FOBS?

This is coolbert:

From the Chicago Tribune today:

"NATION & WORLD"

"U.S. seeks N. Korea pressure"

From the article:

"The North Koreans 'crossed a technological threshold that no other non-allied country except China and the Soviet Union [Russia] have crossed.'"

Even more so:

"A worrisome rocket launch"

"U.S. missile-warning systems indicated that a North Korean rocket appeared to deploy an object that achieved orbit. The rockets's first and second stages fell into the ocean near South Korea and the Philippines."

A POLAR orbit of some sort of satellite this is? Very strange that launch from north to south. Unprecedented for previous North Korean attempted space endeavors?

My instantaneous and intuitive response is that this a throwback, a NORTH KOREAN VERSION OF THE OLD SOVIET FRACTIONAL ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT SYSTEM [FOBS]!

A nuclear weapon in orbit around the earth that on command can be brought into re-entry on any point on the surface of the planet?

FOBS by agreement with the Soviets a NOW forbidden weapon? For the Russian adherents to the treaty perhaps BUT NOT to Pyongyang perhaps? Indeed this might be very worrisome to American military planners. Is it merely a satellite or otherwise? WHO can tell?

Or am I assuming too much here? Readers to the blog can comment on my fevered [?] imagination?

coolbert.