While We Worry About Russia and ISIS, North Korea Could Be The Real Threat

The world has become so accustomed to saber rattling and hyperbolic rantings from North Korea that most tend to dismiss its threats as mere theater. That, however, would be a grave mistake. 

North Korea, after more than a decade of false starts and industrial accidents on its road to nuclear strike capability, is now capable of mounting nuclear warheads on short-range missiles, and perhaps more. 

After five successful nuclear tests, North Korea is not slowing down on its path to nuclear-equipped intercontinental missiles capable of striking the United States and is expected to launch another intermediate-range ballistic missile test in the next few days.

The Hermit Kingdom now possess what analysts believe to be a stockpile of between 13 and 21 nuclear weapons with its manufacturing capability accelerating such that it is likely to possess up to 100 devices by 2020. 

With both Trump and Clinton offering, behind the rhetoric, strikingly similar proposals on how to deal with the North Korean threat, it is clear that there are no good answers. Sanctions could be tightened, yes, but after decades of the world's strictest trade sanctions that have not yet brought down the brutal Kim regime, little hope remains that closing a few loopholes will have any impact. 

Waiting for the country to implode has only brought the world closer to nuclear annihilation as North Korea sinks its scant resources into weapons of mass destruction.

The fate of Ghadaffi in Libya can only serve to harden Kim Jong-Un's resolve after it found itself powerless after giving up chechmical/biological weapons, as does the Russian invasion of Ukraine after Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. 

Ukraine can now only look back on the warheads it surrendered and think how Russia would not have dared invade and seize its territory were it still a nuclear power.

North Korea has launched two rockets into orbit and has accelerated the development of submarine-launched missiles which would allow it to strike the continental United States without powerful ICBM systems. 

National Intelligence Director James Clapper recently characterized the attempts to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions as a "lost cause" as he went on to speculate that the next president would likely be faced with a North Korea capable of striking Japan, as well as the mainland of the US, Hawaii and Alaska. 

Clapper clarified that although North Korea has not demonstrated its ability to reach such distances with the KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missile, the US government has now assumed that Kim Jung-Un is capable of reaching both Alaska and Hawaii with a nuclear payload. This is a terrifying fact.

The fifth nuclear test was conducted on September 9th and brought an earthquake that measured 5.3 on the Richter scale. Experts estimate the bomb is in the 20-30 kiloton range (by comparison the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was 15 kilotons). 

Yet it is the January test in the 7-10 kiloton range that has raised even more concern, especially due to is strange radiation signature. The difference in radiation signature can be attributed to two factors. 

First, that it was a thermonuclear device, relying upon fusion rather than only fission for its explosive yield. Such bombs have the potential to be far more powerful, but they can also be modified to change their radiation yield. 

Second, if the kinetic energy of a more powerful bomb is lower, this indicates that the North Koreans are designing the bomb to emit far greater amounts of radiation.

Parallel to its efforts to develop long-range missile technology, North Korea has been striving to put satellites into orbit and it now has a satellite that passes over the continental US from South to North. 

Whether this first satellite is itself a weapon is largely irrelevant because North Korea could launch another next month that is nuclear armed. 

Taken together with the recent radiation-oriented detonations of nuclear devices, the threat begins to change. 

Conventional wisdom has assumed that North Korea has sought to counter US and South Korea military power with nuclear weapons capable of striking cities directly in retaliation, but there is a far more likely scenario now. That is an EMP.

A massive electromagnetic pulse, just like that produced by a modified thermonuclear weapon emitting gamma rays, would overload the US electrical grid for a radius of thousands of miles. 

As the surge in current passes through the system, nearly every connected piece of equipment would be fried. No explosion ever needs to touch an American city and the telecommunications system would collapse along with the transportation, electric grid and computer systems of the country. 

Hundreds of millions of devices over entire regions would go dark. Estimates of the death toll from starvation and social unrest reach as high as 90% as the US would then struggle to feed millions of trapped city-dwellers.

This is the nightmare scenario that draws ever closer with no clear way out. Not a traditional nuclear strike with a mushroom cloud hanging over Los Angeles, but instead a bomb going off that brings the US back to the stone age in a fraction of a second. 

With Seoul a mere 30 miles from the DMZ and the North Korean military ready to repel an invasion, a direct military solution is off the table. US cyber weapons, like those employed against Iran, have little effect in such an isolated and low-tech country. 

Negotiations have borne little fruit since the regime uses every concession to strengthen its own despotic rule.

While we worry about the Russian bear or the terrorist threat of ISIS, we may miss the real threat that is far greater than either. 

Not constrained by the same pragmatic logic of mutually assured destruction that has held Russia in check, a cornered North Korea may someday soon decide that a series of EMP detonations high over the sky of Texas, California and Washington is its only option. 

Whether it does so any time soon, the day when it absolutely can burn out the United States with a simple flip of a switch is fast approaching and no one seems to notice.

So, next time you read about a threat of nuclear annihilation out of North Korea, you might want to give Kim Jong-Un a little more credit because his threats soon may not be as empty as they seem now.