Dec 27, 2011: Appearing on the LANL website (www.lanl.gov) under the heading "Media Coverage" (normally containing only LANL-related news) is an entry entitled "N. Korea closer to nuclear-tipped missile: U.S. N. Korea may be one to two years away from being able to place a nuclear weapon atop an intermediate range ballistic missile. Ostensibly, LANL is reprinting Wolf's story because it mentions LANL ex-Director Sig Hecker and his trip, ~1 year ago, to N. Korea . But, it seems to me that by carrying this story LANL engages in some unsavory self-promotion. That is, by calling attention to Wolf's interpretations of Niksch's ruminations, LANL places itself in the position of seeming to advocate for more support for its own R&D on nuclear weapons, the management of which, as we know, has become a lucrative for-profit business.
Interestingly, the most recent article onN. Korea by Larry Niksch, listed on the CRS website (opencrs.com), is dated Feb. 24, 2009 . Is this the article to which Jim Wolf referred? If so, then Niksch's predictions are hardly "recent". What's more, according to the Federation of American Scientists, Larry Niksch has not worked for CRS since Feb., 2010.
Interestingly, the most recent article on
