The news this time is that government used the J-Alert system to mass broadcast to everyone in Hokkaido to announce that, instead of coming down in the sea of Japan, it might come down on the land. NHK is reporting that it might be a new type ICBM which I guess might be the reason for the general alert this time.
If it damages something or someone? If relations between the two countries are not completely wretched, usually a bunch of arguing, and small reparations [1][2].
If they are completely wretched, or there's some other concern at play, usually nothing [3]. The victim country is free to apply whatever sanctions it sees fit.
These sorts of questions are not settled in a framework of legality, as much as they are settled in a framework of power, and willingness to escalate. Escalating against a nuclear sovereign is often a bad idea.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosmos_954
> For the recovery efforts, the Canadian government billed the Soviet Union Can$6,041,174.70 for expenses and additional compensation for future unpredicted expenses; the USSR eventually paid Can$3 million.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655
> As part of the settlement, even though the U.S. government did not admit legal liability or formally apologize to Iran, it agreed to pay US$61.8 million on an ex gratia basis in compensation to the families of the Iranian victims
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007
> The Soviet government expressed regret over the loss of life, but offered no apology and did not respond to demands for compensation.
Initially Ukraine said it was Russia, and the story wound down when evidence pointed to Ukraine. I do not think there were any apology (but I am not sure, I know about that because a friend of mine was nearby the hit (at a safe distance, but still))
It might be wiser to:
1. Ignore specific occurrences to avoid giving the neighborhood narcissistic bully attention. Their ego uses this for oxygen.
2. Every few months, run preparedness drills for getting to strong shelters coinciding with testing the J-Alert system.
3. Only use the J-Alert system for a credible threat.
The result is what feels like daily (sometimes multiple times/day!) alerts.
My SO's grandmother is the only one who watches cable, but the whole house runs to turn off the tv or mute it asap when we hear it.
Exactly the opposite effect/behavior the alerts are supposed to have.
It's like when your boss marks everything urgent so nothing is.
Side note- so many good songs have been ruined for me by repeated pushes of commercials using the hook/catchy part of the song max volume for whatever amazon or pill garbage. Horns honking or surens blaring.
A frequent, nonspecific alert is completely worthless if it's not both credible and actionable.
As long as North Korea's regional neighbors and the United States do little more than condemning the launches, yes. We know these launches pose a risk to civilians on the ground, but little can be done to stop them short of bombing the launch sites. And bombing North Korea would be an act of war, and the consequences would be unpredictable. [1] There are rumors that CYBERCOM has been able to stop North Korean missile launches in the past with covert cyberattacks, but whether that's true or not would be classified. [2]
If the U.S. wanted to respond in kind, it could launch a missile from a ship in the Sea of Japan. The missile could be programmed to overfly Pyongyang, and crash into the Yellow Sea. Though China would probably deploy watercraft to recover the missile's debris to study its technology, if it doesn't detonate.
[1] Note that North Korea did bomb the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong back in 2010 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Yeonpyeong?uses...). Two civilians and two soldiers were killed, and a number of people were wounded, but the shelling did not trigger a conflict. North Korea also sank a South Korean warship the same year, killing 46, and it didn't cause a war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROKS_Cheonan_sinking?useskin=v...).
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/04/world/asia/north-korea-mi...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/world/asia/north-korea-mi...
Fun fact: the US is technically still at war with Korea. The Korean war was never actually stopped...
But I do agree resuming hostilities would lead to unpredictable and undesirable outcomes.
There really isn't a ballistic trajectory that wouldn't land in PRC or SKR waters, unless it's a (relatively) low flying cruise missile that overflys SKR waters and circles back to land inJapanese waters in east sea which is much more escalatory than lofting a high flying ballistic over air space. Practically there isn't a viable "proportional" response, especially if failure = ordnance lands in PRC or RU territory.
EDIT: NHK is now saying this as well via the original link
Edit:
Looks like it just flew overhead and landed in the sea.
Related question- what's the status of shooting down missiles in flight with lasers? Is that still a generation or two away?
The US had a test platform [0] that showed that the concept of an airborne laser ABM system was viable. However they concluded that we need an order of magnitude increase in the power of airborne lasers in order for it to have enough range to actually be useful.
The reality is that we don't really have any hard numbers for how effective various missile defense systems are. Any test results from them are classified because you don't want your opponent knowing ahead of time how effective your defenses actually are. Even for automated turrets like CIWS don't have any hard numbers on their shootdown rate.
It would take in the ballpark of $10 billion worth of anti-missile systems to shoot down $100 million worth of unarmed ballistic missiles if both sides know what their doing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_Korean_missile_t... (*old* ICBM tests, not today's one)
- There's no extant technology to shoot them down;
- They're not in Japanese airspace or territory (does not extend to orbital altitude);
- If they were to crash in Japan by mistake, there's no benefit in shooting at them, because they'd be untargeted debris with no warheads. An anti-missile missile is just additional debris with extra steps.
Here is the answer. Every system has some percentage of misses, especially during mass attacks.
Iron Dome is not really relevant, I think, it's designed against small, short-range, mortar-like projectiles. For ballistic rockets or cruise missiles you need systems like Patriot, right.
Threats like this are why Japan and South Korea are the only countries outside the US to field it.
Alternates would be THAAD and the GBI, but believe those are more specific to the US Army and Missile Defense Agency's needs. The latter is also still under serious development.
is unfortunately a misconception
Foolish thinking, but I was hoping as a species we were past petty wars.
Everyone was like a well sized job running in k8s or nomad :) - because the goverment was like that. It's much easier to compertmenalize such people...
Now we are not "jobs" or "tasks" or "peons", we are people. So there was oppression, but it was hidden. People would joke, but then people might tell other people to the "secret service police".
As a kid, I had pretty good childhood! But still not sure if I had to be an adult during that period how I would've felt.
Or were they so segmented or different that competition was not a thing?
A 2020 survey by Harvard researchers showed similar results. [2]
People living in autocracies are far less dissatisfied with their systems of government as democracy minded Westerners like myself might assume.
[1] https://www.ipsos.com/en/global-happiness-six-points-last-ye...
[2] https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-sur...
World Happiness Report 2023 has China at rank 64.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350&dat=19700804&id=... ("Mexcians find errant rocket", 1970)
https://wsmrmuseum.com/2021/11/10/in-1970-an-athena-missile-... ("In 1970, An Athena Missile Went Deep Into Mexico")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_C...
Whether anyone accepted the accident angle would depend on how willing various major powers were wanting to get involved in the incident.
But 9/11 would not be a good analogy, as it was not carried out by a nation. Which is why it took a month for the US to declare an illegal war on Afghanistan rather than immediately being able to declare a legal war in self defense.
