The vast majority of people, on July 4, will be out partying, grilling, and the like. The people in the Defense department and other branches of the military are going to be waiting with bated breath to see of North Korea can actually launch missiles at Hawaii. Japan’s SDF is supposedly also bulking their resources, given the fact that, for the DPRK to successfully hit Hawaii, said missiles would almost certainly have to cross over the Japanese mainland. Here are some of the details, to the best I know them.
Okay, first off, some background (in an as concise and simplistic way as I can). The DPRK, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (which we mostly call “North Korea”, currently under command by Kim Jong Il) has recently been rather pissy at the whole of the Western forces for a variety of reasons- ever since the Korean conflict, it’s been complicated. South Korea (the ROK, the Republic of Korea), instead of really trying anything militarily (despite having what amounts to a massive armed stalemate in the middle of the country), has been trying really hard to push the Sunshine Policy on the DPRK, easing tensions. Since 2008, the Sunshine Policy has been disappated under the ROK’s Lee Myung-bak, who did so mainly because the DPRK has been threatening people with Nuclear Weapons.
Earlier this year, the DPRK launched what I and some of my Asian Studies budies called “North Korean XM Sattelite Radio”- a Taepodong-2 Missile “Sattelite”. The missile, called Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2, supposedly launched into space, but reports from most legitimate (Non-DPRK) sources claim it failed and fell into the Pacific Ocean. This sparked a huge amount of controversy, both because the DPRK continue to claim the missile is in space broadcasting what they call “revolutionary songs” such as the “Song of General Kim Il-sung”. Naturally, no-one has even heard this song, no-one has seen this thing in space, and it’s become something of a farse. Nonetheless, there’s great worry, as most countries consider this launch an experiment into trying ICBM launches.
So what’s going on now? Well, to put it bluntly, the DPRK is threatening to launch an ICBM at Hawaii. This is not to say this has not been tried before a few years ago (which failed), but there are significant worries that the experiments with the aforementioned Taepodong-2 may have prepared the DPRK to actually launch a missile somewhat effectively. There have also been reports of a single ship from the DPRK sailing to Hawaii.
So what do I think of all this? First off, we shouldn’t worry too much. Both Japan and the US are so heavily equipped with anti-missile systems it isn’t even funny- if the DPRK does indeed launch something and it doesn’t fall into the water again, it will be shot down in the air like a fly getting hit by a flyswatter. The U.S. and the Japanese Defense Ministry are staying remarkably quiet about this whole affair, which is fairly acceptable- the idea being to not mention the exact plans of response if the missile launches, thus leaving DPRK in the dark as to our anti-missile plan.
Everyone’s going to be terse this July 4. Let’s see if this really happens or not.
