DDP Newsletter, March 2013, Volume XXXI, No. 2
North Korea has published images in local newspapers with a missile strike plan against the U.S. mainland in the background, and claimed on the BBC that it has rockets poised to attack U.S. targets (http://tinyurl.com/d65c45a; http://tinyurl.com/d3m4abo). It has cut off its “hotline” with South Korea, moved ballistic missiles to the coast, and warned foreigners to evacuate both Pyongyang and South Korea. If Japan “makes the slightest move,” North Korea threatens that it would see Tokyo, a city of 30 million people, “consumed in nuclear flames” (http://tinyurl.com/d9gtojy).
Such rhetoric is “unacceptable,” stated U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. “North Korea would never be accepted as a nuclear power.” Further provocations by Kim Jong Un will “further isolate his country.” Some think it’s all a bluff to extort more cash and to build internal support for the untested 28-year-old leader (WSJ 4/3/13). A spokesman for South Korea’s president said no one felt threatened, and foreigners were not evacuating as of Apr 9. “North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear-armed missile,” stated National Intelligence Director James Clapper (Global Security Newswire 4/12/13).
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) has, however, been wrong before. And a “mistakenly” declassified sentence read before the House Armed Services Committee on Apr 11 states that the DIA has moderate confidence that “the North currently has nuclear weapons capable of delivery by ballistic missiles; however, the reliability will be low.”
While the Musudan missile, which has a range of 2,175 miles and is capable of reaching Guam, has not yet been tested by North Korea, it is a version of the well-tested, reliable Soviet SSN-6 (Wash Times 4/6/13). North Korea successfully launched a satellite in December 2012. It has conducted three test nuclear weapons explosions. The third might be a uranium rather than a plutonium bomb, which would be a “game changer” because North Korea has ample uranium deposits and could ramp up production of highly enriched uranium by dispersing centrifuges to easily hidden warehouses (Science 2/22/13).
North Korea has constructed special tunnels to protect its troops.
Some Westerners hope that China will help de-fuse the situation. It is, however, likely that extensive Chinese troop movements on the North Korean border are meant as a warning to the U.S. and South Korea, not to Kim Jong Un (http://tinyurl.com/bmng2lg).
South Korean leaders are asking for the return of tactical nuclear weapons that the U.S. withdrew in 1991 in a gesture to stop North Korea from going nuclear. Calling the U.S. nuclear deterrent a “torn umbrella,” 66% of South Koreans want their own (WSJ 4/8/13).
Japan is deploying Patriot anti-missile air defense systems, and has Aegis destroyers in the Sea of Japan to monitor the launch of missiles (Japan Times 4/9/13).
Defense Secretary Charles Hagel announced plans to add 14 missile interceptors to the 30 now in Alaska to protect against North Korea—assuming the problems with the gyro guidance system are resolved. These won’t be ready until 2017. (The Obama Administration pulled the plug on this system in 2009.) “The ‘Star Wars’ battles that raged during the Reagan administration 3 decades ago appear to be headed for a rerun,” writes Eliot Marshall (Science 3/29/13). Meanwhile, the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defenses (THAAD) system will be deployed on Guam (Global Security Newswire 4/3/12).
Is a ballistic missile—or official recognition of North Korea as a nuclear power—required for a nuclear weapon detonation in America?
OTHER THREATS
A dramatic advance in North Korea’s nuclear capability may quickly find its way to Iran. A February 2010 diplomatic cable released through WikiLeaks revealed that Iran had obtained 19 advanced North Korean missiles of a Russian R-27 design. Technology transfers are known to flow in both directions. The Pentagon insists that it will take North Korea a year to install its miniaturized warhead on an ICBM. But Jerusalem Post defense analyst Yaakov Katz believes that the time lag between Iran’s reaching nuclear capability and arming a missile with a nuclear warhead has vanished. This may cause Israel to fast-track plans to attack Tehran’s nuclear enrichment facilities (NewsMax 4/12/13).
What is the lag time for an anti-missile system to defend the U.S. East coast? “An issue of years,” stated Gen. Charles Jacoby, head of Northern Command, which is in charge of US. missile defenses. It would be affected by the time needed to develop an environmental impact statement (Canada Free Press 4/5/13).
U.S. ally Pakistan is defying sanctions against Iran by finalizing plans for a 1,600-mile pipeline. India may follow suit and violate sanctions because it too desperately needs energy (G2 Bulletin 3/19/13).
If Iran isn’t stopped, other Middle Eastern nations with nuclear ambitions include Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Egypt (WSJ 4/8/13).
A crisis in the East or South China Sea could create a peril even greater than Iran or North Korea. As more American ships move there, Beijing has let it be known that it is fielding its new DF-210 anti-ship missile. This could disable U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups using a non-nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP). The China Academy of Engineering Physics, which makes nuclear warheads, also researches high-powered microwaves. HPM weapons can take down radar, communications, and computers, and also serve as anti-satellite weapons (G2 Bulletin 3/11/13).
DUCK AND COVER
There’s a Duck and Cover Bar on the American compound in Kabul, Afghanistan, wrote a vibrant young diplomat, Anne Smedinghoff, describing her life there just before she was tragically killed by a suicide bomber. Perhaps meant as dark humor, the name still describes the first response—one that could save millions of lives—in any type of explosion. Russians forgot about it and sustained avoidable injuries when the meteorite hit Siberia on Feb 15 with the energy of 20 atomic bombs (http://tinyurl.com/bovjbc3).
After the blast wave passes, what next? Learn about immediate care of life-threatening injuries at the DDP meeting (see insert). The updated book Actions for Survival by Dr. Allen Brodsky, a speaker at past meetings, is available in economical Kindle book format from amazon.com. Dr. Brodsky recommends watching for the NukAlert-ER, the first economical instrument providing seamless coverage from background levels to life-threatening levels up to 600 R/hr, on ki4u.com.
COSMIC THREAT
The likelihood of an asteroid impact in this century with 700 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb is 30%. To deflect such an object with small spacecraft called kinetic impactors and gravity tractors we would need years of advance warning. The Sentinel Space Telescope is part of the most ambitious privately financed space mission in history (TWTW 2/16/13, on www.sepp.org, citing WSJ 2/14/13).