S. Korea boosts defense spending, warns of first-strike capability
Published: June 27, 2009
Updated 4 months ago
In a reversal of the usual pattern, South Korea is now warning North Korea that it is developing a first-strike capacity against the communist country.
In the wake of a recent nuclear bomb test by North Korea, South Korea is ratcheting up its war of words against its northern neighbor, announcing plans to accelerate the deployment of defense systems.
A South Korean defense reform plan, reported on by the Korea Times, describes the country’s plans for a defense network that would link surveillance satellites, high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft and early-warning radar in an effort “to remove North Korea’s asymmetrical military threat of nuclear and missile programs.”
The paper quoted an official in South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff who said that “in the case of an emergency, the military could conduct pre-emptive strikes against nuclear and missile facilities.”
“Once signs of unusual movement, such as missile and nuclear tests, are detected, F-15K and other advanced aircraft are to conduct surgical strikes against the relevant facilities,” the paper says.
For its part, North Korea today lashed out at Japan on Saturday, threatening to shoot down any Japanese aircraft that attempt to spy on the isolated Stalinist state. AP reports that the North Korean government has instituted a two-week-long “no-sail zone” off its east coast, “raising concerns that it might test-fire short- or mid-range missiles in the coming days, in violation of a UN resolution.”
Tensions between North Korea and its neighbors have been on the rise since North Korea tested a nuclear bomb last month, despite years of efforts by successive U.S. administrations, Japan, China and others to bring the country into the international community. North Korea’s tests were roundly condemned by governments around the world, and led to a fresh round of sanctions against the country.
Even North Korea’s traditional protector, China, has exhibited frustration with the country’s nuclear program and aggressive language.
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Y’know…with all the dick-waving going on in the World right now, I would say maybe the time is coming for EVERY COUNTRY to just start pushing red fucking buttons. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Let’s just get this all over with and give the Earth back to whatever survives and pray they don’t evolve into humans.
Geezus Harvey Christ!!! Where is the love and respect the “lower” (?) animals give each other to each other; the “live and let live”? Humans aren’t satisfied unless they can start a fucking pissing contest that will end with INNOCENTS getting blown up, shot, burned, or otherwise…dead!
I for one hope it soon comes and ends as fast as they say a nuke war will end. The only way to TRULY save this planet is for the self-extinction of the insane and murderous human species!!!
If South Korea starts the war, I say we let them fight it ALONE!
their military is one of the best equipped and trained in the world. they don’t need the americans.
Good.
IMHO, Seoul, etc, getting destroyed in war would bring good jobs back to America.
Not that The Republic of Korea (South Korea) needs any “first strike” capability:
The US sends spy planes, launched from bases in the south, over The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea daily, and has nukes lined up and already aimed at DPRK. Common knowledge. Kinda hard to miss hearing and seeing those spy birds blast down the runways, what with the US air bases right in crowded metropolitan locations….
So, what’s the NEWS here?
That the legacy of Bush declaring North Korea part of an imaginary “Axis Of Evil” and ending the North’s agreement to not makes nuclear weapons in exchange for food and oil FAILED MISERABLY?
That it ended a remarkable period of “Sunshine” to the point I witnessed south Koreans glued to their tv sets when their president went north and met with Kim Jung Il?
That Kim Jung Il then stated that in the “event of re-unification, of course the US could stay as a security force?” That they were on the brink of re-linking railroad tracks, and had tourism available to the north? That the north was allowing families to immigrate south to re-unite with long lost relatives?
Or weren’t the “30 second attention span” Americans fucking paying attention, as usual??? Oh, that’s right, they aren’t “white folk”: their lives, their wishes and hopes ain’t worthy of attention.
Great idea! Blow up everybody’s toys. Let the cockroaches and the rats take over…wait a minute, THEY ALL READY HAVE!
North Korea says: blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…
Sooooo… South Korea says: blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…
South Korea is really the only county in the world that actually has serious threat to face on it’s border. N. Korea has enough traditional non-nuclear long range artillery guns within range of Seoul to flatten it. N. Korea doesn’t need nukes to kill tens of thousands of S. Korean civilians.
If S. Korea wants to have the ability to take out the long range artillery guns N. Korea has had massed just across the border since the end of the Korean War, I don’t have a problem with that. That’s a real threat., and pretty much the last real threat left.
Oh, I suppose its OK that the yanks used nuclear bombs in Iraq (near basra 1991).
Where is the outrage, where are the protests, where was the Geneva Convention and U.N.?
I say whats good for the goose is good for the gander.
Leave N & S Korea the fck alone, leave Iran alone, leave Afghanistan alone, leave the fckn world alone and concentrate in getting our own houses in order.
But we all know that won’t happen, the cure all to end all will be that stated by “clippedeaglebravo” in the first post here.
I’m totaly in agreement with the innevitable.
“The Earth has cancer and it should be completely erradicated, giving back the ownership to its rightfull owner, NATURE”
HH
It is apparent from the light nature of this conversation that its participants have not been sensitized to FEAR. Perhaps they are past the age of conscription.
The strong potential for a noxious cloud of radioactive remains of our Korean brethren to drift on the prevailing winds to North America and contaminate the very armchairs from which these people write is real and undesirable. Treatment for radiation poisoning is not compensable under most health insurance policies. Actually the phrase “radiation poisoning” is a pentagon euphemism for ‘ terminal.’
No happy endings.
Few Americans know that South Korea invaded North Korea early on June 25, 1950. MacArthur was disgusted at how Americans were turning their backs on their Empire ‘military duties’ after WWII, wanting an end to war and getting on with building up the Suburbs and enjoying the 50’s. MacArthur and wingnut Dictator Syngman Rhee (who rigged elections, embezzled $millions, and eventually had to flee the country in a CIA airplane in 1960…) concocted the tactic for getting Americans enraged: attack in the dead of night, then fall back quickly before the counter-attacking North Koreans, back over the 38th, and widely publicize the “invasion”. MacArthur, who was as much a politician as he was a General, planned it brilliantly, from ‘denying’ Rhee basic defensive equipment, to “saving the day” after he got Trumans attention, and that of the average American, after the “evil Communists attacked”.
They knew North Korea would win any Korea-wide real election, since the nationalistic patriots were in the North, and the Japanese collaborators were the Government in the South. What they didn’t count on was the ferocity of the Koreans to remain free of a new controlling power, after the Japanese had ruled them for decades: 1 out of 3 “North” Koreans died in the American counter-invasion, and Eisenhower thought the casualties were too high, too soon after WWII, so brought the war to a fuzzy conclusion (armistice).
No American President has offered to sign a Peace Treaty, which is what the North Koreans want: an end to the war, and a promise not to invade. Americans like to keep the “option” of illegal war on the table, and when North Korea doesn’t like it, accuse them of being ‘insane”, “rogue”, “crazy”.
“Few Americans know that South Korea invaded North Korea early on June 25, 1950″
Thanks neutron. Can you send me your copy of “World History by Kim Il Sung”? I’m sure there are a lot of other entertaining imaginary stories I can laugh at in there.
You are an idiot
Grindermonkey
This government taught me how to duck and cover, run for air raid shelters, hide under school desks, build fall out shelters, look for commies under my bed,look for gays in my bed, don’t get sick, tape up my house with plastic and duct tape…..AND YOU ASK ME IF I FEAR A NUCLEAR WAR! A piece of cake…….