The rhetoric is not yet white hot but certainly heating up. North Korea wants nuclear-tipped intercontinental missiles. The U.S. is determined this will not happen. The potential threats are becoming more real with each passing day as new information is made public. North Korea has chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. All three could cause significant damage to the regional food supply (Korean peninsula, southern China, Japan, etc.) and, depending on decisions made in Pyongyang, on the world’s food supply.
The U.S. mainland is not immune. War with North Korea would be beyond ugly, beyond anything the world has experienced since World War II in terms of the devastation wrought. Multiple nations surrounding the Korean Peninsula possess scores of nuclear weapons. No one truly knows how the nuclear nations would respond, should North Korea send a missile toward Japan, South Korea or some U.S. territory like Guam.
So what are the facts, and what are the implications to the U.S. and world food supplies?
Nuclear Threats Facts. North Korea has conducted a series of missile tests, each moving the country closer to being able to hit the U.S. mainland. Kim Jong Un’s purpose in this technology race is not to conduct conventional warfare but to marry missile technology to the country’s nuclear capabilities. The ultimate goal is to make the nation, in his mind, a legitimate member of the “Nuclear Club,” on par with other First World nations. Un views nuclear weapons as a means to ensure regime survival. In this sense, the missile program is essentially the same as with the nuclear program. To be an effective deterrent, nuclear weapons have to be deliverable to an enemy’s homeland. One that is not capable of delivery is a weapon of no consequence.
Implications. The effects of a nuclear weapon explosion over a large civilian population is well documented. Think Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tens to hundreds of thousands of casualties would occur instantaneously. Effects would include those directly caused by the blast; the thermal radiation, which instantly incinerates people, animals and structures and causes innumerable secondary fires; and the ionizing radiation, which kills in minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years, depending on the dosage and the residual radiation (“fallout”), the effects of which persist for long periods of time.
The design of the North Korean nuclear weapons is similar to designs used by the Pakistanis (no coincidence). This is important because they are different from designs used by the U.S. This is significant because North Korean nuclear weapons are “dirtier,” meaning the fallout effects are particularly problematic. The “dirty” aspect of a nuclear weapon detonation creates persistent problems in the food chain because plants and animals, upon which our food supply depends, take up radionuclides (the radioactive byproducts of the explosion).
Putting this in perspective, think of a nuclear war as a nuclear accident (e.g., Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima, etc.) on steroids. Radioactive fallout would be dispersed by winds around the world. The World Health Organization states:
“Of immediate concern is iodine-131, it is distributed over a wide area, found in water and on crops and is rapidly transferred from contaminated feed into milk. However, iodine-131 has a relatively short half-live and will decay within a few weeks. In contrast, radioactive caesium which can also be detected early on, is longer-lived (Cs-134 has a half life of about 2 years and Cs-137 has a half life of about 30 years) and can remain in the environment for a long-time. Radioactive caesium is also relatively rapidly transferred from feed to milk. Uptake of caesium into food is also of long term concern. Other radioisotopes that could be of long-term concern if released, are strontium and plutonium. Strontium-90 has a half life of about 29 years, and plutonium has a much longer half life than that (Pu-238: 88 years, Pu-239: 24100 years, Pu-240: 6564 years).”[1]
Response strategies. An open-air nuclear weapon explosion, regardless of its origin, could grossly contaminate the food production and processing environment. Food corporations would need to understand clearly where the fallout was carried and make business decisions based on the models and nuclide test results, which would likely become mandatory to protect the food supply. The government would play a huge role in this response, but could not be solely depended upon, given they do not have sole loyalty to any company.
Food corporations would have to find non-government based expertise in order to focus on corporate specific priorities. Since these types of experts (food chemists, radiation safety personnel, etc.) are not overly abundant, it would seem prudent at this time, these subject matter experts (SMEs) should be put on retainer sooner, rather than later. These SMEs will not come cheap, particularly during an actual crisis, when their services will be open to the highest bidder, unless arranged ahead of time. Beyond anything else, retention of these experts now should be considered an investment for the future.
Biological Threats Facts. The Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs recently released a report on the North Korean Biological Weapons Program.[2] Much is not publicly known about the North Korean biologicals weapons program, so the report makes some educated assumptions. The program is considered as active and substantial, but not on the scale witnessed in the former Soviet Union. From other sources and without going into details of delivery, putting pathogens in missiles is unlikely. Bioweapons are tricky, because they are labile (can be killed or neutralized) and tend to be burned up in explosions. Other delivery methods, such as aerosolization, transmission by people, animals (zoonotic) or vectors (e.g. flies, mosquitoes, etc.) are considered more likely. The report references earlier unclassified reports by South Korea and others in which a total of 13 agents were listed, including Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), Clostridium botulinum (botulism), Vibrio cholerae (cholera), Bunyaviridae hantavirus (Korean hemorrhagic fever), Yersinia pestis (plague), Variola (smallpox), Salmonellatyphi (typhoid fever), Coquillettidia fuscopennata (yellow fever), Shigella (dysentery), Brucella (brucellosis), Staphylococcus aureus (staph), Rickettsia prowazekii (typhus fever) and T-2 mycotoxin (Alimentary Toxic Aleukia).
Many of these pathogens could be used to intentionally contaminate the food supply, particularly if North Korean agents successfully penetrate food processing industries and gain access to process concentration points, for example, where ingredients are dispersed into other food products. Concentration points are magnification points. Normal food processing protocols would neutralize most if not all of these agents, but fresh, nonprocessed foods could become vulnerable. Some pathogens (e.g., Variola, the virus responsible for smallpox) need only get a foothold in the human population, after which human-to-human transmission would rapidly spread the disease. Some pathogens have a relatively short viability period in the environment, where others are far more persistent.
Beyond the suspected biological weapons, North Korea, like many countries (including the U.S.), has facilities considered “Dual Use,” meaning they could be used for both military and civilian purposes. Of particular concern is the Pyongyang Bio-technical Institute, which some experts consider capable of producing anthrax. Though strongly denied by North Korea, the facility has the equipment and capacity to create biological weapons. The nation is aggressively pursuing agricultural self-sufficiency, admirable as a stated goal, but made more suspect because of the emphasis on “biopesticides.”
The ambiguity surrounding the dual-use potential of biopesticide facilities could be used to North Korea’s advantage. For example, the date of Kim Jong-Un’s visit to the Pyongyang Bio-technical Institute, which is run by the Korean People’s Army Unit 810, could be interpreted as strategic messaging. The visit took place only 10 days after the U.S. Forces Korea’s accidental import of live anthrax samples into a South Korean air base was publicized.[3] It is plausible that North Korea intended to signal its biological weapons capability to the United States and South Korea by showing its leader praising the military-run Bio-technical Institute. Furthermore, the Pyongyang Bio-technical Institute has been recently alleged to be responsible for the implementation of the assassination of Kim Jong-Nam, Kim Jong-un’s half-brother.[4]
Implications. North Korea has biological capabilities that are clearly dual use. Having the capacity to produce pathogens in large quantities is only the first step, because a means to deliver the pathogens is also required. North Korea has the capabilities, including a substantial unmanned aircraft system (UAS) program that could be used to aerially disperse pathogens.