CENTRAL VIEW for Monday, January 8, 2018

Float like butterfly, sting like bee

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, claims he has a button on his desk that could unleash a devastating nuclear attack on the United States. Probably, not true. But Kim Jong-un would be well-advised to take notice of some technologies possessed by the United States of America. These are proven technologies which, when packaged a certain way, might cause Kim Jong-un to want to add to his normal office attire.

From open, non-classified sources, we know the United States has the ability to develop, and may have manufactured already, a large cargo aircraft that is invisible to North Korean radar. Now, imagine that cargo aircraft, -- an airborne aircraft carrier, if you will -- circling far off the coast of North Korea with its cargo compartment full of large and small armed drones.

Next, imagine the large drones acting as mother ships with their bellies full of smaller armed drones. So, let’s say you are a North Korean radar controller. Initially, there is nothing alarming on your radar screen. Suddenly, your radar screen is filled with targets you can only identify as dozens and dozens of flying objects. You have no idea where they came from. But there they are!

To make matters worse, each of the targets on your radar screen suddenly gives "birth" to hundreds of additional targets. Your formerly blank radar screen is now filled with a hundred-fold swarm of targets headed your way. With a sinking heart, you realize there is no way that North Korean air defenses can knock down the fleet of what must be swarming drones. In despair, you reach for the red phone.

Alarm sounded, you watch in horror as some of the larger drones set course for your intercontinental ballistic missile launching pads. Other large drones are on course to wipe out your above-ground, nuclear-research facilities.

But something different is going on with the smaller drones. They are on course for any and all office buildings ever known to be used by Kim Jong-un. But wait. It gets worse. Some of the drones are programmed to burst through the windows and walls of Kim Jong-un’s offices, making way for a swarm of smaller drones to follow. The smallest drones, no larger than butterflies, are floating around, seeking to enter the offices of Kim Jong-un.

The butterfly drones are loaded with facial-recognition software. The butterfly drones know the face of Kim Jong-un and are programmed to "sting" that face. As little as two grams of a shaped-charge explosive can blow a hole in a human cranium, even one with a really bad haircut, causing instant death. Following in the wake of the window- and wall-bursting drones, the butterfly drones enter the offices and start looking for Kim Jong-un and for any of Kim’s lookalike doubles.

Again, we do not know if all these technologies have been packaged in the manner described above. But we do know our Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) works in imaginative ways. While Kim Jong-un can sit at his desk with his finger on his nuclear button all the wants, the North Korean dictator would be well-advised to do so wearing a football helmet.

©2018. William Hamilton.

Nationally syndicated columnist, William Hamilton, is a laureate of the Oklahoma Journalism Hall of Fame, the Nebraska Aviation Hall of Fame, the Colorado Aviation Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma University Army ROTC Wall of Fame, and was a recipient of the University of Nebraska 2015 Alumni Achievement Award. Dr. Hamilton is the author of The Wit and Wisdom of William Hamilton: The Sage of Sheepdog Hill, Pegasus Imprimis Press (2017).

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Email: william@central-view.com