With
North Korea’s ballistic
missile tests and nuclear weapons program in the news, let’s take a look at
America’s nuclear capabilities, for comparison. Some have labeled Kim Jong Un
the “most
dangerous man in the world” for the North’s jingoistic rhetoric and
provocative actions. But is he really so dangerous? Most Americans are probably
unaware of US nuclear capabilities, including, apparently, the leader of the
free world. President Donald Trump proclaimed that America’s nuclear arsenal
must be at the “top
of the pack.” Yet, most nuclear weapons experts would say that America’s
arsenal is already the best in the world, despite the age of many of the
missiles currently deployed and stockpiled.
The
DPRK has an active
nuclear weapons program and tested nuclear explosive devices in 2006, 2009,
2013, and twice in 2016. The DPRK is also capable of enriching uranium and
producing weapons-grade plutonium. North Korea deploys short- and medium-range
ballistic missiles and successfully launched long-range rockets in 2012 and
2016. North Korea has conducted several tests with nuclear bombs. However, in
order to launch a successful nuclear attack on its neighbors, it needs to be
able to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on to a missile, or else
risk carrying the nukes on bombers, which could easily be shot down. North Korea
claims it has successfully miniaturized nuclear warheads, but this has never
been independently verified, and some experts have cast doubt on the claims. There is no
consensus on exactly where North Korea is in terms of miniaturizing a
nuclear device so that it can be delivered via a missile. Professor Siegfried Hecker
of Stanford University, a highly authoritative voice on North Korea’s weapons
development, said Pyongyang’s ability to field an intercontinental ballistic
missile fitted with a nuclear warhead capable of reaching the US was still a
long way off, perhaps 5 to 10 years to completion. Chances are the North’s
weapons are simple and heavy.
In
contrast, the US has the world’s most advanced
nuclear arsenal. America has all three legs of the triad and will spend up
to a trillion dollars for the next 30 years to maintaining this arsenal. With
7,000 warheads in the Russian Federation and around 6,800 in America, the two
countries have more nukes than the rest of the world combined. But the two
arsenals are not equal. A “super-fuze”
device incorporated into submarine-launched ballistic missile warheads are
so deadly and accurate that they could possibly wipe out an entire fleet of
Russian ICBMs in their silos, creating a preemptive strike-first capability
that would give Russia little time to respond. Since 2009, the super-fuze
device has been built into the Navy’s W76-1/Mk4A warhead as part of its modernization
program. Super-fuzes are designed to make the warhead more accurate by
exploding precisely above the intended target. The super fuze is a revolutionary
development because it drastically enhances the targeting capabilities of
warheads. Before the new super-fuze, even the most accurate ballistic missile
warhead could miss its intended target and detonate too far away for maximum
impact. Now, with the new fuze system, it simply detonates above the target in
a much more effective way, thus maximizing its targeting capabilities. Therefore,
if need be, the US could completely destroy the DPRK in an instant.
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