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"The puppet group of south Korea is resorting to smear propaganda campaign to seek its comfort by forcing others into death like itself," KCNA said today. Warning of impending nuclear war, the chilling rant by the state run news agency continued: "The arrows indicating the merciless retaliatory strikes have already been drawn directing at the U.S. mainland, U.S. military bases in the Pacific and all other bases where the U.S. imperialist aggression forces station. "The powerful strike means of the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK have been put in their places and the coordinates of targets put into the...

Calling international efforts to stop North Korea from building atomic weapons a “miserable failure,” a prominent South Korean lawmaker today called for the deployment of tactical US nuclear weapons in the South and suggested that his country think about developing their own nuclear deterrent. The call by M.J. Chung, a seven-term member of the Korean National Assembly and former presidential candidate, comes amid the biggest spike of tensions on the Korean peninsula in recent years. Among other threats, the new young leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, has threated to target Guam and Hawaii, and turn Seoul, South Korea’s capital,...

THERE ARE MANY MORE IMAGES AT THE SITE Full Title: Ultra-Fast Nuclear Detonation Picture While the image above is the stereotypical picture of a nuclear explosion, in reality by the time the classic mushroom cloud has formed all the interesting detail is long over. The following images, borrowed from several sources, show the eerie and complex patterns atomic detonations create immediately after they are triggered. Most of the following images were taken using Rapatronic cameras, ultra-high speed, single-frame cameras developed in the 1940s by Dr. Harold Edgerton. The duration of the exposure is typically 10 nanoseconds (0.00000001 of a second....

SEOUL — The North Korean army said Thursday it had final approval to launch "merciless" military strikes on the United States, involving the possible use of "cutting-edge" nuclear weapons. In a statement published by the official KCNA news agency, the General Staff of the Korean People's Army (KPA) said it was formally informing Washington that reckless US threats would be "smashed by... cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means". "The merciless operation of (our) revolutionary armed forces in this regard has been finally examined and ratified," the statement said.

According to a new Pew poll, 64 percent of Americans believe that it’s “more important to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons than to avoid a military conflict.” They point out that “majorities across nearly all demographic groups” agree — 80 percent of Republicans prioritized preventing a nuclear Iran over avoiding military conflict, but a majority of Democrats, 62 percent, did too.....

Is Zbigniew Brzezinski OK with Iran developing nuclear weapons? Sounds that way. On Morning Joe today, Jimmy Carter's former national security adviser had some advice for President Obama: tell Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu that America will not go to war against Iran. Attacking Iran's nuclear facilities would surely be an act of war. Yet doing so might well be the only way to prevent the ayatollahs from getting the A-bomb. Unfortunately, neither Joe Scarborough nor anyone else on the panel including daughter Mika asked Brzezinski flat out whether he would encourage America to stand by while Iran got nukes. But...

“I can tell you that the United States is fully capable of defending against any North Korean ballistic missile attack.” That was White House spokesman Jay Carney, reacting to the third nuclear test this year by the self-styled “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” as well as a brash threat from Pyongyang to, well, nuke the United States. Carney’s words are certainly reassuring, but the real question is why they were even necessary in the first place. There are two problems, basically. One is the administration’s nuclear-weapon policy. The other is the laggardly pace of our missile defenses. Begin with the...

As most of you have read or seen by now, a journalist and NBC/MSNBC media consultant named William “Bill” Arkin has created quite a stir by viciously insulting American soldiers in Iraq. He wrote at his Washington Post blog, “Early Warning: William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security” column (1/30/07), that “… this NBC (Nightly News) report is just an ugly reminder of the price we pay for a mercenary - oops sorry, volunteer force that thinks it is doing the dirty work” re Iraq. The “report,” according to Arkin, featured “a number of soldiers (who) expressed frustration with...

WASHINGTON -- Senior Obama administration officials have agreed that the number of nuclear warheads the U.S. military deploys could be cut by at least a third without harming national security, according to those involved in the deliberations. Such a reduction would open the door to billions of dollars in military savings, which might ease the federal budget deficit. It also would improve prospects for a new arms deal with Russia before President Barack Obama leaves office, those involved said, but it’s likely to draw fire from conservatives, if previous debate on the issue is any guide.

WASHINGTON — Last year, the Obama administration announced to the world that it was planning to pursue a new Asia/Pacific-oriented national security strategy. Since then, North Korea has countered with a strategy of its own. In December, Pyongyang successfully launched a multistage intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying a warhead-sized payload to the U.S. mainland. On Feb. 12, the North Koreans tested an improved-design nuclear weapon. After the test, Pyongyang announced that despite tightened United Nations sanctions that theoretically went into force last month, its latest nuclear test bolstered its defenses against U.S. "hostility." In a lengthy broadcast on the...

North Korea has just pulled off an impressive dual feat -- the successful test both of an intercontinental ballistic missile and an atom bomb in the 6-kiloton range. Pyongyang's ruler, 30-year-old Kim Jong Un, said the tests are aimed at the United States. So it would seem. One does not build an ICBM to hit Seoul, 30 miles away. Experts believe North Korea is still far from having the capability to marry a nuclear warhead to a missile that could hit the West Coast. But this seems to be Kim's goal. Why is he obsessed with a nation half...

The White House and President Obama’s supporters insist that he’s making his first trip to Israel next month to assure the Jewish state that if push comes to shove with Iran, he’ll have Israel’s back. But North Korea’s nuclear test Tuesday morning could indicate that it’s already too late for that. If North Korea has the bomb, then for all practical purposes Iran does, too. If that’s so, then Obama’s policy of prevention has failed, and containment—a policy that the president has repeatedly said is not an option—is in fact all Washington has. If this sounds hyperbolic, consider the history...

I stand out among my conservative friends in disliking guns. I favor reasonable restrictions on the Second Amendment, such as bans on fully automatic weapons, background checks for purchases and forbidding the sale of guns to those with histories of mental illness or criminality. Yet I cannot agree with liberals that more gun control will lead to fewer gun crimes. President Obama's choice for defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, actually illuminated one of the weaknesses of the gun control case. Hagel had been closely associated with Global Zero (though he's since repudiated it), a movement dedicated to "the elimination of all...

North Korea: After successfully testing a missile capable of launching a satellite, Pyongyang works toward a nuclear warhead small enough for it to carry an electro-magnetic-pulse weapon of our worst nightmares. When North Korea orbited a failed satellite in December aboard an Unha-3 long-range missile, it was treated in some quarters as a stunt of no real significance or threat. The last Stalinist regime on earth had no deliverable warhead small enough to place on this missile which itself had no great accuracy. Serious observers, however, noted that any nation capable of putting an object in orbit could deliver an...

Officials in India-administered region of Kashmir have issued an advisory to residents to be prepared for a potential nuclear, biological or chemical war by building bomb-proof basements or bunkers and stocking up of essential supplies for two weeks. The official advisory follows a recent flare up of tensions between India and Pakistan along the de facto Kashmir border. Two Indian soldiers and three Pakistani soldiers died in January near the Line of Control (LoC) in the worst bout of cross-border violence since both nations declared a ceasefire in November 2003. “People should construct basements where the whole family can stay...

The London accountant who accompanied Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan to Timbuktu on three occasions in 1998, 1999 and 2000 says the 'father' of the Pakistani bomb witnessed the digging of a well, toured an ancient Islamic library and enjoyed the views of the desert. A remote outpost in the middle of the West African desert, Timbuktu usually attracts explorers associated in the popular mind with the adventures of the comic character Tin Tin. And Pakistani dissidents told rediff.com the reason for Khan's visit to Timbuktu, part of landlocked West African state of Mali, was to prospect for uranium. They say...

Generally it means that even the severely reduced number of warheads deployed in our arsenal would not -- if they were needed in a crisis -- be available for use. If that in fact took place -- with countries hostile to the US having arsenals in excess of the US force -- it would probably be in irresistible invitation to them to attack. Former Senator Chuck Hagel, nominated to be Secretary of Defense, is also a signatory of what is known as the "Global Zero" plan. It calls for the United States and Russia to begin comprehensive nuclear arms negotiations...

Ex-Russian strategic commander says new Chinese missiles threaten 1987 U.S.-Russia arms treaty. A former commander of Russia’s nuclear forces warned the Obama administration this week that China’s short-range nuclear missiles are undermining the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between the United States and Russia. Retired Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin, a former commander of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces, also said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon that U.S. and Western arms specialists have dramatically underestimated China’s nuclear arsenal. Beijing’s warhead arsenal, he said, likely is between 1,600 to 1,800 nuclear warheads and bombs. Yesin met with Pentagon, military,...

...Three stages are involved in the evolution of a military nuclear capability: a delivery system, a capacity to enrich uranium and the production of nuclear warheads. Iran has been augmenting the range and number of its missile systems since at least 2006. Its enrichment capacity — long underreported to the International Atomic Energy Agency — has been expanded to thousands of centrifuges (the instruments that enrich uranium to bomb-grade material). The level exceeds any reasonable definition of peaceful uses authorized by the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The inevitable culmination is a nuclear weapon. To draw the line at proscribing an Iranian nuclear...

During last week's vice presidential debate, the candidates clashed over whose team would be better able to impose "crippling" sanctions on Iran. The problem of sanctions is an old one. President Jefferson tried to impose a trade embargo on Britain in 1807 to stop the Royal Navy from seizing our sailors on the high seas. This Embargo was an attempt to use peaceful coercion to bring about a change in policy by the British. It failed. It was Jefferson's greatest failure as president. We have a Bicentennial Walking Tour of the War of 1812 at the U.S. Naval Academy. I'd...