I wonder where this story is going to go

North Korea probably acquired the rocket engines for the two intercontinental ballistic missiles it tested in July from Ukrainian or Russian sources within the past two years, a study has claimed.

North Korea’s missile programme has made astounding strides over the past two years. An arsenal that had been based on short- and medium-range missiles along with an intermediate-range Musudan that repeatedly failed flight tests, has suddenly been supplemented by two new missiles: the intermediate-range Hwasong-12 and the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), Hwasong-14. No other country has transitioned from a medium-range capability to an ICBM in such a short time. What explains this rapid progression? The answer is simple. North Korea has acquired a high-performance liquid-propellant engine (LPE) from a foreign source.

Available evidence clearly indicates that the LPE is based on the Soviet RD-250 family of engines, and has been modified to operate as the boosting force for the Hwasong-12 and -14. An unknown number of these engines were probably acquired though illicit channels operating in Russia and/or Ukraine. North Korea’s need for an alternative to the failing Musudan and the recent appearance of the RD-250 engine along with other evidence, suggests the transfers occurred within the past two years.

On Monday, the Kiev government denied the technology used in the North Korean missiles had come from the company.

“This information is not based on any grounds, provocative by its content, and most likely provoked by Russian secret services to cover their own crimes,” Oleksandr Turchynov, the secretary of the Ukrainian national security and defence council, said in a statement.

Xu Tianran, a researcher on North Korea and missiles in Beijing, said it was very likely that the North Korean rocket engines were based on the Soviet design

I am seriously wondering where we are headed. It's just getting started.

Another Cuban missile crisis? With Mini-Kim and The Hair at the wheel?

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detroitmechworks's picture

Clearly Russians control the world and the only people who AREN'T in on it are the Democratic Party!

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pGyk6k1g3U]

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

@detroitmechworks head in the house. Just one little slip and millions could die.

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@LaFeminista

Billions could die with one little slip, actually. Along with the rest of life on the planet. And people still talk about 'voting' for either corporate party, not to mention, in their rigged elections?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

snoopydawg's picture

@detroitmechworks
IMG_0853_0.JPG

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There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?

Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.

@detroitmechworks

Damn Superman Russians... but don't the corporate Dems always claim that 'the market' makes the superior win purely through superiority? Shouldn't they just accept their inferiority and submit to the victors, as they always wish their victims would do? They are so clearly outclassed...

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

Oldest Son Of A Sailor's picture

@detroitmechworks For North Korea's donation to the Clinton Foundation...

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"Do you realize the responsibility I carry?
I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."

~John F. Kennedy~
Economic: -9.13, Social: -7.28,
Pricknick's picture

if the technology and the engines came directly from Russia.
Where did South Korea, Israel, and several others get their first nuclear weapons from? No hints.
North Korea has every right to believe that if they didn't have theirs, we would have knocked hard on their doors years ago.
If Yemen had one do you think the sauds would be there now?
Looks like exceptionalism is slowly dying a well deserved death.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

@Pricknick instead we wasted the wealth of the world on never ending wars and machismo.

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QMS's picture

@LaFeminista where does the wealth go?

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@LaFeminista

Well, Obama tried to get everyone else to nuclear-disarm and lose their deterrence factor... now The Psychopaths That Be have to do it the hard way and blow up the world trying for global supremacy. Poor them, despite all of their money sucked out of everyone else.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Pricknick @Pricknick

There were a lot of Jewish physicists who fled Nazi Europe, including Einstein. Many went to the US and were key in making the US bomb. I'm sure many could have gone to Israel, from all over Europe, after the war.

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Pricknick's picture

@Timmethy2.0 @Timmethy2.0
it didn't.
It was given the formula in a wonderful, working model.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

@Pricknick @Pricknick
Just saying they probably could have done it on their own:

Manhattan Project Refugees

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Pricknick's picture

@Timmethy2.0
Is there a source for them having any at all?
Yet they have them. Or do they?
I say yes. What say you?
The infrastructure to develop one on their own is or was not there. Reverse engineering was the key.
If they have them.
This is what I love most about this site. Open discussion without retribution.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

@Pricknick

What say you?

I just know that Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe were key in making the World's first atomic bomb, and even if Hitler had conquered Russia, these Jews who he was trying to kill, would have been responsible for his ultimate defeat, since the US was the World's first nuclear power.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

@Timmethy2.0 Actually, a bunch of Norwegians sabotaged Hitler's heavy water plant in Vemork. Otherwise, Hitler would have had nuclear bombs and with their vast technological advantage in rocketry, been launching nuclear missiles at the rest of the world way before the U.S. could have gotten them.

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@Battle of Blair Mountain

Actually, a bunch of Norwegians sabotaged Hitler's heavy water plant in Vemork. Otherwise, Hitler would have had nuclear bombs and with their vast technological advantage in rocketry, been launching nuclear missiles at the rest of the world way before the U.S. could have gotten them.

I now there was a movie made about that, but the Wikipedia article doesn't say anything about it. Here's a quote from the article:

Max Planck, the father of quantum theory, had been right in assessing the consequences of National Socialist policies. In 1933, Planck, as president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft (Kaiser Wilhelm Society), met with Adolf Hitler. During the meeting, Planck told Hitler that forcing Jewish scientists to emigrate would mutilate Germany and the benefits of their work would go to foreign countries. Hitler responded with a rant against Jews and Planck could only remain silent and then take his leave. The National Socialist regime would only come around to the same conclusion as Planck in the 6 July 1942 meeting regarding the future agenda of the Reichsforschungsrat (RFR, Reich Research Council), but by then it was too late.

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Song of the lark's picture

@Pricknick

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@Pricknick

If at all possible, these are all best read in full at source.

Yes, Bibi, one of the other crazy fucks, has nukes.

https://www.thenation.com/article/its-official-pentagon-finally-admitted...

It’s Official: The Pentagon Finally Admitted That Israel Has Nuclear Weapons, Too
After five decades of pretending otherwise, the Pentagon has reluctantly confirmed that Israel does indeed possess nuclear bombs, as well as awesome weapons technology similar to America’s.
By William Greider
March 20, 2015

... The newly released report—“Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations”—describes Israel’s nuclear infrastructure in broad terms, but the dimensions are awesome. Israel’s nuclear research labs, the IDA researchers reported, “are equivalent to our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.” Indeed, the investigators observed that Israel’s facilities are “an almost exact parallel of the capability currently existing at our National Laboratories.” ...

...However, the IDA’s most powerful message may not be what it says about Israel’s nukes but what it conveys about the US-Israel relationship. It resembles a technological marriage that over decades transformed the nature of modern warfare in numerous ways. The bulk of the report is really a detailed survey of Israel’s collaborative role in developing critical technologies—the research and industrial base that helped generate advanced armaments of all sorts. Most Americans, myself included, are used to assuming the US military-industrial complex invents and perfects the dazzling innovations, then shares some with favored allies like Israel.

That’s not altogether wrong but the IDA report suggests a more meaningful understanding. The US and Israel are more like a very sophisticated high-tech partnership that collaborates on the frontiers of physics and other sciences in order to yield the gee-whiz weaponry that now define modern warfare. Back in the 1980s, the two nations were sharing and cross-pollinating their defense research at a very advanced level....

...The Middle East wars became the live-fire testing ground where new systems were perfected. The consequences of peace were brushed aside by the terror of 9-11. War became America’s continuous preoccupation.

Israel participated importantly in developing groundwork for some of the wonder weapons and, as the IDA survey makes clear, Israeli physicists or engineers were sometimes a few steps ahead of their American counterparts. To be sure, the Israelis were junior partners who brought “technology based on extrapolations of US equipment and ideas.” But the report also observed: “Much Israeli fielded electronic warfare and communications [is] ahead of US fielded equipment.” ...

...The highly successful partnership of American and Israeli military science is one more reason it will be most difficult to disentangle from the past and turn the two countries in new directions, either together or separately. But many people are beginning to grasp that lopsided wars—contests between high-tech and primitive forms of destruction—do not necessarily lead to victory or peace. They have led the United States into more wars. ...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/15/truth-israels-secret-nucle...

The truth about Israel's secret nuclear arsenal
Israel has been stealing nuclear secrets and covertly making bombs since the 1950s. And western governments, including Britain and the US, turn a blind eye. But how can we expect Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions if the Israelis won't come clean?

Julian Borger
Wednesday 15 January 2014

... Despite the fact that the Israel's nuclear programme has been an open secret since a disgruntled technician, Mordechai Vanunu, blew the whistle on it in 1986, the official Israeli position is still never to confirm or deny its existence.

When the former speaker of the Knesset, Avraham Burg, broke the taboo last month, declaring Israeli possession of both nuclear and chemical weapons and describing the official non-disclosure policy as "outdated and childish" a rightwing group formally called for a police investigation for treason.

Meanwhile, western governments have played along with the policy of "opacity" by avoiding all mention of the issue. In 2009, when a veteran Washington reporter, Helen Thomas, asked Barack Obama in the first month of his presidency if he knew of any country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, he dodged the trapdoor by saying only that he did not wish to "speculate".

UK governments have generally followed suit. Asked in the House of Lords in November about Israeli nuclear weapons, Baroness Warsi answered tangentially. "Israel has not declared a nuclear weapons programme. We have regular discussions with the government of Israel on a range of nuclear-related issues," the minister said. "The government of Israel is in no doubt as to our views. We encourage Israel to become a state party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty [NPT]."

But through the cracks in this stone wall, more and more details continue to emerge of how Israel built its nuclear weapons from smuggled parts and pilfered technology.

The tale serves as a historical counterpoint to today's drawn-out struggle over Iran's nuclear ambitions. The parallels are not exact – Israel, unlike Iran, never signed up to the 1968 NPT so could not violate it. But it almost certainly broke a treaty banning nuclear tests, as well as countless national and international laws restricting the traffic in nuclear materials and technology.

The list of nations that secretly sold Israel the material and expertise to make nuclear warheads, or who turned a blind eye to its theft, include today's staunchest campaigners against proliferation: the US, France, Germany, Britain and even Norway.

Meanwhile, Israeli agents charged with buying fissile material and state-of-the-art technology found their way into some of the most sensitive industrial establishments in the world. This daring and remarkably successful spy ring, known as Lakam, the Hebrew acronym for the innocuous-sounding Science Liaison Bureau, included such colourful figures as Arnon Milchan, a billionaire Hollywood producer behind such hits as Pretty Woman, LA Confidential and 12 Years a Slave, who finally admitted his role last month.

"Do you know what it's like to be a twentysomething-year-old kid [and] his country lets him be James Bond? Wow! The action! That was exciting," he said in an Israeli documentary. ...

...The US policy of silence continues to this day, even though Israel appears to be continuing to trade on the nuclear black market, albeit at much reduced volumes. In a paper on the illegal trade in nuclear material and technology published in October, the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) noted: "Under US pressure in the 1980s and early 1990s, Israel … decided to largely stop its illicit procurement for its nuclear weapons programme. Today, there is evidence that Israel may still make occasional illicit procurements – US sting operations and legal cases show this."

Avner Cohen, the author of two books on Israel's bomb, said that policy of opacity in both Israel and in Washington is kept in place now largely by inertia. "At the political level, no one wants to deal with it for fear of opening a Pandora's box. It has in many ways become a burden for the US, but people in Washington, all the way up to Obama will not touch it, because of the fear it could compromise the very basis of the Israeli-US understanding."

In the Arab world and beyond, there is growing impatience with the skewed nuclear status quo. Egypt in particular has threatened to walk out of the NPT unless there is progress towards creating a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East. The western powers promised to stage a conference on the proposal in 2012 but it was called off, largely at America's behest, to reduce the pressure on Israel to attend and declare its nuclear arsenal. ...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclea...

Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons
Exclusive: Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons

Chris McGreal

Monday 24 May 2010

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.

The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.

The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence.

The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa's post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky's request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week's nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East.

They will also undermine Israel's attempts to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons, it is a "responsible" power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as Iran cannot be trusted. ...

...The documents confirm accounts by a former South African naval commander, Dieter Gerhardt – jailed in 1983 for spying for the Soviet Union. After his release with the collapse of apartheid, Gerhardt said there was an agreement between Israel and South Africa called Chalet which involved an offer by the Jewish state to arm eight Jericho missiles with "special warheads". Gerhardt said these were atomic bombs. But until now there has been no documentary evidence of the offer.

Some weeks before Peres made his offer of nuclear warheads to Botha, the two defence ministers signed a covert agreement governing the military alliance known as Secment. It was so secret that it included a denial of its own existence: "It is hereby expressly agreed that the very existence of this agreement... shall be secret and shall not be disclosed by either party".

The agreement also said that neither party could unilaterally renounce it.

The existence of Israel's nuclear weapons programme was revealed by Mordechai Vanunu to the Sunday Times in 1986. He provided photographs taken inside the Dimona nuclear site and gave detailed descriptions of the processes involved in producing part of the nuclear material but provided no written documentation.

Documents seized by Iranian students from the US embassy in Tehran after the 1979 revolution revealed the Shah expressed an interest to Israel in developing nuclear arms. But the South African documents offer confirmation Israel was in a position to arm Jericho missiles with nuclear warheads.

Israel pressured the present South African government not to declassify documents obtained by Polakow-Suransky. "The Israeli defence ministry tried to block my access to the Secment agreement on the grounds it was sensitive material, especially the signature and the date," he said. "The South Africans didn't seem to care; they blacked out a few lines and handed it over to me. The ANC government is not so worried about protecting the dirty laundry of the apartheid regime's old allies."

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

@Timmethy2.0

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@HenryAWallace

Israel was founded in 1948.

And it was unfairly harsh on the Palestinians who had been living there. But I think that was clouded on the International stage by the aftermath of the Holocaust when many of the homeless survivors went there.

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Beware the bullshit factories.

Pricknick's picture

@HenryAWallace
on protectionism.
Would I be considered anti zionist if I said they should protect themselves?
I'd rather spend billions per year protecting those who fight against enslavement and apartheid.

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

@Pricknick @Pricknick @Pricknick

Would I be considered anti zionist if I said they should protect themselves?

I'm not qualified to do so. I wish everybody would see the humanity in everybody else, but maybe that's extremely naive of me and comes from growing up and spending most of my life in the Northern California bubble.

Edit: Sorry, I misread who the reply was for.

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Big Al's picture

to justify, manufacture, plan, and implement conflict. Here they're tying the new axis of evil together, somehow they'll tie Iran to it.
They want it ALL.
The IISS, the source of that propaganda, btw is a long time right wing conservative neoconish think tank out of London.
Sometimes I check the neocon think tank websites to see what they're focusing on.

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@Big Al

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SparkyGump's picture

Not A strategy.

By accepting the death of millions, we devalue our own lives.

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The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.

@SparkyGump in the millions? No one remembers the Archduke Ferdinand thingy? The fortunate people of the planet will be those vaporized in the blast.

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There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.

Pluto's Republic's picture

This was written by the CIA:

“This information is not based on any grounds, provocative by its content, and most likely provoked by Russian secret services to cover their own crimes.”

…and stuffed into the puppet mouth of Oleksandr Turchynov, Ukraine's secretary of defence.

Let's build a Geopolitical Stack and see how that works:

What is the overarching goal of Empire?

To take out any competitors to the US Monopolar Superpower status over the world. The key competitor is Eurasia, which has already left the US in the dust insofar as super-computing, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, rocketry, and space travel. (The US has no money to compete in these areas. It relies on rich corporations to divert their profits to pay for massive national endeavors that only wealthy central governments can mount. The US has poured all its money into murder and mayhem. It has lost the non-commercial technology race.)

The key components of Eurasia are its two anchor nations, China and Russia. On the current cosmic timeline, China and Russia are set to become the Multipolar World along with the United States. They will have veto power over US terrorism. The M.A.D. policy will hold the world in check until humans evolve intellectually and morally.

The Neocons want to stop this unfolding timeline at any cost, Better dead than red.

What is the geopolitical significance of North Korea?

Why have the US Neocons — the imported Nazis brain trust from WWII — kept North Korea an isolated rat cage laboratory for seventy years, guarded by US troops? Haven't you ever wondered why we grow this poisonous cyst on the butt of China, and engage in never-ending military war games just off its coast?

North Korea is the one country that borders both China and Russia. It is their weak link. Any false flag emanating from North Korea opens a door to the US military.

Do either China or Russia want to see that?

Certainly not. Who performed the first technology transfer to North Korea, the blueprint for building nuclear warheads? Many point to the US special intelligence operations under the Clinton administration.

There was a missile technology transfer to North Korea from a spacefaring nation. I agree with that premise of this essay, and would assume that missile technology came from the US, as well. Because the emergence of the technology in North Korea threatens Eurasia, but it directly benefits the US Neocons. They are extremely anxious to push their goals of global dominance and Eurasia stands in the way. It grows stronger every day. North Korea offers the necessary theater for a stealth first strike on Eurasia while Russia and China are standing down.

The seeds I plant here is not pre-emptive. That only happens if they are widely spread and take root. But it does serve as a catbird seat for peering into the future.

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@Pluto's Republic

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snoopydawg's picture

@Pluto's Republic

North Korea is the one country that borders both China and Russia. It is their weak link. Any false flag emanating from North Korea opens a door to the US military.

Why would a Korean missile launch help the US against Russia and China? Or am I not reading this correctly?

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There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?

Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.

Song of the lark's picture

@Pluto's Republic time. You are taking facts and trends out of context. Conclusive Nonsense by omission.

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earthling1's picture

"Wanna surround my country with weaponry and troops and impose a stack of sanctions? Here, deal with this, assholes!"
We deserve it.

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

@earthling1

I know what you mean, but the ones who deserve it don't pay the price.

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Big Al's picture

I see no proof, just guesses and speculation no different than all the past guesses and speculations. But the headlines makes it seem like there's no doubt, "Investigators say". Rather convenient tying Ukraine/Russia to North Korea.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/world/asia/north-korea-missiles-uk...

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@Big Al

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@LaFeminista

Proof such a banal requirement these days.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

@Big Al

We are dove-tailed on this one, Please see my comment above for context.

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

Those engines were linked to only a few former Soviet sites. Government investigators and experts have focused their inquiries on a missile factory in Dnipro, Ukraine, on the edge of the territory where Russia is fighting a low-level war to break off part of Ukraine. During the Cold War, the factory made the deadliest missiles in the Soviet arsenal, including the giant SS-18. It remained one of Russia’s primary producers of missiles even after Ukraine gained independence.

But since Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovych, was removed from power in 2014, the state-owned factory, known as Yuzhmash, has fallen on hard times. The Russians canceled upgrades of their nuclear fleet. The factory is underused, awash in unpaid bills and low morale. Experts believe it is the most likely source of the engines that in July powered the two ICBM tests, which were the first to suggest that North Korea has the range, if not necessarily the accuracy or warhead technology, to threaten American cities.

“It’s likely that these engines came from Ukraine — probably illicitly,” Mr. Elleman said in an interview. “The big question is how many they have and whether the Ukrainians are helping them now. I’m very worried.”

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

Pluto's Republic's picture

@Not Henry Kissinger

…government and installed their NeoNazi puppets, what better source can there be for weapons transfers, that would serve the goals of the rabid Russia haters. Just like their brethren at CrowdStrike — Kiev is always ginning up a proxy hot war between Russia and the US.

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Not Henry Kissinger's picture

@Pluto's Republic , what better source can there be for weapons transfers,

Without Maidan, NK doesn't get the ICBM engines.

Plain and simple.

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The current working assumption appears to be that our Shroedinger's Cat system is still alive. But what if we all suspect it's not, and the real problem is we just can't bring ourselves to open the box?

Bollox Ref's picture

given the North Korean relationship with the former USSR.

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Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Pluto's Republic's picture

@The Voice In the Wilderness

It runs completely counter to their 5,000 continuous years of history.

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earthling1's picture

It's not rocket science.
Oh wait. Maybe it is.
/s

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Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

TheOtherMaven's picture

ASS-uming that nobody else, anywhere, can invent or improve on anything. That any innovation must come from "somewhere else". That brown, black and yellow people are stupid savages with no know-how and no creativity, who must buy, borrow, or steal their technology.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong - and pig-ignorant besides.

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

QMS's picture

@TheOtherMaven our pleas for rational problem solving would blow all that sh*t to hell. many are listening for that cry in the wilderness, just ain't coming in the msm. gotta hear elsewhere.

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@TheOtherMaven
develop an ICBM. But nobody can cancel a failing program; ground test an entirely new engine in little more than a matter of weeks; and start testing an ICBM in months. Those missiles are powered by the engines that launched a set of Soviet/Russian missiles, built in a factory in Ukraine. Neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians deny it. They've attempted to blame the other. Who knows? It could be a black market operation. The Russians have caught people trying to export such technology and plans for such technology on previous occasions.

We have no idea of their accuracy. Since they've never tested one on an intercontinental trajectory it's likely the N. Koreans have limited confidence in their accuracy. And the largest N. Korean explosion detected has been 10 kilotons, about 2/3s the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The real threat from N. Korea is the damage they could do with conventional artillery to the large portion of the S.Korean population living in and around Seoul.

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@TheOtherMaven
develop an ICBM. But nobody can cancel a failing program; ground test an entirely new engine in little more than a matter of weeks; and start testing an ICBM in months. Those missiles are powered by the engines that launched a set of Soviet/Russian missiles, built in a factory in Ukraine. Neither the Russians nor the Ukrainians deny it. They've attempted to blame the other. Who knows? It could be a black market operation. The Russians have caught people trying to export such technology and plans for such technology on previous occasions.

We have no idea of their accuracy. Since they've never tested one on an intercontinental trajectory it's likely the N. Koreans have limited confidence in their accuracy. And the largest N. Korean explosion detected has been 10 kilotons, about 2/3s the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The real threat from N. Korea is the damage they could do with conventional artillery to the large portion of the S.Korean population living in and around Seoul.

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@TheOtherMaven @TheOtherMaven

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Doesn't the US sell weapons to anybody with money? Wouldn't it be Hillarious if they were purchased through the then-still Clinton-supporter-staffed US State Department?

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

TheOtherMaven's picture

@Ellen North

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.