North Korea May Reach the US, but Not With Nukes

from The Daily Bell:

The terrifying truth about North Korea’s nuclear weapons …”North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the US,” President-elect Donald Trump tweeted on January 2. “It won’t happen!” However, the terrifying truth is that North Korea, the only country to have tested nuclear weapons in the 21st century, has just as much of a say in whether its potential nuclear arms can or will reach the US as Trump and the US do.

According to people who make their living assessing threats, North Korea has nuclear weapons and is quickly making more of them. But our research shows quite clearly that TNT can be substituted easily for atomic material and that, in any case, using nuclear material may be a good deal more difficult than is commonly made out.

Do we believe North Korea has nuclear material. Possibly. Is their program moving along the way they claim it is. Probably not. But nonetheless, according to professional watchers, North Korea is making rapid progress toward inter-continental missiles.

More:

“It can be difficult to make assessments about North Korea’s nuclear capabilities given that we have very little access to North Korea’s missile facilities,” Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy and a North Korea expert at the Arms Control Association, told Business Insider.  “But it’s clear that North Korea has made significant advances both with nuclear warheads and with ballistic missiles,” Davenport said.

North Korea’s nuclear arsenal is still in its early phases, but Kim Jong Un, the country’s leader, commands about 100 missile launchers with several missiles for each, according to Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of Arms Control Wonk.  While there’s some debate about North Korea’s stockpile of nuclear materials, “you’re looking at a few tens of warheads, but that number’s going to keep going up every year,” Lewis told Business Insider.

In comparison, the US has 1,796 nuclear missiles deployed, another 4,500 stockpiled, and 2,800 retired and waiting to be dismantled, according to the Arms Control Association.  Furthermore, North Korea presently has no way of reaching any part of the US with a missile of any sort, but Pyongyang is “likely at the point now where it could mount a nuclear warhead on a medium-range missile, and that would put South Korea, Japan, and US military installations in range of the North Korean nuclear threat,” Davenport said.

The article sounds suitably terrifying until one begins to examine the underlying evidence. Then it all begins to fall apart. According to the article, experts have “every reason to believe Kim regarding his missiles.” Really? Why is this?

We were told that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wiped out by nuclear bombs, but this evidently isn’t true. Perhaps a nuke was dropped on these two cities, or perhaps not. But they certainly were bombed using standard incendiary devices. See here.

Nor is it true that a video of even a single nuclear test was released to the public without significant alteration. See here.

According to the article, North Korea’s nuclear threat can’t easily be halted. It will only get stronger over time. All three participants, the United States, North Korea, and South Korea, all plan to go first. ”It’s a dangerous situation people haven’t thought through,” Jeffrey Lewis said.

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