Useful Fools

Steven Den Beste has put up a very interesting and, as usual, insightful article on the Korean situation, the latest in a series.

However, some of the article belies on an incomplete understanding of nuclear weapons and their effects.

Thus the following:

NUCLEAR WEAPONS EFFECTS

• Nuclear weapons which are detonated far enough above ground(such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki) are termed “air burst, and produce zero local fallout. In such a detonation, the fallout rises as vapor into the stratosphere and is widely distributed around the world, with negligible effects (unless very large numbers are detonated). There were NO fallout deaths from the attacks in Japan (although there were many radiation deaths due to the “prompt” radiation from the fireball itself).

  Thus it is possible to use large thermonuclear weapons against North Korea (artillery bunkers, plutonium reprocessing plants, etc) without concern for fallout.

• Seoul is far enough from North Korean artillery tubes that the use of even strategic thermonuclear weapons against the artillery would not cause significant damage from blast, heat, prompt radiation or fallout in the city. This is even without considering the shielding provided by the intervening mountains (I don’t have a good map of that, only what I saw 20 years ago on a visit).

>/ul>

I have a (not too well organized) reference page on various aspects of nuclear weapons use and radiation. Some of the data is taken from another, vastly more detailed onlne source. Mine is basically a collection of information to give readers a quantitative idea of the effects of the weapons, and also some information on radiation and on terrorist issues (such as “suitcase nukes”).

As shown above, the use of nuclear weapons by us would be primarily constrained by political (international) issues or military considerations, not nuclear fallout or damage to Seoul by the weapons. For example, attacking hardened underground targets is far less effective with air bursts, and ground bursts would be tempting. Under the right wind conditions, ground bursts would result in the significant fallout contained within enemy territory and the Sea of Japan.

However, the level of hardening required to survive nearby surface bursts is dramatically higher than that likely used in the forward bunkers and tunnels, so I would expect that a few dozen nukes would silence a large percentage of the artillery.

SMUGGLING NUCLEAR WEAPONS OR COMPONENTS

A plutonium “pit” need be no larger than a softball - even for a crude weapon. The radiation is weak enough that simply putting in an sealed plastic baggie would be enough to protect anyone smuggling it out of North Korea, although significantly more shielding might be required to get it INTO the US reliably without triggering radiation detectors, depending upon the method of entry. But in general, smuggling the pit is relatively easy.

The explosives and electronics are somewhat larger (maybe even Fat Boy size for a crude weapon) but by themselves are harder to detect because they don’t have a very interesting radiation or X-ray signature, at least until assembled. The Norks have been working for some time on testing explosives, and they may have considerable information from the US via the China (espionage) -> Pakistan -> North Korea route.

There are different issues with nukes using enriched uranium instead of Plutonium, but since the Norks proably don’t have any (yet!), they won’t be detailed here.

TIMING

I am concerned at the delays implied by the talks. The longer we talk, the more plutonium is extracted and the more “pits” made.

The biggest danger is if the North were to sell a nuke to terrorists, who would use it against us or Moscow. We could suddenly lose our government and at the same time never find out who to retaliate against. This would be a failure of deterrence, and is the reason that possession of nuclear weapons by Korea is such an immediate crisis. When Iran also achieves nuclear capability, the situation gets worse (do we nuke them both if we are attacked?).

Also, there exist analyses suggesting that a normally “MAD” constrained nuclear power (say Russia or China), in the circumstance where rogue states have nukes, might arrange for one of their own weapons to be used against the west, with the intention of wounding us without traceability and subsequent retaliation.

How realistic these scenarios are depend on many factors:

• How many “rogue” states have nuclear weapons.
• How confident a rogue or non-rogue state could be in concealing their involvement.
• How controllable are the agents who are to set off the bomb
• US policy with regard to these events, as made known to the potential adversaries even if not known to the public. It might be “nuke all the rogues and cut off economic ties to the rest” or something like that.
• Obviously, who stands to gain and how much. If North Korea gains money, that might be enough for them. If Al Quaeda is able to attack a major US city, they almost certainly would.