Around these parts, North Korea’s ICBM program is the national-security obsession du jour. That’s validating for someone like me, sure. But why? And why now? As I see it, there are good reasons and bad reasons to be concerned, and focusing on one set or another will lead to very different conclusions. Let’s start with the good reasons. The …
The Great North Korea War Scare
by | 2017-04-24 | 7 Comments
Today’s news continues, or perhaps renews, the weird sense of self-imposed crisis surrounding U.S. North Korea policy: Entire U.S. Senate to go to White House for North Korea briefing: https://t.co/wbRa4H0IOA pic.twitter.com/l3E4BSEqBR — Reuters Politics (@ReutersPolitics) April 24, 2017 Why not just have a hearing? But anyhow. Having declared an end to the era …
Nuclear Learning
by | 2017-04-23 | 2 Comments
Quote of the week: “The [U.S. Strategic Bombing] survey’s task was to measure as precisely as possible the exact effects of the two [Hiroshima and Nagasaki] bombs – in other words, to put calipers on the problem so that people back home would have a factual frame of reference within which to draw conclusions about …
DPRK Wound Filament Airframes
by | 2017-04-21 | 10 Comments
High-resolution photographs of the airframe for North Korea’s Pukguksong submarine-launched ballistic missile have a surprise. The airframe appears be wound filament, not the simple metal airframes we’ve seen on North Korea’s space launchers. That opens up a lot of possibilities for North Korea — and ticks off an important requirement for North Korea to build …
