President Trump would have “maybe 10 minutes” to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike against North Korea — should it ever fire a missile that’s capable of reaching the US mainland, experts say.
Speaking to the Associated Press about what would happen in the event of a nuclear strike from the North, scientist David Wright, of the UCS Global Security Program, and rocket analyst Markus Schiller, of ST Analytics in Germany, described how the drama would unfold.
“The timelines are short,” Wright explained. “Even for long-range missiles, there are a lot of steps that go into detecting the launch and figuring out what it is, leaving the president with maybe 10 minutes to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike.”
While experts insist that North Korea is still not capable of launching a missile that could reach the United States, the communist nation on Monday claimed they could.
It’s state-run KCNA news service alleged that it now had the ability to send a “large-size heavy nuclear warhead” across the Pacific following their test of the Hwasong-12 missile over the weekend.
But Kim Dong-yub, professor at South Korea’s Kyungnam University, told local media that they’d be lucky to reach Alaska or Hawaii, at best.
If they did have the capability of hitting US targets, though, Wright and Schiller predict that things could get out of hand — and fast.
While Wright believes an intercontinental ballistic missile fired from the Hermit Kingdom would take a little over a half hour to reach San Francisco, Schiller said he believes one could strike Seattle and Los Angeles in less than 30 minutes from launch.
New York and Washington, at less than 6,800 miles away, would likely have between 30-40 minutes before being hit, Schiller and Wright said. READ MORE
