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[wierd]

If you are going to indulge cold war absurdities, then you need to go Full Austin Powers, and use an exploding nuclear fembot of South Korean origin, and have it infiltrate Glorious Leader's infamous Pleasure Brigade.

[USEC_OFFICER]

I think this belongs here?

I mean. Who doesn't want to enjoy this fantastic documentary of Dennis Rodman's visit to North Korea?

[MaximumZero]

Even then I have no idea what sort of poisons would ensure a 50% success rate because I've been more focused on unified field theory.

Anything that has an LD50... 

I wonder what the LD50 of swiss cheese is...

[martinuzz]

NK launched another missile. Apparently it's a 'new type' of missile. It reached an altitude of 2000km. A standard ICBM goes up to about 1200km, this one went higher. It crashed into the Japanese Sea about 30 minutes after launch.

http://www.volkskrant.nl/buitenland/noord-korea-vuurt-nieuw-soort-raket-af~a4494640/

[Reelya]

Well the NK people have said they are developing a space program. As you stated, 1200KM altitude is what you want if your goal is an ICBM. Aiming for double that sounds more like development of an orbital deployment system than an ICBM.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-14/north-korea-fires-unidentified-projectile-south-korean-military/8524684
They would have gotten much more useful data if they'd stuck to a normal trajectory, so that sort of raises questions of why they'd deploy this expensive rocket test on some trajectory that isn't going to furnish them with good data about ICBM design, if this is in fact an ICBM prototype.

The west has a record here, at least three times (1998, 2009, 2013) NK has launched an orbital test and each time SK and USA claimed it was a veiled ballistic missile test, but later retracted the claims when the device was shown to have followed an orbital trajectory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Committee_of_Space_Technology

The DPRK twice announced that it launched satellites: Kwangmyŏngsŏng-1 on August 31, 1998 and Kwangmyŏngsŏng-2 on April 5, 2009. The USA and South Korea predicted that the launches would in actuality be military ballistic missile tests, but later confirmed that they had followed orbital launch trajectories.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwangmy%C5%8Fngs%C5%8Fng-3

Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 (Chosŏn'gŭl: 광명성 3호; Hancha: 光明星3號; English: Bright Star-3[2] or Lode Star-3[3]) was a North Korean Earth observation satellite, which according to the DPRK was for weather forecast purposes, and whose launch was widely portrayed in the West to be a veiled ballistic missile test.

It's sort of a repeating pattern, NK does do something actually to do with space, the western media claims it's a sham, but later admits the space-related thing actually does exist. NK is a basket case but that doesn't mean that you should trust your own side when they write up about NK.

[Starver]

(For swiss cheese, it is safe to eat up to four metric tons of the stuff, per day. But only if you cut the holes out. The holes are the poisonous bits.)

[Neonivek]

that doesn't mean that you should trust your own side when they write up about NK.

Haven't we learned anything from Russia? (Cookie if anyone knows this reference)

[Reelya]

NK has a lot of hardware according to militaryfirepower.com, but they have a very small budget. They're trying to project themselves as much more powerful than they are, but they basically can't be affording to be maintaining what they've already got. Basically NK blusters about how powerful they are (probably more for internal propaganda than external) and we lap that up because it's what the western military hawks wanna hear.

Just South Korea has about 6 times the military spending of the North. SK can mop them up, they don't need any help. As a good hint at how well supplied the two Koreas are, you can look at oil consumption:

http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country_id=south-korea
http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country_id=north-korea

globalfirepower lists SK as consuming 2,325,000 bbl/day, and NK as consuming 15,000 bbl/day. Secondary sources agree with those figures. So they have a pile of old Cold War hardware sitting around but they don't have enough of an economy to mobilize that shit, no chance.

[Neonivek]

The issue overall with an engagement is how much of a first strike they could do. Since many very densely populated cities are within artillery range.

[Starver]

And the unartilleryable cities (and possibly specific complexes they want to hit precisely) are well within their rocketry range, these days. Probably not for mass bombardment, likely still not with a nuclear warhead on a single rocket, but conventional explosives or alternate payloads could be delivered to a selection of traditionally out-of-range targets to provide the sting in the tale to 'merely' blitzing Seoul.

I wonder if any of the 'failed' launches that fell short in the SCS went a distance actually chosen to replicate that needed to reach Jeju, for calibration purposes...

[Reelya]

Followed by the immediate and complete destruction of North Korea however. The problem with that scenario is that there's no objective way that it furthers the aims of North Korea, so they aren't going to do that.

Sure, they could suicide blitz South Korea and perhaps hit Japan with something as well while they're at it. And then what? What political objectives does that achieve?

In theory if they throw everything into it, they could lob something at America, but exactly why would they single out America? That narrative seems more about American self-obsession rather than anything else. NK is interested in it's own regional politics more than US politics.

[Starver]

Well, I was more thinking "to get the retaliation in first for a (perceived?) attack upon the Best bit by SK/US, etc" not just "let's spark this off ourselves, because the Leader has a birthay this year".

Attacking SK or the US would be all but suicide but, should the semi-MAD scenario actually become semi-MAD, it would bruise their enemies enough for future historians to not forget what happened so easily...

[Strife26]

It's not that South Korea wouldn't get their hair mussed up, but who worries about hair mussing?

[martinuzz]

NK State press agency KCNA claims that the missile tested is capable of holding a 'large, powerful' nuclear warhead.
It further reports the test was a complete success. Kim Jong-Un warns the US that it is within it's reach.

[Reelya]

One of the main questions however is whether NK can actually miniaturize a nuke to fit on any missile. That's the thing experts have been most skeptical about.