@@ Non-Lethal Nukes @@
Arash
August 7, 2004
Non-Lethal Nukes?
By Dr. James Gordon Prather
Nuclear weapons physicist
gpra...@worldnetdaily.com
A couple of weeks ago, the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United
States from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack delivered its final report to
Congress.
The Commission was asked to assess - among other things - "the nature and
magnitude of potential high-altitude EMP threats to the United States from
all potentially hostile states or non-state actors that have or could
acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles enabling them to perform a
high-altitude EMP attack against the United States within the next 15
years."
What the hell is "EMP"?
Well, in Operation Dominic, a series of nuke tests we conducted over the
Pacific in 1962, we learned - much to our surprise - then when a large
megaton-yield anti-ballistic-missile nuke warhead is detonated at the very
high altitudes where incoming Soviet nuke warheads would be intercepted, in
addition to destroying the incoming Soviet warhead, our ABM nuke's enhanced
radiation also produces extreme charge separation in the underlying
atmosphere. That is, the atoms in the air are not merely ionized - separated
into positively-charged ions and negatively-charged electrons. Zillions of
electrons are driven far away from the ions, creating humongous
high-frequency 'dipole' radio transmitters.
The resulting multi-frequency electromagnetic pulse - EMP - can interfere
catastrophically with the operation of electrical and electronic systems at
considerable distances. That first high-altitude megaton-yield nuke test
over Johnson Island resulted in power system failures in Hawaii, more than
700 miles (1100 kilometers) away.
Once the EMP effect was discovered, we did two things. One was to spend a
zillion dollars EMP-hardening all military electrical and electronic
components and weapons systems.
The second was to see if specially designed nukes of much lower yield could
produce EMP as the primary 'kill mechanism'. Were we successful?
Well, according to the Commission
China and Russia have considered limited nuclear attack options that, unlike
their Cold War plans, employ EMP as the primary or sole means of attack.
Indeed, as recently as May 1999, during the NATO bombing of the former
Yugoslavia, high-ranking members of the Russian Duma, meeting with a US
congressional delegation to discuss the Balkans conflict, raised the specter
of a Russian EMP attack that would paralyze the United States.
The Commission concluded that such an attack - non-lethal, in and of,
itself - "has the potential to hold our society at risk and might result in
defeat of our military forces."
Of course, it is one thing for Russia or China to have that capability. It
is quite another for a "potentially hostile state or non-state actor" to
acquire a ballistic missile capable of delivering a thousand-pound
megaton-yield nuke warhead to the continental United States and detonating
it exo-atmospherically.
In fact, if al-Qaeda ever acquires a megaton-yield nuke, what reason do we
have for supposing they would choose some non-lethal use for it? Wouldn't
they just smuggle it into Washington and attempt to detonate it. [Hollywood
to the contrary, detonating on the ground a nuke that was designed to be
carried to 500,000 feet (150 kilometers) by a missile and then detonated, is
not a 'slam-dunk'.]
Nevertheless, the Commission devoted considerable effort to assessing the
EMP threat posed by terrorists.
But what about North Korea?
According to Jane's, North Korea has developed and is deploying, two new
missile systems, both based on the Soviet R-27 liquid-fueled
submarine-launched ballistic missile.
The R-27 - as deployed by the Soviets during the 1970s and 1980s - had an
operational range of about 1600 miles (2600 km) carrying a 1.2 megaton nuke
warhead. Jane's says the Korean ground-launched model could have a range of
about 2500 miles (4000 km), bringing Hawaii into range.
However, if the Koreans have substantially increased the range of the
liquid-fueled R-27, they have probably done it the way they increased the
range of their chief "cash crop", Soviet liquid-fueled Scuds; by increasing
the lengths of the fuel tanks. The cost of that extra fuel is decreased
payload. The Korean R-27 could hardly deliver a thousand-pound (450 kg) 1.2
megaton nuke warhead to Hawaii - much less detonate it at 250,000 feet (70
km) over Hawaii - even if the Russians were to give them one.
In fact, the Korean R-27 could hardly deliver to Waikiki Beach one of the
first-generation plutonium-implosion nukes they are suspected of having. The
Korean nukes - if they exist - must weigh at least a thousand pounds
(450kg). Our first generation plutonium-implosion nuke - the one we dropped
on Nagasaki 59 years ago - weighed ten thousand pounds (4500 kg).
Nevertheless, as silly as it sounds, both the EMP-Commission report and the
Jane's report on new Korean missiles are being used as justification for the
Clinton ABM system now being installed by Bush in Alaska.
* Physicist James Gordon Prather has served as a policy implementing
official for national security-related technical matters in the Federal
Energy Agency, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the
Department of Energy, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the
Department of the Army. Dr. Prather also served as legislative assistant for
national security affairs to U.S. Sen. Henry Bellmon, R-Okla. -- ranking
member of the Senate Budget Committee and member of the Senate Energy
Committee and Appropriations Committee. Dr. Prather had earlier worked as a
nuclear weapons physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in
California and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico.
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/prather.php?articleid=3258