DTN News - KOREAN PENINSULA DEFENSE NEWS: North Korean Fighter Jets Get A Makeover

DTN News - KOREAN PENINSULA DEFENSE NEWS: North Korean Fighter Jets Get A Makeover

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources Korea Joongang Daily
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - February 13, 2015: North Korea recently changed the color scheme on its fighter jets, military sources told the JoongAng Ilbo, in an apparent attempt to improve performance during midair combat.

“We have obtained intelligence that the North has been redesigning its fighter jets since October,” a senior military official said. “We compared old photos of their jets with newly released photos and confirmed that the colors and designs were entirely different.”

In the past, the North colored its advanced fighter jets of MiG-29s with two tones. The top was painted in a dark green, while the bottom was a sky blue. The two-tone jet was featured in a photograph taken when North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited the air force’s 1017 unit at the end of January 2012. 

MiG-29s are known for their stability and maneuverability in low altitudes, and military sources said North Korea strategically selected both colors. When observed from the sky, the dark green would ideally serve as camouflage against the ground floor, while looking up, the bottom color would blend with the sky. 

However, the North was confirmed after October to have changed the colors on the MiG-29s to a general light gray, with the addition of dark gray patterns, which was likely done to mimic cloud patterns. The bottom of the fuselage is painted a light sky blue. 

“The change appeared to be intended to better prepare for midair combat, so that enemy pilots will have more difficulty visually detecting the MiGs,” an Air Force official said. 

South Korean intelligence authorities said the North is also changing the colors of its low-altitude infiltration aircraft, AN-2s, and its silver-colored MiG-23s. 

“The drones discovered last year in Paju were sky blue in color with some lighter patches, so that they could not be visually detected from the ground,” another military official said. “The North probably is changing the colors of its fighter jets for a new purpose.” 

The South Korean military said they had also received intelligence that North Korea had developed stealth paint in late 2000. 

In its brochures for arms exports, Pyongyang also claimed their weapons have stealth functions and that its guided-missile vessel, which was used Friday in its fire drill in the East Sea, also has a stealth function. 

But even if the North’s air and naval fleets are covered with stealth paint, they probably don’t have the capability to avoid radar detection, military officials said. 

“Just because you cover it with stealth paint, that doesn’t mean the weapons system will have stealth function,” a senior military official said. “Design and material are key in minimizing the radar cross-section of an aircraft or a vessel to be stealth.

“We no longer fight in combat with visual confirmation, like in World War II,” he said. “Today, it is long-distance combat, using radars to fire at targets from dozens of kilometers away. Just because North Korea changed its color scheme, it won’t bring about a significant improvement.” 

The military added that it is equipped with radar systems that cover the entire Korean Peninsula. Additionally, the Airborne Early Warning and Control System, known as Peace-Eye, can detect when North Korean fighter jets take off, even when they are only 10 meters (32 feet) above ground.

Related Images - North Korean Fighter Jets Get A Makeover 

*Link for This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources Korea Joongang Daily
*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
*Photograph: IPF (International Pool of Friends) + DTN News / otherwise source stated
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
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DTN News - WHITE HOUSE NEWS: North Korea Has Failed Again Says Obama

Defense News: DTN News - WHITE HOUSE NEWS: North Korea Has Failed Again Says Obama

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Matthew Pennington - Associated Press
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - May 7, 2013: President Barack Obama said Tuesday that North Korea can no longer create an international crisis with nuclear provocations, asserting the United States and South Korea are fully capable of defending themselves.

"The days when North Korea could create a crisis and elicit concessions, those days are over," Obama said from the White House East Room, after he and South Korean President Park Geun-hye met privately in the Oval Office.

Obama's comments came in a news conference with Park on her first foreign visit as the country's leader. It marked the 60th anniversary of the U.S.-South Korean alliance.

Obama said that Pyongyang has failed to drive a wedge between the U.S. and South Korea or to garner global respect with its threats. He says the joint U.S.-South Korea meeting at the White House was evidence that North Korea has "failed again."

Ahead of the meeting, U.S. officials said North Korea has taken a step back from its recent escalation of regional tensions by removing from its launch site a set of medium-range ballistic missiles that had been readied for possible test-firing.

Obama says he doesn't know North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally and has never spoken to him, but says he can still take a different path. He said actions by the unpredictable young leader, who came to power after the death of his father Kim Jong Il in December 2011, seem to pursue a dead end.

"There's going to have to be changes in behavior," Obama said. "We have an expression in English, 'Don't worry about what I say, just watch what I do."

Park arrived at the White House with a color guard lining the driveway from Pennsylvania Avenue. Her Oval Office meeting, working lunch and joint news conference with Obama will be followed Wednesday by an address to a joint meeting of Congress.

Obama said such an address is an honor "reserved for our closest of friends." He called Park "tough," spoke of a great friendship between the two nations and joked that "the Korean wave" of culture has hit the United States.

"My daughters have taught me a pretty good 'Gangnam Style,'" Obama joked, a reference to the hit dance song by South Korean singer PSY that has become YouTube's most watched video with 1.5 billion views since its release last summer.

Park has had something of a baptism of fire since she took office in February, two weeks after North Korea's latest atomic test ratcheted up tensions on the divided Korean Peninsula and undermined her hopes of forging a more trusting relationship with a difficult neighbor.

"Instead of just hoping to see North Korea change, the international community must consistently send the message with one voice, to tell them and communicate to them that they have no choice but to change," Park said.

After the U.N. Security Council tightened sanctions on North Korea in response to the nuclear test — its third since 2006 — it claims to have scrapped the 1953 Korean War armistice and has threatened nuclear strikes on the U.S., prompting Washington to bolster missile defenses.

Two Musudan missiles at a site in eastern North Korea had been in what American officials described as launch-ready status for some weeks. Two U.S. officials confirmed their removal on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss a matter involving sensitive U.S. intelligence. It's not clear why they removed the missiles in recent days, but Pentagon press secretary George Little said on Monday that U.S. officials have seen a "provocation pause" by North Korea.

Park touched down in New York on Monday, meeting first with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a former South Korean foreign minister who praised her "firm but measured" response to North Korean provocations and determination to resolve their differences though dialogue.

However, Park made clear in an interview on the eve of her visit that she was willing to get tough on North Korea. She told CBS News that if South Korea came under attack, "We will make them pay."

Park, the first democratically elected female leader in Northeast Asia, is no stranger to Seoul's Blue House, as the residence of the chief executive is known. She's the daughter of the late South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee, and in her 20s she took over the duties of first lady for five years after a gunman claiming orders from North Korea killed her mother in a botched attack targeting her father.

While focused squarely on the North Korean threat, Park's visit is a chance to build a rapport with Obama, who enjoyed an unusually close bond with the previous South Korean leader, Lee Myung-bak. The two presided over the adoption of a U.S.-South Korean free trade pact in 2012 that expanded the scope of an alliance largely built on security ties and deterring an attack from the North. Some 28,500 U.S. troops are still based in South Korea for that purpose.

Lee took a hard line on relations with Pyongyang, cutting aid to the impoverished nation. While his approach had Obama's firm backing, public frustration in the South has mounted over the North's continued weapons tests and provocations â€" including attacks in 2010 that left dozens of South Koreans dead.

In a change of tone, Park, although a conservative, has advocated trying to build trust with Pyongyang through aid shipments and large-scale economic initiatives if there's progress on the nuclear issue, even as she and South Korea's military promise to respond forcefully to any possible attack from the North.

But to date, relations have only gotten worse. Most recently, North Korea has withdrawn its 53,000 workers from an industrial park on its territory run by South Korean companies. After Pyongyang rejected Seoul's offer of talks, the South last week withdrew its last staff from the facility, closing the last remaining symbol of inter-Korean cooperation that began during the "sunshine" engagement policy championed by Lee's more liberal predecessors.

On Tuesday, North Korea threatened the U.S. and South Korea over joint naval drills taking place this week in the Yellow Sea. The section of the Korean People's Army responsible for operations in North Korea's southwest said it will strike back if any shells fall in its territory during the drills. Should the allies respond to that, the statement said, Pyongyang's military would then strike five South Korean islands that stand along the aquatic frontline between the countries.

Daniel Russel, White House senior director for Asian affairs, said Obama would reaffirm the U.S. commitment to the defense of South Korea. He said the joint appearance of the two leaders at the White House would make it crystal clear to Pyongyang that the allies stand shoulder to shoulder.
"In dealing with North Korea, it's vital we show unity," Russel told reporters.

Dealing with Pyongyang's secretive regime, never easy, has become increasingly tough under the unpredictable young leader Kim Jong Un, who came to power after the death of his father Kim Jong Il in December 2011.

Russel cautioned it was premature to judge whether North Korea's cycle of provocation "is going up, down or zigzagging." He said both the U.S. and South Korea support "incremental engagement" with Pyongyang, but it has to take "irreversible steps" signaling a commitment to end its nuclear program.

The past year has already seen disconcerting progress in the North's weapons development, including its first successful launch of a three-stage, long-range rocket, although it is not yet believed to have to have the means to fire a nuclear-tipped missile at mainland America.

The Obama administration has put increasing emphasis on the role the North's main ally and benefactor, China, can play to press Pyongyang to honor its previous commitments on denuclearization. In a significant move, one of China's biggest banks said Tuesday it has halted business with a North Korean bank accused by the U.S. of financing Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs in the latest sign of Beijing's displeasure with its estranged ally.
___
Associated Press writers Robert Burns, Nedra Pickler and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Matthew Pennington - Associated Press
*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
*Photograph: IPF (International Pool of Friends) + DTN News / otherwise source stated
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
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DTN News - KOREAN PENINSULA NEWS: Britain Fires Back At North Korea - Rogue State Warned It Faces 'Further Isolation' After Declaration of War Against The South

Defense News: DTN News - KOREAN PENINSULA NEWS: Britain Fires Back At North Korea - Rogue State Warned It Faces 'Further Isolation' After Declaration of War Against The South
*Tens of thousands turn out for show of force in Kim Il Sung Square
*It follows images of U.S. stealth bombers flying over Pyeongtaek
*Tensions on Korean peninsula rising after Pyongyang's latest nuclear test
*North Korea also said it had entered a 'state of war' with South Korea

Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Daniel Miller - Dailymail UK
(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - March 31, 2013: Britain has hit back at North Korea after it declared a 'state of war' against its southern neighbour, with the foreign office saying such threatening statements would 'only seek to isolate it further'.

In the latest in a series of increasingly belligerent outbursts, Pyongyang also threatened it would shut down the joint industrial zone on the border between the two countries, if Seoul continued to 'insult its integrity'. 

Meanwhile the White House said it takes North Korea's announcements seriously but added that Pyongyang has a long history of bellicose rhetoric.

Scroll down for video

Declaration: North Korea's young leader Kim Jong Un pictured on Thursday this week. The rogue state announced today that it is at war with the South

Transfixed: South Koreans watch a TV news report showing featuring Kim Jong Un at a Seoul Railway Station 

North Korea warned Seoul on Saturday that the Korean Peninsula was entering 'a state of war' and threatened to shut down a factory complex that's the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation

It is the latest in a series sabre-rattling announcements from the rogue state since the United Nations imposed new sanctions in response to the country's latest nuclear test last month.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: 'We have noted today's statement from North Korea.

'We have made clear to North Korea that its long-term interests will only be served by constructive engagement with the international community. These threatening statements will only seek to isolate it further.

'The armistice agreement has enabled the Korean peninsula to benefit from 60 years' peace. Maintaining it is in the best interests of all.'

More...

• Kim Jong Un reveals his 'U.S. mainland strike plan': Pictures inside North Korean leader's war room show him plotting to attack America (with a map of target cities on the wall behind him)
• Thousands of North Koreans attend anti-US rally after Kim Jong Un orders rockets on standby for attack on American military bases

In today's announcement, North Korea said that all matters between it and the south will now be dealt with in a manner befitting war.

'From this time on, the North-South relations will be entering the state of war and all issues raised between the North and the South will be handled accordingly,' a statement carried by the North's official KCNA news agency said.

A White House spokesman said:'We've seen reports of a new and unconstructive statement from North Korea. We take these threats seriously and remain in close contact with our South Korean allies,' said Caitlin Hayden, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council.

Firepower: A picture released by North Korea's state-controlled media shows army units firing rockets during a landing exercise on March 25

Commander in chief: North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un is surrounded by military officials as he takes centre stage during a beach landing exercise last week

North Korean workers work at a factory South Korean-owned factory in the Kaesong joint industrial zone

'But, we would also note that North Korea has a long history of bellicose rhetoric and threats and today's announcement follows that familiar pattern,' she said.

The United States flew two nuclear-capable stealth bombers over the Korean peninsula as part of a military exercise this week in a show of force to reassure U.S. allies in the region.

The Pentagon has also been beefing up U.S. missile defense capabilities on the West Coast. The United States has been stressing that it has the capability and willingness to protect itself and U.S. allies in the region.

'We remain fully prepared and capable of defending and protecting the United States and our allies,' said Hayden.

KAESONG JOINT INDUSTRIAL ZONE

Kaesong Industrial Park is located six miles north of the Demilitarized Zone and was opened in December 2004.

The zone is mutually beneficial as it provides the north with a source of foreign currency and the south with a supply of cheap labour.

An estimated 53,507 North Korean workers were believed to be employed in Kaesong at the end of 2012.

In 2012 wages in Kaesong were estimated to be around a fifth of the South Korean minimum wage, and about a quarter of typical Chinese wages.

It means firms are able compete with China in the production of low-end goods such as shoes, clothes, and watches.

Kaesong is linked by road and rail and an estimated but there are strict border checks from both sides and defections are rare. 

'We continue to take additional measures against the North Korean threat, including our plan to increase the U.S. ground-based interceptors and early warning and tracking radar,' and the recent signing of a South Korean-U.S. counter-provocation plan.

The Kaesong industrial zone is a source of hard currency for the impoverished state and hundreds of South Korean workers and vehicles enter daily after crossing the heavily armed border between the rivals.

'If the puppet traitor group continues to mention the fact Kaesong industrial zone is being kept operating and damages our dignity, it will be mercilessly shut off and shut down,' the North's KCNA news agency quoted an agency that operates the factory park just miles north of the rivals' armed border as saying. 

The two Koreas have been technically in a state of war for six decades under an armistice that ended their 1950-53 conflict. Pyongyang said it was scrapping the war armistice earlier this month.

Despite its threats few people see any indication Pyongyang will risk a near-certain defeat by re-starting full-scale war.

The South brushed off the statement as little more than tough talk saying was no sign of unusual activity in the North's military or anything to suggest an imminent aggression.

North Korea has been threatening to attack the South and U.S. military bases almost on a daily basis since the beginning of March, when U.S. and South Korean militaries started routine drills.

Yesterday pictures were released of Kim Jong Un inside his military command centre signing the order to put rockets on standby to attack the U.S..

The pictures, which appeared in the state-run Rodong newspaper, show Kim surrounded by his generals, large-scale maps and diagrams during an 'emergency meeting' at an undisclosed location.

A chart marked 'U.S. mainland strike plan' appears to show missile trajectories that the NK News web Declaration: North Korea's young leader Kim Jong Un pictured on Thursday this week. The rogue state announced today that it is at war with the South. 

North Korea declares 'state of war' with South Korea

War bunker: North Korean leader Kim Jong-un presides over an urgent operation meeting with his generals after the country put its rocket units on standby to attack U.S. military bases in South Korea and the Pacific

On a war footing: Kim Jong Un makes notes after ordering strategic rocket forces to be on standby to strike U.S. and South Korean targets at any time

Retaliation: A map appears to show potential targets of the rocket attacks. Kim's order followed a drill by two U.S. stealth bombers over the Korean Peninsula the previous day

Trajectory: By superimposing a map of the U.S. onto the photograph of the North Korean war room, researchers at the University of Alabama were able to chart its predicted path

However closer inspection of the chart shows the flight path missing these targets as it cuts through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.

The order from Kim Jong Un came after the U.S. flew two stealth bombers over the Korean peninsula as part of a joint military exercise.

More...

• Kim Jong Un reveals his 'U.S. mainland strike plan': Pictures inside North Korean leader's war room show him plotting to attack America (with a map of target cities on the wall behind him)
• Thousands of North Koreans attend anti-US rally after Kim Jong Un orders rockets on standby for attack on American military bases

The 30-year-old leader  warned his forces were ready 'to settle accounts with the U.S.' after the nuclear-capable bombers dropped dummy munitions on a South Korean island range as part of joint drills and returned to their base in Missouri.

Threat: A large number U.S. military bases in the Pacific are within range of the new missiles - shown here

The U.S. said the stealth bomber practice runs were designed to show its ability to conduct long-range, precision strikes 'quickly and at will.'

Seoul, which has been carrying out routine military drills with America, says it is closely monitoring movements in North Korea.

Many Western experts believe the aggressive posturing is part of a grand master plan to force Washington to the negotiating table and put pressure the new president in Seoul to change policy on North Korea. 

Pyongyang is angry about a hike in sanctions, imposed after it carried out a third nuclear test in February.

A full-blown North Korean attack is unlikely. However, there are fears of a more localised conflict.

Tens of thousands of North Koreans turned out for the mass rally at the main square in Pyongyang in support of their leader Kim Jong Un's call to arms

North Koreans gather at a rally at Kim Il Sung Square in downtown Pyongyang, North Korea

University students punch the air as they march through Kim Il Sung Square

Placards read: 'Let's crush the puppet traitor group' and 'Let's rip the puppet traitors to death!'

Narushige Michishita, director of the Security and International Studies Program at Japan's National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, isn't convinced North Korea is capable of attacking Guam, Hawaii or the U.S. mainland. 

He says Pyongyang hasn't successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile.

But its medium-range Rodong missiles, with a range of about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers), are 'operational and credible' and could reach U.S. bases in Japan, he says.

The country's official KCNA news agency reported that Kim Jong Un has signed off on orders to train sights on bases in South Korea and the Pacific following a meeting with top generals.

The news comes just hours after U.S. stealth bombers with nuclear-capability took to the skies over South Korea on Thursday.

Relations between South Korea and its neighbor to the North have continued to deteriorate in recent days and KCNA reports that Kim Jong Un had 'judged the time has come to settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists in view of the prevailing situation.'

The agency said: 'He finally signed the plan on technical preparations of strategic rockets of the KPA, ordering them to be standby for fire so that they may strike any time the U.S. mainland, its military bases in the operational theaters in the Pacific, including Hawaii and Guam, and those in South Korea.' 

RAW: NK rally chants 'death to U.S. imperialists', 'sweep away...

North Korea is said to have put missile units on standby to attack American bases in South Korea and the Pacific

Mass anti-American rally: The placard here reads: 'U.S. forces, get out!'

Pyongyang is angry about a hike in sanctions, imposed after it carried out a third nuclear test in February

The soldiers and students are shown holding placards that read: 'Reunification of the motherland,' left, and 'Let's rip apart the puppet traitors,' centre

Kim Jong-un giving instructions while inspecting the North Korean army's landing exercise on the eastern coast on Monday

The images - which show a pair of U.S. Air Force B-2 bombers soaring over an American military base south of Seoul - were taken after it emerged North Korea had digitally doctored a state photo of military hovercraft to make the fleet appear bigger than it was.

The photo, issued by the Korean Central News Agency and widely carried in the international media on Tuesday, was said to show the hovercraft coming ashore on North Korea’s east coast the previous day.

But on closer examination the photograph seems to have been doctored, with images of two hovercraft each used twice and another pasted in.

'Deterrence': A B-2 stealth bomber (right) soars through the sky over a U.S. air base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, amid rising tension between the country and its neighbour to the North

Tensions: The drill involved the bomber striking a mock target, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap

The stealth bomber drill was carried out after North Korea declared it was severing its key hotline to Seoul, amid anger over joint U.S. and South Korean military drills and tough sanctions imposed in the wake of Pyongyang's recent nuclear test.

The South Korean news agency Yonhap said the drills were described by the U.S. as 'deterrence missions'.

It quoted a military source as saying the drill involved the bomber - capable of deploying both nuclear and conventional weapons - striking a mock target.

This week Pyongyang, which is dealing with tightened economic sanctions following its internationally condemned decision to launch a third nuclear test last month, repeated threats to target U.S. military bases in response.

Enlarge 

Suspicious: North Korea's state-issued photograph purported to show eight military hovercraft storming a beach, but close inspection suggests some vessels were digitally added

Propaganda: This image shows which of the hovercraft were added to the picture

The rhetoric from North Korea - which has threatened the United States with nuclear war and rehearsed drone attacks on South Korea - and Washington's hardening reaction, has drawn more concern from China, Pyongyang's only major ally.

China has described the situation as 'sensitive'.

Pyongyang says United Nations sanctions, agreed after North Korea carried out a third nuclear test in February, are part of a Washington-led plot to topple its leadership.

'From this moment, the Supreme Command of the Korean People's Army will be putting into combat duty posture No. 1 all field artillery units, including long-range artillery units and strategic rocket units, that will target all enemy objects in U.S. invasionary bases on its mainland, Hawaii and Guam, the North's KCNA news agency said on Tuesday.

The order was issued in a statement from the North Korea's military 'supreme command'.

The Pentagon condemned North Korea's rhetoric, saying it was designed to 'raise tensions and intimidate others'.

KIM JONG'S MASTER PLAN:  WHY NORTH KOREA'S AGGRESIVE POSTURING IS JUST A ROUSE TO BRING WASHINGTON TO THE NEGOTIATING TABLE

Call my bluff? North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un appears to be trying to force Washington to the negotiating table

Across North Korea, soldiers are gearing up for battle and shrouding their jeeps and vans with camouflage netting. Newly painted signboards and posters call for 'death to the U.S. imperialists' and urge the people to fight with 'arms, not words.' 

But even as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is issuing midnight battle cries to his generals to ready their rockets, he and his million-man army know full well that a successful missile strike on U.S. targets would be suicide for the outnumbered, out-powered North Korean regime. 

Despite the hastening drumbeat of warfare, none of the key players in the region wants or expects another Korean War - not even the North Koreans. 

But by seemingly bringing the region to the very brink of conflict with threats and provocations, Pyongyang is aiming to draw attention to the tenuousness of the armistice designed to maintain peace on the Korean Peninsula, a truce North Korea recently announced it would no longer honor as it warned that war could break out at any time. 

It's all part of a grand master plan to force Washington to the negotiating table, pressure the new president in Seoul to change policy on North Korea, and build unity at home - without triggering a full-blown war if all goes well. 

In July, it will be 60 years since North Korea and China signed an armistice with the U.S. and the United Nations to bring an end to three years of brutal, bloody Cold War fighting that cost millions of lives. The designated 'Demilitarized Zone' has evolved into the most heavily guarded border in the world. 

It was never intended to be a permanent border. But six decades later, North and South remain divided, with Pyongyang feeling abandoned by the South Koreans in the quest for reunification and threatened by the Americans.

In that time, South Korea has blossomed from a poor, agrarian nation of peasants into the world's 15th largest economy while North Korea is struggling to find a way out of a Cold War chasm that has left it with a per capita income on par with sub-Saharan Africa. 

The Chinese troops who fought alongside the North Koreans have long since left. But 28,500 American troops are still stationed in South Korea and 50,000 more are in nearby Japan. 

For weeks, the U.S. and South Korea have been showing off their military might with a series of joint exercises that Pyongyang sees as a rehearsal for invasion. 

For weeks, the U.S. and South Korea have been showing off their military might with a series of joint exercises that Pyongyang sees as a rehearsal for invasion

On Thursday, the U.S. military confirmed that those drills included two nuclear-capable B-2 stealth bombers that can unload the U.S. Air Force's largest conventional bomb - a 30,000-pound super bunker buster - powerful enough to destroy North Korea's web of underground military tunnels. 

It was a provocative play by Washington, a flexing of military muscle perhaps aimed not only at Pyongyang but at Beijing as well. 

In Pyongyang, Kim Jong Un reacted swiftly, calling an emergency meeting of army generals and ordering them to be prepared to strike if the U.S. provocations continue. 

A photo distributed by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency showed Kim in a military operations room with maps detailing a 'strike plan' behind him in a very public show of supposedly sensitive military strategy. 

North Korea cites the U.S. military threat as a key reason behind its need to build nuclear weapons, and has poured a huge chunk of its small national budget into defense, science and technology. 

In December, scientists launched a satellite into space on the back of a long-range rocket using technology that could easily be converted for missiles; in February, they tested an underground nuclear device as part of a mission to build a bomb they can load on a missile capable of reaching the U.S. 

North Koreans gather at a rally at Kim Il Sung Square in downtown Pyongyang, North Korea on Friday, March 28, 2013

However, what North Korea really wants is legitimacy in the eyes of the U.S. - and a peace treaty. Pyongyang wants U.S. troops off Korean soil, and the bombs and rockets are more of an expensive, dangerous safety blanket than real firepower. 

They are the only real playing card North Korea has left, and the bait they hope will bring the Americans to the negotiating table. 

Narushige Michishita, director of the Security and International Studies Program at Japan's National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, isn't convinced North Korea is capable of attacking Guam, Hawaii or the U.S. mainland. He says Pyongyang hasn't successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile. 

But its medium-range Rodong missiles, with a range of about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers), are 'operational and credible' and could reach U.S. bases in Japan, he says. 

More likely than such a strike, however, is a smaller-scale incident, perhaps off the Koreas' western coast, that would not provoke the Americans to unleash their considerable firepower. 

For years, the waters off the west coast have been a battleground for naval skirmishes between the two Koreas because the North has never recognized the maritime border drawn unilaterally by the U.N. 

As threatening as Kim's call to arms may sound, its main target audience may be the masses at home in North Korea. 

For months, the masterminds of North Korean propaganda have pinpointed this year's milestone Korean War anniversary as a prime time to play up Kim's military credibility as well as to push for a peace treaty. 

By creating the impression that a U.S. attack is imminent, the regime can foster a sense of national unity and encourage the people to rally around their new leader. 

Inside Pyongyang, much of the military rhetoric feels like theatrics. It's not unusual to see people toting rifles in North Korea, where soldiers and checkpoints are a fixture in the heavily militarized society. 

But more often than not in downtown Pyongyang, the rifle stashed in a rucksack is a prop and the 'soldier' is a dancer, one of the many performers rehearsing for a Korean War-themed extravaganza set to debut later this year. 

More than 100,000 soldiers, students and ordinary workers were summoned Friday to Kim Il Sung Square in downtown Pyongyang to pump their fists in support of North Korea's commander in chief. But elsewhere, it was business as usual at restaurants and shops, and farms and factories, where the workers have heard it all before. 

'Tensions rise almost every year around the time the U.S.-South Korean drills take place, but as soon as those drills end, things go back to normal and people put those tensions behind them quite quickly,' said Sung Hyun-sang, the South Korean president of a clothing maker operating in the North Korean border town of Kaesong. 'I think and hope that this time won't be different.' 

And in a telling sign that even the North Koreans don't expect war, the national airline, Air Koryo, is adding flights to its spring lineup and preparing to host the scores of tourists they expect to flock to Pyongyang despite the threats issuing forth from the Supreme Command. 

War or no war, it seems Pyongyang remains open for business. 

*Link for This article compiled by Roger Smith from reliable sources By Daniel Miller - Dailymail UK
*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News 
*Photograph: IPF (International Pool of Friends) + DTN News / otherwise source stated
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com 
©COPYRIGHT (C) DTN NEWS DEFENSE-TECHNOLOGY NEWS