N. Korea's rocket fueling imminent

North Korea is expected to begin fueling a long-range rocket soon, the final step toward its launch set for as early as this week.

According to officials on the condition, North Korea has only fueling remaining after completing the installation of three stages of boosters on a launch pad. And fueling is expected to begin soon, considering it usually takes two to three days.

What’s worse is that if North Korea succeeds, it’s going to cripple South Korea’s reputation as a IT superpower. South Korea has been attempting to launch a satellite, Naro, ever since the year of 2010, only resulting in huge failures.

Pyongyang says the Unha-3 rocket will blast off between April 12^th and 13^th of what it claims as a satellite in orbit. South Korea, the United States and other regional powers view the claim as a pretext to disguise a banned missile test.

In an attempt to bolster its case, the North has invited foreign journalists and experts to observe the launch. Reporters from more than 20 media firms have arrived in the communist nation, according to state media. According to North Korea’s Central News Agency, foreign journalists and space experts have toured the launching station in the country's northwestern area of Cholsan.

North Korea told them Sunday that the satellite will gather necessary information on the distribution of forestry resources in the country, severity of natural disasters, crop estimates, weather forecasts and survey of natural resources during polar orbit.

According to the news agency, the foreign journalists and space experts ‘admired’ to learn that the North's space science and technology has entered the practical stage of satellite.

It also said the satellite launch is an inspiring deed and an event of historic significance of the nation.

The rocket launch is timed to celebrate the April 15 centennial of the birth of North Korea's late founder Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un.

There are several expected key factors in North Korea's decision on when to launch the rocket; of those is weather. At the moment, where international sanctions and suspension is proven to be futile, what I pray for is the weather to be terrible, so that the satellite will be delayed or even suspended.

Just another quick thought…

An ordinary US citizen might think that NK’s ability to launch long range missiles is not of importance to its security, but let me prove you wrong.

If NK has the ability fire long-range missiles, there is no guarantee that NK will one day gain the technology to fire it in US territory (i.e. California). Moreover, even if NK cannot reach US, they still have the technology to attack South Korea.

Many of you probably heard that China is the new emerging superpower, and will one day become stronger than US, creating Pax Sinica. South Korea is one of the main strategic locations to prevent this from happening. Therefore, maintaining equilibrium.

If US loses South Korea, they will lose influence in East Asia. If there ever is a war between US and China, US will need to relocate in Japan and South East Asian countries, which is quite far from the East Asian countries, making the war more difficult.

Whether you like it or not, US cannot afford to lose South Korea.

Another reason for this is the economic relationship between South Korea and the US.

Those of you who follow my blog, probably read the news article about KORUS FTA.

Although US don’t only trade with SK, the two trade quite a significant amount. If Korea goes to war, I can guarantee that the US market will be impacted.

What I hear is that although US is recovering from all the recessions of the past few years, it cannot afford another one.