Monitor Releases Simulation Of What Nuclear Strike On North Korea Would Look Like

A scientist tasked with monitoring the proliferation of nuclear weapons has published what he described as a “rough simulation” of what would happen if North Korea follows through with threats to test a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific Ocean.

The upshot of the simulation – which was published by Lassina Zerbo, the head of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization - is that such an “atmospheric burst” could spread a “radio-isotope cloud” of radiation across the planet, potentially leading to the catastrophic loss of life. 

In response to inquiries: Rough simulation (Sept15-29) of #radio-isotope cloud from hypothetical atmospheric burst over Pacific: #CTBT #IMS pic.twitter.com/361ZBkoUy7

— Lassina Zerbo (@SinaZerbo) September 28, 2017

Simply a rough simulation of potential cloud that cld carry isotopes! In response to specific inquiries and nothing more.

— Lassina Zerbo (@SinaZerbo) September 28, 2017

To be sure, some criticized the graphic as misleading, arguing that such a test probably wouldn’t lead to a world-wide cataclysm.

This is very misleading. Folks will interpret as cataclysmic. Localized rad levels and global fallout totally different.

— Tucker Murray (@TJM11291) September 28, 2017

A Harvard PhD professor said that people “will confuse it with the kinds of fallout clouds they are used to reading about” the “shelter in place for two weeks kind.”

They will confuse it with the kinds of fallout clouds they are used to reading about, the "take shelter for 2 weeks" kind. pic.twitter.com/JEvIhbe97L

— Alex Wellerstein (@wellerstein) September 28, 2017

US President Donald Trump warned earlier this week, North Korea’s nuclear weapons threaten “the entire world with unthinkable loss of life,” adding that the US has several “devastating” military options to choose from in dealing with North Korea.  

Last week, North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho told the UN General Assembly in New York that the US had effectively “declared war” on North Korea, and that the isolated country wouldn’t hesitate to retaliate with a nuclear strike. Since then, there have been reports that the North could be planning another show of force – and possibly its seventh nuclear test – to coincide with a local holiday next month.

According to Ri, the “most powerful detonation of an H-bomb” would be one of the North’s “highest-level” actions against the US, as Russia Today reports.

“It could be the most powerful detonation of a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific,” Ri told Yonhap while in New York. “We have no idea about what actions could be taken, as it will be ordered by leader Kim Jong-un.”

North Korea completed its sixth successful nuclear test earlier this month when it tested what’s believed to have been a hydrogen bomb. However, it’s unclear if the country has developed a thermonuclear warhead small enough to fit inside the tip of one of it’s ICBMs. Monitoring groups estimate the explosion caused by the Sept. 3 test was 16 times the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

Yesterday, China announced that it had ordered all North Korean businesses operating within its borders to close, part of its obligations under the latest round of UN Security Council sanctions that were passed earlier this month.

Ultimately, Russia and China have called on both the US and North Korea to sit down for diplomatic talks. The two countries even proposed a peace plan where North would agree to suspend its nuclear and ballistic missile tests in exchange for the US halting its military drills with the South Koreans. However, neither the US nor North Korea have expressed much interest in talks.

The Government's Plan To Survive Nuclear War Doesn't Include You

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

Once again this week, the United States teetered a little closer towards war with the Russians. On Sunday, the US military shot down a Syrian jet that was allegedly targeting US backed forces. The Russians have since claimed that the aircraft was engaging ISIS, and have revealed that their air defense systems will now track any of our aircraft that happen to fly over Western Syria. They also suspended a hotline between the US and Russia that was in place to prevent mid-air collisions over the crowded skies of Syria.

Amid incidents like this, you have to wonder what our government is thinking. For most Americans, Syria must seem inconsequential. Why is our military involved in a country, where we are brushing shoulders with a nuclear armed nation? If it’s to fight ISIS, then we could easily sit back and let Russian and Syrian forces wipe them out. If it’s to affect regime change, then clearly our government hasn’t learned anything from Iraq or Afghanistan. Why are we risking a war with the Russians just to influence the outcome of a regional civil war that has little bearing on the daily lives of most Americans?

The answer to that question could probably fill a novel, but there is one reason that the elites in Washington will never admit to. They can afford to make careless decisions because they are insulated from the results. If there is a war with Russia, which could easily turn into a nuclear war, they’ll have plenty of spacious bunkers to hide out in while the rest of America burns. And that’s been our government’s plan in regards to nuclear war since the beginning of the Cold War.

That’s the main takeaway from a new book called Raven Rock: The Story of the US Government’s Plan to Save Itself. Our government has spent decades building sprawling bunkers, like Raven Rock, that high ranking officials can flee to in the event of a nuclear war.

The idea for Raven Rock was to have a military base that would function as an alternative to the Pentagon and would be dug out of a mountain and deep enough to survive any Russian attack.

 

A site was chosen six miles from Camp David, the Presidential retreat in Maryland, and work began in 1951 on the $17 million project

 

Some 300 men worked round the clock in three shifts to carve a 3,100ft tunnel out of the granite; engineers invented technology as they went along including blast doors and blast valves.

 

Inside the facility there was 100,000sq/ft of office space in five parallel caverns big enough to hold a three story building in each.

 

The entire facility could fit 1,400 people and was placed on giant springs to reduce the impact of a blast.

Via Daily Mail

Meanwhile, as they were building these bunkers and trying to convince Americans that nuclear war could be easily survivable, behind the scenes they knew it would be a bloodbath for civilians.

At the end of the 1950s, the FCDA created ‘Battleground USA’, a grim 120-page report on how cities should manage civil defense operations in the event of an attack.

 

It said that the area should be divided into ‘mortuary zones’ with ‘collection teams’ in charge of identifying bodies.

Post Office mail trucks would ferry the wounded to one of 900 improvised hospitals set up near attack sites in places like federal prisons.

 

In Kansas officials planned to confiscate household vitamins for use by the general population.

 

Planners estimated they could assemble two million pounds of food after an attack from their own reserves and from stores.

They could also could find 11 million ‘man-days’ of food in the forests and plains in rabbit meat, 10 million ‘man-days of wild birds and five million ‘man-days’ of fish.

 

Most chillingly they budgeted nearly 20 million ‘man-days’ of meat in residential pets.

 

It was disturbing reading and a view of the world that summed up by Eisenhower in one meeting: ‘The destruction might be such that we might ultimately have to go back to bows and arrows’

 

During another meeting Eisenhower admitted that nation didn’t have ‘enough bulldozers to scrape the bodies off the street’ in the event of a nuclear strike’.

And as we all know, our government didn’t take many measures to protect civilians from the potential carnage that would be inflicted by a nuclear war. They didn’t build many bunkers for the rest of us.

At first glance that may sound like an impossible task, but it’s not. Take Switzerland for instance. Despite not having any nuclear weapons, they’ve built enough fallout shelters to house every Swiss citizen. You might say that we could never afford that many shelters, but it’s not a question of cost. Switzerland’s GDP per capita is similar to America’s.

The truth of the matter, is that our leaders don’t give a damn about what happens to American civilians. As long as they have their bunkers, they feel safe while antagonizing nuclear armed nations like Russia. They know that if there’s a war, they’ll survive while the rest of us burn and starve.

Make no mistake, if there’s ever a war with Russia, you’ll be on your own. Whether or not you survive depends entirely on your willingness and ability to prepare now.

Russia Warns U.S. Not To Act Unilaterally Against North Korea

In response to the US vice president, Russia"s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said that Mike Pence’s statement on the US running out of “strategic patience”
towards Pyongyang does not contribute to resolving the crisis. The top Russian diplomat also voiced hope there will be no repeat of the US strike on Syria in North Korea.

On Monday, speaking from the DMZ, Mike Pence said the world has witnessed the “strength and resolve of Trump in actions taken in Syria and Afghanistan,” and threatened North Korea “not to test” this resolve or “or the strength of the armed forces of the United States.”

Lavrov responded by saying “I hope that there won’t be any unilateral actions like we recently saw in Syria and that the US will follow the policies Trump repeatedly declared during his election campaign.” He also warned the US not to take any military actions, stressing that the “risky nuclear and missile endeavors of Pyongyang” violating UNSC resolutions could not be used as an excuse for violating international law and the UN Charter “in the same fashion” as in Syria.

The period of US policy before the current escalation could be hardly described as an “era of strategic patience,” Lavrov added.

“I cannot call the Obama administration’s period an ‘era of strategic patience,’ as the US has been quite harshly limiting North Korea’s capabilities to develop economy sectors related to nuclear or energy areas,” Lavrov said, referring to past US initiatives, many of them backed by the UN Security Council.

Also addressing the matter, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that harsh statements do not contribute to peace and stability in the region, while commenting on South Korean President Hwang Kyo-ahn’s promise to “implement intensive punitive measures” on Pyongyang in case of any “provocations.”

“Our position is well known and consistent. We call on all sides to avoid any actions which might be perceived as a provocation. And we stand for the continuation of coordinated international efforts in existing formats to resolve the North Korean problem,” Peskov said.

Meanwhile tensions on the Korean Peninsula remain high: after Pyongyang conducted a missile test amid joint US-South Korea drills in March, and with at least one and as many as 3 US aircraft carrier groups headed toward the Peninsula, today North Korea"s UN ambassador said the US has "created a dangerous situation in which the thermonuclear war may break out at any moment on the peninsula and pose a serious threat to the world"s peace and security, to say nothing of those of northeast Asia." Separately, North Korea told the BBC that the country would be "conducting more missile tests on a weekly, monthly and yearly basis," in effect assuring a provocation.

Judging by the market"s response on Monday, a global thermonuclear war would be just the catalyst to pust the S&P back over its all time high of 2,400.

US Military Officials Expect North Korean Missile Launch Within Days

On the same day as Kim Jong Un threatens the US with "first-strike" nuclear ICBM and unveils propaganda showing the destruction of American forces, AP reports U.S. military officials expect another North Korean missile launch in the next several days.

Earlier today a Pyongyang envoy stated that North Korea will pursue "acceleration" of its nuclear and missile programs. This includes developing a "pre-emptive first strike capability" and an inter-continental ballistic missile, according to Choe Myong Nam, deputy ambassador at the DPRK (North Korean) mission to the United Nations in Geneva.

The latest development follows a previous report also from Reuters, in which it said the Trump administration is considering sweeping sanctions as part of a broad review of measures to counter North Korea"s nuclear and missile threat. "I think this is stemming from the visit by the Secretary of State (Rex Tillerson) to Japan, South Korea and China...We of course are not afraid of any act like that," Choe told Reuters.

"Even prohibition of the international transactions system, the global financial system, this kind of thing is part of their system that will not frighten us or make any difference." He called existing sanctions "heinous and inhumane".

Choe said his country wants a forum set up to examine the "legality and legitimacy of the sanctions regime" and denounced joint annual military exercises currently being carried out by the United States and South Korea on the divided peninsula and criticized remarks by Tillerson during his talks with regional allies last week.

"All he was talking about is for the United States to take military actions on DPRK (the Democratic People"s Republic of Korea," Choe said.

Additionally, North Korea rejects claims by Washington and Seoul that the military drills taking place at this moment are defensive. They involve strategic nuclear bombers and a nuclear submarine Columbus that recently entered South Korean ports, he said.

And then, just days after Kim threatened to reduce the US “to ashes” as tensions with North Korea continue to increase, which in turn followed a warning by Tillerson that the US is preparing for a "first strike" against the irrational dictator, while US special forces conduct drills in South Korea to "eliminate" the country"s ruler, the Supreme Leader released his latest materpiece of propaganda, showing the USS Carl Vinson nuclear-powered aircraft carrier up in flames.

And now, AP reports that the U.S. military expects another North Korean missile launch in the next several days, American defense officials said Tuesday.

The officials said the U.S. has increased its surveillance over the isolated, communist country and has seen a North Korean missile launcher moving around, as well as construction of VIP seating in the eastern coastal city Wonsan.

The officials, who weren"t authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the new surveillance includes satellites, drones and other aircraft.

The U.S. officials on Tuesday said it"s unclear what type of missile launch may be coming. North Korea previously has conducted tests in Wonsan of its medium-range ballistic Musudan missile.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday described the North Korean threat as "grave and escalating," and a National Security Council official told a nuclear conference that the administration is conducting a high-priority review of North Korea policy.

Christopher Ford, senior director for weapons of mass destruction and nonproliferation on the NSC staff, said reviewers are considering a "full spectrum of possibilities."

"There"s this enormously broad continuum, and we are looking at that entire conceptual space," Ford told the Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference. He gave no concrete examples, but in an attempt to illustrate his point that the choices run the gamut, he said they range from "warm hamburger" to "war hammers."

Which Nation Do Americans See As Their Greatest Enemy (Spoiler Alert: It's Not Russia)

Back to work "deep state", neocons, and Clinton apologists, because America is not buying the narrative that Russia is their greatest enemy.

Americans have consistently identified ISIS as the biggest threat to their nation across multiple polls. Traditional foes, such as the countries making up George W. Bush"s infamous "Axis Of Evil", have been pushed into the background by the rise of non-state actors like Al-Qaeda and ISIS. In recent years however, Statista"s Niall McCarthy notes that the threat presented by some of America"s traditional enemies has started to manifest itself once again. Russia"s annexation of Crimea came as a reality check to the Obama administration while as recently as last Saturday, North Korea conducted a ballistic missile test.

YouGov conducted a poll to find out which countries Americans perceive as their nation"s biggest enemies. North Korea has continued to make headlines even after that missile launch with news emerging earlier this week that Kim-Jong-un"s half brother was allegedly poisoned in an airport in Malaysia. Both incidents have illustrated the unpredictability of the nuclear-armed regime in Pyongyang and it comes as little surprise that 57 percent of Americans consider North Korea their enemy.

Some of the entries on the upper portion of the infographic below are surprising. Iraq and Afghanistan were considered U.S. enemies by 29 and 23 percent of respondents respectively, despite their governments being key U.S. allies in the fight against Islamic extremism. Iran was labelled an enemy by 41 percent of Americans, even though a deal was signed last year to prevent Tehran developing nuclear weapons.

This chart shows the percentage of American adults considering these countries an enemy of the U.S.

You will find more statistics at Statista

Finally, we note that "Media" did not make it on the list (yet).