, Columnist
A Nuclear Disaster Could Unfold Like That Oscars Fiasco
Remember that epic screw-up at the Academy Awards in February? Nuclear commanders might easily make the same mistakes. Uh-oh.
Not with a bang, but a flub.
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Talk with experts on North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, and it soon becomes clear that the biggest threat Americans face isn’t an intentional act of evil, but a confluence of stupidity and error. After all, the most frightening close calls during the Cold War started with trivial mistakes -- a dropped socket from a socket wrench, for example, or a training tape put in the wrong computer.
With nine missile tests just this year, North Korea is quickly advancing the range of its nuclear weapons. The distance record goes to a missile called Hwasong-12, which was launched on May 14. It traveled about 500 miles, but on a steep trajectory that demonstrated the power to have gone more than 2,400 miles.