News Report: North Korea Threatens Nuclear Test in Pacific

Brian Padden

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — North Korea indicated it may soon test a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific Ocean after the country’s leader Kim Jong Un warned he would match U.S. President Donald Trump’s threatening words and new sanctions with equally provocative action.

The North Korean leader responded Friday to Trump’s United Nations address this week, when the U.S. leader referred to Kim as a “Rocket Man” on a suicide mission, called the government in Pyongyang a “depraved regime,” and said if forced to defend itself or its allies, the Untied States will “totally destroy North Korea.”

In a statement directly attributed to the North Korean leader, Kim on Friday said Trump displayed “mentally deranged behavior” with his threat to destroy a sovereign nation. He called the U.S. president a “rogue and a gangster,” and promised to answer Trump’s insults with the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.”

“Action is the best option in treating the dotard who, hard of hearing, is uttering only what he wants to say,” said Kim in statement that was released by the North Korean state news agency KCNA. The agency released a photo of the North Korean leader reading the statement.

News Report: Former CIA Chief Warns of N. Korea’s Other Nuclear Weapon

Former CIA Director James Woolsey
(Image: Wiki Commons)

Jenny Lee

WASHINGTON — Advances in North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs are pushing the international community to respond with increasingly strict sets of sanctions, with the latest round, passed this week, capping the country’s oil imports while banning its lucrative textile exports.

Despite the pressure, the Kim Jong Un regime continues to pursue the development of a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could strike the continental United States, among other targets.

On Friday, for the second time in a month, the regime launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido. It traveled about 3,700 kilometers (2,300 miles) before falling into the Pacific Ocean, the farthest a North Korean missile has ever flown. Within hours, the U.N. Security Council condemned the “highly provocative” missile launch.

Why is the North continuing its launches? Jenny Lee of VOA Korean spoke with former CIA Director James Woolsey to discuss the latest developments.

News Story: Moon says dialogue with N. Korea 'impossible'

SEOUL, Sept. 15 (Yonhap) -- President Moon Jae-in strongly condemned North Korea's latest missile launch on Friday, saying dialogue with the communist nation is "impossible in a situation like this" and warning that the South is capable of destroying the North "beyond recovery."

Moon made the remark during a National Security Council meeting he presided over after the North fired a ballistic missile over Japan again earlier in the day, just days after the U.N. Security Council imposed new sanctions for its sixth nuclear test.

"Flouting the international community's condemnations and warnings and the U.N. Security Council resolution, North Korea again fired a ballistic missile," Moon said at the start of the meeting. "I sternly condemn and express anger at this series of provocations by the North."

Moon said dialogue with the North is out of the question if Pyongyang engages in such provocative acts.

"Dialogue is impossible in a situation like this," Moon said. "International sanctions and pressure will further tighten to force North Korea to choose no other option but to step forward on the path to genuine dialogue."

Read the full story at YonhapNews

News Report: North Korea Test-fires Another Missile Over Japan

Brian Padden

SEOUL — North Korea launched another missile over Japan early Friday, just days after the United Nations imposed additional sanctions on Pyongyang for conducting its sixth nuclear test.

The missile was launched from the Sunan district in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, and flew over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, Yoshihide Suga, Japan’s chief Cabinet secretary, said.

"We absolutely cannot accept these repeated provocations by North Korea and we strongly protest to North Korea and convey to them the nation's strong anger in the strongest words possible,” Suga said.

Warning announcements about the missile blared around 7 a.m. local time in the northern Japanese town of Kamaishi, according to footage from national broadcaster NHK.

South Korea's military reported the missile reached an altitude of about 770 kilometers and flew 3,700 kilometers, far enough to reach the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam.

News Story: Bolster Missile Defenses Against North Korea; Could Help With China

North Korean Pukguksong-2 Ballistic Missile test launch

By JON GLASSMAN

What should the United States and its allies do to improve their ability to stop North Korean missiles?

Enhanced missile defense performance would be the best guarantee against a North Korean breakout. Should fighting occur, missile defense performance will determine how much of a time cushion is available to U.S. and allied offensive forces to eliminate the North’s missiles.

North Korea’s missile testing program has shown capabilities that make our missile defense more difficult. For example, by extending tests to orbit and extending the range of their ICBMs, they have expanded the scope of trajectories and targets we need to defend. By using lofted trajectories, the North has increased re-entry velocity and reduced time for defense. By building mobile launchers and submarine-launched missiles, North Korea has eliminated the defenders’ early warning time and reduced its own exposure.

By demonstrating its ability to launch multiple missiles simultaneously, they have complicated our planning. Finally, by creating new threats of global reach, the North has raised the specter of fractional orbital trajectories that allow unpredictable descent paths and, perhaps, the use of electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to cripple the military and civilian infrastructure of the U.S. and our allies. In short, North Korean has increased uncertainty about our ability to respond and increased the time pressure on the US and allies to engage in massive offense or to decide to remain passive.

Read the full story at Breaking Defense

News Report: Trouble in Paradise: North Korea Electromagnetic Attack Could Devastate Hawaii

As North Korea continues to develop its intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and nuclear weapons capabilities in the face of UN sanctions, Hawaiian officials and defense experts are concerned that Pyongyang could launch an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack that would devastate communications both inside and outside the state.

In July 1962, just about everything in Hawaii that used electricity was disrupted by a massive EMP caused by the US launching a 1.4-megaton nuclear warhead. The "Starfish Prime" high-altitude nuclear test disabled six satellites above the Pacific and disrupted radio signals in Alaska, Hawaii and California. 

US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) said that the danger posed by an EMP attack on Hawaii "is real and must be taken seriously," telling Fox News, "Almost every aspect of our lives is reliant on electricity, much more so than in 1962 — everything from banking to health care to communications to automobiles — so you can imagine the devastating impact such an attack could have."

"If an attack occurred on the mainland and the electric grid were shut down on the West Coast, it would create a crisis in Hawaii through the total disruption of our food and energy supply chain," she added.

Think Tank: The next Battle of the Beams

Australia's 1st E/A-18G Growler during it's roll out at Boeing

James Mugg

The Battle of the Beams was a period during World War II concerning German attempts to harness radio navigation for night bombing in the UK and the resulting British countermeasures. The British eventually managed to jam or distort all three iterations of German radio signals, making it more difficult for the bombers to hit their targets. That episode dramatically illustrates the ephemeral nature of advantages in electronic warfare, especially when operating against an agile and sophisticated foe.

Since the end of the Cold War and the onset of the War on Terror, the principal targets of Western military power have been relatively low-tech groups in the Middle East. Electronic warfare platforms like the US Navy’s EA-6B Prowler were used to jam enemy communications during operations, and the relatively low tech of the enemy limited their ability to counter. But the constant threat to ground troops from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) led to the development of counter-IED jamming systems, and a new ‘invisible war’ emerged. As quickly as vehicle-mounted jammers could be reprogrammed, insurgents made use of a variety of commercial technologies—cell-phones, key-fobs, door remotes—to adapt.

Editorial: Time to Actively Deter North Korea

By Patrick M. Cronin

“It’s time to make North Korea have to worry more about deterring us rather than the other way around.”

It is only a matter of time before North Korea flaunts its ability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead, deploy intercontinental ballistic missiles and road-mobile missile launchers, and expand its plutonium nuclear arsenal with highly enriched uranium warheads.  The cumulative failure of diplomacy to rein in Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs begs the question as to whether it is time to turn the tables on North Korea.  Rather than buy into a losing competitive strategy, hasn’t the time come for the United States and the Republic of Korea (ROK), with the support of others, to pursue a strategy of active defense that alters the North’s cost-benefit calculus?

The North Korean threat is inherently volatile and far more dangerous in the near-term than the sea skirmishes in the East and South China Seas.  Because the North threatens to escalate, however, democracies are reluctant to accept risk.  Former Secretary of Defense William Perry backed off possible strikes on Yongbyon reactor in 1994 because, as he put it, he was seeking to avert a general war rather than to cause it.

Without throwing caution to the wind, the U.S.-ROK alliance needs to introduce more risk into its approach.  Our risk aversion grants North Korea wide latitude for mischief.  Pyongyang uses an array of asymmetrical means—from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and cyber warfare to mini submarines and nuclear weapons–to poke holes through the superior conventional capabilities of the U.S.-ROK alliance.  This is because the main purpose of the North’s asymmetric threats is not to use these weapons but to coerce benefits by threatening to use them. 

Read the full story at The Diplomat

News Story: South Korea - North Developing EMP Weapons

SEOUL — South Korea’s spy agency said Monday that North Korea was using Russian technology to develop electromagnetic pulse weapons aimed at paralyzing military electronic equipment south of the border.

The National Intelligence Service (NIS) said in a report to parliament that the North had purchased Russian electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weaponry to develop its own versions.

EMP weapons are used to damage electronic equipment. At higher energy levels, an EMP event can cause more widespread damage including to aircraft structures and other objects.

The spy agency also said the North’s leader Kim Jong-Un sees cyberattacks as an all-purpose weapon along with nuclear weapons and missiles, according to lawmakers briefed by the NIS.

Read the full story at DefenseNews