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What you're really talking about are penetration aids, basically cheap ways to confuse your opponent, but they would never launch a full "fake ICBM". You've got to realize that a single ICBM is incredibly expensive, each Minuteman III costs somewhere around $7 Mil per missile. Compare that to ~$1Mil for the AGM-86 (ALCM), less for non-nuclear options.

You may think that multiple warheads (or fake warheads) would be a good answer, but MIRV's have been decommissioned in the U.S. Not to mention the total number of nuclear weapons has shrunk due to the START Treaty.

One of the big things about a countries nuclear posture is just how much damage they would be able to do to an adversary. Nobody wants the big superpowers to launch an all-out strike on anyone else, there would be thousands of re-entry vehicles coming in. Besides, cities aren't great strategic targets in general. If i wanted to make sure you couldn't hit me back, I'd take out your weapons and means to make more weapons, and likely your influential leadership.

Our ICBMs no longer carry MIRVs, though our D5 submarine-launched missiles (SLBMs) allegedly do.

http://voiceofsandiego.org/2012/07/18/the-trouble-with-the-san-onofre-nuclear-plant/

San Onofre’s safety problems began drawing attention in 2007. A fire prevention specialist responsible for hourly patrols around the plant had deliberately falsified inspection records for years. In 2008, a safety battery was discovered to have been disconnected for four years.

Concerns began mounting. Whistleblowers alleged they’d been fired for raising safety questions. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission added an extra on-site inspector. The NRC flagged the plant for its problems. San Onofre stayed under the ominous federal warning for four years. It was a serious threat to the plant: Improve or else. Federal regulators have shut down at least one nuclear plant that didn’t heed their order.

The San Onofre mess was brewing for years. It's not like there were no warning signs. Nothing substantial happened.

When Edison replaced the heat exchange system, they self certified that it was a replacement, not a substantial change. It was in fact an upgrade, so they could extract more power. They deliberately lied and no one at the NRC either knew or cared.

Around 50 reactors are not in compliance with fire safety standards that were set in the 1980's as the result of a fire at the Brown's Ferry facility.

http://allthingsnuclear.org/fission-stories-98-fires-at-browns-ferry-get-your/

The owners of 51 reactors formally notified the NRC of their plans to comply with the NFPA 805 fire protection regulations. In doing so, they implicitly conceded that these reactors failed to comply with the 1980 fire protection regulations. After all, no owner could justify spending the millions of dollars needed to comply with the 2004 regulations if it already satisfied the 1980 regulations.

In the eight years since that time only four reactors have taken the steps to comply. Today, 47 of those 51 reactors still do not comply with either the 1980 or 2004 fire regulations.

Ironically and sadly, the three reactors at Browns Ferry are among those that fail to comply with either the 1980 or the 2004 fire protection regulations. That’s right—more than 37 years after a fire nearly melted down the Unit 1 and Unit 2 reactors, these reactors operate in violation of fire protection regulations expressly developed to prevent another Browns Ferry fire.

In the real world, the safety culture of the nuclear industry is pathetic. The lack of major failures is due to luck as much as anything else. As aging plants have their operational lives extended far beyond their original design, it is inevitable that a very serious accident with major radiation release will occur. Everyone involved goes through the motions, but no one is taking real responsibility.

I was wondering whether the analysis was just based on video frames (since they talked about the colors of the flames and such) in the "AllThingsNuclear.org" article. The article itself says that the analysis is based upon four pieces of the first stage of the Unha-3 rocket recovered by South Korea. The author of the article, David Wright, surmises that all four pieces came from the first stage because they "were found in the same area".
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The four parts found were:
1 -- oxidizer tank (made of an aluminum-magnesium alloy)
with a cool picture (fig 4) of the inside of the tank showing hoops and stringers supporting the wall
2 -- two bottles that make the "turbo pumps" to maintain pressure in the oxidizer tank as the fuel flow continues during launch
3 -- another part of the fuel tank (with the number "3" painted on the outside which is visible on the launch video)
4 -- what appears to be a support ring from the first stage body
.
There's also a comment at the end about using "room temperature fuels" such as RFNA (red fuming nitric acid) allowing the use of a simplified design as compared to using cryogenic fuels which require a more complex design. Someone wrote in pointing out that RFNA is also used in the Russian Kosmos 3M space launch vehicle which is also derived from a ballistic missile. In fact, even the fins and the profile of the Kosmos looks like the fins on and the profile of the North Korean launch rocket. Pretty cool analysis, and I like that the author puts really links to the sources of the pictures he has in the article.

I was wondering whether the analysis was just based on video frames (since they talked about the colors of the flames and such) in the "AllThingsNuclear.org" article. The article itself says that the analysis is based upon four pieces of the first stage of the Unha-3 rocket recovered by South Korea. The author of the article, David Wright, surmises that all four pieces came from the first stage because they "were found in the same area".
.
The four parts found were:
1 -- oxidizer tank (made of an aluminum-magnesium alloy)
with a cool picture (fig 4) of the inside of the tank showing hoops and stringers supporting the wall
2 -- two bottles that make the "turbo pumps" to maintain pressure in the oxidizer tank as the fuel flow continues during launch
3 -- another part of the fuel tank (with the number "3" painted on the outside which is visible on the launch video)
4 -- what appears to be a support ring from the first stage body
.
There's also a comment at the end about using "room temperature fuels" such as RFNA (red fuming nitric acid) allowing the use of a simplified design as compared to using cryogenic fuels which require a more complex design. Someone wrote in pointing out that RFNA is also used in the Russian Kosmos 3M space launch vehicle which is also derived from a ballistic missile. In fact, even the fins and the profile of the Kosmos looks like the fins on and the profile of the North Korean launch rocket. Pretty cool analysis, and I like that the author puts really links to the sources of the pictures he has in the article.

See http://allthingsnuclear.org/tagged/fission_stories for a growing collection of incidents that almost went wrong.

The reason why everyone and his brother is speculating on what's really happening is because TEPCO isn't telling and IAEA is only repeating what TEPCO tells them.

To be (somewhat) fair to TEPCO, they might not be hiding anything, they may truly just not know. This article from the Union of Concerned Scientists examines evidence that even though the plant has power and the lights are on, the monitoring and control systems are still offline. It's not like you can just pop the case on the reactor and look to see what's inside (unless you're Superman).

In short, all anyone really knows about what's happening inside the containment structures is based on observing the effects and outside conditions. Just because nobody at TEPCO or IAEA is willing to come out with the conclusion that one or more cores have breached the reactor vessel or that the spent fuel pools are half-empty and catching fire doesn't mean that someone else can't observe the same indicators and tell us that yes, the reactors are Fuckushima'd up.

A much more insightful analysis can be found here.

UCS actually has a decent, non-sensationalized writeup about the latest events. Colour me surprised. (A personal note: I would consider posts authored or co-authored by Dave Lochbaum to be more reliable than anything from Ed Lyman alone.) http://allthingsnuclear.org/tagged/Japan_nuclear