Crossing the Red Line

The following sections are included:

• Dedication
• Preface
• Table of Contents

At the end of WW-II the United States had used the only two nuclear weapons in the world to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki. By the end of the cold war both the Soviet Union and the United States had many thousands of weapons that could be irretrievably launched in minutes. Since it took only one or two warheads to destroy any city in the world, how did we end up with so many? The offensive arms race—while it may have been a moral failure—was not a policy failure, but to a large extent a result of technological imperatives and ignorance. But the resulting arsenal containing large numbers of nuclear weapons was not in and of itself the principal source of danger…

The spread of ballistic missile technology and nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons coupled with a single-city blackmail or limited attack scenario, is a chilling prospect, one that mandates that the nations of the world facing this threat formulate a coherent and credible means of deterring and defending against such an attack. The focus here will be on the nuclear threat. The reason for this is that the nuclear threat, in spite of the natural tendency to lump chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons under the rubric of “weapons of mass destruction,” is the most serious. The threat from North Korea can readily serve as an illustration that the advanced nations are likely to face and will be used as a paradigm in what follows…

Developing countries want nuclear weapons for two principal reasons: to deter, or achieve an advantage over, others in their region; or to prevent developed nations from interfering in the region. The first requires only a capability to deliver the weapons locally. Take the case of Iraq. The most likely reason Iraq wanted to acquire nuclear weapons, in spite of the rhetoric with regard to Israel, is to achieve regional hegemony with respect to Iran and Syria. The second, if it is to have the greatest credibility, requires ballistic missiles capable of reaching the developed nation (or possibly a major population center of a close ally) they may wish to deter. The latter is easier to achieve if the level of nuclear weapon sophistication (yield to weight ratio) is relatively high…

Currently, there does not exist a credible and enforceable regime, based on internationally accepted norms, for control of the spread of nuclear weapons. Any nation that is not a signatory to the NPT is free to develop nuclear weapons if it finds such development in its national interest. Any signatory nation may withdraw from the treaty with three months notice, or violate their commitments without detection, as past experience with Iraq has shown…

A bit of history: Korea was divided just after WW-II ending 35 years of rule by the Empire of Japan. The U.S. occupied the south of the country and the Soviet Union occupied the north. The boundary was set along the 38^th parallel. After the 1953 armistice ending the Korean War the boundary became the four-kilometer wide buffer zone known as the Korean Demilitarized Zone or DMZ. These divisions are shown below…

Nuclear weapons use either uranium or plutonium. Uranium as it comes out of the rocks containing it is unsuitable for weapons use and must be “enriched”. Natural uranium is composed of two different isotopes and it is the lighter one U235, comprising only 0.7% of the natural metal that must be separated for weapons use. This is what the centrifuges one hears so much about are used for. But simple uranium weapons are relatively heavy and not optimum for ICBMs whose range depends on the weight of the warhead. It is plutonium, which must be produced in nuclear reactors from uranium that is of interest for an ICBM program…

The amount of weapons grade plutonium needed for a bomb depends on the design of the weapon. The amount contained in the so called “Fat Man” weapon used by the United States in the WWII bombing of Nagasaki was about 6 kilograms. This value comes from an 18 July 1945 memorandum from Gen. Leslie R. Groves to the Secretary of War regarding the Trinity device, the test of the first U.S. implosion bomb…

As discussed in Chapter 3, developing countries pursue a nuclear weapons program to deter, or achieve an advantage over, others in their region, or to prevent developed nations from interfering in the region. To be a most effective deterrent, the weapons should be deliverable by intercontinental ballistic missiles. Other means of delivery would be uncertain and subject to defenses…

North Korea has developed two rockets that fall into the class of ICBMs, the Hwasong-14 and the Hwasong-15. Because the September 3^rd nuclear test was a thermonuclear design, the level of concern has increased dramatically. Putting a weaponised thermonuclear weapon on either of these ICBMs will require miniaturization and weaponization of the test device and extensive flight testing to develop a reentry vehicle and warhead capable of surviving forces that come with reentry into the atmosphere. As will be seen in this chapter, these are not negligible being on the order of 50–60 times earth’s gravitational force…

Proliferation means the spread of nuclear weapons beyond the United States, Great Britian, France, Russia, and China, the so-called “nuclear club”. Nations that have initiated nuclear weapons programs and given them up such as South Africa, Brazil and Argentina, and Libya will not be considered, although the reasons and history of the decision to abandon their nuclear programs are facinating in and of themselves…

It is the frightening and apocalyptic nature of nuclear weapons that causes worldwide concern and is the proximate motivation behind this book. Unfortunately, one cannot uninvent nuclear weapons. Many believe the alternative is to abolish them…

There is a well known aphorism, attributed to various people ranging from Niels Bohr, the famous physicist, to Anonymous that goes something like this: “It is difficult to make predictions, particularly about the future.” Nonetheless, this chapter will explore what it might take to have successful negotiations with North Korea to eliminate their nuclear weapons program…

The proliferation of nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles meant to carry them is first and foremost a failure of our ability to transform international relationships to accommodate the invention of weapons whose large-scale use would be a disaster for the human race. Some fraction of humanity would survive—but civilization, as we know it, would not…

The following sections are included:

• Appendix A: North Korean Ballistic Missiles and US Missile Defense^†
  • The Rockets Powered by the Engines
  • Why Efficient Rocket Motors are Important
  • The Musudan Rocket
  • North Korea’s Heritage of Russian Liquid Rocket Motors
  • The Beginning of the North Korean Missile Development “Breakout” of 2017
  • The Game Changer – The Russian RD-250 Rocket Motor
  • The End Result of the North Korean “Breakout” of 201 — A True ICBM
  • Analytical Findings
  • What Does All This Mean?
  • Atmospheric Reentry: The Challenge to Nuclear Weapon Design
  • A Ballistic Missile Defense That Could Counter North Korean ICBMs
  • Final Observations on the Missile Defense Question
• Appendix B: Nuclear Terrorism
  • Carson Mark’s Article
  • Subnational Groups
  • Gun-Type Devices and Reactor-Grade Plutonium
  • The 1962 Test
  • Designs using Reactor-Grade Plutonium with No Yield Reduction
• Appendix C: A Short Background on China
• Appendix D: A History of Islamic Terrorism
  • Introduction
  • The Arab Spring
  • Middle East Chaos
  • Some History
    • The Assassins

The following section is included:

• Index