GUIDE
that something big looms .... one key collaborative item noted below - but note the update regarding B-1s at Guam - not there ? )
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/04/2013471341732178.html
( US blinking ? North Korea's going to feel its bluster is having an impact ... )
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/04/2013471341732178.html
( US blinking ? North Korea's going to feel its bluster is having an impact ... )
US delays missile test over N Korea tensions | |||
Pentagon puts off intercontinental missile launch apparently to avoid stoking tensions with North Korea.
Last Modified: 07 Apr 2013 12:34
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| The United States has decided to delay a long-planned missile test scheduled for next week out of California "to avoid any misperception or miscalculation", given tensions with North Korea, a senior US defence official has said. The unusual precaution by the US follows a barrage of hostile rhetoric from North Korea - including the threat of open war - that has created jitters in South Korea's financial markets. The US decision will delay the test of the Minuteman III intercontinental missile, which had been scheduled for next week out of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. "This is the logical, prudent and responsible course of action to take," the official said on Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
It also came after reports in the South that Pyongyang, under its 30-year-old leader, Kim Jung-un, had moved two medium-range missiles to a location on its east coast. The White House said on Friday it would "not be surprised" if the North staged another missile test. At the same time, officials have said there are no signs Pyongyang is gearing up for war, such as large-scale troop movements. The US official said the test had been unconnected to "anything related to North Korea" and added that another test launch could be expected next month. The US remained fully prepared to respond to any North Korean threat, the official said. Rising tensions Analysts are looking anxiously ahead to April 15, the birthday of King Il-sung, North Korea's founder and the grandfather of its current leader. The anniversary is a time of mass celebrations, nationalist fervour and occasional demonstrations of military prowess.
Still, staff at embassies in North Korea appeared to be remaining in place on Saturday despite the appeal. Most countries saw the appeal to the missions as little more than strident rhetoric after weeks of threats by North Korea to launch a nuclear strike on the US and declarations of war against the South. Washington has been running military drills and war games with South Korea in past weeks, including flying two B-2 stealth bombers over the Korean peninsula in March. The Pentagon also announced new or expanded missile defence systems in Alaska and Guam. North Korea's inflammatory threats following the annual US-South Korea war games are seen by some analysts as an attempt to mask their fear that the exercises could turn into an all-out attack - and 'seemsto work on the principle that the more you shout, the safer you will be'. The North's rhetoric intensified after UN sanctions intensified since April 2012 in the wake of rocket and nuclear tests. | |||
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2013/04/does-north-korea-have-portable-nuclear.html
Does North Korea have a portable nuclear weapon?
Kim Jong-Un certainly speaks as if he's serious about war. He has no hope of winning and no real casus belli. Nevertheless, like a 13 year-old boy buying a ticket to the latest Michael Bay movie, Kim seems to have an overwhelming need to see things get "blowed up real good," even if the explosions serve no rational purpose.Could he really do it? Conventional thinkers will tell you he can't mount a nuclear strike against the U.S., since he has no missiles with sufficient range. But if we apply a littleunconventional thought, we can suggest an unconventional scenario.
Yes, there is a way for Asia's brat to make mushroom clouds loom over American territory.
The North Korean situation is reminiscent of The Mouse That Roared, although Little Kimmy is much less lovable than Peter Sellers was. As I re-ran that film in my head, a disturbing possibility struck me: Could Kim have obtained a portable nuclear weapon -- the proverbial suitcase nuke?
Note the wording of this threat:
“We formally inform the White House and Pentagon that the ever-escalating U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK and its reckless nuclear threat will be smashed” by “cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means of the DPRK,” a spokesman for the Korean Peoples’ Army (KPA) declared this week, using the formal name for the North – the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
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"Suitcase nukes" aren't really small enough to fit in a suitcase. But some nuclear weapons are smaller and lighter than you may prefer to believe.Of course, the usefulness of such devices remains a matter of debate; some have even questioned their very existence. Most sources concede that Russia and the United States have both manufactured "small" nuclear bombs capable of being transported by human carriers. The example in the accompanying photo looks like a backpack -- a really, really big backpack.
Any discussion of portable nuclear devices invariably includes reference to a Russian defector named Stanislav Lunev, who claimed that the former Soviet Union had come up with transportable bomb called the RA-115. By "transportable," we're talking about something that weighs roughly 60 pounds. I don't know the yield, but it is probably under a kiloton. (To give you a point of reference, the Hiroshima blast was 16 kilotons.)
Of course, defectors often stretch the truth, and the FBI concluded that Lunev engaged in at least some hyperbole. How muchhyperbole? I don't know, and I'm not sure that the FBI knows either.
Lunev claimed that an unspecified number of the RA-115s exited Russian control after the fall of the USSR. In the 1990s, according to a number of published reports, Russian General Alexander Lebed said that 100 "small" nukes had gone missing. Boris Yeltsin fired Lebed when he (Lebed) tried to inventory the RA-115s. Russian legislator Sergey Sinchenko put the number of missing nuclear weapons as high as 250.
A few not-really-authoritative websites -- like this one -- claim that North Korea has tried to purchase Russian porta-nukes. We know that, in the Yeltsin era, the oligarchs cared about money a lot more than they cared about safety, morality or common sense.
This 2006 story from the Telegraph may be relevant to our present inquiry:
Russia is facing criticism after secretly offering to sell North Korea technology that could help the rogue state to protect its nuclear stockpiles and safeguard weapons secrets from international scrutiny.
In what appear to have been unguarded comments, Aleksei Grigoriev, the deputy director of Russia's Federal Information Technologies Agency, told a reporter that North Korea planned to buy equipment for the safe storage and transportation of nuclear materials, developed by a Russian government-controlled defence company.
The company, Atlas, also received interest from the North Koreans in their security systems and encryption technology - which were kept from display at the exhibition for security reasons.
In remarks made to the Russian Itar-Tass news agency - hastily retracted after publication - Mr Grigoriev said that the main aim of the June 28 exhibition was "establishing contacts with the Korean side and discussing future co-operation".Officially, the Russian government has condemned North Korea's nuclear arsenal. Interestingly, the above news article is attributed to "a Special Correspondent in Pyongyang and Michael Hirst." This wording gives the impression that Hirst got the details from an anonymous North Korean informant.
Was this 2006 story disinformation? Possibly. Everyone knows that neo-cons of a certain stripe yearn to re-ignite the Cold War. But I don't think that nostalgia for the paranoia of yesteryear prompted this particular article.
If we presume that the Telegraph's information is on the level, we must ask the question: Did North Korea want "equipment for the safe storage and transportation of nuclear materials" (an irritatingly vague phrase) because it had acquired RA-115s?
Those things have been known to leak.
You may be wondering how the North Koreans could transport such a weapon, since a leak-prone 60 pound nuclear bomb is not an easy thing to smuggle. Adding to the difficulty is that fact that the RA-115 must be plugged into a power source. Although the device has a battery back-up, no battery lasts forever.
So how could the North Koreans get a thing like that into an American city? For one possible scenario, consult a long article by Bill Keller titled "Nuclear Nightmares," published on May 26, 2002 in The New York Times magazine:
To build a nuclear explosive you need material capable of explosive nuclear fission, you need expertise, you need some equipment, and you need a way to deliver it.
Delivering it to the target is, by most reckoning, the simplest part. People in the field generally scoff at the mythologized suitcase bomb; instead they talk of a "conex bomb," using the name of those shack-size steel containers that bring most cargo into the United States. Two thousand containers enter America every hour, on trucks and trains and especially on ships sailing into more than 300 American ports. Fewer than 2 percent are cracked open for inspection, and the great majority never pass through an X-ray machine. Containers delivered to upriver ports like St. Louis or Chicago pass many miles of potential targets before they even reach customs.
"How do you protect against that?" mused Habiger, the former chief of our nuclear arsenal. ''You can't. That's scary. That's very, very scary. You set one of those off in Philadelphia, in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and you're going to kill tens of thousands of people, if not more." Habiger's view is "It's not a matter of if; it's a matter of when" -- which may explain why he now lives in San Antonio.
Human beings can live in such containers for a suprisingly long period of time. It's been done. A well-known writer once told me (circa 2005) that inspectors have found human scat and other indicators of recent human habitation within an empty cargo container in a New York port. People have used this method to enter the United States secretly.A cargo container could a bomb, a couple of "minders," and a power source.
This WP story from last July tells us that this terrifying hole in our security has never been properly addressed:
The Obama administration has failed to meet a legal deadline for scanning all shipping containers for radioactive material before they reach the United States, a requirement aimed at strengthening maritime security and preventing terrorists from smuggling a nuclear device into any of the nation’s 300 sea and river ports.If a bomb goes off, that little-known decision will become instantly infamous -- and it may (fairly or unfairly) transform Obama into the most reviled president in history. Of course, Bush could have implemented the same program had he so chosen. (To put the price of port scanners into perspective, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program will set taxpayers back $400 billion -- at least.)
The Department of Homeland Security was given until this month to ensure that 100 percent of inbound shipping containers are screened at foreign ports.
But the department’s secretary, Janet Napolitano, informed Congress in May that she was extending a two-year blanket exemption to foreign ports because the screening is proving too costly and cumbersome. She said it would cost $16 billion to implement scanning measures at the nearly 700 ports worldwide that ship to the United States.
Incidentally, one of largest general cargo facilities in the country is in Dundalk, Maryland, not far from where I live. Dundalk would make for an excellent target, since it is 17 miles away from NSA headquarters. A breeze in the right direction could make the eavesdropper's nest uninhabitable.
Chicago is another possible target. Anyone who desires to mount a symbolic strike against the heartland would want to hit that town.
So...yeah. I think that Kim Jong-Un could do it. But will he?
All the news coming out of North Korea indicates war. The only thing that does not indicate war is the simple, obdurate fact that Kim's situation is hopeless. He cannot win. I doubt that he could keep the fight going for longer than a day. If he strikes, he dies, along with many of his countrymen (presuming he cares about them).
So the question comes down to this: Does Kim Jong-Un want to fulfill his sick, violent fantasies more than he wants to live?
Suddenly, I'm flashing on Adam Lanza...
Added fun fact: The United States used to adhere to a regulation prohibiting the development of nukes below 5 kilotons. In 2004, the Bush administration quietly dropped that rule. We may thus fairly presume that America has developed a new generation of elegantly-designed, state-of-the-art porta-nukes, with Android, 4G, USB ports, a headphone jack and a targeting system based on Angry Birds.
and.....
http://www.dailynk.com/english/read.php?cataId=nk01500&num=10463
( What else might North Korea need batteries for apart from their subs ? )
| NK Producing More Silvery Subs | |||||
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Over the last three years North Korea has significantly stepped up its production of submersible vessels such as midget submarines, according to an inside source. The sinking of the South Korean corvette ‘Cheonan’ in March 2010 by just such a North Korean midget submarine is said to have caused the authorities to appreciate the potential importance of such vessels to their asymmetrical warfare capabilities.
As such, there are suspicions that the recent North Korean decision to import more than 600kg of silver through China was done to facilitate the production of batteries for submersible production.
A North Korean military source told Daily NK on the 4th, “The [North Korean] Navy has been producing submersibles at every shipyard on their east and west coasts ever since the attack on the Cheonan in 2010.”
According to the inside source, prior to the Cheonan sinking such vessels were produced at one shipyard, the disguised ‘Bongdae Boiler Factory’ in Sinpo, South Hamkyung Province, at a rate of five per year. However, following the sinking of the Cheonan that rate went up four times to 16 per year, as the vessels started being produced across multiple shipyards including Yongampo, Chongjin and Rajin.
The source explained, “The reason why the North Korean authorities are increasing production of this kind of submersible that can fire torpedoes is to maximize their underwater attack capacity. The subs can take 12 to 15 soldiers yet still sink destroyers weighing thousands of tons with their twin torpedoes.”
“The engines noise on the submersibles is very quiet, making them able to approach their targets underwater in secret, while it is impossible to trace crimes such as the Cheonan incident,” the source went on, adding that during North Korean military training exercises they also emphasize the essential nature of the subs.
The rising production is pushing up demand for batteries, the source then went on to add, saying that this required the bulk production of both silver and zinc. “All the silver produced in North Korea is supplied to the shipyards,” he claimed.
The source admitted to being confused, therefore, at North Korea’s recent decision to import 660kg of silver from China, declaring, “There is lots of silver being produced in North Korea, so it’s hard to say why they are importing it from China…I suppose it may have been just that more batteries were being produced so they needed more silver.”
North Korea readies missile launch as fears of a covert cyberwar grow
As Pyongyang moves ballistic weapons to the coast, it may also be planning to disable computer networks in the US
South Korea is bracing for a protracted standoff with the North that could include at least one missile test-launch and a border skirmish.
On Friday, North Korea attempted to heighten fears of military conflict when it told embassies in its capital, Pyongyang, that it could not guarantee the safety of their staff in the event of war. In another sign that it is determined to increase the pressure, Pyongyang extended a ban preventing South Korean officials from entering the Kaesong industrial complex – which it operates jointly with the South – for a fourth day.
A government official in Seoul said there was no indication of an exodus of foreign diplomats from the North, despite the warning. "We don't believe there's any foreign mission about to leave Pyongyang," the official told the Yonhap news agency. "Most foreign governments view the North Korean message as a way of ratcheting up tension."
The message to embassies came as US officials confirmed media reports that North Korea had moved two medium-range missiles to its east coast. The Musudan missiles, with a range of 1,865 miles, are capable of striking South Korea, Japan and US bases in the Pacific. Possible launches are expected to be tests rather than targeted strikes, and may be timed to coincide with the 101st anniversary of the birth of North Korea's founding father, Kim Il-sung, on 15 April.
In response, South Korea has sent Aegis destroyers equipped with advanced radar systems to both of its coasts. The US had earlier said it would speed up the deployment of missile defence systems to Guam, a US Pacific territory whose military bases Pyongyang has identified as targets. Officials in Washington offered a measured response to confirmation that the North had mounted two missiles on mobile launchers. "We've obviously seen the reports that North Korea may be making preparations to launch a missile and we're monitoring this situation closely," the White House press secretary Jay Carney said. "And we would not be surprised to see them take such an action. It would fit their current pattern of bellicose, unhelpful and unconstructive rhetoric and actions."
US attempts to lower the diplomatic temperature come after a prolonged display of its naval and air power in the region during joint military exercises with South Korea. Pyongyang has condemned the annual drills, which run to the end of the month, as preparations for an invasion.
The North Korean media continued to describe the standoff in dramatic terms at the weekend, accusing the US and South Korea of "waging madcap nuclear war manoeuvres".
"This is aimed at igniting a nuclear war against it through a pre-emptive strike," the Minju Joson, a government daily newspaper, said. "The prevailing situation proves that a new war, a nuclear war, is imminent on the peninsula."
The prospect of a North Korean missile test is causing concern in Japan, which is easily within range. In Tokyo, Yoshihide Suga, a government spokesman, said that Japan was preparing for a "worst-case" scenario, and urged China and Russia to play "significant roles" in defusing tensions. Experts and officials have dismissed Pyongyang's threats to launch nuclear strikes against the US, given the rudimentary state of its weapons capability. But it could cause widespread disruption with a cyberattack, according to a defector who worked for the regime's 3,000-member cyberwarfare unit.
The regime's next move could be to break into US computer networks to steal information and spread viruses, Jang Se-yul, who defected to the South in 2008, told the Observer. North Korea's hackers are suspected of being behind recent cyberattacks that paralysed computer networks at several South Korean banks and broadcasters.
"It would demonstrate that North Korea is a strong cyberpower," Jang said. "Their prime target is the US, and they've been preparing for something like this for years, including when I was there in the 1990s. I can't say how successful they would be, but it's a possibility."
The barrage of threats have failed to unnerve people in Seoul, just 54km from the demilitarised zone – the strip of heavily guarded land that has separated the two states since they agreed on a ceasefire, but not a peace treaty, at the end of the 1950-53 Korean war. Streets were packed with cars and shoppers as usual on Saturday, despite rain and chilly weather.
The South Korean media have also been measured in their coverage. When North Korea vowed last week to restart its nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, South Korean newspapers devoted more space to government plans to grant tax breaks to home buyers. On Naver, the country's most popular web portal, the most read news item last week was about Ryu Hyun-jin, a South Korean baseball pitcher who made his debut for the LA Dodgers. The relaxed mood would quickly change in the event of a localised attack on a South Korean military asset or one of the frontline islands near the disputed maritime border.
Last week the South's new president, Park Geun-hye, said that the military would hit back hard if provoked. Her predecessor, Lee Myung-bak, was criticised for his slow response to attacks in 2010 on a naval ship and island, in which 50 people died.
An editorial in the Korea Times said those living in both the North and South had reason to be vigilant. "Not a single expert can say for sure what will be the unpredictable regime's next move," the newspaper said. "One thing seems certain, however: it will be Koreans, especially South Koreans, who will have to shoulder the risks of any misjudgment or miscalculation to be made by either Koreas." There was consternation, too, that the North had disrupted operations at Kaesong for four days, although it has not closed the facility. Last week it prevented South Korean workers from crossing the border into the complex, located just inside North Korea. About 100 South Koreans who had stayed at Kaesong last week were due to return yesterday, with 500 more remaining.
The Korea Herald noted that the £56m that the North earns from the complex every year was "no small amount", adding that the country "does not have many comparable or better sources of hard currency".
Political tensions have briefly disrupted operations at Kaesong several times since it opened in 2004, but a complete and prolonged shutdown would be a sign that cross-border ties were near to collapse.
"South Korea takes this situation very seriously," a senior government official in Seoul told the Observer. "We must watch even the smallest moves by North Korea. At the same time, we will continue to send signals that we want to build trust with Pyongyang in the hope that it will cooperate and dialogue can begin."
• This article was amended on 7 April 2013. In the original we said North Korea earned £56bn a year from the Kaesong industrial complex. This figure has been corrected.
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http://deepbluehorizon.blogspot.it/2013/04/uspaf-us-is-not-sending-b-1s-to-guam.html
Saturday, April 6, 2013
USPAF: "US Is not sending B-1s to Guam."
"They're not at Guam," a U.S. Pacific Air Forces spokeswoman just told Killer Apps. "They definitely didn't even stop through."
The U.S. constantly rotates B-2 stealth bombers and B-52 Stratofortress bombers through Anderson Air Force Base, Guam under a scheme meant to maintain a constant heavy bomber presence in the Pacific. Last week, the U.S. sent six B-52s from Minot AFB in North Dakota to Guam. Also last week, a pair of B-2s also flew a 13,000-mile round-trip mission from Missouri to South Korea to perform a practice bombing run over the peninsula -- the North Koreans loved that.
B-1s, however, often deploy to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean or to a base on the Persian Gulf, where they are used to provide air support to troops in Afghanistan.
"They're pretty concerned with the desert, so they're pretty busy over there," added the spokeswoman when asked if the B-1s ever deploy to Anderson as part of the Air Force's "continuous bomber presence" mission.
Editors note: A source at Dyess has notified this author that two of the fight of seven (spares) B-1Bs I monitored a couple of nights ago have returned to the base. The others have not. He could not tell me where the five eventually landed at. In the statement above "not sending" is ambiguous at best. Maybe it should have been re-worded as "didn't send or hasn't sent." - Steve Douglass Saturday, April 6, 2013
Is the US planning a preemptive strike against North Korea's nuclear facilities ?
US Secretly Deploys B-1 Strategic Bombers, E-6 "Doomsday" Planes Near North Korea
First the US fanfared the placement of two F-22 Raptors in the Osan airbase of South Korea. Then it demonstratively launched a B-2 stealth bomber on a training mission over a South Korean gunnery range. Then it deployed an anti-ballistic missile defense system to Guam and positioned two guided-missile destroyers in the waters near Korea. And now, courtesy of the Aviationist, we learn that the Pentagon has escalated once more in an ongoing cat and mouse game with North Korea, of who blinks first, and dispatched several B-1 ("Bone") Lancer strategic long-range bombers to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. What is different this time, however, is that unlike the previous very public and widely trumpeted reciprocal escalation steps, this particular deployment has been kept secret from the public (at least the broader public), "a fact that could be the sign that the U.S. is not only making symbolic moves (as the above mentioned ones), but it is preparing for the worst scenario: an attack on North Korea."
How has the Aviationist learned this?
From his station in Amarillo, Texas, author, investigative journalist, technologies expert Steve Douglass heard something interesting. In a message he sent us on Facebook he said:“Late last night I monitored “DARK flight of seven” on PRIME (311.000 MHZ STRATCOM PRIMARY) asking for current weather for UAM [airport code for Guam - Andersen Air Force Base]. On the frequency of 251.100 Mhz,DARK flight also was calling for “GASSR 11 and GASSR 12? (KC-135s) for “Tanker drag to BAB [Beale AFB, California]“.“Dark” is the standard radio callsign for the 7th Bomb Wing’s B-1s based at Dyess AFB, near Abilene, Texas.Even if U.S. bombers routinely deploy to Guam (where at least two B-2s are reportedly already based), the fact that seven “Bones” were apparently moving together is something a bit unusual, even if they were not going to Andersen AFB (they might need the weather report for UAM because it was an alternate airfield or simply a stopover on their way to somewhere else).Actually, it’s also weird that some many big bombers were flying together (as the “flight of seven” heard by Douglass seems to suggest) since a standard ferry flight of multiple planes would normally see the aircraft move individually. And, another strange thing is that the pilot talked about their destination in the clear: if they wanted it to be secret, they would speak on secure radios.Nevertheless, this might have been a non-standard deployment; a move ordered hours after U.S. satellites and spyplanes from South Korea and Japan had spotted North Korean missiles being readied for launch.
What is even more curious is that instead of merely serving as very expensive deterrence props, the squadron has a very offensive role, and is preparing for attack:
Earlier [Douglass] had intercepted an interesting communication off a military satellite in which an Ellsworth AFB’s B-1B, callsign “Slam 1?, was training to hit a “missile facility” in Snyder, Texas.A practice run for a mission in the DPRK with a school bus depot standing in for the real thing?Maybe.American B-1 bomber pilots have reportedly shifted their training programs, focusing on in East Asia, more than Afghanistan and the Middle East. And, above all, any training mission has many similarities with actual sorties that would be flown against a real enemy in combat.
Finally, and most disturbing, is that another aircraft also in the process of deployment is none other than the E-6 Mercury "Doomsday" plane, which are among the pinnacle in US Airforce nuclear war preparedness, tasked with "providing command and control of U.S. nuclear forces should ground-based control become inoperable" and whose core functions include conveying instructions from the National Command Authority to fleet ballistic missile submarines and also to further command post capabilities and control of land-based missiles and nuclear-armed bombers.
You can read more about the military air activity recently monitored by Steve Douglass in an extremely interesting article heposted on his blog that not only summarize the contents of the messages he sent to The Aviationist, but provides some more details about the alleged overseas deployment of E-6 Mercury “doomsday” planes from Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.
Perhaps to Kim Jong-un the military escalation to nuclear war is only one big joke, but to the US it is increasingly appearing very serious. And perhaps this is precisely what the Pentagon wanted all along?
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