North Korea Yet to Develop 'EMP' Bombs

N. Korea yet to develop 'EMP' bombs: S. Korea

2014/07/28 13:41 

SEOUL, July 28 (Yonhap) -- North Korea appears to have not yet developed electromagnetic pulse (EMP) bombs despite its push to secure related technology, South Korea's defense ministry said Monday.

An EMP bomb refers to a nuclear weapon designed to be detonated at a high altitude so as to generate powerful electromagnetic pulses that can destroy electronic and electrical devices on the ground. The communist North has long been believed to be developing EMP weapons.

Reponding to the speculation, James Woolsey, a former director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), said last week that Pyongyang "will soon match Russia and China in that they will have the primary ingredients for an EMP attack."

   He made the comments in a statement submitted last Tuesday to the House Armed Services Committee.

"It is yet to be confirmed if the North has secured the technology related to the EMP. But it is our analysis that it has yet to have success in making EMP bombs," defense ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told a regular briefing.

"We see that North Korea has yet to reach a technological level high enough to develop the bombs, as building (the bombs) requires advanced skills," he added, while declining to confirm the intelligence the former CIA chief put forth.

EMP bombs are considered critical in new types of warfare for their ability to neutralize or damage radar, airplanes, naval fleets and aerial defense systems.

The Editor

Yonhap News

We are writing in response to yesterday’s article:  N. Korea yet to develop EMP bombs.  You wrote this in response to the statement by Ambassador James Woolsley, a former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, that “Pyongyan will soon match Russia and China in that they will have the primary ingredients for an EMP attack”.  You say:

"It is yet to be confirmed if the North has secured the technology related to the EMP. But it is our analysis that it has yet to have success in making EMP bombs," defense ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok told a regular briefing.

"We see that North Korea has yet to reach a technological level high enough to develop the bombs, as building (the bombs) requires advanced skills," he added, while declining to confirm the intelligence the former CIA chief put forth.

We believe this is a wrong overly optimistic assertion from the government of South Korea to Ambassador Woolsey’s assertion.

This statement is contradicted by several open source reports from South Korean Military Intelligence reported in the press in 2011, 2012 and 2013 that North Korea is developing – or has already developed with Russian help – what Russia calls “Super EMP” nuclear warheads.  Moreover, according to open source reporting, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, Central Intelligence Agency and NATO Intelligence assess that North Korea already has nuclear armed missiles.  Any nation armed with a nuclear missile – as is North Korea – is capable of making an EMP attack.

In 2013, a Chinese military commentator stated that North Korea now has “Super EMP” nuclear warheads.

Indeed, North Korea apparently practiced an EMP attack against the United States last year, during the nuclear crisis when Kim Jong-Un was threatening to make a nuclear missile strike against the U. S. mainland.  North Korea orbited a satellite over the U.S. at an optimum altitude and location for an EMP attack.

Moreover, a few months later, a North Korean freighter operating in the Gulf of Mexico was found, when it tried transiting the Panama Canal, to have two SA-2 nuclear capable missiles, mounted on their launchers, hidden in the hold.  While the missiles had no nuclear warheads, they are designed to carry a 10 kiloton nuclear warhead.  This might have been an exercise, eerily similar to the worst case scenario of the Congressional EMP Commission, where terrorists or a rogue state like North Korea or Iran launches an EMP attack from a ship off the U.S. Coast.  Such an attack would leave no “fingerprints” and could enable the perpetrator to inflict an EMP catastrophe on the American people anonymously, thereby escaping retaliation.

Kim Min-seok’s assertion that North Korea does not yet have EMP weapons is also contradicted by real world events.  In 2001, North Korea demonstrated to the world that it has a non-nuclear EMP “cannon” provided by Russia.  The North used this EMP weapon disrupt South Korean communications and dangerously interfere with air traffic flying into Seoul.

North Korea has been making every effort to buy the technology, buy the people with the technology and buy the actual weapons.  They only need one.  Confirmation from the closed state of North Korea could come in a lethal manner.  They could exterminate us.  We must take immediate defensive action on the assumption that they will shortly have this technology.

In particular, America should immediately station an Aegis vessel near North Korea, announce that any attempted launch of a missile with an EMP warhead will be shot down, and install important radar equipment, presently not utilized in America, in the Philippines.  This will improve the effectiveness of U.S. Aegis sea-based interceptors and ground based interceptors on Vandenberg AFB in California against such an attack.  Surely the South Korean government would support these defensive moves.

Robert Laidley

President

The Atlantic and Conservation Institute  

New York City

Dr. Peter Vincent Pry

Executive Director

Task Force on National and Homeland Security

Washington D.C.

301-481-4715

Amb. Henry F. Cooper

Former Director

The Strategic Defense Initiative

Washington D.C.

Email from Kyung Hwa Lee