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A confidential Defense Intelligence Agency intelligence asessment has concluded that North Korea has miniaturized a nuclear warhead to make it capable of being launched by its ballistic missiles:
The analysis, completed last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency, comes on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country's atomic arsenal. The United States calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Some independent experts think the number is much smaller.
[...] Although more than a decade has passed since North Korea's first nuclear detonation, many analysts thought it would be years before the country's weapons scientists could design a compact warhead that could be delivered by missile to distant targets. But the new assessment, a summary document dated July 28, concludes that this critical milestone has been reached.
"The IC [intelligence community] assesses North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, to include delivery by ICBM-class missiles," the assessment states, in an excerpt read to The Washington Post. Two U.S. officials familiar with the assessment verified its broad conclusions. It is not known whether the reclusive regime has successfully tested the smaller design, although North Korea officially claimed last year that it had done so.
Meanwhile, President Trump and Kim Jong Un have traded barbs:
President Donald Trump appears to have painted himself into a corner: He must now follow up on his pledge of hitting North Korea with "fire and fury," or he risks further blowing U.S. credibility.
Kim Jong-un's regime said late on Tuesday that it may strike Guam. That came shortly after Trump warned Pyongyang it would face "power, the likes of which this world has never seen before" if the renegade state continued to threaten the U.S.
"If the red line he drew today was 'North Korea cannot threaten the U.S. anymore,' that line was crossed within an hour of him making that statement," said John Delury, associate professor of Chinese studies at Seoul-based Yonsei University.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:48PM (1 child)
>this would be one of the most one sided wars ever
The estimates of allied casualties in a conventional war are horrifying. The North Koreans learned all about US air power over fifty years ago and have been digging in ever since. Digging them out would be bloody and horrible, and Seoul would be in ruins before NK artillery could be neutralized.
If you're thinking of the next step up in horror, the difference between one sided and tolerable looms large. I'm in ICBM range myself. Watching the burning ashes fall and wondering if I'm about to start retching and dying, I would take very little comfort in knowing that Kim Jong Un had become the Glorious Leader of Glorious Glowing Glass. I would also spare a thought for the 24 million human beings in the path of US retaliation. How would you feel with four Holocausts on your conscience?
I like the idea of flooding the country with free world radio broadcasts. There's also a lawyer who knows the financial crimes laws who thinks it possible to cut off most of their hard currency access. After Banco Delta Asia the DPRK government was apparently seriously scared.
(Score: 1) by justinb_76 on Thursday August 10 2017, @09:08PM
"How would you feel with four Holocausts on your conscience?"
and exactly which holocaust are you referring to? The Holodomor? al-Nakbah? Armenian Genocide? Amalekite Genocide? Rhine Meadow death camps?
I know you really meant the '6 gorillion' one, but let's face it - Shlomo's story has got more holes than a brick of Emmentaler...