Imagining the bomb went off at ground level in Broadgate, the city centre would be turned into a 300m wide and 200m deep crater, according to interactive data site Nukemap.
The map below shows the impact of a nuclear explosion in Coventry.
Fireball radius (orange)
Fatal levels of radiation would increase greatly if the nuke exploded at ground level.
The fireball radius (orange) would see the entire city centre including monuments such as the Cathedral, Broadgate and West Orchards Shopping Centre consumed by a nuclear fireball 3.2km wide.
This would stretch as far as the Ricoh Arena at one end, and Finham at the other.
The fatality rate is 100 per cent.
Crater inside radius: 150 m (0.07 km²)
Crater lip radius: 300 m (0.28 km²)
Fireball radius: 0.71 km (1.56 km²)
Air blast radius (20 psi): 1.67 km (8.8 km²)
Radiation radius (500 rem): 2.26 km (16.1 km²)
Air blast radius (5 psi): 3.52 km (39 km²)
Thermal radiation radius (3rd degree burns): 8.95 km (251 km²)
Radiation radius (green)
Slightly wider than the fireball radius. Without medical treatment, expect between 50 per cent and 90 per cent mortality from acute effects alone. Dying takes between several hours and several weeks.
Air blast radius (red – 20psi)
The most intense air blast would have a radius of 4.75km and demolish heavily built concrete buildings in the University of Warwick campus, Binley Road, and Holbooks, among other areas. The fatality rate is still 100 per cent – or very close.
Air blast radius (grey – 5psi)
A lesser air blast radius would still cause the collapse of all residential buildings within a 10km radius. That means houses would collapse all the way out in Fillongley, Bedworth, Kenilworth and Ryton.Injuries are universal and fatalities widespread.
Thermal radiation radius (lighter orange)
The thermal radiation radius is 29.1km. This would mean third degree burns “throughout the layers of the skin”, which could cause severe scarring, disablement and even amputation. This radius covers Nuneaton, Hinckley, Sutton Coldfield, parts of Birmingham and Leamington Spa.
The city would be dependent on outsiders and national agencies for help after the blast. In the fallout survivors would find dozens of hospitals and medical facilities would have been destroyed. A dozen fire stations would also have been wiped out.At the same moment around 200 schools and hundreds of churches, mosques, gurdwaras and temples could have been levelled or badly damaged.
Volleyball Over, North Koreans Go Back to Work at Nuclear Site, Analysts Say, NYT, By CHOE SANG-HUNAPRIL 22, 2017, SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea appears to have resumed work at its nuclear test site after a perplexing series of volleyball matches were held there, according to analysts who studied satellite images of the site, renewing concerns that a major weapons test could be imminent.
Many observers had feared that North Korea would test a nuclear device at the site around April 15, the birthday of Kim Il-sung, the North’s founding president and the grandfather of the current leader, Kim Jong-un. But Mr. Kim’s government celebrated the day instead with a military parade in Pyongyang, the capital, during which a fleet of missiles were rolled out, including what analysts believed were never-before-seen long-range ballistic missiles.
North Korea carried out a missile test on Sunday, but it was considered an embarrassing failure, with the projectile exploding immediately after liftoff.
But North Korea is preparing to celebrate another major holiday this coming week: Tuesday will be the 85th anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army, and the North often uses such occasions to show off its military advances…….
On Friday, the analysts Joseph S. Bermudez Jr. and Jack Liu posted new satellite images of the nuclear test site in Punggye-ri, in northeastern North Korea, on 38 North, a website affiliated with the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies……
Mr. Bermudez and Mr. Liu said it was unclear whether the latest activity from Punggye-ri reflected a “tactical pause” before a coming nuclear test, a prolonged “stand-down” from testing or normal operations at the site.
“Regardless, satellite imagery continues to indicate that the Punggye-ri nuclear test site appears able to conduct a sixth nuclear test at any time once the order is received from Pyongyang,” they concluded…..
On Saturday in Sydney, Australia, Mr. Pence said that an American naval strike group led by the aircraft carrier Carl Vinson was expected to be in the Sea of Japan, which borders the Korean Peninsula, by the end of April.
Senior aides to Mr. Trump have said that military options are not off the table in dealing with North Korea’s rapidly advancing nuclear and missile technologies. Those remarks prompted fears in the region that the new American president might order a pre-emptive strike at North Korea’s weapons sites, which could set off a war…….https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/22/world/asia/north-korea-nuclear-test-preparations.html?_r=0
“I think Mr. Trump will be dealing with this in real terms before he starts his second term,” Kelly told CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Kelly refused to answer host Dana Bash’s question over whether or not the U.S. military could shoot down a missile from North Korea, telling Bash that the information is classified. Kelly did say the United States will be “at grave risk” when a North Korean missile can reach its shores.
“The instant that happens, this country is at grave risk,” said Kelly.
North Korea earlier this month failed to launch a ballistic missile on its east coast. The launch came amidst mounting tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, as the Trump administration continues talks with China over how to curb North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.
Risk of ‘catastrophic’ nuclear accident as world relations worsen,UN warns ‘The more arms produced, particularly in countries with unstable societies, the more potential exists for terrorist acquisition and use of nuclear weapons’, The Independent, 21 Apr 17 Will Worley@willrworley There will be “catastrophic” consequences when “luck runs out” on nuclear deterrence, the United Nations (UN) has warned in a major report which highlights the massive risk of an accidental or deliberate use of the world’s most deadly weapons.
The “poor relations” between nuclear powers has contributed to an atmosphere that “lends itself to the onset of crisis,” said the report by the UN Institute for Disarmament Research.
The rise in cyber warfare and hacking has left the technical vulnerabilities of nuclear weapons systems exposed to risk from states and terrorist groups, it added.
“Nuclear deterrence works—up until the time it will prove not to work,” it said. “The risk is inherent and, when luck runs out, the results will be catastrophic.
“The more arms produced, particularly in countries with unstable societies, the more potential exists for terrorist acquisition and use of nuclear weapons.”
Deterrence is at the “greatest risk of breaking down” in North Korea and between India and Pakistan over the disputed territory of Kashmir, it said ……….
Denuclearisation would require “visionary leadership”, the report said, but added this was “sadly rare” as many powerful states “increasingly turn inward”.
It added that new technology and spending on nuclear weapons had “enhanced” the risk of a detonation. However, it acknowledged the secrecy surrounding the programmes made it difficult to accurately assess their true scope. Increased reliance technology has also introduced new problems, the report said. In the past, accidental nuclear detonations have been averted by a human decision. Replacing military officers with computers could therefore rule out a potential safety check on the weapons, and open the possibility of hacking a nuclear weapon.
Mini-nukes: Still a bad choice for the United States, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
James E. Doyle, 21 Apr 17, In December, the Defense Science Board—an independent group of experts and former officials that provides advice to the Defense Department—submitted a report advising the Pentagon to invest in low-yield nuclear weapons that could provide “a rapid, tailored nuclear option for limited use.” This recommendation struck a familiar note. In 2003, the board issued a study entitled “Future Strategic Strike Forces” that suggested building small nuclear weapons with “great precision, deep penetration, [and] greatly reduced” yield and radioactivity. The board’s call led to investments in new warhead designs such as the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator—a warhead designed to destroy deeply buried or hardened targets including underground military command centers—and the Reliable Replacement Warhead. Both programs were cancelled in 2008, after millions of dollars had been spent.
Despite the board’s renewed interest in smaller nuclear weapons, and in weapons tailored for limited uses or specific effects, any effort to develop these weapons would encounter the same problem that earlier such efforts have encountered: It is impossible to determine if introducing weapons with these characteristics into the US stockpile, and planning for their use in certain scenarios, would strengthen deterrence or make nuclear war by miscalculation more likely. Building “mini” or tailored nuclear weapons might well lower the threshold to nuclear war; risking that outcome would only make sense if it were absolutely clear that introducing these weapons would remedy some dangerous weakness in deterrence.
Fortunately, no such weakness exists. Any nation using nuclear weapons against the United States or its allies risks a devastating response whose negative consequences would far outweigh any gains delivered by crossing the nuclear threshold. The United States has always possessed the means to employ a small number of nuclear weapons with relatively low yields—between, say, half a kiloton and 50 kilotons. In fact, the inventory of such weapons used to be massive; thousands of weapons with yields under 50 kilotons were deployed as artillery shells, land mines, short-range ballistic missiles, torpedoes, depth charges, anti-aircraft missiles, and even nuclear backpack weapons.
The current US tactical nuclear arsenal is comprised of approximately 500 B61 gravity bombs, which have three tactical versions—the B61-3, -4, and -10—with yields as low as .3 kilotons. The US Air Force deploys 150 to 200 B61s at six NATO air bases in five countries. Additional weapons are stored in the United States for possible overseas deployment. Also available is the W-80-1 warhead, deployed on hundreds of US air-launched cruise missiles, with a variable yield that can be set as low as 5 kilotons.
This list of “smaller” nuclear weapons demonstrates that there are no significant “gaps” in US nuclear capabilities that potential adversaries such as Russia, China, and North Korea could exploit.
That is why, today as in 2003, the Pentagon has no military requirement for the board’s cryptically-named “tailored nuclear option for limited use.” The military understands better than anyone the danger and unpredictability of using nuclear weapons. The military also understands how unlikely it is that any use of nuclear weapons against a nuclear-armed nation would remain “limited.” That is why the vast majority of so-called “tactical” nuclear weapons have been retired from service.
……..Just as in the early 2000s, current proponents of mini-nukes or of vague “limited nuclear options” offer no convincing evidence that new weapons in this category are needed—or more importantly, that they would make nuclear use less likely. Instead, potential nuclear adversaries are likely to see the acquisition of additional weapons in this category as an indication that US opposition to nuclear use has decreased and that Washington may be the first to cross the nuclear threshold. Such an outcome would undermine global stability and increase the risk of nuclear war. Defense resources are better spent on strengthening US conventional forces.http://thebulletin.org/mini-nukes-still-bad-choice-united-states10693
Hawaii’s Renewed Jitters About Nukes, The Atlantic, 21 Apr 17 The state is asking the Department of Defense to help it prepare for a nuclear attack, amid escalating tensions between the United States and North Korea. Memories of the attack have faded, but there are still people in Hawaii who can recall the quiet Sunday morning that descended into chaos more than 75 years ago.
You do not forget the deafening buzz of torpedo bombers, once you have heard them overhead, or what it’s like to see the sky polka-dotted red with the markings of the Imperial Japanese Navy’s aircraft. As tensions between the United States and North Korea escalate, these memories are becoming more vivid………
Now, state lawmakers in Hawaii have formally asked the Department of Defense to help with nuclear disaster preparedness in the state. Such plans haven’t been updated at the local level in decades, since 1985, according to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency. In the early 1980s, Hawaii’s fallout shelters were still stocked with medical kits and food. But those supplies have long since been thrown out, and funding for such shelters evaporated.
Back then, officials had identified hundreds of additional structures, like parking garages, that could serve as makeshift fallout shelters in Hawaii, Governingreported, but officials today don’t even know which of those structures exist anymore—and whether the remaining structures are in adequate shape to serve as shelters.
Hawaii is a natural target for a couple reasons. For one, it’s geographically closer to North Korea than other parts of the United States. Hawaii is also a key strategic position for the U.S. military, which has an enormous presence on the island of Oahu in particular………
There is uncertainty, however, about how the new presidential administration will react to North Korea. North Korean leadership is perceived as notoriously unpredictable, especially in the Western world. But United States President Donald Trump has his own reputation for being inscrutable and impulsive, qualities which international security experts say he is likely to leverage against North Korea—and as a way to distinguish himself from the Obama administration, which Trump perceives as having been “indecisive and entirely predictable,” Cha said.
The SIPRI said that there were 455 fewer nuclear warheads at the start of 2016 among nine nuclear states than a year earlier. The United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea together had a total of 15,395 nuclear warheads at the start of 2016, including 4,120 that were deployed operationally. The total number of nuclear warheads in those countries at the start of 2015 was 15,850, the press release stated Monday.
Global nuclear-weapon inventories “have been declining since they peaked at nearly 70,000 nuclear warheads in the mid-1980s,” Researchers Shannon Kile and Hans Kristensen stated in the report.
The decline has been due primarily to cuts made by Russia and the United States, the report said. But they said “the pace of their reductions appears to be slowing compared with a decade ago, and neither Russia nor the United States…has made significant reductions in deployed strategic nuclear forces since the bilateral New START treaty” came into force in 2011.
SIPRI estimated that Russia had 7,290 nuclear warheads, including tactical, at the beginning of 2016, and the United States had 7,000.
It said that accounts for 93 percent of the nuclear weapons in the world.
It estimated France has 300 nuclear weapons, followed by China with 260, Britain with 215, Pakistan with 110 to 130, India with 100 to 120, Israel with 80, and North Korea with 10.
SIPRI also said that “None of the nuclear weapon-possessing states are prepared to give up their nuclear arsenals for the foreseeable future,” and that Washington and Moscow both have “extensive and expensive nuclear modernization programs.”
SIPRI said India is strengthening its nuclear-capable ballistic-missile program and speeding up its production of plutonium while its regional rival, Pakistan, is developing battlefield nuclear weapons in response to India’s stronger conventional forces.
The SIPRI report said Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal “may increase significantly” during the next decade.
The report concluded that the prospects worldwide for “genuine progress towards nuclear disarmament remain gloomy.”
SIPRI’s report was based on open sources, including data from governments and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
But SIPRI said many nuclear-capable states were “non-transparent.”
The report said SIPRI was unable to verify whether the secretive country of North Korea, which conducted its first nuclear test in 2006, has been able to produce or deploy operational nuclear weapons.
Russia ‘moves troops and equipment’ to North Korea border, as Kim Jong-un warns of ‘super-mighty pre-emptive strike’, Telegraph UK Roland OliphantReuters 20 APRIL 2017 Russia has moved heavy military equipment towards its border with North Korea amid mounting fears of a military clash between Pyongyang and the United States over the North’s nuclear program.
A flurry of military activity in Russia’s far east came as the UN Security Council strongly condemned North Korea’s latest missile test and threatened to impose new sanctions against Pyongyang for its “highly destabilizing behavior.”
In a unanimous statement, the council demanded that North Korea “conduct no further nuclear tests” and said Pyongyang’s “illegal missile activities” were “greatly increasing tension in the region and beyond.”……
It was revealed earlier this week that a US aircraft carrier group led by the USS Carl Vinson would spend another 30 days at sea before heading towards North Korean waters. Last week Donald Trump, the US president, said he had ordered an “armada” into the northwest Pacific in a show of force designed to deter North Korea from further missile and nuclear weapons test.
The US defence ministry acknowledged on Tuesday that the ships had actually travelled into the Indian Ocean to carry out manoeuvres with Australian forces, and only began its journey north recently.
Mr Trump has called on China, Pyongyang’s only ally, to rein in North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but has threatened to act alone to “solve” the problem if necessary.
Residents and local media in Russia’s Far East reported large military convoys travelling in the direction of the North Korean border since the weekend, in what appear to be contingency plans to contain fallout from a possible military clash between the United States and North Korea.
A video published by local news site DVHab.ru showed a train carrying twelve tracked vehicles, including Tor surface to air missile systems, travelling through Khabarovsk in the direction of Vladivostok.
“Some say the situation around North Korea is a fiction, but this is the third train of equipment we’ve seen since this morning,” a man can be heard saying in the film. “Looks like something is being sent to the Korean border.”………
South Korean presidential candidates clashed on Wednesday night in a debate over the planned deployment in South Korea of a US-supplied Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system, which has angered China.
Frontrunner Moon Jae-in was criticised for leaving his options open before the May 9 election.
On Monday, Hwang and Pence reaffirmed their plans to go ahead with the THAAD, but the decision will be up to the next South Korean president. For its part, China says the system’s powerful radar is a threat to its security.
There has been some confusion over the whereabouts of a US aircraft carrier group after Trump said last week he had sent an “armada” as a warning to North Korea, even as the ships were still far from Korean waters.The US military’s Pacific Command explained that the USS Carl Vinson strike group first had to complete a shorter-than-planned period of training with Australia. It was now heading for the Western Pacific as ordered, it said.
China’s influential Global Times newspaper, which is published by the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official paper, wondered whether the misdirection was deliberate.
A government source told a South Korean news agency the WC-135 Constant Phoenix made an “emergency sortie” over the East Sea with the mission of detecting nuclear samples to identify if a nuclear explosion had taken place.
It had arrived at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan earlier this month amid fears the rogue state will attempt to carry our further tests in violation of UN sanctions.
The plane had previously been deployed to Europe in February where it landed at a UK air base in Surrey before travelling over Norway. The US military said the aircraft operates on a pre-planned rotation that is scheduled well in advance.
The deployment comes amid a major training exercise held between South Korean and US forces in the region. Operation Max Thunder will see hundreds of troops undertake war games involving aircraft carriers, fighter jets and military drills over 11 days.
The US has stressed such exercises are routine, however it comes after Vice President Mike Pence said the “sword stands ready” if diplomacy fails.
North Korean has also threatened the country is “ready to react” and accused the US of creating a situation in which “a thermonuclear war may break out at any moment.”
US and Korean forces are already taking part in two regional exercises, Foal Eagle and Key Resolve, which involve up to 17,000 troops including the famed special forces team that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011.
Meanwhile the regulatory process to pave the way for the US THAAD antimissile system has been completed. The 300,000 square metre site in the southeastern region of Seongju had already been chosen and was subject to protests with the transfer of land now complete.
“The chief of the joint committee approved it on Thursday, wrapping up the … process,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Rising tensions between North and South Korea have occurred against a backdrop of major political uncertainty after former President Park Geun-Hye was indicted for bribery and abuse of power charges.
The country will face elections on May 9 where the THAAD system could become an issue as presidential frontrunner.Democratic party frontrunner Moon Jai-in has called for a review of the deployment plan of the system that has seen large protests among South Koreans opposed to militarisation on the Korean Peninsula.
The US and South Korea insist the system is purely for defensive reasons. However China says it threatens its security and sovereignty.
Meanwhile Russia has also reportedly been moving troops, helicopters and vehicles to the North Korean border. While it has not been confirmed by the Kremlin, those in the region claim to have witnessed trains loaded with military equipment heading to the short northern border between the two countries.
Risk of ‘Accidental’ Nuclear War Growing, UN Research Group Says, The warning comes as the Pentagon begins an extensive review of its nuclear arsenal. Defense One, BY PATRICK TUCKER, 19 APR 17,
On Sept., 26, 1983, shortly after midnight, the Soviet Oko nuclear early warning system detected five missiles launched from the United States and headed toward Moscow. Stanislav Petrov, a young lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defense Force, was the duty in the Serpukhov-15 bunker that housed the Oko command center. Petrov was the man in charge of alerting the soviets about a nuclear attack, which would trigger a retaliatory strike. He determined that the Oko had likely malfunctioned and the alarm was false. The Americans would not start World War III with a quintet of missiles (risking total annihilation.) It was a daring judgment call. He was, of course, right. As the U.S. prepares to undertake a new nuclear posture review to determine the future direction of the nation’s nuclear weapons, a report from a United Nations research institute warns that the risks of a catastrophic error — like the one that took place that early morning in 1983 — are growing, not shrinking. Next time, there may be no Lt. Col. Petrov in place to avoid a catastrophe.
On Monday, the U.S. Defense Department commenced a new, massive study into its nuclear weapons arsenal, looking at how weapons are kept, how the U.S. would use them in war and whether they present an intimidating enough threat to other countries not to attack us. The review was mandated by President Trump in a Jan 27, memo.
The Pentagon is scheduled to complete the review by the end of the year, an essential step as the military seeks to modernize different aspects of its nuclear deterrent. But a new report from the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, or UNIDR, argues that as the modern battlefield becomes more technologically complex, crowded with more sensors, satellites, drones, and interconnected networks, the risks of another nuclear accident are on the rise.
“A greater reliance on automated systems can lead to misplaced confidence while introducing new points of vulnerability,” says the report. Those new points of vulnerability include so-called “hidden interactions.” That means a sensor or computer program misinterpreting some bit of data and possibly presenting false information in a way that could cause an accident. The 1987 incident provides a good case in point. Oko satellites mistook a very unusual sunspot on top of a high altitude cloud as a missile strike, hence the false alarm.
Take those satellites, combine them with sensors on drones and data from other sources as well, including new, perhaps unproven technologies to detect missile launches and the picture becomes much more crowded and murky.
“The complex interactions and tightly coupled systems linked to nuclear arsenals (like those for early warning, and launch command and control) have made ‘accidental war more likely’” the report’s authors say.
Add to that the fact that the number of states that have access to nuclear weapons is increasing, and the number of platforms that they might be able to use to deliver those weapons is also going up. Consider the controversial U.S. plans for a long-range standoff weapon, orLRSO, basically a big nuclear cruise missile that can be fired off a fighter jet. Reports have surfaced that the U.S. is even considering nuclear-armed drones (that would be remotely operated by human pilots and the degree of seriousness in the considerations is up to debate).
With Pyongyang hurtling toward a nuclear breakout, the real choice is acquiescence or diplomacy. North Korea’s impressive parade of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles last weekend occurred as the Trump administration asserted it was not ruling out any option to address this rising threat. With echoes of Cuba in October 1962, this slow-motion missile crisis will play out not in Robert F. Kennedy’s legendary Thirteen Days, but over the next two or three years.
North Korea crossed the nuclear threshold a decade ago when it conducted its first atomic test. The precipitant of the current crisis is that the Pyongyang regime is now on the brink of vastly expanding its small nuclear arsenal. Left on its trajectory, by 2020, North Korea could have a nuclear stockpile of 100 warheads that can be mounted on long-range ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States.
The contrast between North Korea’s atomic arsenal (which could, incredibly, approach half the size of Britain’s) and its paltry economy (a gross domestic product of about $17 billion, comparable with Asheville, N.C.) is jarring. North Korea is essentially a failed state on the verge of a nuclear breakout. And this totalitarian state is run by a dynastic cult — the Kim family.
A North Korean ability to strike the U.S. homeland would be a game changer. Vice President Pence declared in South Korea on Monday that the Obama administration’s policy of “strategic patience” was over — but he did not indicate what would follow.
Strategic patience had essentially resulted in acquiescence as North Korea built up its nuclear arsenal and made substantial progress in miniaturizing warheads and acquiring an intercontinental ballistic missile capability. In response, the United Nations and the United States have imposed still stricter sanctions on the Kim regime. But sanctions are not a strategy.
With North Korea perilously close to becoming a major nuclear power, America should pivot to serious diplomacy. Since the end of the Cold War, when the North Korean atomic challenge arose, U.S. hard-liners have eschewed diplomacy toward this “rogue state” because they view it as tantamount to appeasement.
The alternative to diplomacy — the much discussed military option “on the table” — has essentially been off the table because it runs the catastrophic risk of spiraling into a second (this time, nuclear) Korean war. No U.S. president could authorize even a “limited” strike on a missile site and discount this escalatory risk. When the United States can’t bomb and won’t negotiate, it is in fact acquiescing to a continued North Korean buildup. That unsatisfactory prospect reinforces the case for transactional diplomacy through coercive engagement to block North Korea’s current disastrous course.
Though a full rollback of North Korea’s atomic program is not a realistic goal, transactional diplomacy to freeze its capabilities at their current level might be attainable. This would make the best of a bad situation: When zero warheads is not an option on the table, an agreement capping North Korea at 20 nuclear weapons is better than an unconstrained program that hits 100 warheads by 2020. And a freeze would preclude the additional testing that North Korea still needs to master miniaturization and reliable long-range missiles.
Why should diplomacy succeed this time when it has failed in the past? New conditions that change China’s strategic calculus. Until now, Beijing has been lackadaisical in its enforcement of sanctions and has declared that Pyongyang was Washington’s problem. But a North Korea with a large atomic arsenal and ballistic missiles capable of striking the U.S. homeland would be a game changer. That’s true not only for America but also for China, where risky consequences could include the possibility of South Korea and Japan reassessing their own non-nuclear intentions.
Transactional diplomacy would decouple the nuclear issue from regime change. It would create the conditions for success by identifying a point of near-term optimization among the parties.
A freeze would permit Pyongyang to retain a minimum deterrent and the Kim family regime. For Beijing, it would preserve a strategic buffer state and avert the adverse strategic consequences of a nuclear-armed North Korea. And for Washington, a near-term interim agreement freezing North Korean capabilities would prevent a breakout and be characterized as the first step toward long-term denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
This analytical option should be put to the diplomatic test. Otherwise, we are left with the bad options of bombing or acquiescing.
Robert S. Litwak is vice president for scholars and academic relations at the Wilson Center and director of International Security Studies. He is the author of Preventing North Korea’s Nuclear Breakout.
Russia claims it can wipe out US Navy with single ‘electronic bomb’, Fox news 19 Apr 17 Russia has claimed it can disable the entire US Navy in one fell swoop using powerful electronic signal jamming.
A news report from the country – where the media is essentially controlled by the state – said the technology could render planes, ships and missiles useless.
The newsreader says: “Today, our Russian Electronic Warfare (REW) troops can detect and neutralise any target from a ship’s system and a radar, to a satellite.”
The news report claims a single Russian war plane flew several times around American destroyer the USS Donald Cook in the Black Sea several years ago, disabling its systems and leaving it helpless.
The report also claims they are capable to creating electronic jamming domes over their bases that make them invisible on radar screens.
The propaganda piece even quotes top US General Frank Gorenc as saying: “Russian electronic weapons completely paralyse the functioning of American electronic equipment installed on missiles, aircraft and ships.”
THE PLAN TO MAKE AMERICA’S NUKES GREAT AGAIN COULD GO HORRIBLY WRONG, VICE News, By Keegan Hamilton on Apr 20, 2017. It was nearly 2 o’clock in the morning on Oct. 23, 2010, when an Air Force lieutenant called from his base in Wyoming to report the nightmare scenario unfolding before him. Fifty intercontinental ballistic missiles — each tipped with a nuclear warhead 20 times more powerful than the bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima — had suddenly lost contact with the computers at the base’s launch center.
“I… we… have no idea what’s happening right now,” the officer sputtered as he tried to explain the situation to support staff at a remote command center. Another officer barked orders behind him, interrupting the call. “Holy shit!” the lieutenant exclaimed. “I will have to call you back!”
The Air Force could tell that the weapons were still in their underground silos, but there was no way to know whether the missiles had been hijacked. A renegade missile crew, someone splicing into underground cables, or hackers exploiting radio signal receivers attached to the ICBMs could have set them on a countdown to launch. Even worse, without contact with the missiles, it was impossible to halt an unauthorized launch attempt.
Fortunately, the missiles were undisturbed. Altogether, they were knocked offline for a total of about 45 minutes, and the entire situation was resolved in a matter of hours. But for a chaotic stretch during the blackout, nobody knew what was wrong or how to fix it. As one colonel put it in an email, “the weapon system was kicking our butt.”
The culprit turned out to be a simple computer glitch: A circuit card had popped loose in the brains of the base’s Weapons System Processor.
The Air Force maintains that the situation was always under control. Still, it’s a stark reminder that even a minor mishap involving our nation’s aging nukes could have catastrophic consequences.
The U.S. keeps 416 “Minuteman” missiles ready to blast off at a moment’s notice. It’s unlikely — but not impossible — that a false alarm could make it seem like an attack is underway. In such a scenario, President Donald Trump, who has the sole, unchecked authority to launch U.S. nuclear weapons, would have only a few minutes to react. The codes used to fire the missiles are about the length of a tweet. And once one is launched, there’s no taking it back.
The technology that currently powers these nukes is notoriously antiquated. Most of the systems were designed and built during the height of the Cold War in the 1960s and ’70s, with the last major overhaul completed during the Reagan administration. Some computers in the missile base command centers still use eight-inch floppy disks.
In a May 2016 report, the Government Accountability Office determined that a key component of the Defense Department’s “command and control system,” which would be used to either start or prevent World War III, is “made up of technologies and equipment that are at the end of their useful lives.” The Pentagon is now in the midst of a $60 million overhaul of the system, which is expected to be complete by 2020.
The U.S. is on track to spend about $1 trillion over the next three decadesupgrading all facets of the nuclear arsenal, with $3.2 billion already budgeted for the 2017 fiscal year. A large chunk of that money will go toward upgraded missiles, new infrastructure, and overhauled command-and-control systems, such as digital phone lines and modern computers. Obama initiated the modernization plan, but it has found a new champion in Trump, who wants to boost the nuclear weapons program budget by an extra billion dollars……
In February, the Pentagon issued a report on “cyber deterrence” that addressed the threat posed to nuclear weapons at home. It warned that “the cyberthreat to U.S. critical infrastructure is outpacing efforts to reduce pervasive vulnerabilities.” In other words, the bad guys are coming with new ways to attack digital weak spots faster than we can fix them.
As the mishap in Wyoming shows, the aging computers that control America’s nukes are by no means perfect. But with the modernization process already underway and multiple experts raising concerns about the plan to bring the most dangerous weapons known to man into the 21st century, the question is whether the solution to repair the creaky old machines is more dangerous than the existing problem…..https://news.vice.com/story/the-plan-to-make-americas-nukes-great-again-could-go-horribly-wrong
US military considers shooting down North Korea missile tests, sources say As Pentagon looks for strategies to pressure into denuclearization, officials worry that intercepting missiles could escalate tensions and risk war, Guardian, Spencer Ackerman in New York and Justin McCurry in Tokyo, 18 Apr 17, The US military is considering shooting down North Korean missile tests as a show of strength to Pyongyang, two sources briefed on the planning have told the Guardian.
Amid heightened tensions over North Korea’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, the Pentagon is looking for ways short of war to pressure the country into denuclearization, particularly if Pyongyang goes forward with a sixth nuclear test.
The defense secretary, James Mattis, has briefed Congress on the option, but the military has not yet decided to intercept a test missile.
One US official said the prospective shoot-down strategy would be aimed at occurring after a nuclear test, with the objective being to signal Pyongyang that the US can impose military consequences for a step Donald Trump has described as “unacceptable”.
On a visit to South Korea this week, the US vice-president, Mike Pence, warned Pyongyang against testing Trump’s “resolve”, and declared an end to Obama’s “strategic patience” policy.
But North Korea’s deputy foreign minister, Han Song-Ryol, told the BBC that Pyongyang would continue to test missiles “on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis”. All-out war would ensue if the US took military action, he said.
Last week, Donald Trump deployed his superweapon Moab, the “mother of all bombs” – 10 tonnes of high explosive detonated in mid-air in such a way as to kill, it is claimed, 94 Isis militants. The Russian media immediately reminded us that their own thermobaric bomb – the “father of all bombs” – was four times as powerful: “Kids, meet Daddy,” was how the Kremlin mouthpiece Russia Today put it. But these are child’s play compared with nuclear weapons. The generation waking up to today’s Daily Mail strapline – “World holds its breath” – may need reminding what a nuclear weapon does.
The one dropped on Hiroshima measured 15 kilotons; it destroyed everything within 200 yards and burned everybody within 2km. The warhead carried by a Trident missile delivers a reported 455 kilotons of explosive power. Drop one on Bristol and the fireball is 1km wide; third-degree burns affect everybody from Portishead to Keynsham, and everything in a line from the Bristol Channel to the Wash is contaminated with radiation. In this scenario, 169,000 people die immediately and 180,000 need emergency treatment. Given that there are only 101,000 beds in the entire English NHS, you can begin to imagine the apocalyptic scenes for those who survive. (You can model your own scenario here.)
But a Trident missile carries up to eight of these warheads, and military planners might drop them in a pattern around one target, creating a firestorm along the lines that conventional Allied bombing created in Hamburg and Tokyo during the second world war.
I don’t wish to alarm you, but right now the majority of the world’s nuclear warheads are in the hands of men for whom the idea of using them is becoming thinkable.
For Kim Jong-un, it’s thinkable; for Vladimir Putin, it’s so thinkable that every major Russian wargame ends with a “nuclear de-escalation” phase: that is, drop one and offer peace. On 22 December last year, Trump and Putin announced, almost simultaneously, that they were going to expand their nuclear arsenals and update the technology.
Right now, a US aircraft carrier strike force is steaming towards North Korea(the DPRK) to menace Kim’s rogue regime. We don’t know what secret diplomacy went on between Xi Jinping and Trump at Mar-a-Lago, but the US is sounding confident that China will rein the North Koreans in.
What we do know is that Trump has been obsessed since the 80s with nuclear weapons, that he refuses to take advice from military professionals and that he seems not to understand the core Nato concept of nukes as a political deterrent, as opposed to a military superweapon.
This sudden mania for speaking of nuclear warfare, among men with untrammeled power, should be the No 1 item on the news, and the No 1 concern of democratic and peace-loving politicians.
The video fireworks on US cable news channels have progressed in the space of 10 days from cruise missile launches to bunker-busting airburst porn. One US news host referred to the former as “beautiful”.
I will always remember the Botoxed faces of the US news anchors when they arrived in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. It was as if they had been woken up from a dream, and the best of them realised how they had been sleepwalking towards the disaster.
Katrina shows what happens when a disaster hits a fragile, poverty-stricken and socially fragmented city. In New Orleans, for a few days, civilisation fell apart. Policemen, suddenly called on to haul their overweight frames into self-sacrificing and arduous work, quit on the spot. The modern equivalent of lynchings happened. Central government and unified military command of the situation broke down. My experience there convinced me that, in the event of mass fatalities being inflicted on a developed world city, the real problem would be social chaos, not mass radiation sickness.
Trump is ramping up the military rhetoric for a horribly simple reason: two weeks ago, the isolationist wing of his team got outflanked by generals; they tried some war to see how it went down and it went down well.
We may get lucky. It may be that the Chinese leadership is prepared to put serious pressure on North Korea to prevent Kim’s regime staging some kind of provocation against the US navy. Or we may get unlucky: the DPRK has a nuclear weapon, even if the missiles needed to deliver it are unstable.
It has been human nature, given the scale of devastation a nuclear war would bring, to blank the possibility from our minds, to worry about small risks because the big one is incalculable. But from the 50s to the 00s, we had – in all nuclear powers – military/industrial complex politicians who understood the value of multilateralism. All around us high politics is becoming emotion driven, unilateral, crowd-pleasing and falling under the control of erratic family groups and mafias, rather than technocrats representing ruling elites.
For the warmongers, true multilateralism is a serious annoyance; that’s why so many of the world’s autocrats are busy forcing NGOs to register, cutting off foreign funds to them and decrying the presence of international observers or sabotaging their work.
If Theresa May wanted to send a useful message at Easter it could have been: in compliance with the non-proliferation treaties, we will never use our nuclear weapons first; we will stick to diplomatic and economic pressure to get the DPRK to comply; and we will use our own, independent diplomatic clout to strengthen disarmament and non-proliferation.
That is what a responsible nuclear-armed power would do. The UK’s silence as Trump toys with military escalation and nuclear rearmament is criminal.
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