The Neigbourhood Psycho: North Korea

I'm psycho
Like no
Loonie *** *****
from your H-Double O-D
--Snoop

Condi touches down in Far East:

North Korea, Taiwan top issues in Japan-U.S. talks
WASHINGTON -- Japan and the United States agreed Saturday to reinforce their alliance under a new set of common security objectives to deal with "unpredictability and uncertainty" in the Asia-Pacific region.

Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice greet reporters ahead of their meeting in Washington.

This includes North Korea's nuclear program, China's rising military power and tension across the Taiwan Strait.
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The two sides did not specify how Japan and the U.S. will promote defense cooperation, except to say they will examine the "roles" shared by the Self-Defense Forces and U.S. forces as part of the realignment talks.

At a meeting before the two-plus-two talks, Ono and Rumsfeld agreed to move the ongoing joint research on a missile defense system to the development phase in U.S. fiscal 2006, Japanese officials said.

A couple of notes: The US is deathly concerned about the rise in the Chinese Navy. Currently, the US holds the upper hand in regard to the Air Forces (China's is non-existent) and the Navy. They would have their hands full with the Chinese Army, though. The loss of supremecy over the seas in the straits would mean the strategic upperhand of the US would be hampered big time.

The other thing is that Japan has the perception that North Korea will attack Japan first, citing North Korea's long standing hatred of Tokyo stemming from the WW 2 brutality/long time colonialist adventures by Japan in the peninsula. I personally think that if North Korea was going to attack, it would attack Seoul, and only because that is the main purpose of their military build up (asides from blackmail), and because their entire war machine is set for an invasion of the south.

Although, it is hard to understand the motives and strategy behind a total nutcase.

Anyways, the result of this perception, is that Japan is moving ahead with Aegis destroyers being deployed in the straits, which are equipped for limited missle defense. The Japanese are also intent on seeing missile defense technology be set up as soon as possible.

Apparently, Tokyo (according to some) is only 10 minutes away by rocket from North Korea, meaning that any rocket attack must be detected within seconds if there is to be a shot at defending against it.