【The Epoch Times, January 16, 2022】In today’s society, the role of weapons and the military is given a deeper meaning than killing. A strong military force is often used as a deterrent to maintain world peace and human security. The war, although becoming hidden, never stopped.[Current Affairs and Military]Take you to the front to see the details and truth of the battle between good and evil.
Recently, North Korea’s three consecutive tests of four ballistic missiles in two weeks have triggered a series of reactions from the international community. North Korea seems to have strayed from the international community on the road of developing nuclear weapons and will not accept any restraint. But this lawless state in North Korea may soon change.
On January 5, the North Korean Academy of Defense Sciences tested a hypersonic missile. Its glide warhead flew 120 kilometers, adjusted from the initial aiming position to the target position, and hit a target 700 km away, with a maximum speed of Mach 6. This means that the missile can fly laterally irregularly at a predetermined altitude.
On January 9, six countries including the United States, Britain, France, Japan, Ireland and Albania issued a joint statement demanding that North Korea stop its missile tests and calling for the resumption of diplomatic dialogue. and security threats.
Just hours after the announcement, North Korea fired another missile. The ballistic missile flew 700 kilometers at Mach 10 and crashed into the waters east of the Korean peninsula, showing greater capability. The test resulted in the grounding of most airports on the U.S. West Coast for about 15 minutes.
On January 12, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced that it would list six North Koreans, one Russian and one Russian agency involved in North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile development programs. Sanctions List. They operate in Dalian, China, Vladivostok, Russia, and other places, and have procured nuclear and missile-related materials for North Korea, the Treasury Department said. Five of the six North Koreans work at the North Korean Academy of Defense Sciences, which leads weapons development.
On January 14, North Korea criticized the latest U.S. sanctions as provocative and warned of a strong response. Hours later, North Korea fired at least two more ballistic missiles.
The South Korean military said it detected the launch of two short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) at 2:41 p.m. and 2:52 p.m. local time on the 14th. Launched from North Pyongan Province, the missile flew about 435 kilometers at an altitude of about 36 kilometers before falling into eastern South Korean waters.
North Korea’s foreign ministry said the recently developed new weapons were part of the modernization of its defense and that if the United States took a confrontational stance, it would respond more strongly and definitively, without specifying what kind of response.
U.S. Secretary of State Blinken said the United States had made clear its willingness to hold talks without preconditions, but the North Korean tests were profoundly destabilizing. He said the United States is very concerned about ensuring that allies and partners are properly protected and that these actions by North Korea will have consequences.
Conservative candidate Yoon Seok-wyeh, who is highly vocal in South Korea’s presidential election, has shown a hawkish stance on North Korea. He said in an interview that he supports a pre-emptive strike against Pyongyang if Seoul is found to be threatened by nuclear-tipped missiles. It can be seen from the approval rate of Yin Xiyue’s poll that South Korean society may change on the issue of inter-Korean relations.
If it is said that the two missile tests before January 14 were planned by North Korea, it is understandable. Moreover, its irregular lateral trajectory and hypersonic speed, the unprecedented threat to existing missile defense systems, has successfully created pressure on adversaries. But the missile launch on the 14th is difficult to understand as a planned missile test. This unusually intensive missile test is more like a retaliation for U.S. sanctions. Moreover, North Korea’s tough stance seems to show that the situation is far from subsided. If North Korea makes some more noise, I am afraid it will not be surprising.
North Korea’s actions seem to have gone too far, destroying the atmosphere of mystery that has been created, and constantly revealing the true state of its capabilities, making it difficult to deliver the rhetoric it unleashes. At the same time, it forced the United States and its allies to wake up from “strategic patience”.
There is a Chinese idiom called “Qian donkey is poor in skills”. It means that the tiger who has never seen a donkey thinks the donkey looks terrible, and the donkey also thinks that he should show his hands in front of the tiger a few times to completely dispel the tiger’s momentum, so he slaps him a few times. It’s okay if you don’t give a shit. After kicking and jumping up a few times, the tiger saw that the donkey was only doing this twice, so he ate the donkey without hesitation. The ancient Chinese were very wise, and they could explain things incisively and vividly in just four words.
As we look back at the details of the developments, the United States is moving from diplomacy to action. Early in the morning on January 11, local time, the first time North Korea launched the missile, initial U.S. telemetry readings indicated that the missile could threaten the U.S. coast of California or the Aleutian Islands as far away as possible. As a precautionary measure, the FAA suspended takeoffs at some West Coast airports and resumed operations 15 minutes later. NORAD notified that a ballistic missile vehicle payload had splashed down in waters near Japan.
Pentagon spokesman John. NORAD follows established procedures for gathering information and coordinating with other military commands, allies and security partners, Kirby said. Decided not to issue missile threat warnings to the country or Canada after determining that there was no credible threat.
Interestingly, minutes before the initial ground stop order and related details were communicated to some air traffic controllers, NORAD notified the FAA to have Los Angeles air traffic control clear the area north of Vandenberg AFB. Airspace, the base is located approximately 273 kilometers (170 mi) northwest of Los Angeles. This may be the area prepared for the launch of ground-based midcourse missiles (GMDs) that intercept ICBMs. The series of operations showed that the FAA had sufficient information to act on the North Korean missile launch to mitigate the potential danger to the aircraft and keep it from interfering with the operation of the missile defense system.
But unfortunately it all seems to be a miscalculation, even though the whole system seems to be working fine. The fast and flat trajectory of the North Korean test missile may have affected or degraded the accuracy of the initial judgment of the U.S. military’s missile defense system, leading to inaccuracy in predicting the missile’s trajectory. Of course this is a very subjective analysis, as the U.S. military is likely doing the best it can with the information already available. The U.S. military is making major investments in the classification, tracking and strike of hypersonic weapons, which will greatly improve the quality of early warning and rapid intelligence assessment.
In any event, this was the first U.S. emergency response to a long-range ballistic missile threat in decades, and it was impressively efficient and seemed to tell people that action had begun.
Written by: Charlotte Mountain (a reporter from The Epoch Times, who has lived in the military for more than ten years, mainly engaged in military teaching and some technical management work)
Production: Current Affairs Military Production Group
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Editor in charge: Lian Shuhua
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