Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to North Korea getting ready for some missile-waving

boost-phase intercept
Robert — (archived)

I wonder if it might not be in our best interests to try and shoot down that missile when (if?) it launches? I wonder if the laser-armed 747 is operational yet?

That sounds uncharacteristically belligerant for me, I know, but it seems to game out generally in our favor. If our weapon doesn't work nobody's likely to know about it. If it works, the North Koreans have two unpalatable options: Accuse the US of shooting down their rocket, and if they can offer sufficient proof, they just validate that we have such a weapon and nobody'd better mess with us; or they keep quiet and swallow the failure.

Legal justification? Last time NK tried a test launch, they rained down missile debris on Japan. A lawyer might call that hazard to navigation, or an attractive nuisance, or something. Or if the trajectory is ambiguous, we could claim we were responding to a possible sneak attack under cover of a test launch. It's North Korea, there's no shortage of cassus belli.

There's more than one way to contain North Korea, and if we have a hard time getting at their bomb factories inside the country, we still can do a lot about delivery systems, which by definition have to leave the country to be useful. We don't necessarily have to keep NK from having nuclear weapons, if all Kim Jong Il can do is visit his precious nukes in a warehouse and dream.

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