Japan, Siberia, Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California. But North Korea would receive their own rain–a firey, apocalyptic rain of strategic, intercontinental vengence.
Kim Jong Il can’t just push a button and make it happen. A lot of other people, at least some of whom hopefully have a less tenuous grasp on reality than he does, would have to actively participate.
One hopes so, anyway.
Stranger
Yes, but what about other parts of America? A ship sailing to Canada or Mexico doesn’t have to stray very far off course to come close to the US coast.
Agreed - some clarifications. 33 CFR 160 Subpart C are the regulations that cover Advanced Notice of Arrival (ANOA) regulations. They are required to give 96hr notice for voyages over 96 hr in length. 24 hours for anything less. (basically)
Vessels calling on US ports are screened for a variety of threats, not the least of which is security. No longer are inspections done for reasons of “suspicion”; they are boarded and inspected fairly regularly based on many factors. And some are done quite randomly. In fact, it is the random inspections that many feel are the most important.
Point is - the center of the CG universe right now is port security, and things have changed drastically in the last few years regarding vessel arrivals and boardings.
A detemined effort to breach port security will be extremely difficult to stop, of that there’s no question. But it won’t be due to lack of effort, of that I can also assure you. FTR - I currently work for the CG, specifically screening vessels for Port State Control, and do the occasional port security boardings when they need me.
All of the “seaborne threat” issues that have come up in this thread are pretty valid. So valid in fact, that steps have been and/or will be taken to address all of them, or they’ve been examined very closely. Your above threat as well.
Many SOLAS vessels currently have AIS requirements going into effect right now. AIS is Automatic ID System. Basically, it transmits name, ID, course, speed etc to any unit set up to receive it. Currently, it is used by vessels to ID other vessels, and by Vessel Traffic Services to ID vessels in their zone. Pretty soon, all those weather buoys out there are going to have AIS receiving capability, which will be transmitted to CG command centers all along the coasts. What that means is, at some point in the near future, merchant vessels won’t be able to get within 200 miles without us knowing about it.
The obvious problems are: It only works for AIS compliant vessels, and assumes the systems will be energized and working as intended. It does not address the private vessels, ghost vessels and ne’er do wells. No system is foolproof. There will be various methods of surveillance to attempt to ID the remaining vessels.
The bottom line is this: Guarding against a seaborne threat in a country this big is like trying to stop the tide itself. All you can do try to predict the most likely threats, and take whatever steps you can to mitigate those threats with what’s available at the time. A small vessel with a nuke can sail into the biggest port in the US, and unless someone gets real lucky with a random interception - it’s a done deal for the bad guys.
A detonation in Vancouver would quite likely be considered a domestic terrorist act, or even a very serious industrial accident (!) before someone figures out that it was a DPRK warhead.
Here’s a disturbing thought:
What if Kim Jong Il decided against delivering the nuclear bomb to the U.S. and had his scientists devise a place to detonate the bomb on an island in the Pacific that would send a tsunami to the west coast of the U.S. Is this a plausible situation? Would it be threat to Hawaii or any other islands in the area?
A balloon sounds a little odd. You’d think they’d use a jet with enough fuel capacity to travel the pacific.
Why?
The NK government has been controlling the reality that those people have experienced, since birth.
They have no knowledge of the outside world, unfiltered by the Official View.
Furthermore, before the NK government was in place, it was occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army–hardly a way of creating a positive view of foreigners.
No.
There is little or no reason to believe that Kim would be disobeyed.
After all, from the typical North Korean’s view, everybody in the world has an evil intent towards their people. The World is their enemy.
And if Kim keeps going on this way, it might become true.
This is not true. It is well known that Kim Jong Il frequently visits the webpages of many foreign news outlets, including CNN, BBC, Financial Times, etc., precisely to get an idea of what the world is thinking of NK’s nuclear policy, and perhaps to get information on how to plot his next moves.
Cites:
http://csmonitor.com/2003/0116/p01s01-woap.html
Not too sharp, are you habs?
His people are kept in the dark. Re-read my post, & you’ll see that’s what I said.
And not 1 in 2 million of them has web access, Jack. :dubious:
For a look at what North Koreans see for “news”, check out the official news site:
http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm
I’ve been reading this off and on for about a year now, and it’s a little frightening. Talk about “Cult of Personality”.
It’s archived if you want to look back some.
Well, a nuclear detonation is quite distinct from, say, a leakage or meltdown of an EGR core. There wouldn’t be any question as to it being an accident, especially if it were a “dirty” (i.e. cobalt or depleted uranium jacket) bomb.
As for determining the source: processed weapon grade material (“enriched” uranium or plutonium) has a characteristic mixture of trace elements that is unique to every breeder reactor. By measuring the relative proportions in the fallout, one can easily determine where the material originated, provided that you know the characteristic of that reactor. We may not know the composition of material coming from NK reactors, but we do know of it in Russian, Japanese, French, British, South African, and probably Chinese (and of course US reactors). We might also have some intellegence about nuclear material coming from Iran, India, Pakistan, and North Korea, and we could make some SWAGs based on the composition of the raw materials they use to create the enriched weapon materials. In any case, we’d could whittle it down by process of elimination, and pretty much dismiss domestic terrorism as a source. (Besides that, I don’t think there is any evidence that any domestic group has the capability to fabricate nuclear weapons. Yet.)
Not to dismiss this lightly–it is a real concern–but there have been indications over the past couple of years that people, and in particular some of the high level NK Army officers, are becoming increasingly distressed with how Jong Il is behaving. I would expect (well, hope) that if he tries to pull the pin on some kind of nuclear grenade that the people responsible for carrying out the orders would give him Exedrin Headache #9 and let him sleep it off in his “underground bunker”.
But, that’s an optimistic point of view, and as you note, the country has been held in an iron grip by an isolationist despot with little concept of reality for the past fifty-odd years. But even so, I’d still expect an attack to be directed at Japan or South Korea (or, perhaps even China, given their abandonment of North Korea over the past fifteen years) rather than some kind of David-esque strike at the US. Kim Jong Il is certifiable, but he’s not the kind of religious fanatic that our friend in Afganistan is, and a tyranny inspired by fear and hatred is far more likely to incite revolt than one fed by promises of an afterlife and virgin handmaidens.
But stranger (stupider) things have been known to happen.
Stranger
I don’t doubt for a moment that Kim Jong Ill is completely Bat**** insane, but somehow I don’t think he’s a moron either.
I suspect that he knows that if he would try attacking China, NK would become the newest Chinese Provice very quickly.
And no doubt, the rest of the world MIGHT condemn China, but they sure as hell aren’t going to lift a finger to stop it(as long as they stop at the 49th).
According to David Letterman, we have to be concerned with his brother,
MEN TA LI IL.
:eek:
The 49th parallel runs through Siberia. I think you mean the 38th.
54-40 or fight!
(Couldn’t help it.)
Am I alone in saying that it is inappropriate to post ideas on how best to deliver a nuclear weapon into the U.S.? 
Um…we been discussing this sh^t since before 9/11, dude.
And anybody who can get their hands on a Nuclear Weapon is smart enough to figure out this themselves.
:rolleyes:
huh? That makes no sense. You’re telling me that because NK is yadda, yadda, yadda, Kim would actually risk strapping one of a handful of nukes to something so highly variable as a weather balloon? What scrap of evidence have you to put forth that claim? Also, what evidence is there that cobalt-jacketed bombs would have the Dr. Strangelove effect? Am I being whooshed here? 