North Korea has fired an intercontinental ballistic missile, which flew for 86 minutes - the longest flight recorded yet - before falling into waters off its east, South Korea and Japan said.
The ICBM was fired at a sharply-raised angle and reached as high as 7,000km (4,350 miles). This means that it would have covered a further distance if it were launched horizontally.
Thursday’s launch violated UN curbs and came at a time of deteriorating relations between the two Koreas and Pyongyang’s increasingly aggresive rhetoric towards Seoul.
South Korea had also warned on Wednesday that the North was preparing to fire its ICBM close to the US presidential election on 5 November.
I know there have been. But lately it feels like the structures the UN was responsible for maintaining to avoid another world war are just falling apart. Russia is invading Ukaraine using North Korean troops, Israel kills civilians, journalists, aid workers, UN soldiers with impunity. They’ve even just voted to ban the UNRWA from operating in the Gaza Strip in direct violation of UN law. It’s clear China is trying to divest from the American economy to make them less dependant on it, no doubt to make ot easier for military action in their area without the big economic co sequences.
Maybe I am being all dark and gloomy and all this will pass. And I really hope thats the case. It just seems like it’s worse than it’s ever been in my memory.
How old are you? The Cuban missile crisis was far worse than this - but 1962 was 62 years ago - not many people alive are old enough to remember how bad it was then. For most of us that is just something for history while the things happening today are real to us.
Odds are this will pass, but just like in 1962 nobody knew for sure we were not on the brink of war, I cannot tell you for sure.
I know I wasn’t there but based on what I’ve read of that that felt like it was between only US and Russia. And the risk was nuclear war between them. Now we have several nuclear powers at each others throats.
The only countries that had nuclear weapons in 1962 were the US and USSR, so yes, the nuclear conflict would have “only” been between those two countries.
There is a social effect that might be at play here. Once 1 person leaves a get together it gives permission for everyone else to leave, and so that happens. Just so with Trump.
The United States WAS the de facto leader of the free world. Then T showed up mad bunny style, double middle fingers in the air, announcing to everyone “I do what I want.” He broke things. The United States was the leader of the free world. Behavior there sets an example.
So not only is there a permissive effect here, to go mad bunny style, double middle fingers in the air, announcing “I do what I want”, (see: Israel, Russia) the figure everyone used to look to for guidance and resolution to awful things like this has been absent for 8 yrs. Biden is not that guy, he was just a place holder to keep trump out.
The United States, for all our blemishes, was a stabilizing force. Until Trump. We are witnessing the long term impact of that loss, the cracks formed by the impact of Trump on the world stage.
Mad bunny, double middle fingers in the air, is looking for more of that destabilizing impact, starting Jan 6.
On another note, crops aren’t great and resources are thin elsewhere, this is likely a power grab in the name of resources, as the world winds down to being completely inhospitable. What is it the homesteaders say? Only 40 harvests left, at the most.
I 100% agree that Trump broke those cracks but I feel like Biden is normalizing it. Israel should never have been this emboldened to do what they have done. Ukraine is being armed enough to make Russia bleed, not win. And this has caused Russia to make deals they normally wouldn’t, and shouldn’t, make like the missile technology with North Korea and the whole BRICS thing. For all of Bidens wins in domestic policies, I feel as if he will not be remembered fondly in history for what he allowed happen on the international stage.