NORTH KOREA RECENT MISSILE TESTS AND NOT SO CRAZY CONSPIRACY THEORIES



The North has been developing its nuclear arsenal for a long time, and came head to head with the United States recently. Then something extraordinary happened, they backed of a tangible threat and had a failed test a few weeks after. Obviously it's not the first time hey make empty threats, nor the first time they fail tests, but after showing near technological mastery of ICBMs, which are a lot harder to construct, it leaves us many questions and theories.



The non annihilation of Guam



This attack the North said they were going to conduct around Guam always seemed clumsy. Given North Korean poor record of accuracy, launching four missiles to envelop Guam was asking for an accident and a war with the United States.

Nevertheless a few points are to be considered. It was a conditional threat, and Trump didn't meet it, making North Korea's foreign policy weaker by not following through when an opponent disregarded their warnings. Second it was a crucial anniversary, which usually means a missile or nuclear test. Thirdly, the war exercises by the joint South Korean and American army were just days away, and are considered extremely aggressive by the regime of Pyongyang. It made sense to answer to them with a show of force. Finally, a few events during the crucial day they said they would consider this plan makes for an even stranger day, there was a weak earthquake in North Korea, Guam warnings went for a quarter of hour, and Kim Jong Un formally backed down, instead of leaving the US wandering, though he said that the non follow through of the missiles' launch was conditioned to how Americans will act in the future.

Here are various explanations of this day supplementing the official story. The New Reality of Foreign Policy doesn't endorse any of them but given the media blackout on everything purporting to North Korea they are always possibilities.

First the earthquake. He was too weak for a normal nuclear test, which means that it was likely not one, or the North regime found a way to muffle them, which would be terrifying because the West would not have any ways to mesure their advancement towards Hydrogen portable bombs anymore. It could also be a missile strike by the US as a show of force, which North Korea understood as a warning to not strike Guam and its surroundings or else there would be massive reprisals. It could finally be the missiles either being knocked out by US countermeasures or missiles, or exploding on the ground, either before launch or falling back down after.

Then there is the warning. It has simpler explanations than the one following, but because here are speculations, and a voluntary omission of the official story, I won't put them in. What remains are the fact that the missiles were actually launched, which contradicts several points made earlier, and shows that some of those speculations can't go together, and that there is a logical framework in them that tends to show this as either a show of NK force silenced by the US or a show by the Americans that they want to remain secret for various reasons (secret weapons used, advantage on the regional scene, blackmail towards Pyongyang...). This missile launch could have been successful but too far off the coast for Guam citizens to see it, making the warnings unnecessary and even harmful, as the successful launch is, because it shows North Korea striking power. It could also have either been smaller than advertised and failed mid course (like said for the one who happened recently), in which case the cover up would have been to not exacerbate the existing tensions, and might have been made conjointly. The last possibility is the US shooting down the missile(s) before it reaches Guam. It goes squarely with the aborted warning, as it would have stopped when the missile(s) weren't tracked more because they had been destroyed. This would have been covered up, to either ease tensions, or for top secret informations that are contained in the fact that the US can easily shoot down ballistic missiles.

The final point of Kim Jong Un formally saying nothing happened might seem odd with all the theories that North Korea did do a test of something, but we shouldn't forget that it is a very secretive state, and only information the regime deems useful to itself will be given. If there was an American strike, or interception of the missiles, they didn't want to respond to, they wouldn't say anything happened. Similarly, it might not be advantageous to advert a failure on such a crucial day. Lastly, if they tested a new technology and/or want to leave their enemies into the blue, a lack of information, after such a sudden surge on their parts with an ICBM might be more threatening than a propaganda success.

In the end, several points converge to make those theories plausible, although totally unproven, the American lack of cover of those points then would be due to one of three possibilities:

- masking their own capabilities to keep an edge against powerful adversaries like China, and as a trick up their sleeves (theory on the unknown unknown)

- easing tensions, whether it was their, or the Koreans', attacks, to help a diplomatic resolution.

- masking North Korean abilities to keep their regional partners confident, especially in case of a confrontation with China.



What does this all means? There are crucial themes that emerge from those theories. First, North Korea secrecy, and state sponsored news, mean that the info most will have will be from western sources (AP, AFP, Reuters), which in turn will be from the US military, or one of its allies in the region (South Korea, Japan). Making one key player control all the information except when the other plays ball (video evidence was made in the ICBM North Korean essay for some part of the flight). This make retention of information easy for the US, and in case of joint diplomatic moves, they might even both try to bottle up the evidence. It gives the extent that our new technological era increased transparency, state actors can still hide big events despite the increased scrutiny and the citizen journalism.

Then, if one of the speculations was true, it would show that a secret war is going on between the US and North Korea, and that either tensions are way higher than commonly thought, or this symbolic war moves has been a secret dance for quite a while now, and that another, even public, aggressive behaviour, won't spill into an all out war. Because war is not sought by any party, no matter what is said on mainstream news, the hypothesis that they would go to war accidentally, through one act of war, would be severely undercut if secret actions like this have been going on without an overwhelming response. It might be at the advantage of the Americans that this hypothesis keeps being largely subscribed to, and therefore they might want to silence any opposite evidence, this is because this threat of war keeps his allies in the region under influence, and allow for US bases in their territories as well. It might seem paradoxical but it is also a plus for North Korea, as the threat of an all out war, and the US presence makes China more supportive of the impoverished state. Both "opponents" might be bluffing the entire world, whilst testing each other out.

Another conclusion of this, is that North Korea nuclear and/or missile capabilities, or the US anti missile capabilities, might be way more advanced than publicly known. This makes one of the actor way weaker on the tactical standpoint, because he is not on the par he wanted with the other nation. Particularly, if North Korea can have muffled nuclear tests, they might have hydrogen bombs without anybody knowing, and if the US can shoot down real NK missile(s). It would defeat the whole purpose of North Korea's middle range nuclear deterrent (which would have been the missiles shot down), leaving short range nuclear attacks on South Korea, maybe with nuclear tipped artillery rounds, that will also affect NK, and ICBMs, which no one can safely shoot down yet but that North Korea hasn't perfectionned and isn't accurate.





To conclude, while all those iterations are only speculative, and nothing is proven, it gives us an insight in the unknown unknown for us the public, that is different for the US and NK military, and how our perspective might be distorted. Furthermore, the US army monopoly on information about this ensures us that our perspective won't be straightened, except for a miraculous whistle-blowing. The situation might not be as dire as said inmost medias, and might totally one sided, or on the other hand with a way bigger NK military might than what we know. Even experts can't have access to most of the crucial informations, so I hope this theoretical guide gave you some additional clues on the conflict and of what might hide in the shadows of the military secrets, it widens perspective though it isn't aimed at portraying the truth, rather it shows you other possibilities, however crazy they may seem, so you aren't surprised when this crisis takes a weird turn.

It is the start of a series of articles on the North Korea crisis and the conspiracy theories that are plausible in each event, aimed at giving a show of what might lie beyond the famous military secrecy.



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