North Korea claims to have “a multi-functional thermonuclear nuke … which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP [electromagnetic pulse] attack according to strategic goals.” What will we do? Read Full Story
Category Archives: North Korea
September 5, 2017—EMP Threat: Keep the Commission!
North Korea’s state news agency KCNA News for the first time reported on Sunday that the “explosive power” of the hydrogen bomb was “adjustable from ten kilotons to hundreds kiloton [sic.];” and that the weapon was described as “a multi-functional thermonuclear nuke … which can be detonated even at high altitudes for super-powerful EMP [electromagnetic pulse] attack according to strategic goals.” Read Full Story
August 29, 2017—Shut the Back Door!
An old adage is that “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Hopefully, that adage is true and can illustrate an apparent existential threat to all Americans that North Korea already poses. It is not a new threat — North Korea years ago demonstrated its inherent capability to deliver that threat, once it gains sufficient nuclear weapons. Now we know Kim Jong Un has the nuclear weapons to execute that existential threat with plenty left over, even while our preparations to counter it seem minimal. We should urgently correct this mistaken set of priorities! Read Full Story
August 15, 2017—Hill Action Items!
The past couple of weeks, I joined several other contributors to The Hill, which delivers the daily news focused on the interest of Capitol Hill, to discuss the implications of North Korea entering the ranks of deliverable nuclear weapons by ballistic missiles, particularly intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that can reach cities in the Continental United States. If you visit congressional offices as well as many other offices around Washington, you will find this daily newspaper on their coffee tables. Given several recent The Hill articles, there’s no excuse for our Senators and Representatives not to understand the threat that is here now. Read Full Story
July 11, 2017—So … What’s New, Pussycat?
“Certainly, we do not want for things to get to a military conflict . . .” but if North Korean leaders “elevate the threat of their weapons program to a level that we believe requires action, that option [a military response] is on the table.” ~Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Reuters, March 17, 2017 Read Full Story
July 5, 2017—Kim’s Celebration on our Fourth!
Conventional wisdom has held that it will be years before North Korea can threaten the United States with a nuclear attack. That judgement is quite wrong as illustrated in yesterday’s early morning hours when North Korea conducted its 13th ballistic missile test this year — this time on a lofted trajectory that, if straightened out, some experts claim could reach Alaska. Actually the threat is even much greater and more eminent than that. Read Full Story
June 27, 2017—The Gruesome Twosome!
“The very first missiles we saw in Iran were simply copies of North Korean missiles. . . Over the years, we’ve seen photographs of North Korean and Iranian officials in each other’s countries, and we’ve seen all kinds of common hardware.” ~Jeffrey Lewis, a missile proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Read Full Story
June 13, 2017—Lights Out?
Analysts who write off the possibility of a nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack from North Korea as “unlikely” and “science fiction” because they believe the 10 to 20 kiloton nuclear weapons currently possessed by North Korea are incapable of making an effective EMP attack, dismiss the consensus view of “EMP experts who have advanced degrees in physics and electrical engineering along with several decades of experience in the field — with access to classified data throughout that time — and who have conducted EMP tests on a wide variety of electronic systems, beginning in 1963.” ~ Dr. William R. Graham, President Reagan’s Science Advisor and current Chairman of the EMP Commission. Read Full Story
June 6, 2017—Too Little, Too Late?
USAF General John Hyten, Commander of United States Strategic Command, testified on May 9th that North Korea now has the range capability to strike the United States with a ballistic missile. “It is a matter of physics and math.” DIA Director Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart testified on May 23rd that the only hurdle left for it to attack the U.S with nuclear weapons is finding a way for its ballistic missile to re-enter the atmosphere, which he said is “really a matter of enough trial and error to make that work . . . They understand the physics, so it’s just a matter of design.” Read Full Story
May 16, 2017—Worse Case: North Korea or Iran?
“. . . Congress should look at EMP attacks as one of the three great threats to our survival, the other two being cyber warfare and nuclear weapons. And they should regard all three as catastrophic. For us to survive as a civilization we have to be able to defeat all three . . . [Not to do so is] gambling with our civilization . . . ” Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich at the May 4, 2017 Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Hearing on EMP and Policy Options to Protect the Grid. Read Full Story
Key Policy Briefs
We will be adding key policy briefs as we progress.