The exacting backwardness of Uncle J

Posted By Uncle Jimbo

I pinged Bryan Preston, of Hot Air this morn, which should be on everyone's daily read, about a piece he had writ about the NK missile and pointed out my own bit which I thought was perhaps underloved for it's brilliance and my PowerpointShop graphic. He obliged with a link, gracias, and this:

More: I respect all the fine folks at Blackfive, but I think this post has it exactly backwards. North Korea isn’t responding to President Bush’s success with Europe re Nork and Iranian nuke programs and asking for bi-lateral talks; rather, North Korea is using the missile as a means to force the US into bi-lateral talks over its nukes. That has been the North Korean goal for years–divide the US from its allies and from China and force us to deal with Pyongyang directly. President Bush is having none of that, and rightly so, since the North Koreans are still more of a threat to its neighbors than it is to us. And it would let China off the hook for its role in propping Kim up and keeping his cult intact enough to pursue nuclear weapons.
China remains the key to curbing Kim’s fantasies, and thus far China isn’t helping beyond the usual “We think everyone should calm down” platitudes.

Just to clarify, we do not have an editorial voice at Blackfive so I will take full credit for my apparently exact backwardness. Me being me, my initial reaction was to pick a fight with Bryan just because I love to argue. But as I was mentally composing my witty, devastating retort, I realized that we really don't disagree about much of anything.

First lets dispose of the diplomatic angle which I should have left out of my piece.

To quote me (block quotes make you credible):

Military power is the ultimate trump card in the, formal lying in formal wear, game of diplomacy

True dat, and there are some people and groups that it is counter-productive to negotiate with, say Iran and NK. If the other side is acting in very bad faith, all you are doing is hamstringing yourself with no quid, pro or quo. So I don't think we really have anything to talk with Kim about, hence we proceed to the all-important "Oh yeah, so what are you gonna do about it?" phase of the conflict. Good question, and one both Bryan and I believe should be answered with a good solid punch to the face bone. We have differing ideas as to the hows and whens of that although.

He favors squashing the bug dead on the launch pad, thereby stopping them from gaining any data from a launch and subsequent shoot down.

Good idea and I am not opposed to his view....resolution and hugs for all after the fold.

I just hadn't decided if I think the additional provocation of our being the provocateur, as we would be named, is worth it. From an efficiency and mission-effectiveness perspective it is a clearly better idea than a launch and shootdown. And from a PR view, we will catch crap if do either, so why take a chance? Plus he notes it would destroy the launch infrastructure too, hmm the more I think about this the better it looks.

Now one of the reasons I wrote my post was the abundance of opinions that our missile defense system sucks, and we wouldn't be able to shoot the thing down. My point was that there is a huge difference in degree of difficulty between blanketing the US with a system that can track and shootdown a missile coming from anywhere to anywhere in the US. That is wicked tough. But in this case we aren't talking that, we know where it is and we can shoot at it during the launch/ascent phase when it's hot and slow as opposed to the reentry phase when it's colder and screaming down toward us. In addition we get to see if any of our fancy toys actually work.

Now if we go my way then the Norks get launch data and preliminary telemetry data plus they still have the pad and attendant apparatus. I have become convinced that would be a mistake, and I have a cunning plan that addresses all of these issues.

Let 'em launch it and then start lobbing everything Aegis has at it, plus any other missiles we have around. Since we know where it is could whack it with Patriots from ROK, and who knows maybe some zoomie will stick a sidewinder down it's throat. If it makes it through that stuff we still have the ground-based missile defenses they just turned on. Hopefully one of them doinks it, but if not at least we'll know. If it hits, we get validation of a vital piece of our overall defense posture and a huge public relations victory, and we deliver a crushing blow to the Ronery one and better yet the Mullahs in Iran. Last time I checked we are sitting on either side of them.

If we miss, it splashes down in the water and we decide whether we are serious about missile defense. But, and here's the fun part, then we take the other option and pummel the launch facility. We still ruin their toy because you need both pieces to play and we demonstrate that we aren't kidding. If one of our arrows misses, we still have a 12 gauge and if need be we will come over there and stomp a mudhole in your ass.

So an epic battle between myself and Mr. Preston has been avoided and we now have a comprehensive answer to any illegal firework activity from everyone's favorite pint-sized nuttah.

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The exacting backwardness of Uncle J

I pinged Bryan Preston, of Hot Air this morn, which should be on everyone's daily read, about a piece he had writ about the NK missile and pointed out my own bit which I thought was perhaps underloved for it's brilliance and my PowerpointShop graphic. He obliged with a link, gracias, and this:

More: I respect all the fine folks at Blackfive, but I think this post has it exactly backwards. North Korea isn’t responding to President Bush’s success with Europe re Nork and Iranian nuke programs and asking for bi-lateral talks; rather, North Korea is using the missile as a means to force the US into bi-lateral talks over its nukes. That has been the North Korean goal for years–divide the US from its allies and from China and force us to deal with Pyongyang directly. President Bush is having none of that, and rightly so, since the North Koreans are still more of a threat to its neighbors than it is to us. And it would let China off the hook for its role in propping Kim up and keeping his cult intact enough to pursue nuclear weapons.
China remains the key to curbing Kim’s fantasies, and thus far China isn’t helping beyond the usual “We think everyone should calm down” platitudes.

Just to clarify, we do not have an editorial voice at Blackfive so I will take full credit for my apparently exact backwardness. Me being me, my initial reaction was to pick a fight with Bryan just because I love to argue. But as I was mentally composing my witty, devastating retort, I realized that we really don't disagree about much of anything.

First lets dispose of the diplomatic angle which I should have left out of my piece.

To quote me (block quotes make you credible):

Military power is the ultimate trump card in the, formal lying in formal wear, game of diplomacy

True dat, and there are some people and groups that it is counter-productive to negotiate with, say Iran and NK. If the other side is acting in very bad faith, all you are doing is hamstringing yourself with no quid, pro or quo. So I don't think we really have anything to talk with Kim about, hence we proceed to the all-important "Oh yeah, so what are you gonna do about it?" phase of the conflict. Good question, and one both Bryan and I believe should be answered with a good solid punch to the face bone. We have differing ideas as to the hows and whens of that although.

He favors squashing the bug dead on the launch pad, thereby stopping them from gaining any data from a launch and subsequent shoot down.

Good idea and I am not opposed to his view....resolution and hugs for all after the fold.

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