North Korea
now has an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of
delivering a nuclear weapon to the United States, as demonstrated by
their successful launch and orbiting of a satellite on Dec. 12. Certain
poorly informed pundits among the chattering classes reassure us that North Korea
is still years away from being able to miniaturize warheads for missile
delivery, and from developing sufficiently accurate missiles to pose a
serious nuclear threat to the United States. Philip Yun, director of San Francisco’s Ploughshares Fund,
a nuclear disarmament group, reportedly said, “The real threat from the
launch was an overreaction that would lead to more defense spending on
unnecessary systems. The sky is not falling. We shouldn’t be panicked.”
In fact, North Korea is a mortal nuclear threat to the United States— right now.
North Korea
has already successfully tested and developed nuclear weapons. It has
also already miniaturized nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery
and has armed missiles with nuclear warheads. In 2011, the director of
the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. General Ronald Burgess, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that North Korea has weaponized its nuclear devices into warheads for ballistic missiles.
North Korea
has labored for years and starved its people so it could develop an
intercontinental missile capable of reaching the United States. Why?
Because they have a special kind of nuclear weapon that could destroy
the United States with a single blow.
In summer 2004, a delegation
of Russian generals warned the Congressional Electromagnetic Pulse
(EMP) Commission that secrets had leaked to North Korea for a decisive new nuclear weapon — a Super-EMP warhead.
Any
nuclear weapon detonated above an altitude of 30 kilometers will
generate an electromagnetic pulse that will destroy electronics and
could collapse the electric power grid and other critical
infrastructures — communications, transportation, banking and finance,
food and water — that sustain modern civilization and the lives of 300
million Americans. All could be destroyed by a single nuclear weapon
making an EMP attack.
A Super-EMP attack on the United States
would cause much more and much deeper damage than a primitive nuclear
weapon, and so would increase confidence that the catastrophic
consequences will be irreversible. Such an attack would inflict maximum
damage and be optimum for realizing a world without America.
Both
North Korean nuclear tests look suspiciously like a Super-EMP weapon. A
Super-EMP warhead would have a low yield, like the North Korean device,
because it is not designed to create a big explosion, but to convert its
energy into gamma rays, that generate the EMP effect. Reportedly South
Korean military intelligence concluded, independent of the EMP
Commission, that Russian scientists are in North Korea helping develop a Super-EMP warhead. In 2012, a military commentator for the People’s Republic of China stated that North Korea has Super-EMP nuclear warheads.
A Super-EMP warhead would not weigh much, and could probably be delivered by North Korea’s
ICBM. The missile does not have to be accurate, as the EMP field is so
large that detonating anywhere over the United States would have
catastrophic consequences. The warhead does not even need a re-entry
vehicle, as an EMP attack entails detonating the warhead at
high-altitude, above the atmosphere.
So, as of Dec. 12, North Korea’s successful orbit of a satellite demonstrates its ability to make an EMP attack against the United States — right now.
The Congressional EMP Commission
estimates that, given the nation’s current unpreparedness, within one
year of an EMP attack, two-thirds of the U.S. population — 200 million
Americans — would probably perish from starvation, disease and societal
collapse.
Thus, North Korea
now has an Assured Destruction capability against the United States.
The consequences of this development are so extremely grave that U.S.
and global security have, in effect, gone over the “strategic cliff”
into free-fall. Where we will land, into what kind of future, is as yet
unknown.
Nevertheless, some very bad developments are foreseeable. Iran will certainly be inspired by North Korea’s
example to persist in the development of its own nuclear weapon and
ICBM programs to pose a mortal threat to the United States. Indeed, North Korea and Iran have been collaborating all along.
If North Korea and Iran
both acquire the capability to threaten America with EMP genocide, this
will destroy the foundations of the existing world order, which has
since 1945 halted the cycle of world wars and sustained the global
advancement of freedom. North Korea and Iran
being armed with Assured Destruction capability changes the whole
strategic calculus of risk for the United States in upholding its
superpower role, and will erode the confidence of U.S. allies — perhaps
to the point where they will need to develop their own nuclear weapons.
Most alarming, we are fast moving to a place where, for the first time in history, failed little states like North Korea and Iran,
that cannot even feed their own people, will have power in their hands
to blackmail or destroy the largest and most successful societies on
Earth. North Korea and Iran
perceive themselves to be at war with the United States, and are
desperate, highly unpredictable characters. When the mob is at the gates
of their dictators, will they want to take America with them down into
darkness?
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