How A North Korean Missile Launch Can Devastate the World Without Landing Anywhere

North Korea’s maniacal leader, Kim Jong-un, has doubled down on his threat to test a sixth nuclear missile on Tuesday, April 25th.  The humiliating failure of his last missile launch seems only to have emboldened Kim who is once again threatening to use nuclear bombs against the United States and our ally Australia. President Trump has ordered a strike force of ships led by the USS Carl Vinson to the Sea of Japan which North Korea has predictably threatened to sink.

I mocked president Kim Jong-un’s miserable missile failures.  I laughed at his posturing of nuclear war.  I ridiculed China’s puppet boy in his impotence.  Until now.

Just days ago, ZeroHedge reported on a series of widespread electrical outages in major American cities postulating the outrages as a “cyber attack” test.  Whether these outages resulted from a hostile act or not, the simultaneous electrical failures in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles foreshadow what could happen in the event of an EMP attack: “Total Chaos.”  People trapped in elevators and subways, emergency services overwhelmed, traffic nightmares.  And that’s just the beginning.

The effects of an EMP attack are frightening.  From the 2004 Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack:

Depending on the specific characteristics of the attacks, unprecedented cascading failures of our major infrastructures could result. In that event, a regional or national recovery would be long and difficult and would seriously degrade the safety and overall viability of our Nation. The primary avenues for catastrophic damage to the Nation are through our electric power infrastructure and thence into our telecommunications, energy, and other infrastructures. These, in turn, can seriously impact other important aspects of our Nation’s life, including the financial system; means of getting food, water, and medical care to the citizenry; trade; and production of goods and services. The recovery of any one of the key national infrastructures is dependent on the recovery of others. The longer the outage, the more problematic and uncertain the recovery will be. (emphasis added)

The U.S. has long considered that “[r]ogue states, such as North Korea and Iran, may … pose an EMP threat to the United States, and may also be unpredictable and difficult to deter.” (emphasis added).

I no longer laugh at Kim Jong-un.

All Kim needs is one nuclear missile launch:  “a single nuclear weapon exploded at high altitude above the United States will interact with the Earth’s atmosphere, ionosphere, and magnetic field to produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) radiating down to the Earth and additionally create electrical currents in the Earth.”

Kim Jong-un need NOT specifically target the United States, Australia, another country, a city or any military base with his missiles.  He need only do two things: 1. successfully launch a missile carrying a nuclear payload into the upper atmosphere; and 2. successfully detonate that nuclear payload at high altitude.  The resulting EMP blast would wipe out most electrical systems.  Recovery from such an outrage would take hours in a best case scenario, and in the worst case, could cripple countries leaving them vulnerable to invasion by organized military forces or terrorist organizations.

Game.  Set.  Match.

Dr. Peter Vincent Pry is Executive Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and Director of the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum.  He warns that Iran armed with nuclear weapons is a “threat to global civilization.”

One nuclear warhead detonated at high-altitude over the United States would blackout the national electric grid and other life sustaining critical infrastructures for months or years by means of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A nationwide blackout lasting one year, according to the Congressional EMP Commission, could cause chaos and starvation that leaves 90 percent of Americans dead.

The Washington Examiner explains that Iran endorses a nuclear EMP attack against the U.S:

“Iranian military documents describe such a scenario — including a recently translated Iranian military textbook that endorses nuclear EMP attack against the United States,” he wrote.

A knowledgable source said that the textbook discusses an EMP attack on America in 20 different places….

Once sneered at by critics, recent moves by Iran and North Korea have given credibility to the potential EMP threat from an atmospheric nuclear explosion over the U.S.

Pry has suggested ways for Iran to deliver a nuclear attack: by ship launched off the East Coast, a missile or via satellite.

Either way the result could be destruction of all or part of the U.S. electric grid, robbing the public of power, computers, water and communications for potentially a year.

As a “first line of defense” against EMP attacks by rogue states like North Korea and Iran, the commission recommended that the US “establish a global environment that will profoundly discourage such attacks.”  What exactly does such profound discouragement look like?  It looks like 59 tomahawk missiles taking out an airstrip.  It looks like the MOAB raining hellfire on earth exploding terrorist tunnels.  It looks like a strike force of American carriers sitting off the Korean peninsula.

And if Kim Jong-un does not stop posturing, profound “discouragement” may well look like a preemptive strike on North Korea’s capability to launch missiles to bring Kim Jong-un to heel.

Yet, as Dr. Pry explains, “[t]he real merchants of death live in Moscow and Beijing.”

Russia and China have deliberately proliferated missile and nuclear technology to Iran and North Korea to raise proxy nuclear missile threats against the U.S. and its allies on the theory that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” and to promote world chaos….

Yet Western elites persist, year after year, in their naive belief that Russia and China are strategic partners who, despite some sharp differences with the West, are committed to upholding the existing world order.  For decades now, the West has looked to China to use its influence to make North Korea give up on nuclear weapons, only to be perpetually disappointed.  For years, the West has looked to Russia to use its influence to make Iran give up on nuclear weapons, to no avail….

Mr. Pry closes with an ominous warning, a warning President Trump should heed as he seeks to negotiate with China and Russia on the issue of North Korea and Iran:

The West must understand that Russia and China are not our friends and do not share our vision for a stable, peaceful world order.  They are enabling the Iranian and North Korean nuclear missile programs to foster world chaos and, if necessary, our extinction.

President Trump’s show of force in Syria was a calculated message to Bassar Assad, Vladimir Putin, Jong-un and China’s Xi Jinping.   The U.S. show of force in the Sea of Japan is Trump’s next message designed to profoundly discourage nuclear actions by our enemies and their puppets.

Susan Swift

California PolitiChick Susan Swift is a lawyer, author, wife and one conservative mother of seven children. She is currently the Director of Outreach and Engagement at the Right to Life League, American's first pro-life organization. Susan is addicted to the politics of today and always looking out for her little ones' futures. Susan is tough as nails...proud Texan, loves Guns, Freedom, and her right to use Free Speech how she sees fit. And, as a former actress in Hollywood, she always has an opinion about the politics running that town. For more on Susan visit her website at www.RealSusanSwift.com. Follow on social media @RealSusanSwift

Related Articles

Back to top button
Close
Close

Please disable ad blocker.

We work hard to write our articles and provide you with the content you enjoy. The ads on the site allow us to continue our work while feeding our families. If you'd please whitelist our site in your ad blocker or remove your ad blocker altogether, we'd greatly appreciate it. Thank you!