Friday, June 9, 2017

Is North Korea Developing An EMP Weapon?

A satellite photo of Korea illustrates the South’s dependence on electricity. PHOTO: NASA

Henry F. Cooper, WSJ: North Korea Dreams of Turning Out the Lights

Pyongyang doesn’t need a perfect missile. Detonating a nuke above Seoul—or L.A.—would sow chaos.

Conventional wisdom holds that it will be years before North Korea can credibly threaten the United States with a nuclear attack. Kim Jong Un’s scientists are still testing only low-yield nuclear weapons, the thinking goes, and have yet to place them on ballistic missiles capable of reaching America’s West Coast.

While its technological shortcomings have been well documented, North Korea’s desire to provoke a nuclear conflict with the U.S. should not be minimized or ignored. Pyongyang is surely close to getting it right.

For South Korea the danger is more immediate. According to physicist David Albright, the founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, the North Koreans have between 13 and 30 nuclear weapons and can build as many as five more every year. If Mr. Kim were to detonate one of these bombs in the atmosphere 40 miles above Seoul, it could inflict catastrophic damage on South Korea’s electric power grid, leading to a prolonged blackout that could have deadly consequences.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: Any detonation of a nuclear device by North Korea .... even an EMP device .... would be seen as a declaration of war. The failure of the electrical grid would be at the bottom of everyone's list on what to worry.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

This globe picture is so fake , the curve show how fake it is wy we should beleve that north korea built weapon when america bring fake news to us.

Ropestuff said...

Far more dangerous than North Korea is resurgence in the idea that the earth is flat.

Unknown said...

If you think the earth is flat you should go live in North Korea.

Unknown said...

Hmm...
Facing an army of soldiers on the front lines of a war or being surrounded by mobs of desperate and hungry civilians who have gone off their meds ...?
I can't decide which would be at the top of my list of worries.

Ropestuff said...

No Jonathan, the earth is most definitely not flat. But that's what I thought you were trying to say up there.

Unknown said...

He was just saying if they can't use accurate graphics--which they can't--how can we trust them on other subjects?
Stupid graphics bother me a lot, too.
I was at a zoo where there was a graphic purporting to show the wingspan of a condor, at roughly 9 feet.
Guess somewhere along the way a graphic artist got ahold of it, felt s/he had to shrink the whole thing by about 20%.
I was able to calm down after a few minutes but maybe you get my point.

Unknown said...

When Inanna heard this -
She, the Goddess of Love and Battle heard this -
She was infuriated.
She went to heaven immediately
And saw her father An, the Sky God
Before him she wept,
And before her mother, Antum, she wept.
And she said:
'Father, Gilgamesh has insuted me!
He enumerated all my evil deeds!
He has said I am foul odour and I am evil!'
An spoke, said to the glorious Inanna:
'Are you the father?
You have quarreled with Gilgamesh the King.
And so he told you your evil deeds,
The odour of them.'
Inanna spoke to her father An:
'Father, please give me the Bull of Heaven
So that he can smite King Gilgamesh even in his own home.
And if you don't give me the Bull of Heaven
I will go down to the Underworld and smash its doors!
I will place those above below!
The doors will be left wide open and the dead will get out,
Eat all the food,
And the dead will then outnumber the living!
An spoke
Said to glorious Inanna:
'If you desire from the Bull of Heaven,
There there will be seven years
Of barren husks in the land of Uruk.
Have you gathered enough grain for the people?
Have you grown enough fodder for the beasts?'
Inanna spoke, said to her father An:
'I have stored enough grain for the people
I have provided enough fodder for the animals
If there should be seven years of no crops
I have gathered grain for the people
I have grown fodder for the beasts.'
(Here three lines are lost)
When An heard this speech of Inanna
He gave her the tether of the Bull of Heaven,
So that Inanna might lead it to Uruk.

Unknown said...

I bet she didn't really store 7 years of grain. She hasn't always been reliable.

Unknown said...

But is it really fake? You're saying it's too much curve? At first I agreed but now not so sure. But it's the graphic artists who are to blame for making this issue, for sowing uncertainty. With their untamed zooms and distorted pans. Makes me queasy!