North Korea And Their Launch Codes
 

I don't want to make this political but wanted to pose the question.
Would the guys in North Korea actually follow through with Kim Jong-un order to launch a strike on the U.S knowing moments after the launch they would all be vaporized?
I know he has followers but that is usually at gun point.

Well behind the guy behind the button, there is 2 guys with a gun.
Both those guys and the guy behind the button think there is somebody who will shoot them if they dont shoot.

And behind those guys there are some more guys with guns.

There you go.

You say that like the crazy little turd wont be pressing the button himself.

I think the chance is greater that their munitions sputter out on on the launchpad or in the drink than that they dont push the button...

And I agree about the vaporizing. Good or bad, the current administration is itching for a reason to go in bombs blazing...

Yep.

Their "rationality" is not necessarily consistent with your 'rationality'.

The Japanese military were determined to fight on despite losing 2 cities to nukes and the credible threat of "a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth". The Japanese only stopped fighting when their Emperor god decided to over rule the military. The NK Emperor god would perhaps not follow that path.

Don't think so Sid, bad for business

Agree with their rational not the same as ours

You have assigned our culture, values and knowledge onto the North Koreans.

First, the guys pushing the buttons wouldn't know any such thing.

Second, they have been raised in a culture their entire lives of authoritarian idolatry.

I'll stop there.

Americans tend to judge their enemies using American standards of freedom, education, culture, etc.

Never understood why.

Interesting chatter on the Defconwarning site about the NK's Guam missile test. These guys theorize that if he actually does launch 4 ICBMs toward Guam with splashdown near Guam, he is testing our ability to knock down 4 at once toward the same target. If we get 3 but one gets through, it will be a success for NK, as it proves we can't reliably get that many at once on 1 target. FWIW.

This.

The entire population of the main island of Japan were ready to fight hand to hand to the death for their emperor. Old ladies and children. If they were overwhelmed the would commit. They used women with babies in arms with bombs strapped to themselves to get past the front lines and then blow themselves up and kill those in the rear on Okinawa. Then they threw themselves off of cliffs to prevent capture.

When the US finally captured Okinawa there were a huge number of what we now call PTSD and US troops that were sent home with "shell shock"

World War II Psychiatric Wounds of War | Defense Media Network

The psychiatric wounds of the troops was a huge percentage.

Having visited the DMZ and toured the tunnel that NK troops were building to invade South Korea, I'd say the threat is real. Hosted a North Korean refuge in my home for 6 months as well. The situation there is bad, and desperate people do stupid chit. You may not like our president, but the NK threat is serious and its been there and growing for a long time (none of the past few presidents have taken it seriously enough IMO).

This.

Perhaps it is a combination of ignorance and arrogance. Ignorance due to native born Americans never having lived under a totalitarian ruler. Arrogance due to believing that everyone wants to live as we do. IMHO

those missiile are GPS guided?

cant we just shut that off for a quick moment? and i cant even imagine firing back..that would destroy the region..even for the good guys no?

The USAF controls the GPS system.

I would imagine they use INS instead of GPS, but if they did use GPS then the military would just "alter" the coordinates and not shut the system down.

They can use an IMU and computers to get pretty darn close even without GPS or the Russian system Glonass.

https://www.quora.com/How-many-countries-have-their-own-GPS-system

There are other regional GPS like systems.

From what I've heard from unnamed sources, the launch codes are up really high. Out of reach of Kim Jung Fatboy. Rodman hasn't been traveling there to play basketball.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1502466528.jpg

There have been several NOTAMs out west to do with GPS and I would venture a guess that they are testing the ability to "alter" other peoples GPS in case of war.

That said, smart money would be using an inertial based guidance as a backup.

I doubt it. But even a crude Inertial Nav System would be good enough over that range.

Civilians only get the Coarse Acquisition code. The P (precision) code is encrypted and requires a key that is distributed to friendly users.

Civilian aviation uses a Wide Area Augmentation System where ground stations receive GPS and send corrections to a geostationary satellite which relays the correction to receivers in the area.

^doubt very much that North Korean people want to live the way they do...but they don't know any different. They are told that the rest of the world is poor and in shambles. Imagine how it must be for them if they actually experience how the "western" world (including their neighbors in South Korea) lives.

Interesting article about the only survivor of 31 North Korean commandos that attempted a raid on the South Korean presidential mansion:

Failed North Korean Assassin Assimilates in the South - The New York Times