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WASHINGTON – A prominent foreign policy expert now thinks it’s time to pre-emptively attack North Korea to prevent it from using what he believes is a nuclear weapon specifically designed to generate a powerful electromagnetic pulse that could threaten the future of U.S. society, according to a report in Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin.
R. James Woolsey said that the North Koreans already have such a weapon, has conducted three nuclear tests and has orbited a satellite which could be a nuclear weapon itself.
Woolsey, who was a director of the Central Intelligence Agency during the Clinton administration, said that previous and current administrations have appeased North Korea rather than halt its nuclear weapons program.
He said that even the George W. Bush administration ignored advice given in 2008 by now deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and William Perry, secretary of defense under Clinton.
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They proposed a surgical pre-emptive strike to destroy North Korean launch pads to halt any testing of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Woolsey said that failure to adhere to that advice back then has now put the U.S. at risk from a North Korean EMP attack.
He said that North Korea may have developed a nuclear weapon to make what other analysts call a super-EMP weapon to produce more gamma rays while giving off a low explosive and radiation yield.
North Korean nuclear devices are assessed to be in the kiloton rather than megaton range. However, if it is designed to emit more gamma rays to produce a powerful EMP effect, it would have a more debilitating impact on unprotected electronics, including the vulnerable U.S. national grid system.
Read the documentation that's sparking the worry about the EMP threat, in "A Nation Forsaken".
Gamma rays are a form of electromagnetic energy that emits a high-intensity burst caused by the rapid acceleration of charged particles.
They can be so powerful and supercharged that they can knock out or completely fry any unprotected electronics, or electrical systems, depending on its intensity.
An EMP from a nuclear explosion is rated as the most powerful of three classes -- E1 being nuclear, E2 being lightning and E3 from a direct sun flare impact on electrical and electronic components.
The effect of a North Korean EMP nuclear attack would be conducted anywhere from 150 miles to 300 miles, using a satellite orbiting the earth. This makes Pyongyang very dangerous in conducting asymmetric warfare with the U.S.
In this instance, one high-altitude explosion would effectively knock out unprotected electronics and the national grid on which the military in the U.S. depend by 99 percent.
It could effectively limit any military response that the U.S. could mount, especially if North Korea were to mount launch a missile, especially over the South Pole and orbit a “package” that would not be identified until the North Korans took some action.
Separately, former Ambassador Henry Cooper has pointed out that the U.S. lacks an Aegis anti-ballistic missile system positioned to launch against a south polar attack from North Korea.
Woolsey pointed out that North Korea’s space launch vehicles resemble a secret weapon developed by the then Soviet Union called a Fractional Orbital Bombardment Systems, or FOBS.
The FOBS is designed to launch a surprise nuclear attack on the U.S. by using one of its intercontinental ballistic missiles disguised as a space launch vehicle.
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