North Korea

[Jack Rabbit Slim]

There is a big difference between the sinking of a ship (which itself certainly raised tensions considerably between South and North and hasn't been repaired since), and actually sending ballistic missiles into South Korea itself and possibly civilian areas, that would be a step too far and would almost certainly cause retaliation.

North Korean leaders may be delusional power-hungry nutjobs but even they will have a comprehensive idea of South Korea's military power should they provoke it, not to mention the nation's who'd secretly love to take a pop at NK (which is just about everybody except China and maybe Russia)

[andysimo123]

I find it hard to take that in todays world possible prison camps that can be compared to what you'd find in Nazi Germany still exist. Surely if anything was worth a war it would be that over Iraq or Afghanistan.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17767626

[mediadave]

Some controversy over North Korea's newly unveiled potential ICBM - a lot of the media are pointing out these missiles were mock ups.





Though even if these are mock-ups they're representative of a work in process, a three stage missile where the first two stages are probably SS-N-6 missiles. If the North koreans can get it working (admittedly a big if) then it will be a true mobile SSBN - a big threat indeed.


http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/arc...prk-icbm-items

I've already advertised Arms Control Wonk in the Iran thread today , but it really is great for this stuff if you're interested in this kind of thing - though most of the interesting commentry is in the comments sections. Arms Control Wonk is the origin of all the articles lolling about North Korea's fake missiles, however they seem to be a little pissed off with that and mention that the media have ignored, for instance, North Korea's static ground tests for this missile.

[mexico86]

North Korean GPS blocking sparks cyber war fears

South Korea will lodge an official complaint with the UN over its reclusive neighbour after GPS-blocking by the North for over a week disrupted hundreds of flights, in what some officials are worried could be the first signs of a looming cyber war.

Over 500 aircraft flying to or from South Korea’s main airports of Incheon and Gimpo reported GPS signal failures from 28 April to 6 May, with the government tracing the blocking signals to the North Korean border city of Kaesong, The Korea Herald reported.

Over 120 shipping vessels reportedly also had their signals jammed.


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/05...doff_blocking/

[wjfox]

Cannibalism in North Korea

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...nnibalism.html

[bigchrisfgb]

Originally Posted by wjfox

Cannibalism in North Korea

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...nnibalism.html

Humans will do pretty much anything to survive. It's shocking that some North Koreans have to resort to it in order to survive.

[mediadave]

North Korea is building another, bigger rocket launching site on its east coast.

http://38north.org/2012/05/musudan052212/

This goes with its recently completed launch site on the west coast (where the recent rocket was launched from). Since North Korea hasn't actually managed to succesfully launch a long range missile/space launch vehicle it seems a tad getting ahead of yourself, but I guess it shows they're determined.

[SO143]

US special forces 'parachuted into North Korea'
6:00AM BST 29 May 2012

US and South Korean special forces have been parachuting into North Korea to gather intelligence about underground military installations, according to a senior US officer.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...rth-Korea.html

[desertswo]

Originally Posted by SO143

US special forces 'parachuted into North Korea'
6:00AM BST 29 May 2012

US and South Korean special forces have been parachuting into North Korea to gather intelligence about underground military installations, according to a senior US officer.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...rth-Korea.html

The later retraction of the statement that we are parachuting people in there makes more sense to me. If you've ever been to the Korean Peninsula you quickly learn that it's basically vertical. Getting an aircraft like a C-17 or C-130 over the top without being detected and then getting people on the ground without them breaking their necks on some hillside would be tough. Not impossible, but very, very difficult. Then staying undetected just walking around would be the hardest part. For one thing, Anglos are about as scarce as whiskers on a frog, and even ethnic Koreans have trouble blending in because the Korean spoken north of the DMZ is anachronistic. It's hard to stay in character and not use a phrase that would alert someone up there. Finally, let's say we did drop someone in. How the hell do you get back out? The only thing that makes sense to me would be an extraction by submarine, and that's possible but also fraught with all kinds of danger. Dropping in to put paid to bin-Laden's contract was child's play compared to a covert recon insertion in North Korea.

[Cal_Escapee]

Originally Posted by bigchrisfgb

Humans will do pretty much anything to survive. It's shocking that some North Koreans have to resort to it in order to survive.

North Korean Prison Camp Escapee Tells of Horrors, Worries About Those Left Behind


Shin Dong-hyuk says that he was tortured and that he saw his mother hanged and his brother shot to death. Despite his escape to the South, he has found great difficulty in simply learning to live a normal life there. (By Blaine Harden -- The Washington Post)

Thursday, December 11, 2008

SEOUL -- In Camp No. 14, the North Korean political prison where Shin Dong-hyuk was born and where he says he watched the hanging of his mother, inmates never saw a picture of Kim Jong Il.

"I had no idea who he is," Shin said, referring to the leader whose photograph is displayed nearly everywhere in North Korea.

Inmates did not need to know the face of their "Dear Leader," as Kim is called. Behind electrified fences, they tended pigs, tanned leather, collected firewood and labored in mines until they died or were executed.

The exception is Shin, who is 26 and lives in a small rented room here in Seoul. He is a thin, short, shy man, with quick, wary eyes, a baby face, and sinewy arms bowed from childhood labor. There are burn scars on his back and left arm from where he was tortured by fire at age 14, when he was unable to explain why his soon-to-be-hanged mother had tried to escape. The middle finger of his right hand is cut off at the first knuckle, punishment for accidentally dropping a sewing machine in the garment factory at his camp.

There are 14,431 North Korean defectors living in South Korea, according to the latest government count. Shin is the only one known to have escaped to the South from a prison camp in the North.

Shin's story could not be independently verified, but it has been vetted and vouched for by leading human rights activists and members of defector organizations in Seoul. They came to know Shin when he arrived in South Korea in 2005 and was hospitalized with post-traumatic stress disorder.

"At first, I could not believe him because no one ever succeeded in the escape," said Kim Tae-jin, president of the Democracy Network Against North Korean Gulag and a defector from North Korea who spent a decade in another concentration camp there. The No. 15 camp where Kim was confined -- unlike Shin's No. 14 -- sometimes released political prisoners, as it did Kim, if they were "fully revolutionized."

"I saw too many prisoners executed before my eyes for attempting to escape," said Kim. "No one made it out, except for Shin" . . . .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...121003855.html

[Koen Acacia]

Originally Posted by Cal_Escapee

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...121003855.html

Yeah, extremely tragic story. The kid was basically born in a concentration camp, he still has trouble with all that human stuff like laughter and sadness and so.

[uk2030]

If the US were to drop in special forces, i would of thought made sense to cross the border from South Korea. Unless North Korea have high security on its borders??????

[Hoskins]

Originally Posted by uk2030

If the US were to drop in special forces, i would of thought made sense to cross the border from South Korea. Unless North Korea have high security on its borders??????

You are joking, right?

And it's "would have thought"..

[mexico86]

Originally Posted by uk2030

If the US were to drop in special forces, i would of thought made sense to cross the border from South Korea. Unless North Korea have high security on its borders??????

Crossing the border is easy. I have done it once without the knowledge of the North Korean guards. The problem is for a long way either side of the border, there are minefields, and the real security checkpoints (and chokepoints).

[uk2030]

Originally Posted by Hoskins

You are joking, right?

And it's "would have thought"..

[Hoskins]

Have a read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Demilitarized_Zone

[uk2030]

Do a bit of research on the type of tasks that special forces undertake

Also, if a pig farmer can cut a hole in the fence (October 27, 2009) then im sure US special forces could

[Koen Acacia]

Special forces walk through minefields all the time, that stuff doesn't count as "security" for them. It's the dropping out of a plane with a parachute stuff that really scares them.

[AdmiralAnthony]

Special forces insertion into North Korea in most cases will occur either by submarine insertion and extraction or dropping them from a large aircraft which has its identification number faked for a civilian airliner. Assuming NK has not banned all it's airspace from civilian airliners using or passing through its airspace.

Submarine insertion is still probably the best bet.

[desertswo]

Originally Posted by AdmiralAnthony

Special forces insertion into North Korea in most cases will occur either by submarine insertion and extraction or dropping them from a large aircraft which has its identification number faked for a civilian airliner. Assuming NK has not banned all it's airspace from civilian airliners using or passing through its airspace.

Submarine insertion is still probably the best bet.

You guys really need to get out more. Do you know how many "commercial flights" there are to Pyongyang on a weekly basis? Three by Air China, and a few by the state airline, Air Koryo. That's it. They know every sheep in the flock. Nice idea, but one needs to understand that North Korea is as hermetically sealed as a nation can be. And for those who think Special Forces guys have some magical aura that defeats mine fields, you are quite mistaken. They aren't supermen. They are brilliant operators, but at the end of the day, they die just like regular service personnel. One ought not to waste them on veritable suicide missions like this, but nothing would surprise me at this stage.