Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Sitting in the Dock of the Bay: Best Sea-Based Radar Against N. Korean Missile Still Not Deployed
By Riki Ellison
EDITOR'S NOTE: The following essay is excerpted from a letter that Ellison, chairman and founder of theMissile Defense Advocacy Alliance, sent to U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates, urging him to make sure that America's missile defense assets are all in place to protect Alaska, Hawaii and other parts of the country prior to North Korea's planned missile launch.
One of the United States' most valuable assets and the best discriminating and tracking sensor for ballistic missile defense, the Sea Based X Band Radar, has not been deployed and has been docked for the past several months at Ford Island, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The SBX was the main sensor in the recent successful long range ballistic missile intercept on December 5, 2008 providing the primary targeting information for the Ground Based Missile Interceptor out of Vandenberg Air Force Base, Ca. that successfully intercepted a long range ballistic missile from Kodiak Island, Alaska.
The December 5th, 2008 test simulated a North Korean long range missile threat using the current U.S. missile defense deployed assets designed including for a long range ballistic missile intercept. The SBX was also successfully deployed and used with the Aegis Sea Based Missile Defense System for the February 21, 2008 successful NRO satellite shoot down which had a one in 45 chance of harming human life if not intercepted. The SBX is a self propelled X-band radar and has a sea speed of up to 10 knots per hour.
If deployed, the SBX can begin to emit its sensor 50 or so miles from Hawaii and can become effective by providing sensoring information to the deployed long range missile defense system in place today. The SBX cost $950 million dollars to build and costs additional tens of millions of dollars to maintain and operate annually.
The azimuth, or launch direction, for an ideal space orbital launch from North Korea using optimal rotation of the earth is in the mid-80s, which over flies the country of Japan and heads east towards the Pacific Ocean. The azimuth for a long range ballistic missile from North Korea to Hawaii is in the similar 80s degree range. North Korea has declared two "clear zones" on either side of Japan for the first and second rocket stages accounting for the debris falling from their rocket or missile launch. The North Korea trajectory following that flight path would terminate close to Hawaii if the rocket failed to achieve orbit or was a long range ballistic missile launch.
The SBX is the most powerful and most capable sensor to discriminate the debris, payload and a possible reentry vehicle in detail from a North Korean long range missile or rocket launch traveling at extreme high speeds across the Pacific Ocean.NORTH KOREA HAS NUCLEAR WARHEADS
Breaking news.
There is confirmation of China Confidential's assessment of the North Korean nuclear threat.
Last Wednesday, China Confidential reported:The [U.S.] administration line is that Pyongyang lacks the technology (a) to reliably and accurately hit U.S. territory, and (b) to miniaturize nuclear weapons into warheads for placement atop missiles.
AFP is reporting that
All of which may not be true. China Confidential analysts say North Korea's Taepodong-2 missile poses a serious potential threat to U.S. national security. Moreover, the North has been making major advances in warhead technology--and may be sharing the knowhow with Iran.intelligence agencies have obtained information that North Korea has assembled several nuclear warheads for its medium-range Rodong missiles capable of targeting Japan, an analyst said on Tuesday.
Click here to continue.
Daniel Pinkston, senior analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, said he had received the information from agencies he declined to identify.
'Intelligence agencies believe the North Koreans have assembled nuclear warheads for Rodong missiles, which are stored at underground facilities near the Rodong missile bases,' Mr Pinkston told AFP.
He said the agencies believe that probably five to eight warheads have been assembled.
Scroll down to read the March 25 China Confidential story, "US Unofficially Downplaying North Korean Threat."Monday, March 30, 2009
North Korea Says it Will Put US Reporters on Trial
Jonathan Thatcher reports from Seoul:North Korea said on Tuesday it would put on trial two U.S. journalists arrested earlier this month on its border with China, accusing them of "hostile acts".
Click here to continue reading.
The planned trial adds to the mounting tension over North Korea's planned rocket launch in the next few days, which it says is to send a communications satellite into space but which the United States and others say is to test a long-range missile that could carry a warhead as far as U.S. territory.
The two women reporters, Laura Ling and Euna Lee from the U.S.-based media outlet Current TV, were arrested two weeks ago by the Tumen River, which runs along the east side of the border between North Korea and China.Cyber-Spies Attacked Computers in 103 Nations
Researchers at the University of Toronto have uncovered a China-based electronic spying operation that infiltrated computers in 103 countries. While the Canadians say they have no conclusive evidence of Chinese government involvement, the targets of the computer espionage were political.
The cyber spying operation was one of the biggest and most sophisticated ever discovered. The researchers call it Ghostnet--an electronic spying operation that infiltrated more than 1,000 computers around the world. The operation allegedly targeted NATO, the Indian Embassy in Washington and Tibetan exile centers in India, Brussels and London.
In addition to stealing computer files, the cyber spies could turn on the internal camera on a remote computer to eavesdrop on live conversations.
One expert says that while the operation was sophisticated in its organization and scope, it used readily available Internet viruses called Trojans, attached to email messages to infiltrate computers.
The Toronto researchers uncovered the cyber spying when they were asked by the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalia Lama, to examine his organization's computers for malware--malicious software that can infiltrate or damage a computer system. They found infected computers in the Dalai Lama's organization and were able to trace stolen correspondence back to the spy network's computer servers in China.
The Chinese government has denied any involvement in the operation.US Preparing to Appease North Korea and Iran
Fearing the possibility of a shooting war with nuclear-armed North Korea, the Obama administration has decided to make every effort possible to appease the Stalinist/Kimist state. Hence, Washington's rush to publicly assure Pyongyang that the United States has no plans to shoot down the regime's long-range rocket--a Taepodong-2 intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching Alaska and Hawaii--unless it approaches U.S. territory.
Hence, too, the appointment of a part-time envoy to manage, or contain, the Korean crisis. Click here for the story.
In this case, containment is code for appeasement. The Obama administration does not believe that a solution to the North Korean nuclear nightmare is attainable, barring a miraculous development, such as a Chinese-sponsored military coup in the North. The most practical approach, according to the administration, is to try to manage or contain the problem with an array of concessions and bribes (short of sacrificing South Korea or Japan).
The fact that appeasement has failed to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear arms and long-range rockets--and exporting these technologies--does seem to matter all that much to the U.S. In Obama's Washington, appeasement is the order of the day; and apologizing for alleged American sins, from providing guns and markets for Mexican drug cartels to carbon emissions, is all the rage. The administration is bent on deescalating the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan--the minimal troop surge there is a cover for a Vietnamization-style policy aimed at facilitating an eventual withdrawal--demilitarizing the titanic struggle with radical Islam, and narrowly redefining the conflict to combating Al Qaeda, the only Islamist enemy that for the foreseeable future is likely to remain outside the zone of acceptable diplomatic engagement.
Seven-and-a-half years after the worst-ever attacks on American soil--by Islamist terrorists--the Bush administration's misnamed War on Terror is basically a lost cause. Islamists have been emboldened and encouraged everywhere, even in Europe and the United States; America's strategic ally, Israel, is on a countdown to conflict with North Korea's partner in nuclear crime, Islamist Iran; and American coastal cities and other targets are potential targets for nuclear, biological, and chemical attacks--and swarming raids--by Islamist terrorist organizations.
Overwhelmed by the financial crisis, the Obama administration is bent on appeasing Iran, resigned to living with the monstrous mullahocracy, even in the face of its menacing nuclear and missile programs. The administration is also resigned to coexisting with a rising Islamist tide, hoping to find ways of engaging and reconciling with so-called moderate Islamists (a concept akin to negotiating with moderate Nazis), including relatively reform-minded members of the Iranian political establishment and supposedly more compliant elements of Afghanistan's resurgent, medieval Taliban. Regime change in Iran is out of the question, as is defeating the Taliban.
- Andre Pachter
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Obama administration is also concerned about developments in Saudi Arabia, where interior minister Prince Nayef has been promoted to second deputy prime minister, a position that makes him a potential successor to the throne in place of the incumbent Crown Prince defense minister, Prince Sultan, who is dying of colon cancer. The 76-year-old Nayef is both militantly anti-Israel--which he views as the leading source of instability in the Middle East--and anti-Iran, which he sees as the fountainhead of Shiite radicalism and insurrection threatening Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries. Nayef, who has been the Saudi Kingdom's main man for fighting and also covertly dealing with Al Qaeda and associated groups in the Saudi religious establishment, is likely to compete with Iran for influence over Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization that is committed to Israel's destruction.
The Obama administration understands this, seeing it as further proof that Islamism is not a monolith, and thus a viable target for diplomatic initiatives of one kind or another. The administration also hopes that a Saudi Arabia with more credibility among Islamists will be able to play a constructive role in influencing the Taliban and containing Pakistan--a nuclear power in danger to falling to the Inter Services Intelligence agency and other pro-Islamist forces. Click here for a report on the ISI's support for Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Intelligence Agencies Reportedly Confirm China Confidential Story
As first reported by China Confidential (scroll for the story), North Korea is using two captured American journalists as hostages ahead of its planned launch of a ballistic missile capable of reaching North America.
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