares me exactly none. I also, unfortunately, need to add that I didn't vote for him and don't particularly approve of him. I'm just not even remotely afraid of him. I suspect you see what you want to see and draw similarities where there aren't any to worry about. For as much as the politicians change, we keep trudging on. Truly, you'll be alright. It's very unlikely that things will change in a meaningful fashion. We are very much on a trend towards better, and have been for millennia.
Hasknewbie 9y ago
For context, it should be noted that it's not the first time a NK test missile crosses over into a neighbour's air space, see [1] for recent example, although I'm pretty sure they did the same thing a few year ago. So basically: nothing new. [1] http://safeairspace.net/information/north-korea/ http://safeairspace.net/information/north-korea/
- jsemrau 9y ago
  They have been doing this for decades. It is the same spiel every year to show off power to their people. I don't think they care much about the rest of the world.
- neilellis 9y ago
  Ah indeed, context is everything, the context is a different US president and different tension levels. Let's just hope that this incident is just another one hey.
  - Hasknewbie 9y ago
    Tensions have been as high (possibly higher) before, and the current president is irrelevant (yes I am serious. On foreign/military matters, it's pretty much established he says what the generals tell him to say and that's that. Nobody that matters cares what his latest Twitter tirades are). So the context to get would be: who are the top generals? Answer: same guys as before.
- URSpider94 9y ago
  While they often violate other countries' air space, this is the first time he has flown a missile OVER a Japanese land mass. This is a major big deal to the Japanese. Source: I'm in Tokyo right now... :/
  - napsterbr 9y ago
    Were you (or citizens in general) actually able to see the missile crossing the sky?
tbabb 9y ago
The U.S. government is in disarray (to understate it) and is in a moment of weakness. I am sure Pyongyang knows this and is testing the waters to see what it can get away with. Will a meaningful, competent retaliation come? Maybe they went this far because all the previous probings confirmed the weakness. How much further will they go? Who else will come out of the woodwork and start strutting around now that nobody has the will or know-how to stop them?
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Will a meaningful, competent retaliation come? So please explain what that can possibly be. Economic sanctions against China?
  - tbabb 9y ago
    Not a diplomat, so I have no idea. But I'd guess the responses are much more often diplomatic or covert than military.
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      So how can you evaluate the competency of any response? (I pretty much see the situation as intractable, short of China getting motivated to eliminate their convenient strategic buffer...)
- spuz 9y ago
  This hypothesis doesn't really make sense. Why would NK want to see what it can get away with? All they need to do is show to their enemies that they have the capability to cause incredible loss of life and they will achieve their goal of staying in power. They don't actually need to cause actual loss of life to do so. Actually performing a missile strike for example in Japan is not in their own interest because once they step over a certain line it's game over.
  - cmurf 9y ago
    [Kim Jong Un] has said things that are horrific. And with me he’s not getting away with it. He got away with it for a long time, between him and his family. He’s not getting away with it. This is a whole new ballgame. He’s not going to be saying those things, and he’s certainly not going to be doing those things. - Trump, barely two weeks ago. The hypothesis makes a lot of sense, because merely proving Trump's insincerity, and that nothing has actually changed policy wise, has intrinsic value. DPRK did such a missile test in 2009, to much deserved outcry, but there was no escalating response. But this is supposed to be a whole new ballgame. So is it a new ballgame? Or was that insincere?
rodrigocoelho 9y ago
Someone posted this on Twitter: "Alarm from JP Gov. 'A missile was fired from North Korea. Please evacuate to a sturdy building or basement.'" https://twitter.com/Chihokomoriya/status/902276766705664000 https://twitter.com/Chihokomoriya/status/902276766705664000
jjallen 9y ago
Shouldn't the title be OVER Japan since it is reported to have gone over Japan?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
qq66 9y ago
Well, when they finally blow a major city to smithereens, let nobody say that it took them by surprise.
rangibaby 9y ago
I'm surprised it was not shot down. This will probably be the final nail in the coffin for Shinzo Abe. If you're interested, odds are the next Prime Minister will be Yuriko Koike.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sysdyne 9y ago
Has CNN started the countdown?
anonu 9y ago
Maybe North Korea shorted the market yesterday? Missile over Japan... Market down now. Coincidence? This might be an easier way to get money than asking for aid

206 points by schintan 9y ago

countryqt30 9y ago

It's actually clever because the U.S. is also struggling with the hurricane now

quazar 9y ago

fgjlkfdgjkfldsjlkgfjdslkgfdgfd

jayess 9y ago
^ this

M4v3R 9y ago

> Several missiles were fired by North Korea, NHK cites Japan’s government as saying. > Missile likely landed off eastern coast of Hokkaido, NHK says. Thank goodness.

lucb1e 9y ago

They crossed airspace. Nowhere do I read that they were aimed at land, or any place with people. This particular source (Bloomberg) is most sensational of them all (comparing to nu.nl, Al Jazera and Reuters), but they all agree that it only crossed airspace and dropped into the ocean. I remember reports of Russia's fighter jets crossing (I think) Finland's airspace, which were explained as "one nation testing another's response time and alertness, common events even in peacetime". This was back when there were more Russia-related tensions (the Ukraine annexation thing). I wouldn't be surprised if North Korea is doing that with Japan's airspace. Flagged for (1) picking the least clear source available (can happen by accident) and (2) editing the title from "appears to have passed over" to "appears to have fired towards" (that's definitely sensationalizing it).

bArray 9y ago
Russian aircraft semi-regularly test British air response times.

dev_throw 9y ago

It seems like the Kim regime is backed into a corner where only the capability to launch nuclear weapons will ensure that they aren't wiped off the face of the planet.

itbeho 9y ago
Or they could spend some of their treasure on feeding their own people instead of pursuing weapons of war. Anyone looking for a fight will eventually find one. http://www.newsweek.com/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-starving-his-people-pay-nuclear-weapons-573015 http://www.newsweek.com/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-starving-hi...
- btilly 9y ago
  The problem is that on the path from "our people's lives suck" to "our people have good lives" there is an inevitable step where "our people learn how badly their rulers have screwed them over". NK leadership doesn't think that they'll survive that step.
  - jethro_tell 9y ago
    Another issue, is that China and Seoul, and by extension the US, would be a lot more willing to step in and probably help with reunification or a regime change with open borders if it didn't also mean a massive financial effort/refugee crisis on the border.
    - btilly 9y ago
      My understanding is that it is all China. China's two concerns are avoiding a refugee crisis, and not having a US ally directly on such a sensitive border. Seoul would certainly face hardship, but is currently willing to help. (Plus they would be happy to have solved their fear of immanent invasion.) However allowing Seoul to help would leave a US ally directly on China's border. However Seoul's support is faltering as memories fade. In public polls, 56% of South Koreans think that supporting reunification as "essential", but support is much stronger among older generations. If the stalemate lasts a couple more generations, the two countries may not want to reunite.

smaili 9y ago

Does anyone ever wonder if these missiles run their path due to glitches/malfunctions in the code rather than what's instructed by the operator? It's just hard for me to fathom why a country would intentionally fire missiles at other countries, especially when it's a battle they cannot win.

awinder 9y ago
Sabre rattling?
kbenson 9y ago
I actually had the same thought. What if North Korea had a mishap and wasn't intending to cause an incident (or at least, not one quite this extreme)? Would they feel like they could admit it was an accident, or would they play it off as intentional even if it wasn't?
- JKCalhoun 9y ago
  Maybe it does not in fact matter what they say.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    Given that at least one nuclear strike was closely averted because of better information being available later during a misclassification of a launch of research rocket1], I think it definitely can matter. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls#1990s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_close_calls#19...
Clubber 9y ago
You are assuming rational actors. Some of them aren't. Also, know, that as soon as war starts with NK, they will start shelling Seoul with traditional artillery within a few minutes before we could do anything about it. I think Bannon estimated it at 10M deaths within the first 30 minutes with conventional weapons. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/north-korea-artillery_us_58f631a4e4b0b9e9848eb990 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/north-korea-artillery_us... Edit: Bannon casualty estimates and link. “Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten 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.” https://www.vox.com/world/2017/8/17/16162332/bannon-american-prospect-north-korea-military https://www.vox.com/world/2017/8/17/16162332/bannon-american...

coolswan 9y ago

Japan PM needs a strong show of support and response to North Korea from Trump and the US.

patates 9y ago

Don't most countries (especially the neighbors to those with violent tendencies) have automatic defenses against missiles? If Japan has such a system, did it fail to trigger? I just find it very weird that a missile would be able to pass across a country uninterrupted.

clarkmoody 9y ago
If the missile were on a ballistic trajectory that would not impact anywhere on land, perhaps it's better to let it fly on over into the ocean? Shooting it down could reveal anti-missile capabilities that may be saved for a more serious impact threat.
- patates 9y ago
  This makes total sense. Well, unless the missile makes an unexpected turn :) Are there any past examples of such "tests"? I couldn't figure out how to google it.
  - khuey 9y ago
    Unlike a cruise missile, ballistic missiles are not really capable of turning in that way.
rroriz 9y ago
Maybe NK had this exact same question
freehunter 9y ago
Shooting down a missile with another missile is very difficult, especially if it's an ICBM moving at full speed. Couple that with the fact that Hokkaido is as far north as you can get in Japan (as far from Tokyo and other major population centers further south, so there may not be missile defense systems there. Israel's Iron Dome only has a range of 70km, so I doubt, even if Japan had better technology, that they'd have one of these set up everywhere across the islands. Being that Hokkaido is so far north, if you look on a map it's very very close to Russia. Not knowing the exact trajectory that it took, it's plausible that it went over Japanese airspace but was obviously not on a trajectory to impact the island itself. The article doesn't say where it was headed, just that it was in Japanese "airspace", and that it landed off the coast. So plenty of reasons why it wasn't shot down. I'll add one more: the last thing you want to do is try to shoot down a test rocket and fail. Because if you fail on the test, the enemy will be more willing to believe you'd fail on the real thing, too.

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

North Koreans are the build an accurate rocket like the British build a reliable car. They were probably aiming for Seoul. I don't feel bad making a wisecrack since there isn't a substantive story about this on the handful of news outlets I checked.

gph 9y ago
>I don't feel bad making a wisecrack since there isn't a substantive story about this on the handful of news outlets I checked. What does that have to do with anything? And the story was broken by NHK, what other news sources would you need to confirm this?
kbenson 9y ago
> I don't feel bad making a wisecrack since there isn't a substantive story about this on the handful of news outlets I checked. This story ends with "Developing...", so not having a substantive story might be more a factor of it being a very recent development rather than it being poorly reported or not worth reporting. I'm not sure that's a good metric by which to judge whether it's okay to joke about, at least in the early stages.

verelo 9y ago

So I'm a little confused, what's all this talk about anti-missile systems? Are they even real or just seriously over-stated? If you look at where Hokkaido is I feel it's hard to believe that some protection system wouldn't activate when the missile lands on the eastern side if the island.

verelo 9y ago
Thinking more about it, perhaps it makes sense. If they know it's going to miss the area, why blow it up and give away information about your defence systems. I bet that is a risky and nail biting call to make...
elihu 9y ago
It landed "Off the eastern coast of Hokkaido", which is a pretty ambiguous location. It might not have been very close to land, or on a trajectory that was particularly threatening.
- kuschku 9y ago
  NHK reports it landed about 1200km straight east of Hokkaido in the sea.
Hasknewbie 9y ago
The anti-missile system being talked about recently is in South Korea, not Japan.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  No, Japan is supposed to have some too.
  - zaphirplane 9y ago
    Wonder why the did intercept, that has to have been a lively debate
Analemma_ 9y ago

Shivetya 9y ago

the danger in this world has always been the day irrational leaders of insular states gain the ability to affect any other nation at will. the issue seems to be, no one wants to be the one that is preemptive in fear of being blamed for setting the whole thing off. long term is, how does the world protect itself from such as this? is there any true protection possible at this time. Just as the USSR and the USA had too much to lose during the Cold War the US and China, if not Russia, in the mix, all have too much to lose, but smaller states or failing states are a danger. Pretty sure we can list out states of increasing risk. Can any of them be permanent bought off or that a stupid fantasy?

sudoscript 9y ago
Can someone explain why it's so hard to build a missile shield around the US? We've been at it for decades and it's still not reliable. Meanwhile, Israel has the Iron Dome. I know we're a lot bigger, but I feel like this should still be possible, yes?
- freehunter 9y ago
  Last time I checked, Iron Dome was only 90% effective and only had a range of 70km. The area that is constantly lobbing missiles at them is very small and easy to cover with overlapping missile defense systems. It'd be much harder and more expensive to cover Japan, and Japan is super tiny compared to many other countries that are targets for NK missiles (like the US). It's really hard because of the massive amount of area you need to cover with a system that's basically like shooting a bullet out of the air with another bullet.
- burkaman 9y ago
  We have one, but intercepting long range missiles is very hard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-Based_Midcourse_Defense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-Based_Midcourse_Defense There are also lots of political issues around weaponizing space and deploying interceptors where we would need them. The US had to withdraw from a treaty with Russia in order to build the current system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ballistic_Missile_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ballistic_Missile_Treaty

mrtksn 9y ago

Sometimes I wonder, how it is to be an engineer working for a crazy dictator. I would guess you get some special privileges, you are not tied to any regulations but your constrains are budget and supply chain efficiency. The dictator does not need to explain things to the public, does not need to obey the law so you can have a crazy idea about that machine you want to build and if you can convince one guy, you have it all.

cabaalis 9y ago
I don't know any specific examples, but I wonder how much of our knowledge today came from people working under these conditions. It's terrible, but do we now retain knowledge learned from people experimenting on humans under Hitler, for example? How many warfare techniques were developed by kings or other absolute leaders asking engineers to build novel weapons with no constraints?
- sacheendra 9y ago
  Yes we did. A lot of textbooks on human anatomy are from that time. There is even an ethical issues section on the wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation
  - tptacek 9y ago
    I'm not sure that you've provided evidence for the extraordinary claim that textbooks on human anatomy are based on Nazi experiments.
    - sacheendra 9y ago
      True. I was grossly exaggerating. I was thinking of Pernkopf's anatomy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Pernkopf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduard_Pernkopf) when i was making the comment. It is not true to say textbooks are based on his work. But apparently his work is used in books. The argument is that it we use results and data from nazi experiments.

tmh79 9y ago

Does the US have a THAAD installation in South Korea? If so, is it possible that the THAAD missiles launched and missed these? If they weren't launched, why not?

anarazel 9y ago
The US reportedly knew beforehand about the launch: https://twitter.com/nktpnd/status/902286999855476736 https://twitter.com/nktpnd/status/902286999855476736 But besides that, THAAD is for the terminal phase, so that'd not really work well for something that landed ~1000km east of Hokkaido.

archagon 9y ago

I don't get it. Why would North Korea do something this provocative? Surely they realize that the US president is unstable and would be more than capable of lobbing a missile their way out of anger and/or for ratings?

spuz 9y ago
Because they don't believe he is that stupid. After all they did not harm anyone in this "test". Trump cannot claim retaliation if he or an ally was not attacked.
- cmurf 9y ago
  Trump has said, his own words, that threats are sufficient to provoke retaliation, not merely an attack. Whether this is sincere is still an open question. But is insincerity useful? Because what Kim is successfully doing if there's no response is proving Trump's insincerity. And if an attack is provoked, he's proving Trump's bad judgment. Either way, it's bad for everyone.

rilmayer 9y ago

In Japan, I think that I couldn’t do anything if missile landed. Because J Alert, alerting system that announce emergency for Japannese people, alerted missile fired at 6:02 am and informed passing throgh hokkaido at 6:06 am. We cannot do anything while missile passed through japnese sky.

dboreham 9y ago

fwiw a friend of mine worked in this field during the cold war. He told me that the Soviets would routinely test their missiles (as did the US) by test launching a randomly picked rocket from the fleet. The difference was the US always launched from Vendenberg whereas the Soviets would just launch from whatever silo the missile was in. Not so different from this scenario really.

nradov 9y ago
The US and Soviets usually notified each other in advance of ballistic missile tests in order to prevent unpleasant misunderstandings.

__sha3d2 9y ago

So, is Missile Defense vaporware? How come these systems are always part of the conversation until there are real missiles to stop? Am I just missing all of the successful takedowns?

JKCalhoun 9y ago
I thought missile defense was well-known vapor-ware.
CodeWriter23 9y ago
The Patriot Anti-Missile system had plenty of successes and a few failures broadcast on live TV during the first Gulf War. But I think the idea is to only use them when the launched missile is on a trajectory to hit a target you want to defend. First, it costs money. Second, each time a defensive missile is deployed, there is inherently some information leakage about the defensive capability. So if you're going to make such a disclosure, you want it to count.
- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  Patriots in the Gulf War were pretty good at shooting down incoming Scud missiles - but Scuds are fairly slow short-range missiles, with a range of ~200-700km depending on the version. This was probably a Hwasong-12, with a range of ~5,000km. It would be a much more difficult target to hit, especially at maximum altitude or on terminal approach (where it would be traveling very fast indeed). Patriots have gotten much better since the first Gulf War and we have other systems designed to shoot down ballistic missiles, but it's still a very hard problem that we've not completely solved. It seems likely that the reason we've not shot down a North Korean test missile is that there is a high enough possibility of failure that it wouldn't be worth the risk.
  - CodeWriter23 9y ago
    I'm sure there is great optimization possible from 80's tech, which out of computational necessity, communicated by satellite to mainframes at NORAD. And if you think about it, a defensive missile doesn't have to outrun an offensive one. It just needs to be in the right place at the right time. It doesn't have to have pinpoint accuracy either; errors can be corrected by sizing and/or clustering the defensive payload.

Havoc 9y ago

Someone is getting bombed to hell...

KGIII 9y ago
Statistically unlikely. It may not even make political sense to do so. Send Un some Scotch, wheat, and rice - he will settle down for a nap.
- Havoc 9y ago
  >Statistically unlikely You forget that the US is run by someone that makes policy 140 characters at a time and is proud to be "the most militaristic person there is". So while I agree with your Scotch plan being better I still think they're getting bombed to hell.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    I'm kinda old. Trump is president, not dictator. He doesn't scare me. He talks a lot, and I don't agree with much if what he says, but he's just a public face to a country that had been running for more than two centuries. At this moment in time, I see bombing as being unlikely. The Norks leaders have been batshit insane since before I was born, and I was hatched in the 50s.
    - cmurf 9y ago
      Pretty much the sole basis for considering DPRKs leaders crazy is the Kim family's ridiculous rants. The rants use weird language, and insincere threats. And so now the U.S. president is modeling that behavior: Weird language (fire and fury) and it seems designed to be insincere, and just for laughs. It factually hasn't changed the calculus of KJU.
      - KGIII 9y ago
        At risk of offending, I don't believe Trump is modeling that behavior. I don't think his rants are ridiculous, meaning that I believe there's a (sane?) reason behind them. I feel I need to stress that Trump doesn't scare me. I don't believe he is dumb, I believe he is a fan of gamesmanship. I don't think he is insane. I don't think he is going to cause society to collapse. He scares me exactly none. I also, unfortunately, need to add that I didn't vote for him and don't particularly approve of him. I'm just not even remotely afraid of him. I suspect you see what you want to see and draw similarities where there aren't any to worry about. For as much as the politicians change, we keep trudging on. Truly, you'll be alright. It's very unlikely that things will change in a meaningful fashion. We are very much on a trend towards better, and have been for millennia.

Hasknewbie 9y ago

For context, it should be noted that it's not the first time a NK test missile crosses over into a neighbour's air space, see [1] for recent example, although I'm pretty sure they did the same thing a few year ago. So basically: nothing new. [1] http://safeairspace.net/information/north-korea/ http://safeairspace.net/information/north-korea/

jsemrau 9y ago
They have been doing this for decades. It is the same spiel every year to show off power to their people. I don't think they care much about the rest of the world.
neilellis 9y ago
Ah indeed, context is everything, the context is a different US president and different tension levels. Let's just hope that this incident is just another one hey.
- Hasknewbie 9y ago
  Tensions have been as high (possibly higher) before, and the current president is irrelevant (yes I am serious. On foreign/military matters, it's pretty much established he says what the generals tell him to say and that's that. Nobody that matters cares what his latest Twitter tirades are). So the context to get would be: who are the top generals? Answer: same guys as before.
URSpider94 9y ago
While they often violate other countries' air space, this is the first time he has flown a missile OVER a Japanese land mass. This is a major big deal to the Japanese. Source: I'm in Tokyo right now... :/
- napsterbr 9y ago
  Were you (or citizens in general) actually able to see the missile crossing the sky?

tbabb 9y ago

The U.S. government is in disarray (to understate it) and is in a moment of weakness. I am sure Pyongyang knows this and is testing the waters to see what it can get away with. Will a meaningful, competent retaliation come? Maybe they went this far because all the previous probings confirmed the weakness. How much further will they go? Who else will come out of the woodwork and start strutting around now that nobody has the will or know-how to stop them?

maxerickson 9y ago
Will a meaningful, competent retaliation come? So please explain what that can possibly be. Economic sanctions against China?
- tbabb 9y ago
  Not a diplomat, so I have no idea. But I'd guess the responses are much more often diplomatic or covert than military.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    So how can you evaluate the competency of any response? (I pretty much see the situation as intractable, short of China getting motivated to eliminate their convenient strategic buffer...)
spuz 9y ago
This hypothesis doesn't really make sense. Why would NK want to see what it can get away with? All they need to do is show to their enemies that they have the capability to cause incredible loss of life and they will achieve their goal of staying in power. They don't actually need to cause actual loss of life to do so. Actually performing a missile strike for example in Japan is not in their own interest because once they step over a certain line it's game over.
- cmurf 9y ago
  [Kim Jong Un] has said things that are horrific. And with me he’s not getting away with it. He got away with it for a long time, between him and his family. He’s not getting away with it. This is a whole new ballgame. He’s not going to be saying those things, and he’s certainly not going to be doing those things. - Trump, barely two weeks ago. The hypothesis makes a lot of sense, because merely proving Trump's insincerity, and that nothing has actually changed policy wise, has intrinsic value. DPRK did such a missile test in 2009, to much deserved outcry, but there was no escalating response. But this is supposed to be a whole new ballgame. So is it a new ballgame? Or was that insincere?

rodrigocoelho 9y ago

Someone posted this on Twitter: "Alarm from JP Gov. 'A missile was fired from North Korea. Please evacuate to a sturdy building or basement.'" https://twitter.com/Chihokomoriya/status/902276766705664000 https://twitter.com/Chihokomoriya/status/902276766705664000

jjallen 9y ago

Shouldn't the title be OVER Japan since it is reported to have gone over Japan?

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qq66 9y ago

Well, when they finally blow a major city to smithereens, let nobody say that it took them by surprise.

rangibaby 9y ago

I'm surprised it was not shot down. This will probably be the final nail in the coffin for Shinzo Abe. If you're interested, odds are the next Prime Minister will be Yuriko Koike.

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sysdyne 9y ago

Has CNN started the countdown?

anonu 9y ago

Maybe North Korea shorted the market yesterday? Missile over Japan... Market down now. Coincidence? This might be an easier way to get money than asking for aid