Democratic and republican party. Comes in 25ce minutes or so. Until then, a portion from todays washington journal. A seniorid wright, scientist for the union of concerned scientists joined us about north Koreas Nuclear capability. The military said within days, it could offer up its leader, a strike plan that could come close to the u. S. Territory of guam. What did you make of the details that the military put into this plan . Guest it seems to me like the kind of thing you would say if you were trying to up the ante. If you wanted to say look, we have the missiles and the range, we could reach guam. How do we threaten it without destroying it . That is the way i read it. Upping the ante on what kind of threat you may make. , they saidis report they had the capability to fire off for in immediate range missiles that would be fired east and over japan before landing about 18 to 25 miles off the coast of the island of guam. When it comes to the intermediate range missiles, what are they talking about . What is the power on the missiles . Guest in may, we saw them test launch a missile they called a 12. On 12 called a they shot each trait up. It comes very high and comes back down in the sea of japan. If you look at the height it reached and use it to calculate what range it could have, it has the range to reach want. Reach guam. The principle is there, we do not know how many we have. Guam. It could reach there is it growing consensus they probably have a Nuclear Warhead to put a to put it in a weapon or close to doing it. It is something more credible than it was six months ago. Host why do we know about their capability . Guest it is difficult to know in terms of Nuclear Weapons. What we see in this case is indications they conducted an underground nuclear test. We know north korea has conducted five of those. If you look at the seismic signals, when they go off, they shake the ground. From that, you can work backwards and figure out how strong the explosion was. We know they have something that worked in a cast that probably unitedield like the bomb states used in hiroshima in world war ii. We do not know how big it is. We do not know how rugged it is. We know they have something that will explode here and we do not know if they can put it on a Ballistic Missile and deliver it that way. Host do we know how they were able to get this capability . What resources did they need they had . Worth remembering Nuclear Weapons and Ballistic Missiles have been around for a long time. It is old technology. The hardest part about Nuclear Weapons are plutonium or uranium, the court. The core. North korea worked with the soviet union to develop a Small Research reactor. It gave them a start on developing plutonium. Help fromrted with pakistan developing the capability to enrich uranium for these weapons. Again, we know from the fact they have done the tests that they have material. People are trying to sort through the data and do estimates to figure how much they have. The estimates go anywhere from a couple dozen, enough for a couple dozen, to 60. Do you make of the report that came out from the military yesterday and the trajectory of these missiles . There would they fly over japan on the way to go guam . As it does it make it more susceptible to be destroyed . Guest there are two of the abilities for missile defense. 1 a shipbased system the u. S. Developing with japan helled the ages system t ageis system. I have not looked at this in detail. It could probably do a shot at it. Eight possibility groundbased to censor groundbased possibility eight groundbased interceptor called thhad. Some of them have done well in test situations. People do not know how well it would work under a surprise attack. It is the scenario people built the systems to deal with. At this point, people do not know what the probability is. Host when did the west began this antimissile system . How much money have reported . What is the technology . Suest it is several system they started their groundbased against missiles in the 1980s. It has evolved since then. Our estimate, on that system, we spent 30 to 40 billion. It is a system that is not doing very well. In test situations, it has only intercepted half of the time. Ageises system the system uses the same technology. If there is a launch, you have radars and satellites that the tech the launch that give you a trajectory to tell you where the missiles will be in the future. An interceptor, a missile in itself, it carries a kill vehicle. The kill vehicle has a telescope on it. He tries to find the object in space and run into it. It is not a matter of going up and exploding, you are trying to guide the kill vehicle to physically hit the warhead and destroy it. It is a very difficult thing to do. If you are off at these high speeds if youre off by a meter, you miss. It is part of the reason why it has taken a lot of time and effort and it is still not a trusted system. Host david wright is our guest, he is the Senior Scientist at the union of conference the union of at concerned scientists. The organizations founding documents is to science and technology are actual and potentia and potential significance. There is an emphasis on military technology. Lets get to our call. Susan in massachusetts, democrat. Good morning. Question or comment for david wright . Caller i have a question and a comment and good morning. Host good morning. Caller i think the president give time to work. They need to fill their duty to keep things to work on north korea. It works on a diplomatic solution when the president has situationsdiplomatic the dramatic positions in the area. Nohave hired someone who has qualifications for president. The majority of americans knew it and did not vote for him. Host what about sanctions in the impact of them . Some of them in place already. Has it slow down north korea . Do you think the latest round, ushered in by nikki haley at the could it slow them or stop them . Guest the most interesting thing about the vote is it was unanimous. Unfortunately, i do not think it is the i do not think they can solve the problem. We have seen sanctions in the past. North korea has gone to a point where they have longrange missiles and Nuclear Weapons. It seems to me the biggest thing the sanctions can do is pressure north korea to sit down for talks to lower the temperature on the situation. My biggest concern once you get in a crisis situation where both sides are upping the ante where their actions are being naken, you can stumble into a accident that could start something disastrous. My hope is increased sanctions, along with efforts by russia and china, along with the United States, would help things cool down. Host lets go to ron in illinois, a republican. Caller good morning. Thank you for your discussion. Area ndering in the how big a strike can we contemplate handling . Five missiles . 20 missiles . Did anbody electromagnetic pulse, how great of an area would it cover . Have we done any hardening of our electric transformers . In addition, from an offense of point of view can we do an over north korea without involving japan, china, and south korea . Thank you. Guest an electromagnetic pulse is something people worry about. If you detonate a Nuclear Weapon city, atmosphere above a it will create a strong little magnetic shockwave a strong electromagnetic shock went back and burnout electronics. In certain conditions, it can cover a large area. Some estimates i have seen say large parts of the United States. One thing we do not know is how much hardening has been done against it. Consumer electronics would be burnt out. My understanding is the pulse from a Nuclear Weapon like this the timelinve would be too short. If you are trying to do it over north korea, you would not be able to control the area it covered. Havoc on wreak north koreas neighbors. Host he talked about china and north korea responding. Of the newl board york times says the president is speaking to china when he made the fire and fury common. How could china and russia stop this from escalating . What side with a be on . Onst what side with baby on . What side would they be guest china is not happy that north korea is destabilizing the region. Its first concern is stability in the region. Could try and put pressure on it to agree to talks. It has some leverage. It is not clear how much. The problem is the United States and china seen the issue differently. What the United States would like to see, appears that china strangle north korea by cutting off oil, trade. In a sense, force north korea to its knees. China thinks it is a problem with instability. You do not know what would happen in a case where north korea was put in that position. They look at north korea and see themselves in the 1960s and 1970s when the world was inching them and developing and preventing them from developing nuclear programs. They were determined to continue the weapons despite the sanctions. And believe it is true with north korea. Trying to strangle it is probably not likely to work. Are willing to help get north korea to table. They see it as an issue between north korea and United States. They believe they made efforts to solve it has to come from the u. S. And north korea. Host lets go to angela in new orleans, a democrat. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Sir, bravo. We need more science right now than ever. I believe the weapons you are withng about was started the scud missiles. I do not believe it will ever be accurate because it has to maintain such a close point. If it is a meter off, it misses it. If it misses it, it is a Nuclear Weapon. Can the planet if a nuclearhing attack happens even as korea even in korea. With the rupee with the repercussions of the nuclear clout have on the Nuclear Cloud have on the United States . We are dealing with a note that does not believe in science. I amseven years old and 70 years old and for the first time in my life, i am scared tomorrow is not going to happen. Host lets get a response. Guest there are two issues people are concerned about. One if you use Nuclear Weapons anywhere and it created nuclear fallout, the club would be carried around the world. We saw it in the 1960s when countries were still doing tests of Nuclear Weapons in the atmosphere. There was a lot of concern at that point about lowlevel radiation being carried down from it was found in mothers milk. The other interesting thing people have looked at more recently is going back to the concept of nuclear winter. There is researchers there are researchers who look at in india and pakistan. If you had cities burning, how much soot would be put into the atmosphere . They can block out enough sunlight to produce Global Temperatures for a decade. It would wreak havoc with Food Production and health around the world. There aremates estimates where you would have two people around the world dime from the consequences. Have 2nd the world billion people around the world die from the consequences. Host yesterday on twitter, the twitter the president talked about this my first act as a president is president was to renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal. It is now stronger and more powerful than ever before. Guest a president statement the president s statement is not true. Nuclear, he ordered a posture review. The pentagon would get together and look at the u. S. Nuclear policy and weapons and figure what needs to be done. Nothing has actually happened from it. The idea modernization is taking place in the six months since he has been in office is not true. There has been a lot of discussion about the fact the u. S. Arsenal is somehow not modern. Technical point of view, it is not true. There are ongoing modernization and efforts to rebuild and refurbish Nuclear Weapons. The bombers, missiles, that have carried them. I do not understand the arguments that somehow the u. S. Arsenal is falling apart. Anybody in the pentagon if they would trade the u. S. Arsenal with the russian arsenal, it would be an absolute no. Host the wall street journal notes that the inventory in russia is at 7000. It is not quantity, it is quality . Guest yes, if youre talking about them a Nuclear Warheads, a couple hundred does not matter much. The other thing to keep in mind those are total arsenals on both sides. They are the one in storage and i waiting to be delivered. If you looked at the numbers in the field ready to be launched, those are down around 1600 on both sides. Thatew start treaty president obama negotiated and signed in 2011 puts a cap on it. It in stringent verification measures so both sides n know where it is. Host the wall street journal with the headline the u. S. Is overhauling its u. S. Arsenal. The overhaul began under the administration. In exchange of the ratification of the trader with russia with a treaty with russia, the administration would undertake the deal to modernize the arsenal. It is intended to replace by 2021, all three legs of the nuclear triad. Bombers in the air, submarines at sea, and intercontinental illicit missiles in underground silos. One of the problems is if you look at the cost estimates for doing it, it is astronomic. There are more than 1 trillion over the next 30 years of doing these upgrades. Essentially, everybody agrees the money is not going to be there. Inare going to look at it the coming years as people look at the issue and making hard decisions about what is needed and what is not here in is not. Host alberto, good morning. Caller good morning. Host you are in the air. Caller i think people in this country are living in a bubble. What are we doing in this war is losing. Some want another war. Everybody knows there is no money. Six years and afghanistan, wasting money. If we want to fix him think, if we wanted to fix something, we could fix it. Look at syria, libya, and we for no money even social security. We have to fix our problems before our problems before we go somewhere else. To thehen it comes Technology North korea has, is it capable of reaching the mainland of the United States . Guest if you look at the most recent test they did in july did on july 28, those missiles have the ability to reach major cities in the United States. It is a change we have seen previously it is a change. We have previously seen it could reach alaska, but not the lower 48. It appears to have changed. Caller 1 host does it meet host what does it mean . Guest there are some of us who have been watching it for a long time and under business as usual, north korea was increasing the range of its missile. Of its missiles. I have been arguing there ought to be efforts to try and stop the development of technology. This is relatively old technology. People know how to solve the problems. They know how to make it work. Where we feared we would be. How do you deal with the fact you have a country like north korea that has a lot of him and also the has a lot of him in animosity a lot of with the United States. Host how do we respond to new Technology Like cyber sabotage . Are we capable of it . Guest with things like cyber, you do not have a lot of confidence. There are things you like to attack. It is hard to know if it will work like it would expect like you would expect it. It is similar to the problem people have talked about with trying to a military attack on north korea. Attack, which would be with high accuracy, conventional weapons rather than Nuclear Weapons. We simply do not know where all of north koreas military systems are. You have a lot of underground facilities. They have a lot of underground facilities. If you go know where they are. If you go have a probability to take them all out, there is the concern you would start a conflict as opposed to preempting one. Host to is in louisiana on the line for democrats. Sue is in louisiana on the line for democrats. Caller if north korea has ra tested missiles going up has south missiles going up, korea has soldiers and japan has soldiers. Why would he want to go to guam . I think he is a figure. I do not think he will do a dark thing. I think his missiles are going to be empty. I think he is a lot of rhetoric. He can go toward south korea because it would affect him. If he goes towards japan, everything is going to go west towards them. He is just putting a lot of smoke. Host lets get a response. Uffing a lot ofp smoke. Host lets get a response. Guest i do not agree with you. He wants to get guam. Good morning. Thank you for coming. Welcome to the dailykos elections q and a. Time during the panel