US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7308

Washington (AFP) - A US Navy carrier strike group was moving toward the Korean Peninsula on Saturday as the United States boosts its defenses against North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

"US Pacific Command ordered the Carl Vinson Strike Group north as a prudent measure to maintain readiness and presence in the Western Pacific," said Commander Dave Benham, spokesman at US Pacific Command.

"The number one threat in the region continues to be North Korea, due to its reckless, irresponsible and destabilizing program of missile tests and pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability," he told AFP.

The strike group includes the Nimitz-class aircraft supercarrier USS Carl Vinson, a carrier air wing, two guided-missile destroyers and a guided-missile cruiser.

Originally scheduled to make port calls in Australia, it headed instead from Singapore to the Western Pacific Ocean.

The North has carried out five nuclear tests -- two of them last year -- and expert satellite imagery analysis suggests it could well be preparing for a sixth.

US intelligence officials say Pyongyang could be less than two years away from developing a nuclear warhead that could reach the continental United States.

On Thursday and Friday, US President Donald Trump hosted his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for talks during which he pressed Pyongyang's key ally to help curb the North's nuclear weapons program.

Trump has threatened unilateral action against the hermit state, a threat that appears more palpable after he ordered a strike on a Syrian airfield following an apparent chemical attack.

The head of North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which provides missile detection and defense for the region, said Thursday she was "extremely confident" of US capability to intercept a potential intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) bound for America from the North.

But General Lori Robinson expressed concerns for the type of ballistic missile powered by a solid-fuel engine that Pyongyang said it successfully tested in February.

"Amidst an unprecedented pace of North Korean strategic weapons testing, our ability to provide actionable warning continues to diminish," Robinson said in written testimony to senators.

On April 09 2017 15:12 Amui wrote:

Well if you want to make an airbase inoperable for a short period of time, you can put craters in the runways every couple thousand feet(somewhere less than safe takeoff/landing distance). It's several orders of magnitude more expensive to blow it up than it is to fix though, if you have the equipment nearby to just fill and pave it could be less than 24 hours before you can run planes over it.

Average person probably thinks it'll take it out for weeks, but people invented fast drying concrete and stuff specifically for fixing blown up runways.

On April 09 2017 16:06 Yurie wrote:

The interesting thing is that cost comparisons have to take into account how much cost you can take.

If you take WW2 as an example. The US could lose 2 times the ships and airplanes that Japan did and still easily win the war (did not happen). The scales of the nations, their industries, economies and natural resources allows for that.

Same is the case here. The US could spend a trillion dollars for 100 billion in losses on the other side and quickly win the war at that ratio. Not sure exactly how big the ratio difference has to get before they lose or the war becomes too unpopular.

On April 09 2017 23:27 Sermokala wrote:
The much more important thing would be the damage to the fueling depot and the machine shop on base for maintinence and repairs. those would cripple the base for a long time.

PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — In the aftermath of President Donald Trump's surprise strikes on Syria, his allies and adversaries have searched for some broader meaning in his decision.

Is Trump now a humanitarian interventionist, willing to wield American military power when foreign governments threaten their own citizens? Is he a commander in chief who once warned against intervention in Syria but is now prepared to plunge the United States deeper into the conflict? Is he turning on Russia, one of Syria's most important patrons, after months of flirting with closer U.S. ties with Moscow?

Trump would say he's simply flexible, an emerging foreign policy doctrine that leaves room for evolution and uncertainty.

"I don't have to have one specific way, and if the world changes, I go the same way, I don't change," Trump said Wednesday, a day after the chemical weapons attack in Syria that compelled him to order airstrikes against a government air base. "Well, I do change and I am flexible, and I'm proud of that flexibility."

On April 10 2017 03:11 GreenHorizons wrote:
So pretty much every Republican who had a problem with Obama's vacations or his personal spending were just being partisan hacks right?