Noth Korea Scare Stories
William Broad reports for The New York Times:
North Korea failed in its highly vaunted effort to fire a satellite into orbit, military and private experts said Sunday after reviewing detailed tracking data that showed the missile and payload fell into the sea. Some said the failure undercut the North Korean campaign to come across as a fearsome adversary able to hurl deadly warheads halfway around the globe.
That’s a pretty strange turn of phrase. North Korea was trying to appear fearsome via its missile launch. But the launch failed. Which certainly does undercut its effort to appear fearsome. So why the “some said” structure? In part, it’s the crappy conventions of political journalism. But in part it’s the fact that the US conservative movement has for some reason decided that it makes sense to team up with Kim Jong-Il in an effort to get people to overestimate North Korea’s strategic capabilities.
Joe Cirincione has a nice piece that puts this in the appropriate context. The DPRK is breaking the rules and should be punished, but this is much more an issue of rule-breaking than it is an objective threat.
14 Responses to “Noth Korea Scare Stories”
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April 6th, 2009 at 9:38 am
I guess in the reporter’s defense, Matt, there were “some saying” that this failed launch was actually not quite as failed as the previous one, so it could be taken as progress (from the DPRK’s standpoint). Not a terribly persuasive argument, in my book, but not absurd either I suppose.
April 6th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Oh no! The Koreans have kidnapped Chris Noth of Law & Order fame? Or perhaps Noth is collaborating with the Koreans? Either way, this cries out for decisive action!
April 6th, 2009 at 9:56 am
Er.. I think the conservatives are looking at this as a glass half empty.
Whereas they should realize that if North Korea nukes Tokyo , they will probably burn up that $Trillion or so US Treasury Bonds that the Japs are holding.
April 6th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Uh, did it actually fail? I was under the impression it was a rocket, not a satellite, and that the intended purpose was to launch a rocket out to the Pacific, which is exactly what happened.
That being said, “some said” needs to immediately be banned. Some people can and do say pretty much any point you want to make. Use a damn quote at least.
April 6th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Cirincione sez “North Korea’s thinly disguised missile test violates U.N. resolutions”
MY sez “The DPRK is breaking the rules and should be punished”.
What the fuck? Lazy ass Yglesias continues with the neo-con propaganda about rule or law breaking by other states.
Maybe I misunderstand, but the Security Council does not pass laws. It passes thug inspired resolutions that any country can ignore — see Israel/USA. Is there some law following treaty that North Korea has breached?
April 6th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Is there some general ban on missile tests or just when its not the US doing the testing?
April 6th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Uh, did it actually fail? I was under the impression it was a rocket, not a satellite, and that the intended purpose was to launch a rocket out to the Pacific, which is exactly what happened.
According to the stories this morning, it was supposed to put a satellite in orbit. The DPRK is apparently telling its people this morning that in fact the satellite is happily orbiting, playing patriotic tunes. What the actual expectation of this was is probably anyone’s guess.
April 6th, 2009 at 10:54 am
What’s worrisome about North Korea isn’t the chance of a nuclear launch at LA; the NK’s tout that as a way of extracting money/food/other help, so that they can stay in power for another few months/years.
The worrisome thing is what might happen when the regime does start to slide down towards expiration. They could fall into:
– the peaceful kind of collapse that East Germany had
– a “no lights out for us” conventional attack on South Korea, as a last gasp attempt to hold power
– a disintegration into utter collapse, with refugees streaming north into China and south into South Korea
No one wants either of the last two, so we keep trying to give them just enough payout for their threats to have them fall in a manageable fashion. Regardless of the rhetoric, that’s been the policy since at least the elder Bush.
The worst thing is, no one knows whether any policy can avert one of the last two things.
April 6th, 2009 at 11:28 am
It seems that this additional failure, along with their failed nuclear device detonation underscores the real engineering difficulties in building a credible nuclear threat.
NK has not blown their wad twice and proved to the world the difference between potential and capability.
April 6th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
NoKo did not break any law or treaty. It did not even violate the UN Security Council resolution 1718 that aims at NoKo’s ballistic missiles.
Analysis here.
April 6th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Once again, the Times allows its coverage to be grossly spun by U.S. officials.
April 6th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
What does Mr. Big have to do with Kim Jong-il?
April 6th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
A little tiny satellite playing patriotic tunes may or may not be circling the globe and Newt is assuming the crash position and praying for laser beams to save him. What a pussy.
April 10th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
FANTASTIC!