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January 26, 2006
The Iran Threat: Some Practical Questions
A couple of questions have been stuck in the back of my head concerning the threat posed by Iran's potential nuclear capability. First: a very worrisome threat scenario posed by pundits is that of an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) weapon. EMP is the supercharged burst of electricity generated by an air-burst nuke, and its been theorized that if Iran could explode one over the eastern seaboard, the entire electronic infrastructure of the country might be crippled. That's a tough enineering task, and Armed Liberal over at Winds of Change has some interesting speculation. As usual check out the comments for even more information.
Second, a lot of people seem to assume that Iranian nuke will be launchable on an Iranian missile, but weapon miniaturiazation is a huge and complicated task. It took years of work for the US to gain the expertise necessary to make a bomb that could be launched on a missile, where every pound is critical. In the comments to Armed Liberal's post, I found this very interesting piece by Jeffrey at Arms Control Wonk on this somewhat geekish but important topic.
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