NORAD training flights planned near D.C.

NORAD training flights planned near D.C.: "WASHINGTON — A training exercise with flights is planned for Thursday and Friday in the Washington area for the North American Aerospace Defense Command."

(Via Air Force Times - News.)

Special Envoy Headed to N.Korea in Lieu Of Possible Missile Test.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is sending her new envoy for North Korea policy to Asia early next week to work on reviving stalled international nuclear talks with an increasingly hostile Pyongyang.

The trip comes as North Korea threatens to punish anyone trying to disrupt a plan to conduct what the United States and South Korea believe may be a long-range missile test.

Clinton told reporters Thursday that Stephen Bosworth will travel to the capitals of four countries that have been working with Washington to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear program — Japan, China, Russia and South Korea.

Bosworth said the United States plans to directly engage North Korea, but it is still unclear whether any meetings will happen on this trip.

Christopher Hill, the top U.S. diplomat for Asia, later told reporters that Asian and U.S. officials are looking at the best way "to deter this launch." He dismissed North Korea's claims that it was preparing to conduct a satellite launch.

"It looks an awful lot like a missile launch, and the reason it looks a lot like a missile launch is because it essentially is a missile launch, whatever the payload," Hill said. Considering the North's "opaqueness," coupled with its claims that it has weaponized plutonium, he said, "you can see why we have some very deep concerns about the missile launch."

The North's potential test is seen as a bid for President Barack Obama's attention as six-nation nuclear disarmament talks remain stalled and tension with South Korea soars.


Any missile test would trigger international sanctions.

Bosworth, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea, traveled earlier this month to Pyongyang on a private trip. North Korea, he said, seems to want to continue talks with the United States. "They see the benefits to them of engagement with the outside world and are prepared to move ahead," he said.

Bosworth was named last week as the Obama administration's special representative for North Korea. He will be responsible for coordinating the overall U.S. policy for North Korea and will keep his position as dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. The State Department says another special envoy for North Korea, Sung Kim, w

Texas Seems To be The Target Of Falling Space Junk!

A Dallas homeowner has a bizarre story to tell the insurance company.

A large piece of metal apparently fell from the sky and crashed into the home on Buford Drive in southeast Dallas.

Investigators said the six pound chunk of metal slammed into the home with enough force to put a hole in the roof and second floor of the home.

The metal had burn marks with two drill holes.

No one was home when it hit, so there were no injuries.

Several local and state agencies were notified of the incident, but so far it's not clear where the where the debris came from.

Another North Korea Alert Drill for GMD?

Another North Korea Alert Drill for GMD?: "

There doesn't seem to be any official word from U.S. defense officials online yet, but'if North Korea is preparing for another missile launch, then the Ground-based Midcourse Defense System of ballistic interceptors based in Alaska and California'probably is on alert.

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The New York Times is reporting that North Korea said today it was preparing to send a satellite into orbit in what U.S. and South Korean officials believe will be a provocative test of a long-range missile capable of reaching parts of North America. CNN is reporting it too.

A statement from Pyongyang, via the official Korea Central News Agency online, also said today that 'preparations for launching experimental communications satellite Kwangmyongsong-2 by means of delivery rocket Unha-2 are now making brisk headway at Tonghae Satellite Launching Ground in Hwadae County, North Hamgyong Province.'

The statement said North Korea 'envisages launching practical satellites for communications, prospecting of natural resources and weather forecast, etc. essential for the economic development of the country in a few years to come and putting their operation on a normal footing at the first phase of the state long-term plan for space development.'

The move comes as U.S. and South Korean officials warned the enigmatic North in recent days not to do so. 'We have made it clear that we consider it both provocative and unhelpful,' Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.''And we will continue to seek ways to discourage them from launching a missile for any purpose.'

U.S. officials declared themselves pleasantly surprised with GMD when they placed it on an extended, 40-day alert in mid-2006 ahead of North Korea's infamous July 4 ballistic missile tests. The alert provided an effective shakedown of the system and allowed the team to work out bugs that could not have been discovered any other way, GMD prime Boeing and Missile Defense Agency officials said through 2007.

North Korea test launched a number of missiles that day'including a long-range Taepodong-2 that might have been capable of reaching some non-continental U.S. states and territories. All splashed down harmlessly in the Sea of Japan, and in fact may have fizzled quickly.

As Aviation Week reported in mid-2007, those launches, as well as ballistic missile demonstrations by Iran, have driven U.S. officials to make plans for simultaneously operating and testing their defenses, which include radars in the U.S., Europe and Pacific region, space-based detectors and interceptors at Ft. Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg AFB, Calif.

BBC has an excellent wrap-up of North Korea missile mania too.

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(Via Ares.)

How About a Nice Game of Chess?

How About a Nice Game of Chess?: "

The U.S. Navy is starting the process to find a '21st-century successor' to the Trident strategic missile submarine, defense officials have announced. The thing is - and here's where it could get really interesting - the United States could very well be completely redefining what its strategic deterrence needs are starting this year.

Tridents are nuclear-powered, Ohio-class submarines. At 560 feet long and 42 feet wide, they are the largest submarines in the Navy’s inventory. The first, the USS Ohio, was commissioned in 1981. The USS Wyoming finished its 38th patrol Feb. 11, marking the 1000th completed patrol of a Trident since the Ohio embarked on its initial patrol in October 1982. The Wyoming was commissioned in July 1996 and began its first patrol in August 1997. Clearly the older versions are getting up there in years.

The 14 nuclear-missile carrying Trident submarines provide more than half of America’s strategic deterrent capability, according to DOD. In 2006, the USS Ohio was converted into a guided-missile submarine, as were three others from the class to provide covert, special forces-friendly platforms.

Still, the Pentagon is about to start its Quadrennial Defense Review, as well as a Nuclear Posture Review. Besides giving President Barack Obama and his new administration the chance to genuinely recraft the U.S. military to their own vision, the reviews come as debate has increased in Washington over the nature of nuclear deterrence in the era of global antiterrorism and counterinsurgency conflicts, irregular warfare like cyber and post-Cold War assumptions (e.g., Russia and China aren't as much enemies as the USSR). Indeed, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff noted last week that today's threats are much more diverse and involve ‘a much broader spectrum of conflict against a much broader number of enemies, to include those that are not nation-states.'

Not surprisngly, those outside the Pentagon are not content to just sit back and await the new findings, which won't come until much later this year, at least. Meantime, electrons everywhere are falling victim to tomes of outside evaluations, including:

Evaluating conventional prompt global strike

U.S. and Soviet/Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles, 1959-2008

Future of the Nuclear Security Environment in 2015: Proceedings

Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writings of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter

What deterrence means in the age of suicide bombers, religious movements, non-kinetic acts of hostility and existing nuclear weapons, and how nuclear weapons falls into them, seems far from being figured out -'and we're at least eight years into it. I think we're in for a heckuva debate, and one that could go down in the annals of great military history and political science.

(Photo: USN)

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(Via Ares.)