The DEFCON Warning System™

Ongoing GeoIntel and Analysis in the theater of nuclear war.  DEFCON Level assessment issued for public notification.  Established 1984.

Stopping a N. Korean Missile No Sure Thing, U.S. Tester Says

The U.S.’s $36 billion system of ground-based interceptors can’t yet be counted on to shoot down a nuclear-armed missile aimed at the West Coast by the likes of North Korea or Iran, the Pentagon’s weapons testing office says.

The network of radar and communications combined with missiles based in California and Alaska has demonstrated only a “limited capability to defend the U.S. homeland from small numbers of simple” intercontinental ballistic missiles, the testing office said in its latest annual report.

Despite international sanctions, North Korea has continued to test nuclear bombs and the missiles that might eventually carry a miniaturized warhead to the continental U.S. Meanwhile, the U.S. has criticized Iran for conducting ballistic missile tests, although the Islamic Republic has said its program is defensive and isn’t designed to carry nuclear warheads.

The probability that the U.S. would succeed in intercepting an incoming missile can’t be quantified with any precision “due to a lack of ground tests” supported by verified “modeling and simulation,” according to an advance copy of the assessment provided late Monday to congressional defense committees and Pentagon officials.

For full article, see Bloomberg

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Ongoing Geointel and Analysis in the theater of nuclear war.

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The DEFCON Warning System is a private intelligence organization which has monitored and assessed nuclear threats by national entities since 1984. It is not affiliated with any government agency and does not represent the alert status of any military branch. The public should make their own evaluations and not rely on the DEFCON Warning System for any strategic planning. At all times, citizens are urged to learn what steps to take in the event of a nuclear attack.