Tweet of the Day: North Korea Says They Will “Literally” Nuke the Pacific
North Korea is apparently demanding the US take 'literally' its threat to nuke the Pacific (via @BIAUS) https://t.co/ij6kZDisnH
— NorthKoreaRealTime (@BuckTurgidson79) October 25, 2017
So the Norks fire off a nuke over the Pacific … how are they supposed to know whatever became of it?
Ideally, they would want to do it somewhere it can be detected and verified. That means setting it off somewhere over the ocean surface. By international rules they would have to have issued advance warnings for a hazardous test in the form of Notice To Airman and Notice To Mariners but I don’t think North Korea has ever done that with their missile tests. Even if they did they haven’t proven they can reliably control where their missiles will go. So, any warnings would be for a wide area of the Pacific over an indeterminate period of time.
BTW, launching a live nuke over another country’s airspace, such as Japan, may be an escalation too far.