Green Light!

By: Daniel J. Gilbert

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

There is a little-known reason why a closed-off, impoverished country like North Korea, ruled by an almost cartoonish but brutal dictator, threatens the United States, the most powerful nation on earth. That reason is that North Korea’s nuclear program, which today targets the United States, was built upon a foundation laid by Japan’s World War II attempt to make an atomic bomb.
Japan’s search for resources during World War II spanned most of Asia, as did its multiple and varied secret atomic projects. Korea and China, both occupied by the Japanese, played significant roles in the Japanese nuclear programs, housing secret projects, providing resources, and aiding or expanding upon the pilot programs in the Japanese homeland. Uranium and other fissionable ores were mined and processed throughout Asia and then sent back to Japan or its occupied areas. Separation plants in World War II Korea and China refined, and prepared fissionable materials for nuclear bombs. Japan produced substantial uranium, the essential element for a bomb.
Japan opened uranium mines in Konan, North Korea, mines which are the current source of Pyongyang’s nuclear energy program. As the Japanese empire collapsed, North Korea inherited Japan’s entire atomic infrastructure in its own backyard including that same uranium source, underground installations, key mountain sites, and its immense electrical network.
Headlines in today’s news are filled with rhetoric from North Korean leaders concerning their nuclear arsenal which according to them contains Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), submarine launched cruise missiles as well as tactical nuclear weapons. U.S. and allied intelligence sources are not sure what truth is. Does North Korea have the capability to strike the continental United States, Japan, and South Korea with nuclear weapons? And it they do, what can or should be done about it?
In early March 2023, U.S. President Joe Biden is briefed by his National Security, Intelligence and Defense advisors that North Korea is close to completing nuclear research and development efforts and will begin building and stockpiling a large nuclear arsenal. The assessment states that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un intends on starting a new war on the Korean peninsula aimed at unifying Korea under North Korean communist leadership. The most alarming intelligence includes an assessment that the war will begin with a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the continental United States, Japan, and South Korea.
President Biden is provided several military options for dealing with this crisis. He and his staff are intrigued by an option referred to as “the special operations option.” This option resurrects a cold war capability. So called suitcase nukes were developed in the 1950’s and 1960’s and were operationally employed by both the United States and the Soviet Union. American special forces units, code named Green Light Teams, were trained to advance, arm, and deploy Special Atomic Demolition Munitions (SADM) behind enemy lines. These Atomic Demolition Munitions are smaller and more portable nuclear weapons.
What emerged in the President’s discussions with his advisors is the concept of limited nuclear war, which provided for the use of tactical nuclear weapons. The whole idea that the U.S. could use tactical nuclear devices without immediate escalation to a strategic nuclear holocaust, was intriguing to some of President Biden’s advisors and they embraced the resurrected cold war idea of limited nuclear war.
Follow six special forces modernized Green Light Teams as they plan, prepare, and execute limited nuclear attacks intended to destroy North Korean nuclear testing, production, and command & control facilities. What will happen when six tactical nuclear devices detonate inside North Korea?