Why North Korea is Becoming More Dangerous

With all the presidential politicking consuming our daily intake of news, one event, that should have been front and center, went by with little notice.

On August 24, North Korea launched a ballistic missile from a submarine.  The missile flew more than 300 miles towards Japan before falling into the sea.  Experts believe that, had the arc been higher, it  could have reached a distance of over 600 miles.

This is a very dangerous move by North Korea.  Subs are silent killers that are difficult to detect without airborne magnetic anomaly detection (MAD).  And, then, only if the sub is within a narrow range and shallow depth for detection.  A sub with a nuclear tipped missile could easily roam off the West coast of the U.S., be undetected, and put many of our cities at risk like Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco.

While it is highly unlikely that North Korea has currently achieved the miniaturization of nuclear technology to place a nuke on a sub launched missile, it probably is just a matter of time before they have that technology.  Add to this the obvious irrational behavior of Kim Jong-un, and our allies such as Japan could be facing a very dangerous future.

References:

North Korea fires submarine-launched ballistic missile towards Japan: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-idUSKCN10Y2B0

Magnetic anomaly detector: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_anomaly_detector