April 17, 2017--Missile Fizzile

Just as I was having this fantasy about why the North Korean ballistic missile blew up Friday right after it was launched, I read the following in the Sunday New York Times--

Over the past three years a covert war over the missile program has broken out between North Korea and the United States. As the North's skills grew, President Barack Obama ordered a surge in strikes against the missile launches, the New York Times reported last month, including through electronic-warfare techniques. It is unclear how successful the program has been, because it is almost impossible to tell whether any launch failed because of sabotage, faulty engineering or bad luck. But the North's launch-failure rate has been extraordinary high since Mr. Obama first accelerated the program.

I missed the article but was hoping that we had developed cyber-techniques to do just what this report suggests--the ability to sabotage North Korean missiles (and maybe Russian and Chinese ones) without, if it comes to that, having to bomb, invade, or nuke our adversaries.

Blowing missiles up right after launch without having to fire a shot or invade sounds good to me.

It might also help explain why Donald Trump (who will take credit for our developing this capacity, denying any to Obama) felt he could go to Palm Beach again and play his 17th round of golf since being inaugurated.

On the other hand, fantasies can take one only so far.