With the North Korea threat again in the news regarding their latest belligerent testing of a hydrogen bomb and successful missile launches, attention is being given to the possibility of an EMP strike (Electro Magnetic Pulse attack). An EMP attack could shut down the electrical grid of large sections of the United States for months at a time and cause a tremendous amount of loss of life. The threat of an EMP needs to be taken very seriously.
ICON presented a presentation on the EMP Threat last year on May 17, 2016. This may be an excellent time to refresh our memories on the information that was presented at this lecture. Please see the link below of the video of the lecture by James Carafano regarding the EMP Threat. Nancy
VIDEO – THE EMP THREAT – JAMES CARAFANO, VICE PRESIDENT, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION FOREIGN AND DEFENSE POLICY STUDIES
The U.S. Geological Survey recorded what it called a 6.3-magnitude “possible explosion” in northeastern North Korea at exactly noon Pyongyang time Sunday, after an initial assessment of a 5.1-magnitude earthquake.
The Korea Meteorological Administration said it had detected a 5.6-magnitude earthquake near the site of North Korea’s previous nuclear tests, in what it described as likely being a “man-made” earthquake.
A spokeswoman for the South Korean government said that officials were still trying to verify the incident. She said President Moon Jae-in had called an emergency meeting of the National Security Council, slated to begin an hour after the earthquake was first detected.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff office also confirmed it had detected an artificial quake in North Korea’s Punggye-ri site. The office did not immediately confirm if it was a nuclear test or not.
North Korea Says It Has Developed Advanced Hydrogen Bomb
Nation threatens an electromagnetic pulse attack – EMP
September 2, 2017
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides guidance on a nuclear-weapons program in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency on Sunday.PHOTO:KCNA/REUTERS
By Jonathan cheng
SEOUL—North Korea said it has “succeeded in making a more developed” hydrogen bomb and mounting it on the tip of a long-range missile, and threatened a high-altitude nuclear blast that experts fear could wipe out electrical networks in the U.S.
Leader Kim Jong Un witnessed a hydrogen bomb being mounted onto a new intercontinental ballistic missile while visiting the Nuclear Weapons Institute, North Korea’s state media said Sunday. The state media also published what experts said could be the North’s first photos of a purported hydrogen bomb.
Mr. Kim in the report boasted that all of the components of its thermonuclear weapon are homemade, insulating the nuclear-weapons program from sanctions and “enabling the country to produce powerful nuclear weapons, as many as it wants.”
Woman Who Destroyed Durham Confederate Statue Is A Pro-North Korea Marxist
August 16, 2017 by Will Racke, Immigration and Foreign Policy Reporter
One of the activists who toppled a Confederate statue in Durham, N.C., on Monday night is a member of an extreme leftist group that supports the totalitarian regime in North Korea and wants to abolish capitalism.
Taqiyah Thompson, a student at North Carolina Central University, wasarrestedTuesday following a press conference in which she defended the actions of the demonstrators and equated police officers to Confederate soldiers and Ku Klux Klan members.
“I did the right thing,” she said. “Everyone who was there — the people did the right thing. The people will continue to keep making the right choices until every Confederate statue is gone, until white supremacy is gone. That statue is where it belongs. It needs to be in the garbage.”
Thompson is a member of the Worker’s World Party (WWP), a revolutionary Marxist-Leninist group originally formed in 1959 as a hard-line offshoot of the more moderate Socialist Workers Party. In addition to supporting a wide range of far-left causes, the group alsodefendsthe North Korean regime of dictator Kim Jong-un against alleged U.S. imperialism.
With heightened tensions around the world, this article analyses the preparedness of our U.S. bomber fleet. Thanks to Rosemarie Wenzel for sharing this article.Nancy
EXCERPT FROM THIS ARTICLE: “It’s not just the nation’s bomber force,” that is so stretched, Deptula said. “It’s the military writ large. The U.S. Air Force is the smallest and least ready it’s ever been in history – that should get people’s attention.”……..“If anything good comes out of the North Korea crisis,” it should be a wake-up call, he said.
WASHINGTON – Less than half of the bombers President Donald Trump would rely upon to be “locked and loaded” against North Korea could launch today if needed, according to the latest Air Force figures available.
That’s not a surprise to the bomb squadrons who have seen firsthand the combined effects of aircraft age, the demand of 15 years of air war operations and reduced budgets. But the numbers can be stark. Of the nation’s 75 conventional and nuclear B-52s, only about 33 are ready to fly at any given time, according to Air Force statistics. Of the 62 conventional B-1s, only about 25 are ready. With the 20 nuclear B-2 stealth bombers, the number drops further. Seven or eight bombers are available, according to the Air Force.
“On a nominal basis you don’t have more than single digits of B-2s available to do anything,” said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula, currently the dean of the Mitchell Institute of Aerospace.
“If anything good comes out of the North Korea crisis,” it should be a wake-up call, he said.
Pyongyang doesn’t need a perfect missile. Detonating a nuke above Seoul—or L.A.—would sow chaos.
June 9, 2017
A satellite photo of Korea illustrates the South’s dependence on electricity.PHOTO:NASA
By
Henry F. Cooper
Mr. Cooper was the U.S. ambassador to the Defense and Space Talks during the Reagan administration and director of the Strategic Defense Initiative during the George H.W. Bush administration.
Conventional wisdom holds that it will be years before North Korea can credibly threaten the United States with a nuclear attack. Kim Jong Un’s scientists are still testing only low-yield nuclear weapons, the thinking goes, and have yet to place them on ballistic missiles capable of reaching America’s West Coast.
While its technological shortcomings have been well documented, North Korea’s desire to provoke a nuclear conflict with the U.S. should not be minimized or ignored. Pyongyang is surely close to getting it right.
For South Korea the danger is more immediate. According to physicist David Albright, the founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, the North Koreanshave between 13 and 30 nuclear weaponsand can build as many as five more every year. If Mr. Kim were to detonate one of these bombs in the atmosphere 40 miles above Seoul, it could inflict catastrophic damage on South Korea’s electric power grid, leading to a prolonged blackout that could have deadly consequences.
The most dangerous moments in foreign affairs often come after a major power seeks to reassert its lost deterrence.
The United States may be entering just such a perilous transitional period.
Rightly or wrongly, China, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Middle East-based terrorists concluded after 2009 that the U.S. saw itself in decline and preferred a recession from world affairs.
In that void, rival states were emboldened, assuming that America thought it could not — or should not — any longer exercise the sort of political and military leadership it had demonstrated in the past.
Enemies thought the U.S. was more focused on climate change, United Nations initiatives, resets, goodwill gestures to enemies such as Iran and Cuba, and soft-power race, class and gender agendas than on protecting and upholding longtime U.S. alliances and global rules.
In reaction, North Korea increased its missile launches and loudly promised nuclear destruction of the West and its allies.
Russia violated its obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and absorbed borderlands of former Soviet republics.
(CNN)Here is a look atNorth Korea’snuclear capabilities and the history of its weapons program.
1985
North Korea signs the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
1993
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)demands that inspectors be given access to two nuclear waste storage sites. In response, North Korea threatens to quit the NPT but eventually opts to continue participating in the treaty.
1994
North Korea and the United States sign an agreement. Among other stipulations, North Korea pledges to freeze and eventually dismantle its old, graphite-moderated nuclear reactors in exchange for international aid to build two new light-water nuclear reactors.
February– The United States confirms North Korea has reactivated a five-megawatt nuclear reactor at its Yongbyon facility, capable of producing plutonium for weapons.
April –Declares it has nuclear weapons.
2005
North Korea tentatively agrees to give up its entire nuclear program, including weapons. In exchange, the United States, China,Japan,Russiaand South Korea say they will provide energy assistance to North Korea, as well as promote economic cooperation.
The Japanese national flag flutters at half-staff at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park in western Japan on August 6, 1998.PHOTO:REUTERS
The White House said this week that PresidentObamawill visit Hiroshima during his visit to Japan later this month, setting off speculation about what he would say in the city where America used the atomic bomb to end World War II without an invasion. Here’s the speech we don’t expect Mr. Obama to give—though he’s more than welcome to it.
***
It is with mixed emotions that I stand before you today. Seven years ago, in Prague, I committed my Administration to the goal of bringing about a world without nuclear weapons—a cause I have championed since my student days. My country has since sharply reduced its nuclear arsenal through the 2010 New Start treaty with Russia, and my Administration has negotiated a nuclear agreement with Iran. We have organized regular summits on nuclear security. And we have toughened international sanctions on North Korea after its nuclear tests.
Yet a nuclear-free world seems further out of reach today than when I entered office. As I near the end of my Presidency, I feel obliged to tell you how I think I went wrong.