The North Korea nuclear threat

From the Huffington Post:

Though analysts said Sunday that they doubt North Korea has truly developed a hydrogen bomb, experts said the country’s nuclear capabilities were evidently improving.

Kim Dong-yub, a defense analyst in Seoul, told The New York Times he believed the test on Sunday involved a “boosted” atomic bomb. Nuclear weapons expert David Albright told the paper the power of the device suggested it contained “thermonuclear material.”

Vipin Narang, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who specializes in nuclear strategy, described the weapon tested as a “city buster.”

“Now, with even relatively inaccurate intercontinental ballistic missile technology, [North Korea] can destroy the better part of a city with this yield,” Narang told The Washington Post.

So North Korea now has a weapon that can destroy the better part of a city. What are we going to do about it?

North Korea has made it very clear they plan on using a nuclear weapon against the United States. So far, our policy towards this threat is to whine to China a about it. That plan of action doesn’t seem to be working. China doesn’t seem to be doing anything about North Korea as evidenced by this latest test.

When it comes to defending American cities against nuclear attack, we shouldn’t rely on the kindness of others to save us.

The United States will eventually have to take North Korea off the board. By that I mean destroy North Korea. The only question remaining is if we first wait for North Korea to destroy an American city, or if we neutralize the threat before it’s allowed to take full fruition.

I don’t want to wait for North Korea to kill an American city before taking action.

The North Korean nuclear attack will not come from space

Anyone who thinks North Korea doesn’t pose a real threat until they fully master their missile technology is delusional. North Korea does not need to attack from space to kill an American city. Somali pirates easily hijack oil tankers traveling the Indian Ocean. How hard do you think it would be for a North Korean commando unit to hijack a container ship traveling from South Korea to the United States?

Not very hard at all. They could jam communications, board the ship, kill the entire crew, transfer the nuclear weapon, and then proceed to the United States. They could do all this without anyone knowing anything even happened.

Show me a nuclear device small enough to fit in the nose cone of a North Korean missile and I’ll show you a nuclear device small enough to be transported by a North Korean commando team to a container ship.

Watch out Los Angeles

Los Angeles is by far the most likely target for a North Korean nuclear attack. The two most active container cargo ports in the United States are both in Los Angeles: the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach.

Los Angeles sits in a basin. It has mountains behind it and the ocean to its front. It’s one of the things that make smog such a problem in LA. It would also make a nuclear blast and its radioactive fallout a very serious problem.

If we continue to react to North Korea’s aggression with a wait and see attitude, it’s not a matter of if North Korea will attack us, it’s a matter of when.