At ISIS, we have assessed for some time that North Korea likely has the capability to mount a plutonium-based nuclear warhead on the shorter range Nodong missile, which has a range of about 800 miles, and that Pyongyang still lacks the ability to deploy a warhead on an ICBM, although it shows progress at this effort. North Korea would need to conduct missile flight tests with a re-entry vehicle and mock warhead, increase the explosive yield of the warhead (possibly requiring its further miniaturization), and improve the operational reliability of the warhead and missile.
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One reason that North Korea can likely miniaturize its warheads by now has to do with the sheer duration of its nuclear weapons program. North Korea’s weaponization work can be traced back to the 1980s.
In those early years, China may have provided assistance in terms of nuclear weapons data and designs. Until the mid-to-late 1980s, China was not opposed to nuclear proliferation. In the early 1980s, it provided Pakistan with 50 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium and a nuclear warhead design.
Tag Archives: 1980s
North Korean Miniaturization
The Government’s Entire Bailout Strategy Was to Cover Up the Truth | The Big Picture
The Government Lied When It Said It Only Bailed Out Healthy Banks … 12 of the 13 Big Banks Were Going Bust
We noted in 2011 that the Geithner, Bernanke and Paulson lied about the health of the big banks in pitching bailouts to Congress and the American people:
The big banks were all insolvent during the 1980s.
And they all became insolvent again in 2008. See this and this.
The bailouts were certainly rammed down our throats under false pretenses.
But here’s the more important point. Paulson and Bernanke falsely stated that the big banks receiving Tarp money were healthy, when they were not. They were insolvent.
Tim Geithner falsely stated that the banks passed some time of an objective stress test but they did not. They were insolvent.
We explained:
[All of the big banks were] insolvent in the 1980s, but the government made a concerted decision to cover that up.
Financial writers such as Mish and Reggie Middleton pointed out in late 2007 and early 2008 that B of A was again insolvent.
Nouriel Roubini noted in January 2009 that the entire U.S. banking system is “bankrupt” and “effectively insolvent”:
“I’ve found that credit losses could peak at a level of $3.6 trillion for U.S. institutions, half of them by banks and broker dealers,” Roubini said at a conference in Dubai today. “If that’s true, it means the U.S. banking system is effectively insolvent because it starts with a capital of $1.4 trillion.”
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“The problems of Citi, Bank of America and others suggest the system is bankrupt,” Roubini said. “In Europe, it’s the same thing.”
We noted earlier this year:
The Government’s Entire Bailout Strategy Was to Cover Up the Truth | The Big Picture
The Islamization of Germany in 2012 :: Gatestone Institute
Post-Christian Europe became noticeably more Islamized during 2012.
As the rapidly growing Muslim population makes its presence felt in towns and cities across the continent, Islam is transforming the European way of life in ways unimaginable only a few years ago.
Some of the more notable Islam-related controversies during 2012 occurred in Germany, where the Muslim population has jumped from around 50,000 in the early 1980s to more than 4.5 million today.
What follows is a brief chronological review of some of the main stories involving the rise of Islam in Germany during 2012.
Today I took a little shopping trip to Konstanz, Germany. It’s not too far from where I live in Switzerland. I like to go to EDEKA Center for grocery shopping. Check out what I saw just down the street from EDEKA Center:
I had never actually seen a Mosque before in real life. Yet, there it was right down the street. It was like Sauron from the kingdom of Mordor was staring down at me. I felt this wave of evil upon my body for a second. I am pretty aggressively hostile to Islam and in particular Allah. Unfortunately, Islam is growing and Christianity seems to be substantially undermined.
When you believe in nothing, then you will believe in anything. This means that when you believe in nothing, then you are susceptible to things that come along in your life. You become vulnerable to aggressive religions like Islam without really understanding.
Resurgence from Mordor
From this time on, Sauron became known as the Dark Lord of Mordor. Sauron fortified Mordor and completed the Dark Tower of Barad-dûr, already centuries in the building. He distributed the remaining rings of the Seven and the Nine to lords of Dwarves and Men. Dwarves proved too resilient to bend to his will, but the Men were enslaved by Sauron as the Nazgûl, his most feared servants. Well aware of the strength of the Númenóreans after his earlier defeat, Sauron withdrew from the coasts and for a long time avoided directly challenging them, although he managed to use some of the Nine rings to snare three of their great lords.
Sauron regained control over most of the creatures that had served Morgoth in the First Age (such as Orcs and Trolls). Sauron also gained power over most of the Men in the East and the South, becoming their god-king.[29]
Toward the end of the Second Age, as the Númenóreans withdrew from the coasts after their people were divided by strife over the fear of death, Sauron began assailing their Middle-earth strongholds and assumed the titles of Lord of the Earth and King of Men.
More Than the Navy’s Numbers Could Be Sinking | TIME.com
The Diesel-Electric Submarine Threat
To put it simply, if naval exercises in the last two decades involving foreign diesel-electric submarines had been actual combat, most if not all, U.S. aircraft carriers would be at the bottom of the ocean: as many as 10 U.S. aircraft carriers have been reported “sunk” in these exercises.
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The Mine Threat
Diesel-electric submarines are not the U.S. Navy’s only undersea problem: in the post-World War II-era 19 of its ships have been sunk or seriously damaged, 15 of them by sea mines.
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The Air Threat
The first evaluation I was given when I joined the Government Accountability Office in the late 1980s focused on the performance of the Aegis air-defense system against anti-ship cruise missiles. We found that in highly-unrealistic, that is to say obliging, tests, Aegis generally performed at a mediocre level against its own criteria.
80s Songs About Nuclear War [Slide Show]
While nuclear war isn’t a problem of the past, its creative influence within the 1980s was hard to ignore in comparison to the 21st century, and with some of the world’s best-known and most relatable artists having shared their opinions on the issue, we’ve put together a list of the best doomsday classics from the decade.
Broken BRICs | Foreign Affairs
THE NEW AND OLD ECONOMIC ORDER
In the decade to come, the United States, Europe, and Japan are likely to grow slowly. Their sluggishness, however, will look less worrisome compared with the even bigger story in the global economy, which will be the three to four percent slowdown in China, which is already under way, with a possibly deeper slowdown in store as the economy continues to mature. China’s population is simply too big and aging too quickly for its economy to continue growing as rapidly as it has. With over 50 percent of its people now living in cities, China is nearing what economists call “the Lewis turning point”: the point at which a country’s surplus labor from rural areas has been largely exhausted. This is the result of both heavy migration to cities over the past two decades and the shrinking work force that the one-child policy has produced. In due time, the sense of many Americans today that Asian juggernauts are swiftly overtaking the U.S. economy will be remembered as one of the country’s periodic bouts of paranoia, akin to the hype that accompanied Japan’s ascent in the 1980s.
China’s lines around islands suggest more conflict
China calls them the Diaoyus; Japan, the Senkakus. The new map shows a satellite image of a kidney-shaped main island with splotches of green and a list of 70 affiliated “islands” that are really half-submerged rocks.
China hastily published the map to help maintain public outrage over the Japanese government’s purchase of some of the islands from their private Japanese owners. Beijing also has engaged in another type of mapmaking that may end up escalating the conflict.
It has drawn new territorial markers, or baselines, around the islands and submitted them to the United Nations. That could lead to a more serious attempt to claim the islands, and broad swaths of valuable ocean around them.
“The status quo has been broken in the last month by Japan’s purchase and China’s publishing of the baselines,” said Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt of the International Crisis Group. She said friction is likely to reach its worst level since the 1980s when China and Japan tacitly agreed to set aside the dispute in pursuit of better overall relations.
The Next Panic – The Atlantic
Europe’s crisis will be followed by a more devastating one, likely beginning in Japan.
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Who could be next in line for a gut-wrenching loss of confidence in its growth prospects, its sovereign debt, and its banking system? Think about Japan.
Japan’s post-war economic miracle ended badly in the late 1980s, when the value of land and stocks spiked dramatically and then crashed. This boom-and-bust cycle left people, companies, and banks with debts that took many years to work off. Headline-growth rates slowed after 1990, leading some observers to speak of one or more “lost decades.”
The Next Panic – Peter Boone and Simon Johnson – The Atlantic
Atomic Angst: Remembering the Last Year in Which Nuclear War Shook Us
Steven Church and I have a few things in common. We were both shaped by the flat, small-town environments that provided the backdrop for our respective childhoods: Lawrence, Kansas for Church, the Central Valley’s Modesto, California for me. We both identify as children of the 1980s. And we were both freaked out by nuclear war in 1983.
Church had greater reason to freak than I did, since the area of the Midwest that he called home got nuked on television that year. An English professor at Cal State Fresno, Church recounts watching the production in Lawrence of the made-for-TV drama The Day After for his 2010 memoir, The Day After The Day After: My Atomic Angst. Other events in Lawrence around that time made him a particularly anxious adolescent, not the least of which was the divorce of his parents. Yet The Day After is the dramatic center of Church’s recollection, and his book is an engaging reminder of just how terrifying growing up during the last years of the Cold War could be.
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As individuals who were profoundly affected by The Day After, Church and I no doubt represent a minority of our generation. Still, I am happy that Millennials have grown up in a post-1983 world. Fears of a zombie apocalypse are a comforting substitute for the real thing.
I don’t know about you, but if 1983 was the last year people were afraid of nuclear war, then that is pretty scary. People today are more focused on the zombie apocalypse. Of course, that is when you can tear them away from watching Kim Kardashian.
Consider two groups of people:
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Group A: We will call this group “the Spartans.” They fear nuclear war. They are heavily armed with nuclear weapons and are able to launch multiple nuclear strikes over many years. All the leaders of enemy countries fear the Spartans. They know that the regime leaders and military cannot escape death. Sooner or later the Spartans will get them personally. The Spartans will ensure that there aren’t enough living people to count the dead after a nuclear war.
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Group B: We will call this group “the Americans.” They have no fear of nuclear war. They have eliminated the vast majority of their nuclear weapons and seek to quickly eliminate them completely. They are able to launch only one nuclear strike in retaliation. All the enemy leaders have contempt for the Americans. The leaders know that they and their military can ride out a nuclear war in their bunkers. When the dust clears there will be no more America.
Which group would you rather belong to?
The Day After – Attack Sequence
