North Korea on Wednesday planted a bomb among some defense pundits by threatening to use "precision nuclear strikes" that can turn Seoul and Washington into a "sea of fire."
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While most experts dismissed the threat as the usual North Korean grandstanding, a handful are taking it more seriously, speculating that perhaps North KoreaÂ’s weapons technology is vastly more advanced than the evidence suggests.
One member of a state-run research institute pointed out that North Korea in principle has the technology to hit the U.S. mainland with an intercontinental ballistic missile. "Through the successful rocket launch in December, North Korea is believed to have developed an ICBM with a maximum range of more than 10,000 km," he said.
The expert, who asked to remain anonymous, speculated this could be used to deliver a so-called electromagnetic pulse bomb.
One way of delivering a destructive electromagnetic pulse could be to detonate a nuclear weapon at high altitude in an effort to incapacitate all electric systems and electronic devices.
An official with the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses here told a National Assembly hearing in 2009, "North Korea is capable of using a small nuclear warhead in the form of an EMP bomb." The official added, "If a 20 kt nuclear weapon explodes 40 to 60 km above the East Sea, all weapons equipped with electronic equipment on the Korean Peninsula could become incapacitated." |