North Korea demonstrates remarkable capabilities during Shoigu’s visit
By Drago Bosnic | July 29, 2023
On July 26, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu held high-level defense talks with his North Korean counterparts. In a clear message to the United States, Pyongyang is also conducting a series of ballistic missile tests that serve as a warning to Washington DC’s belligerence. Namely, the US is escalating tensions with everyone in the area, including by sending its nuclear-powered submarines to South Korean ports. Apart from various guided missile submarines (SSGNs), the US Navy also sent the USS “Kentucky”, a nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarine (SSBN), that docked in the southern port city of Busan on July 18. It should be noted that this was the first such visit since the 1980s, marking not only a symbolic, but an actual US return to Cold War-era posturing.
Sending SSBNs such as the USS “Kentucky” to the region is not only a message to North Korea, but also Russia and China. This Ohio-class submarine can be armed with up to 20 UGM-133A “Trident II” SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles), which, albeit over 30 years old at this point, can carry up to 14 warheads each, including the latest very low yield W76-2, with the power of approximately 2–7 Kt (kilotons of TNT). While such warheads are not nearly as destructive as the original W76, they’re equipped with new advanced fuses and their primary purpose is the destruction of enemy ballistic missiles while they’re still in silos. Such weapons are a direct threat to all three (Eur)Asian nuclear powers, as it gives the US certain first-strike capabilities that are yet to be matched by anyone outside Russia.
Such US moves are certainly part of the reasons why Shoigu visited Pyongyang and held talks with his North Korean counterpart Kang Sun-nam. He reiterated President Putin’s message about friendly bilateral relations that are “bound to be improved in all fields”. Shoigu expressed confidence that the meeting would strengthen military cooperation between the two countries.
“I am confident that today’s talks will contribute to strengthening cooperation between our defense ministries. Visits of warships, official visits of high-ranking defense officials, exchanges of working-level delegations and personnel training have all contributed to maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” he said, adding: “I am glad to make your acquaintance and meet with you. I happily accepted your invitation to visit Pyongyang, the capital of a friendly state. I am grateful to my Korean friends for the rich program you have offered. From the very first minute, I felt your care and attention. I hope we will manage not only to work actively, but also to learn a lot of interesting things about [North] Korea, your culture and traditions and see the sights.”
The Russian delegation was invited to attend Pyongyang’s celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War. The ceremonies also included a massive military parade and the display of a plethora of advanced weapons that North Korea has developed in recent years. The visit by Russian officials will be the first of this kind in several years. China is also sending a delegation of high-ranking officials to the anniversary, marking its intention to not only maintain, but also strengthen relations with its eastern neighbor. In a recent push against US plans for NATO expansion in the Asia-Pacific region, both Moscow and Beijing are coordinating their efforts with Pyongyang, as the “pocket superpower” has significant strategic capabilities, completely disproportionate to its small size (relative to the giants surrounding it).
And while North Korea’s portrayal by the mainstream propaganda machine is unflattering, mildly speaking, Shoigu’s visit has demonstrated that underestimating Pyongyang isn’t only foolish, but also patently dangerous. It should be noted that such reverie is wholly limited to the infowar arena, as the Pentagon is deeply alarmed by North Korea’s recent advances in various military technologies that rival even that of global superpowers. Pyongyang’s innovations include not only missiles, but also advanced strategic drones. The footage released by its Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) shows one of the largest drones in the world. Superficially, the unmanned aircraft resembles the USAF’s RQ-4A “Global Hawk” and the USN’s MQ-4C “Triton” HALE (high-altitude, long-endurance) drones that are used for strategic ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance).
In addition to these platforms, North Korea seems to have developed a strike drone, as demonstrated by the presence of one that resembles the US MQ-9 “Reaper”. Developing such capabilities shows that Pyongyang is anything but “technologically backward”. These developments are a landmark achievement for its rapidly growing military industry that in some aspects has surpassed even the US. Namely, North Korea is only the third country in the world to field hypersonic weapons (including HGVs – hypersonic glide vehicles), something the Pentagon has been unable to accomplish after repeated tests have failed spectacularly, despite several decades of futile attempts and massive investments.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Staggering Towards the Abyss
By William Schryver | imetatronink | July 28, 2023
I have long asserted, and I continue to be convinced, that the US could NOT establish air superiority against Russia, China, nor even Iran — not in a week; not in a year. Never. It simply could not be done.
American air power would prove substantially inferior to the extremely potent and abundantly supplied air defenses arrayed against it in any of those three countries.
American suppression of enemy air defenses would prove woefully inadequate to the task.
And even if any of the US’s aerial wunderwaffen were to prove, in ideal circumstances, to be potent weapons, US air power as a theater-wide undertaking could not be sustained in the context of a non-permissive regional and global battlefield.
In a high-intensity combat scenario in either eastern Europe, the China seas, or the Persian Gulf, the maintenance requirements for US aircraft could not be met. Mission-capable rates would plummet even lower than their notoriously abysmal peacetime standards.
The US would, quite literally after only a few days, see sub-10% mission-capable rates for the F-22 and F-35, and sub-25% rates for almost every other platform in the inventory.
It will be a huge scandal for the Pentagon … but hardly a huge surprise.
And this is hardly hyperbole. It is more or less common knowledge among those who think about these aspects of war — the only aspects that really matter in the final analysis.
US supply lines would be severely attrited on both a regional and a global scale.
Russian and Chinese submarines and long-range anti-ship missile systems would wreak havoc on US seaborne logistics.
I repeat: The US could not fight an overseas war in a non-permissive environment against a peer adversary. It doesn’t have the means, let alone the experience and competence, to do so.
In eastern Europe, Russia would savage NATO bases and supply routes. The Baltic and Black seas would effectively become Russian lakes where NATO shipping could not move.
And anyone who believes I am making unfounded hysterical assertions is either ignorant of the simple military and mathematical realities of the situation, or so blinded by American exceptionalism and its attendant ills that they are unable to discern things as they really are.
I have come across relatively little discussion of the crescendo pace with which Russia, China, and Iran have been conducting military coordination in general and naval drills in particular over the past few years.
Russia and China are now engaging in joint naval patrols of the western Pacific!
Russia, China, and Iran are engaging in regular joint exercises in the Arabian Sea.
This is not meaningless posturing. These are the actions of countries who intend to engage in mutual defense in the event of an existential attack on any one of them.
I am increasingly persuaded that, if the US chooses to make direct war against either Russia, China, or Iran, it will result in a war against all three simultaneously.
As I wrote in a previous article:
Building the Perfect Beast
Even more significantly, in a development I and many others have predicted for several years now – in the face of almost universal ridicule, I might add – the empire’s seemingly endless string of hubris-driven blunders has rapidly accelerated the formation of what is quite arguably the single most potent military / economic / geostrategic alliance seen in modern times: the tripartite axis of Russia, China, and Iran.
In its misguided and short-sighted gambit to thwart the long-dreaded Russo-German rapprochement — incomprehensibly punctuated by the late September 2022 sabotage of the Nordstream gas pipelines — the empire has astoundingly managed to jump from the frying pan of a regional proxy war against Russia into the fire of a global conflict all three of its steadily strengthening adversaries now view as existential.
In my considered opinion, this is almost certainly the single most inexplicable and portentous series of geopolitical blunders in recorded history.
For the time being, the fighting will remain confined to Ukraine. But the entire complexion of this war has been irreversibly altered.
In conclusion, I return again to my initial argument: the US could NOT establish air superiority against Russia, China, nor even Iran — not in a week; not in a year. Never. It simply could not be done.
And that, amazingly enough, is just one of multiple hard truths that the #EmpireAtAllCosts cult, and those acquiescing to its delusional designs, ought to give more serious consideration as they continue staggering towards the abyss of a war they cannot win.
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Noam Chomsky, Kevin Barrett and Academic Freedom
The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – Ninth part of the series titled “9/11 and the Zionist Question”
By Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | August 7, 2016
Noam Chomsky has been much worse than hypocritical in the role he has chosen for himself in the study of 9/11. Chomsky treats the subject of 9/11 as if he’s some sort of master of analysis on the subject of what happened. He presents his conclusions without showing the due diligence of going through the relevant primary and secondary sources in a balanced and scholarly fashion. The primary sources Chomsky chooses to disregard include passenger lists, video and photographic evidence in the public domain, eyewitness accounts, original news coverage on the day of 9/11 and the like. … continue
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