Four years ago in December 2012, when North Korea orbited its KMS-3 satellite over the U.S., I warned they could conduct an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack by satellite.
An EMP that blacks out the national electric grid would be a far greater catastrophe than blasting a city. A North Korean 10-kiloton warhead blasting a city might cause about 200,000 casualties.
However, the same warhead making a high-altitude EMP attack — though there would be no blast, thermal or fallout effects on the ground — could knock out the electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures for more than a year, killing 90 percent of the population through starvation.
Why blast a city when EMP attack can destroy the whole nation? North Korea wants to be able to do both. They can launch an EMP attack already.
Another advantage of EMP attack by satellite is anonymity, to escape retaliation, whereas an intercontinental ballistic missile destroying a city would have North Korea’s fingerprints all over it.
North Korea’s KMS-3 satellite is in low-Earth orbit, along with hundreds of other satellites. KMS-3’s south polar trajectory approaches the United States from the south, where there are no ballistic missile early warning radars or national missile defenses. The U.S. is blind and defenseless from that direction.
An EMP attack would damage radars, satellites, ground stations and other national technical means necessary to ascertain who attacked. A super-EMP weapon could paralyze even hardened command, control, communications and intelligence assets and strategic forces, rendering them unable to retaliate, even if the aggressor could be identified.
In 2004, Moscow’s top EMP experts warned the Congressional EMP Commission that the design for their super-EMP warhead “accidentally” leaked to North Korea; that Russian, Chinese and Pakistani scientists had been recruited by Pyongyang and were helping its nuclear and missile programs; and that North Korea could develop a super-EMP warhead “in a few years.”
In 2006, North Korea conducted its first nuclear test. It was dismissed by the press as failed because of the very low-yield — only one to three kilotons. But it looked to the EMP Commission like a super-EMP weapon because such a weapon would have very low yield, being designed to produce gamma rays (which create the EMP shock wave), not a big explosion. Most of North Korea’s nuclear tests have been low-yield devices.
One simple design for a super-EMP warhead would resemble an Enhanced Radiation Weapon (ERW), or neutron weapon, which produces a lot of gamma rays in addition to neutrons, like the ERW artillery shell for the 155 mm howitzer, designed during the 1950s and deployed by the U.S. during the 1980s. Such a weapon would have very low-yield, one to five kilotons, and weigh less than 100 pounds — small enough to fit on North Korea’s KMS-3 satellite.
North Korea launched another suspicious satellite, the KMS-4, on the same south polar trajectory as the KMS-3, on Feb. 7, 2016. So now there are two North Korean satellites orbiting over the United States on trajectories consistent with a surprise EMP attack — perhaps another idea borrowed from the Russians. Moscow during the Cold War had a secret weapon, the Fractional Orbital Bombardment System, to deliver a surprise EMP attack by satellite.
Senior national security experts from the Reagan and Clinton administrations have warned about the potential EMP threat from North Korea’s satellites — including a former director of central intelligence, chairman of the National Intelligence Council, White House science adviser and director of the Strategic Defense Initiative. South Korean military intelligence reportedly warned that Russians are in North Korea helping develop super-EMP weapons. In 2013 a military commentator for the People’s Republic of China stated North Korea has super-EMP warheads.
EMP threats from satellites are ignored by the liberal media, which prefer to insist North Korea cannot yet blast a U.S. city with an ICBM.
ames Oberg, a distinguished rocket scientist who visited North Korea’s satellite launch facility, warns in this recent Space Review article:
“There have been fears expressed that North Korea might use a satellite to carry a small nuclear warhead into orbit and then detonate it over the United States for an EMP strike. These concerns seem extreme and require an astronomical scale of irrationality on the part of the regime. The most frightening aspect, I’ve come to realize, is that exactly such a scale of insanity is now evident in the rest of their ‘space program.’ That doomsday scenario, it now seems, has become plausible enough to compel the United States to take active measures to insure that no North Korean satellite, unless thoroughly inspected before launch, be allowed to reach orbit and ever overfly the United States.”
US officials are reporting that China has almost completed constructing two dozen buildings on its artificial islands in the South China Sea. The structures, according to reports, are intended to contain long-range surface-to-air missiles.
Washington has vocally denounced China’s island building, calling it illegal, and in January Rex Tillerson, then-nominee for Secretary of State, described the US position on Beijing by saying, "We’re going to have to send China a clear signal that, first, the island-building stops and, second, your access to those islands also is not going to be allowed."
China lays claim to almost all of the South China Sea’s islands and maritime; although Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Vietnam, and Taiwan have claims as well. Beijing balked at a landmark July 2016 decision by an international tribunal in The Hague declaring that China had no historic right to the islands and had caused “irreparable harm” to the marine environment.
The concrete structures feature retractable roofs, and are found in the Spratly Island chain on Fiery Cross, Subi and Mischief reefs. American officials believe that the military-length airstrips already present on the islands signal a military escalation.
One unnamed official said, "It is not like the Chinese to build anything in the South China Sea just to build it, and these structures resemble others that house SAM [surface-to-air missile] batteries, so the logical conclusion is that’s what they are for."
On Thursday, Chinese defense officials announced that they are well aware of the recent deployment of the US Navy’s nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson, to patrol the South China Sea in ‘routine operations,’ a move one Beijing official said that China opposes.
The deployment of the USS Carl Vinson spurred Chinese officials to denounce the “relevant countries” involved in the carrier’s activities. Geng Shuang said Tuesday, “we oppose relevant countries threatening and undermining the sovereignty and security of coastal states under the pretext of such freedom.”
In an appearance before the US Senate, former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson took a hawkish stance on the Spratly islands, arguing that China had behaved illegally in the region. Tillerson also threatened to prevent Chinese ships from accessing the disputed South, comments that spurred backlash from Beijing officials. A Global Times op-ed called the Secretary of State’s comments “unprofessional,” explicating that US attempts to blockade Chinese access through the South China Sea would lead to a “military clash.”
Meanwhile, Chinese lawmakers have announced revisions to a 1984 Maritime Traffic Safety Law that would give Chinese officials the authority to ban ships from entering what China considers to be its territorial waters. Under the proposed draft, non-Chinese military ships would be required to apply for pilotage if they desired to transit the South China Sea and ships that tried to avoid applying for a pilot’s license would be slapped with a fine between 300-500 yuan ($43,706-72,844). The draft is slated to become law in 2020, but will likely be met with resistance by the US, Sputnik reported
It seems like yesterday that ISIS appeared to be an unstoppable juggernaut. Just a few years ago, the terror organization swept through city after city in Syria and Iraq, taking slaves and scattering armies along the way. Now it appears that ISIS’ dream of an Islamic caliphate is finally being brushed into the ash heap of history where it belongs.
According to a recent study by the International Center for the Study of Radicalization, ISIS’ profits have plummeted by 55% since the peak of their power in 2014. Their profits, which mainly include oil revenues, taxes, and fines (but also include revenue from looting, selling antiquities, kidnapping, slavery, and donations) has fallen from $1.9 billion per year to $870 million. That is because ISIS has lost 62% of its territory in Iraq, and 30% of its territory in Syria since 2014.
According to the study, they haven’t been able to secure any new streams of income. Furthermore, “There are good reasons to believe that Islamic State revenues will further decline. In particular, capturing Mosul, the Caliphate’s ‘commercial capital,’ will have a significant detrimental effect on Islamic State finances.”
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