Danger closer: A game change that needs to reset U.S. national defense alertment

Probably the strangest consequence from two recent North Korean missile tests, on 5 and 11 January 2022, was a pair of reported U.S. events that appear to have been in reaction to them.

One U.S. event got much more coverage than the other.  It was on the afternoon of 10 January on the U.S. West coast, minutes after the missile launch from North Korea at 7:27 AM in the Korean time zone on 11 January. 

At “around 2:30 PM PST” on 10 January, the FAA issued a ground stop for air traffic throughout sectors on the West coast.  The North Korean missile launch occurred three minutes before the ground stop order, whose reality and authenticity The Drive’s “War Zone” blog has since verified through contact with persons involved at the receiving end of the order.  Sources confirmed they believed the stop order to be related to national security.

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The deal that will launch a thousand attack sorties? (Part 1)

This is Part 1 of a two-part post.  Part 2 is here.

It’s hard to overstate the concern with which we should view the nuclear “deal” concluded with Iran on Saturday, 23 November.  Although everyone will wait, there is actually nothing to wait for with this deal: nothing to watch develop.  To say “We’ll see what happens,” in terms of Iran’s compliance, is to misunderstand.  As regards what matters to acquiring a nuclear weapon, Iran won’t change anything she’s been doing.*  She may (or may not) put off further some things she had already suspended, or had announced she was going to delay anyway.   But her program will not actually take a step backward.  It’s not even guaranteed

Yet another reminder: Iran still closing in on bomb

So, who’s up for another round of graphs showing that Western diplomacy, sanctions, and technology have yet to out-maneuver Iran in the mullahs’ push for a bomb?

A long-time IAEA expert, Olli Heinonen, predicted this past week that, using her newer, advanced centrifuges, Iran could produce enough high-enriched uranium (HEU) for a first nuclear warhead in as little as two weeks from making the decision to go for the “breakout.”  (See here also.)

For clarity, this does not mean Iran is “two weeks from a bomb.”  It means that once Iran decides to take the final enrichment step, it could take as little as two weeks