You are not allowed to view links.
Register or
LoginNorth Korea Might Just Blow Up a Nuclear Weapon in the Atmosphere
As North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs have become more adventurous, a worrying possibility has begun to emerge. There’s a chance that—at some point—the North Koreans might want to combine the two testing programs, by putting a live nuclear warhead on top of a ballistic missile. That means, assuming all goes as it should, the missile would fly downrange to its appointed target zone, and the warhead would detonate in the atmosphere. That sort of test—an end-to-end test of the full weapon system—would be a convincing demonstration that Pyongyang had crossed the critical bridges: that it had a long-range ballistic missile with the throw-weight to carry a nuclear warhead, a warhead able to be placed atop the missile, and a re-entry vehicle that could survive the stresses of re-entry.