By The South Koreans are still busy trying to get their missile agreement with the US revised:
Seoul and Washington have started talks to revise a bilateral accord that limits South Korea’s ballistic missile range to 300 km.
“The two sides have recently started talks on the revision of the missile accord because there is now some consensus between them,” a government source said. “The talks are still in their initial stage, so it remains to be seen how much we can increase the range and payload weight.”
The accord, signed in 1979, was revised once before in 2001. It limits the range of South Korea’s ballistic missiles to 300 km and their payload weight to 500 kg, preventing Seoul from matching the range of missiles to those North Korea has been developing. [Chosun Ilbo]
The school of thought seems to be that if South Korea is allowed to develop long range missiles then it legitimizes North Korea’s attempts to make these missiles as well. That is all well and good but North Korea just like with their nuclear weapons program is going to develop these weapons anyway.
1:46 pm on January 19th, 2011 1
Didn't we have nukes facing North Korea from the South until around 1992?
3:03 pm on January 19th, 2011 2
Liz, You are correct. We had tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea, the last of which was withdrawn in Dec 1991. To me withdrawing the weapons was foolish, they were a deterrent to communist North Korea. Also the North Korea now have tested Nuclear weapons & are known to have chemical & biological weapons. I read one time that blood test were done on North Korean soldiers who had defected to South Korea & they found antibodies to the smallpox virus. Smallpox has been extinct in the world for decades so there is no reason to immunize their soldiers against it unless the North Korean have smallpox weapons in their inventory.
10:32 pm on January 19th, 2011 3
Just more bloody appeasement…
1:53 am on January 21st, 2011 4
I think they are trying to develop a missile that will reach Canada in order to target Tom. Apparently he has become a national embarassment and they are trying to eliminate him.
I was in an Honest John Rocket battery that had nuclear warheads when I was over there. But I think the maximum range was only about 26 miles.
3:48 am on January 23rd, 2011 5
[...] While GI Korea at ROK Drop suggests that the limits might be in place to prevent South Korea from le… it is hard to dismiss the notion that the US is unwilling to put Tokyo in range of South Korean missiles. [...]
1:25 am on January 26th, 2011 6
[...] While GI Korea at ROK Drop suggests that the limits might be in place to prevent South Korea from le… it is hard to dismiss the notion that the US is unwilling to put Tokyo in range of South Korean missiles. [...]