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A North Korea nuclear test over the Pacific? Logical, terrifying
Reuters ^ | 22 Sep 2017 | Hyonhee Shin, Linda Sieg

Posted on 09/22/2017 7:23:39 AM PDT by mandaladon

SEOUL/TOKYO (Reuters) - Detonating a nuclear-tipped missile over the Pacific Ocean would be a logical final step by North Korea to prove the success of its weapons program but would be extremely provocative and carry huge risks, arms control experts said on Friday.

North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho suggested leader Kim Jong Un was considering testing “an unprecedented scale hydrogen bomb” over the Pacific in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat at the United Nations to “totally destroy” the country.

“It may mean North Korea will fire a warhead-tipped (intermediate range) Hwasong-12 or Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile and blow it up a few hundred kilometers above the Pacific Ocean,” said Yang Uk, a senior researcher at the Korea Defence and Security Forum in Seoul.

“They may be bluffing, but there is a need for them to test their combined missile-bomb capability. They could have already prepared the plan and are now trying to use Trump’s remarks as an excuse to make it happen,” said Yang.

Such an atmospheric test would be the first globally since China detonated a device in 1980, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Tests of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles are rarer still. The United States’ only test of an operational ballistic missile with a live warhead was fired from submarine far out in the Pacific Ocean in 1962.

China was widely condemned for a similar test with a missile that exploded over its Lop Nur test site in the country’s west in 1966.

North Korea’s six nuclear tests to date have all been underground, the most recent earlier this month by far its largest.

(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: kim; nk; nknukes; pacific; third100days; trump; trumpasia
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To: MTsumi
One if by missile, two if by ship ...
Kaajal Kumar‏ 
@kumar_kaajal
Follow
More
S.Pacific islands R scouring Ship records 4 vessels with links 2 #NorthKorea after #Fiji identified 20 falsely flagged ships it suspects 

41 posted on 09/22/2017 8:30:02 AM PDT by CMB_polarization
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To: glennaro

Yeah, now’s the time to demonstrate our purported offensive cyber capabilities against KJU’s missile/WMD programs. Just reprogram the missile to fly over Pyongyang and detonate. Then, the NORKs can bring back the “lady in pink,” put her on low beam and she can explain how fat boy got his capital vaporized.


42 posted on 09/22/2017 8:31:21 AM PDT by ExNewsExSpook
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To: G Larry

We can immediately detect whether a launch contains radioactive material.
If missile is radioactive, we take it down ASAP and examine the remains.

ANY country throwing & detonating nukes around outside their borders MUST be stopped.


43 posted on 09/22/2017 8:31:40 AM PDT by ctdonath2 (It's not "white privilege", it's "Puritan work ethic". Behavior begets consequences.)
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To: mandaladon

Even if DPRK drops a fission-fusion weapon in Mid-Pac, we will do nothing.


44 posted on 09/22/2017 9:05:27 AM PDT by Strac6 ("Mrs. Strac, Pilatus, and Sig Sauer: All the fun things in my life are Swiss!")
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To: Old Yeller

We have been very careful with Pacific Seafood since Fukushima
Power plant incident. Have you seen the colored map of the Pacific ocean currents? Hopefully Alaska salmon is still safe to eat.


45 posted on 09/22/2017 9:13:10 AM PDT by sanjuanbob
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To: ctdonath2

“We can immediately detect whether a launch contains radioactive material”

Well....that would be news to me.


46 posted on 09/22/2017 9:24:52 AM PDT by G Larry (There is no great virtue in bargaining with the Devil)
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To: butlerweave
The Young Un still thinks the World will cave and give him everything he wants.

You are absolutely correct. He is a god to his people and believes it. He places no limits on his appetites or his ambition. He maintains a harem of slave girls; kills family and friends for pleasure; starves his people into absolute submission; maintains a permanent propaganda campaign covering every aspect of the daily life of his people; lives a thoroughly debauched personal life; literally personally owns the entire country; believes he is invincible. This little tyrant needs to suffer, immeasurably, by losing everything and spending his life breaking rocks in a special hell prison built just for him.

47 posted on 09/22/2017 9:27:42 AM PDT by Louis Foxwell (Progressivism is 2 year olds in a poop fight.)
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To: CMB_polarization; Liz; GOPJ; Cboldt; sickoflibs; Impy; NFHale; Diogenesis
My prediction - it would not be delivered on a missile. Probably a boat.

Or a submarine. That is possible, and in fact they need to test a sub-delivered H bomb at some point.

It's likely that their previous accident in NK destroyed their testing site so that's why they are selecting the Pacific.

After it becomes obvious that the UN can't or won't do anything about NK (other than ineffective sanctions), The US, SK, and Japan should start seriously planning a strike. preferably non-nuclear. The enemy is the NK regime, not the people.

48 posted on 09/22/2017 9:37:15 AM PDT by ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas (Mozart tells you what it's like to be human. Bach tells you what it's like to be the universe)
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To: mandaladon

US made series of ballistic missile tests over Pacific between 1958-1952

Missiles were launched from Johnson Island 1000 miles south
of Hawaii

1958 HARDTACK shots used REDSTONE missile to loft 4 MT warheads into ionosphere some 40 to 75 miles up to test
results of nuclear detonation

1962 STARTFISH PRIME used THOR missile to launch 1.5 MT warhead 250 miles into space - it was this that revealed existence of EMP effects


49 posted on 09/22/2017 9:39:03 AM PDT by njslim
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8 kiloton.

==================================================


50 posted on 09/22/2017 9:58:43 AM PDT by Karl Spooner
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To: mandaladon

Nuke the whales. Save the males.


51 posted on 09/22/2017 10:00:58 AM PDT by familyop ("Welcome to Costco. I love you." --Costco greeter in the movie, "Idiocracy")
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To: Old Yeller
"Don’t buy any fish out of the Pacific for the next 1,000 years. Radioactive."

Yes! And remember that many test shots have already been done in the Pacific. I'll eat the fish to save y'all.

;-)

[That stuff decays out much faster in fish.]


52 posted on 09/22/2017 10:04:56 AM PDT by familyop ("Welcome to Costco. I love you." --Costco greeter in the movie, "Idiocracy")
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To: ctdonath2
We can immediately detect whether a launch contains radioactive material.

Source please? I did not know this capability existed.
53 posted on 09/22/2017 10:16:54 AM PDT by TexasGunLover ("Either you're with us or you're with the terrorists."-- President George W. Bush)
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To: Strac6

And in doing nothing in response to a live thermonuclear bomb test (except more jabber, letters of reprimand, etc), the US will immediately lose face with all Asian nations, inspire Iran to move against Israel (they are on the border now), and give Kim the green light to launch on any US city he chooses ...

Millions are going to die whatever course is taken here; its just a choice of are they Korean or American ...


54 posted on 09/22/2017 11:55:43 AM PDT by PIF (They came for me and mine ... now it is your turn ...)
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To: mandaladon

At this point Trump needs to IMMEDIATELY draw boundaries (as in “The Art of the Deal”) and tell Kim:

-—— “If NK detonates an H-bomb in the Pacific, that action would constitute CHEMICAL WARFARE AGAINST THE US because the US will immediately get a lot of radiation downwind. Such a Chemical Warfare attack on the US is EXACTLY the type of action that I meant when I said “if we are forced to defend ourselves or our allies, the US will destroy NK’.”


55 posted on 09/22/2017 12:10:17 PM PDT by AlanGreenSpam (Obama: The First 'American IDOL' President - sponsored by Chicago NeoCom Thugs)
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To: mandaladon; Fred Nerks

“It may mean North Korea will fire a warhead-tipped (intermediate range) Hwasong-12 or Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile and blow it up a few hundred kilometers above the Pacific Ocean,” said Yang Uk>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Spreading that fall out into the prevailing Westerly winds blowing straight at America would be considered an act of war.And you can bet that the USA is considering this to be a threat of War. And we are preparing.

Rods of God , a US secret weapon, would kinetically intersect with the posterior of Little Kim at the thungsten telephone pole weapon’s terminal velocity of 16,000 miles per hour, and Mr Uk would be instantaneously transformed into Mr. Ik!

End of problem.


56 posted on 09/22/2017 12:41:27 PM PDT by Candor7 (Obama Fascism http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2009/05/barack_obama_the_quintessentia_1.html)
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To: PIF

And the sooner it’s done, the fewer lives that will have to be lost.


57 posted on 09/22/2017 12:44:17 PM PDT by Strac6 ("Mrs. Strac, Pilatus, and Sig Sauer: All the fun things in my life are Swiss!")
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To: Logical me
Somehow we don’t seem to have the courage to be a real threat and shoot all NK missiles down.

What if we tried and missed? Our successful tests were in controlled environment, we have never had an opportunity to test one in the wild.

58 posted on 09/22/2017 1:39:55 PM PDT by itsahoot (As long as there is money to be divided, there will be division.)
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To: sanjuanbob


Don't overblow the issue.
Kwajalein Island nuclear test.
59 posted on 09/22/2017 1:49:54 PM PDT by itsahoot (As long as there is money to be divided, there will be division.)
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To: All


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60 posted on 09/22/2017 1:51:49 PM PDT by musicman (The future is just a collection of successive nows.)
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