"...lots of naval strike assets in the region...
I always appreciate a good 'fireworks display' on the 4th of July. ;)
Posted on 06/22/2009 5:34:05 AM PDT by jhpigott
Reuters has an article speculating what might happen with the North Korean ship Kang Nam. Latest news reports suggest the ship is bound for Myanmar, a country unlikely to abide by any United Nations resolution. No one really knows how this might unfold, but based on Obama's comments early last week, I think the ship will not be allowed to complete its journey. These comments in particular describe the policy.
Obama said that, in recent years, North Korea's provocations have been "rewarded" as Western countries offered fuel, food and loans in exchange for promises of good behavior that are eventually broken.
"We are going to break that pattern," Obama said after a White House meeting with South Korean President Lee Myung Bak. Obama told reporters assembled in the Rose Garden that North Korea "will not find security or respect through threats and illegal weapons." When China agreed to UN Security Council Resolution 1874, I think that pretty much doomed the regime. North Korea does not have the capacity to produce every type of ammunition necessary to conduct full scale military operations, and after the Soviet Union fell, North Korea looked to China to get ammunition replacements. That would appear to no longer be an option.
The question now is when North Korea is doomed? It is a good question, but my sense is China has informed the North Koreans that if they attack the South for any reason, the regime will fall. The 6 party talks were a failure in terms of their intended goal of stopping the North Korean nuclear program, but were a success in one regard. No one, including China, wants to fight over the carcass of North Korea. I do not see a scenario where China desires to assume control of the territory of North Korea right now, because should the regime fall and that becomes the scenario, whichever country performs that function is going to suddenly have a nearly 16 million person humanitarian mission on their hands. It could very easily cripple any regional economy, and likely would stunt the growth of China's economy.
I think the Obama administration is going to push North Korea a bit, and while the result is indeed quite unpredictable, the odds of a full scale war would not seem very high, although the odds of an incident may be. In other words, I think the Obama administration knows they have the ability to leverage some escalation control, and can test the regime a bit to get a better feel for the conditions of the North Korean military to sustain serious political pressure without the Chinese backing them up.
I don't think the USS John S. McCain (DDG 56) will be boarding the Kang Nam directly, but indirectly I fully expect the destroyer to get involved once another country does the initial seizure. I have a hard time believing that if a country like Singapore seizes the vessel, North Korea's response will be to attack South Korea. In fact, I'd bet China has already made it clear to North Korea that is not a legitimate option...
Which is why I believe escalation is coming.
For those who might be curious, as best I can tell the US has 3 Carrier Strike Groups, 1 Amphibious Ready Group, and nearly every forward deployed surface combatant in the Pacific at sea in good position to react quickly to a major military escalation by North Korea. There are also a large number of forward deployed USAF air power in Alaska for Northern Edge 2009. Additionally the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group and the Bonhomme Richard Amphibious Ready Group could put to sea very quickly if necessary.
The key statistic though is that the US has 33 submarines at sea, 61%, with 26 submarines on deployment, 48%. That is a very unusually high number of submarines on deployment and very important in the North Korean scenario, because North Korea does not have sophisticated sonar equipment to detect, much less to track US submarines, and can only fight submarines with minefields. I don't see a scenario where things escalate that far, but I do see the US Navy prepared for that scenario if North Korea miscalculates or overreacts.
Posted by Galrahn at 1:00 AM
ping
ping
I wonder how many Trident subs are cruising in the Sea of Japan?
Another good anaysis. Last time I checked, the NK ship was still due to dock in Singapore en route to Myanmar. If that still happens then Singapore would agree to an inspection of the ship. Would be interesting to see just how angry Kim will get then.
None. With the range of Trident they could probably hit North Korea from the pier in Washington. They'll be in the North Pacific somewhere, far from the cramped operating area of the Sea of Japan.
Great minds think alike. Yours is a little faster.
Does anybody have a time frame for all of this? It seems like the Kang Nam has been headed to Myanmar (which I call Burma as nobody knows where Myanmar is let alone is able to pronounce correctly) forever.
"...lots of naval strike assets in the region...
I always appreciate a good 'fireworks display' on the 4th of July. ;)
“We are going to break that pattern,” Obama said after a White House meeting”
Obama actually said these things? I hadn't read this before.
That is interesting....
Myanmar/Burma is close to India. Not a short trip as the ship has been hugging the Chinese coast on its way. Would need to navigate the Straits of Singapore and its expected to stop in Singapore to refuel.
I think China is telling Korea just the exact opposite of what you imagine, JMO.
North Korea warns of military drill off coast - Japan
TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea has warned it will conduct a military firing exercise off its eastern city of Wonsan, Japan’s Coast Guard said on Monday, in a possible indication of a missile test.
North Korea, in an e-mail, said the exercise would take place between June 25 and July 10 within a 110-km (68 mile) range from Wonsan, Japan Coast Guard spokesman Shinya Suzuki said.
Looks like we may have an exact window for when they are planning to launch some missiles now...
Not that it’s going to happen. Nuke North Korea and the radioactive fallout is either going to hit Japan, South Korea, or China depending on the prevailing winds. I think that they’d all take a dim view of that.
speculation was btwn 7/4-7/8 so that appears pretty much right on
For old times sake, I’d rather see them use a Minuteman to hit NK, but that would probably involve overflight of Russia or China.
I gotta throw the flag on this statement. NK has very few naval craft that would even register as targets for an SSN. They have PT and PTG boats, which they will likely use in a mass attack and they have extremely small submarines for their special forces, which if they don't sink of their own accord will be nearly impossible for an SSN to locate.
The NK Navy is pretty much a non-issue, as is their Air Force. The issue is the vast number of artillery tubes and troops they have along the DMZ.
One of the reasons we pulled our troops back from the DMZ was to take away the NK option of easily striking just U.S. forces. However, they could still attempt such an attack.
What would the SK or Japanese response be to a limited NK attack against U.S. forces on their soil? Likely not war.
Not per se for what it says . . . but what it strongly hints at . . . perhaps without intending to or realizing it . . .
Then . . . again . . . maybe I'm bunching too many puzzle pieces together . . . or . . . maybe I'm not . . .
1. The number of prophetic sources writing about closely looming disasters of various kinds has never been greater.
2. The number of the more solid, reputable such sources has never been more . . . intense in their wording.
3. The number of Naval assets mentioned is very sobering.
4. The globalist oligarchy the last Bildeberger meeting were reported to be quibbling over whether to schedule a long drawn out devastating global depression or a super devastating shorter one. Hint: They were not just talking about economic depression, folks. The coming festivities MOST LOGICALLY [from consideration of most of the related puzzle pieces] include:
B) The dance with Israel and Iran and OThug's horrific duplicity continues . . . amidst Iran's election theft . . . the opposition getting 16 million plus votes, the next getting 13 million and I'mANutJob getting 3 million . . . and the computer expert revealing the actual data getting killed immediately after his disclosure. Would I'mANutJob deliberately light off nukes to start WWIII to bring in the Muslim Mahdi per his construction on 'reality?' In a flash . . . if his globalist bosses OK'd it and maybe even if they didn't . . . all the more so to distract from the election turmoil??? C) The dance with North Korea continues amidst a major power transition there . . . with Iran certainly complicit in no doubt a list of ways. The ship interdiction could be a carefully staged 'light the festivities off' set-up. NK is certainly crazy enough and dire enough to play any fool such role. D) The UFO/ ET stuff has been off the scale in terms of the number, the quality, the seriousness, the high level sources involved, the breadth of the coverage, the breadth of the issues presented, . . . some incredible ground-work is being laid for something extremely reality altering. WWIII would certainly be an opportune time to spring such overtly on the world even MORE heavy handedly coercing the world's populace into the tyrannical global government "for the survival of humanity--for survival of the planet." E) Prophetic warnings about looming close natural disasters are off the scale in frequency, number of such and in their seriousness . . . from quakes to solar storms to meteors to freak weather to volcanoes. F) I have NOT read of some of the military cues one would expect in such scenarios . . . though the naval assets thing is more than a little sobering given all the above. And there ARE SOME other curious things from military cues. Perhaps some FREEPERS could add yea or nay on that score??? One of the other puzzle pieces is odd reports here and there of unusual movements of materiel etc. G) I wish some FREEPERS would step up to the plate and see how much monitoring of the movements of the elites could be done. We MUST have SOME FREEPERS in key enough positions to observe such. Wouldn't have to be public posting. Could be by FREEPMAIL or even email. Certainly such would be still monitored . . . but there must be SOME FREEPERS enough at arm's length yet still knowledgeable sufficiently to report in on such with RELATIVELY little risk. H) The numbers of average posters on forums noting how . . . edgy, etc. they've felt recently . . . the number & severity of disastrous dreams they've had increasingly etc. has risen markedly--how convinced they just "feel" that something disastrously awesome is on the near horizon . . . . I) The number and seriousness of reports related to food supply have risen very markedly. J) The number of Pastors waking up and preparing their congregations has risen significantly. K) The propaganda regarding UFO/s ET's in media--movies, news, video games, books . . . selling the idea of "our space brothers being benign and more often friends and/or 'saviors' of humanity" . . . has escalated markedly the last year--even the last 6 months. L) Warnings of EMP pulse risks and results have risen significantly in number and seriousness.
6. THEREFORE WHAT? I don't know. And certainly accurate predicitve timing has never been my strong point nor the strong point of anyone I've read.
7. Nevertheless, IT'S NOT time to go back to sleep idly.
It's NOT time to pray LESS.
It's NOT time to prepare LESS.
It's NOT time to groggily wander around like a brain-dead idiot.
It's NOT time to be willfully clueless.
It's NOT time to be arrogantly stubbornly stupid.
It's NOT time to be smugly resistant to being prudent.
It's NOT time to thumb one's nose at God or the gathering storm clouds.
8. One of the better sites I know of regarding Christian preparedness is
9. He also has a collection of interesting 'future maps' from various sources . . . as well as an interesting earth quake section.
10. I BELIEVE that we have FREEPERS in some pretty key positions . . . and some 2nd tier key positions--key enough to observe puzzle pieces that would indicate movement toward dramatic events before others would be alerted--without being at significant risk to themselves for noting what they observed. I would like FREEPERS reading this to pray and ask God if they are in such a position and if it would be God's will for them to join in prayerfully reporting such. Folks don't have to report to me. There's probably less . . . unique . . . characters of a more conventional nature one could report to. Reports could also be sent via relatives, friends vs directly by you.
11. IF anyone on the END TIMES list would like to collect such reports, please let me know by FREEPMAIL. If anyone would like to send such reports, please let me know by FREEPMAIL. I'm NOT talking about military stuff that SHOULD, MUST remain quiet. I'm talking about elites leaving vulnerable locations for less vulnerable locations for extended schedules away.
12. In any case . . . PLEASE BE PRAYERFULLY AWAKE. NOW is NOT the time for slumber. Now is the time to network with one's neighbors and even consider . . . what would a watch list and schedule look like for our neighborhood?
May God be with all those who Love Him. May God have mercy on our beleaguered land and Republic.
Apart from those minisubs for special forces, they also do have about 50 Romeo/Whiskey/Ming class subs in active service. Though these are obviously outdated, the sheer number of them (not even including the 50 or so minisubs) means that it would be prudent to have enough assets in place. They may not be direct threats to SSN's, but would be threats to surface shipping.
I think our civilization is standing at the edge of an abyss. God Help Us
THANKS FOR YOUR KIND REPLY.
AGREE—GOD HAVE MERCY ON US.
HE WILL—THOSE WHO TRULY LOVE HIM.
THE CHAFF WILL BE BURNED UP AND BLOWN AWAY.
SCRIPTURE IS CLEAR
ALL THAT CAN BE SHAKEN WILL BE SHAKEN.
Little ‘god’s’ will be burned up . . . and . . . rather likely, their worshippers, as well.
GOD ALONE IS SUFFICIENT.
GOD ALONE DIED FOR US.
GOD ALONE is our refuge.
May all who are called by His Name Love Him first, foremost, above all else.
HE ALONE IS WORTHY.
Health, safety and wholeness to you, Bro.
Thanks for the ping!
Neighborhood meetings are cropping up all over this land!
Obama said that, in recent years, North Korea's provocations have been "rewarded" as Western countries offered fuel, food and loans in exchange for promises of good behavior that are eventually broken. "We are going to break that pattern," Obama said after a White House meeting with South Korean President Lee Myung Bak. Obama told reporters assembled in the Rose Garden that North Korea "will not find security or respect through threats and illegal weapons." When China agreed to UN Security Council Resolution 1874, I think that pretty much doomed the regime. North Korea does not have the capacity to produce every type of ammunition necessary to conduct full scale military operations, and after the Soviet Union fell, North Korea looked to China to get ammunition replacements. That would appear to no longer be an option. The question now is when North Korea is doomed?
“North Korea does not have the capacity to produce every type of ammunition necessary to conduct full scale military operations, and after the Soviet Union fell, North Korea looked to China to get ammunition replacements. That would appear to no longer be an option.”
Last time we fought in Korea, we fought the Chinese. I’d say nothing’s really changed. I agree there’s going to be escalation. It’s too bad we are going to get that escalation on NK’s terms.
PRAISE GOD FOR THAT!
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