North Korea - nuclear threat, or just people getting paranoid?

[Falcon Darkflight]

As quoted from the BBC:

North Korea is to conduct a nuclear test "in the future", the foreign ministry has said in a statement.


The move would bolster the country's self-defence in the face of US military hostility, official agency KCNA said.

Pyongyang has faced mounting pressure over its nuclear programme. It is thought to have a handful of warheads but is not known to have tested one.

Japanese PM Shinzo Abe said the plans were unacceptable and the international community would respond "harshly".
Six-nation talks on its programme have been stalled for nearly a year, and the US has imposed financial sanctions on North Korean businesses.


'Grave situation'
The statement from Pyongyang said it would "in the future conduct a nuclear test under the condition where safety is firmly guaranteed", though it did not state when.

"The US daily increasing threat of a nuclear war and its vicious sanctions and pressure have caused a grave situation on the Korean Peninsula," it said.


The ministry went on to say that "under the present situation in which the US moves to isolate and stifle" North Korea, the country "can no longer remain an onlooker to the developments."

The move comes after the UN imposed sanctions on North Korea in July, for test-firing seven missiles including a long-range Taepodong-2 - believed to be capable of reaching Alaska.

The missile tests also prompted South Korea to suspend aid to the North, and correspondents say China had been showing signs of frustration with its old Communist ally.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso called the new test plans "totally unforgivable", Kyodo agency reported.

"Our response will be severe. This is more serious than the North's missile tests," he said.
A successful nuclear test would put pressure on Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear capabilities.

[chumley]

I think the DPRK is full of crap, C-R-A-P.

[The Valkyrie]

Full of crap or not, it scares the shit out of me. My husband is stationed in South Korea right now. North and South test each other all the time, lobbing shit at each other. I don't even want to think about what would happen if North Korea got sick of the US.

[Falcon Darkflight]

Confirmed: North Korea carried out first nuclear weapons test underground at 1am this morning.

It is not as much what they are doing as opposed to how they are doing it: the timeline leading up to this seems far too full of aggressive statements.

Personally, though, look at it this way. N. Korea have a nuke. Possibly working, possibly not.

Eight other countries have nukes. Working nukes. En masse working nukes. All pointed at each other. Surely N. Korea would not be as dumb to think having a single maybe functioning nuke entitles them to superpower status? It just makes them look anti-democratic and utterly silly.

[AdventWings]

I don't know about you guys, but I'd be more wary of the submarine-launched nuclear warheads roaming around the Atlantic Ocean.

Then again, if N. Korea does have a working warhead and the capabilities to launch, the tension created by the other 8 nations with working missiles would come pretty close to snapping. I don't know about the anti-democratic stance, but it's certainly not good for N. Korea's PR image.

Using the threat of nuclear arms to negotiate is like a bully threatening to sock you in the face for a handful of greens. It's not effective, especially if the person on the other end can fight back better. Yeah. Bad analogy, but hopefully it gets the point across.

[Serilliant]

I was under the impression that many more than 8 countries had nuclear capabilities -- or at least the technology to fashion nuclear weaponry -- just lacked the means to launch anything a reasonable distance.

In any case, North Korea's failed launch of the type of dong...excuse me, taepodong...missile shows that they don't yet have the technology for long-range attack. This does not eliminate the threat, of course, but it does lessen it to some degree. And as an interesting side note, N. Korea's short-range missile is called Nodong. Let your imagination play with that.

In any case, I'm as confident that N. Korea isn't a threat as I was that Iraq wasn't either. The world at large is committed to allowing no more nuclear weapon development and is undoubtedly ready to take steps if Kimmy continues his course.

[Max Dirks]

A threat to the United States? Probably not.

But they are certainly a threat to South Korea, Japan and China.

[Serilliant]

Yeah, but I don't live there.

[AdventWings]

It can still cause repercussions if any of those countries become under attack.

For example, had N. Korea threaten to launch a Nodong missile loaded with a "nuke" warhead, it could trigger a military response from China in the form of troop build-up and weapon stockpiling. This would cause nearby countries with military capabilities (Japan, S. Korea, India and Russia) to also stockpile troops, resources and weaponry in preparation for an all-out offensive that might spill over into nearby countries. I doubt that with the possibility of military outbreak the U.S. Armed Forces would just stand by and watch.

That's just me, though, going it through like a "Black Box psychologist." I may be wrong, so a rebuttal would be nice.

[LordLeopold]

Assuming that a test of a nuclear weapon will inevitably lead to the use of that weapon in war doesn't really make sense. In fact, Pakistan and India went to war within a year of testing nuclear weapons and didn't use them. North Korea, for all its eccentricities, still lives by the iron laws of international realism. Using a nuclear weapon against a nuclear state or a state with strong security guarantees from a nuclear state is essentially self-immolation. This test, like every test explosion since 1945, is a political statement, and was probably timed to coincide with the accession of a South Korean to the UN Secretary-Generalship. It's saber-rattling, but it'd be going way out on a limb to think they'd unsheath that blade with a few thousand swords of Damocles hanging over their heads in ICBM form.

[Khalxaen]

North Korea scares me. o_o"

[Falcon Darkflight]

The "Dear Leader" Kim Jong Farce the II hasn't got the sack to launch a nuclear attack.

Russkies and South Korea reported the force of the underground blast to be less than originally thought - South K said between 5 and 15 kilotons, Russia said less than that. That means their A-Bomb wasn't quite as powerful as the ones dropped on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki (everyone seems to leave that one out for some reason) and Hiroshima.

Personally, N. Korea should be feeling real stupid round about now. Even the Chinese came out against them.

[Ashiakin]

North Korea's failure with the test of the Taep'o-dong-2 (the one that may be capable of hitting the U.S.) wasn't really a setback. The missile failed at the point of greatest pressure--where there is the largest probability of things failing (the same point at which the Challenger exploded.) So it doesn't mean that they're ages away from being successful. Still, it's pretty unlikely that North Korea has a nuke small enough to attach to a missile of any kind. They could try dropping one from a plane... but most of their aircraft are from like the 1960's. I also find it unlikely that North Korea is going to do anything but threaten anytime soon.

[AdventWings]

Planes from the 1960s are still a threat if the pilots are skilled enough, but that's not the point.

I'm relieved to know my country won't have to deal with the threat of a nuclear threat anytime soon. Phew!

[Falcon Darkflight]

Planes from the 1960s are still a threat if the pilots are skilled enough, but that's not the point.

Two words: Patriot Missle


Still, it's pretty unlikely that North Korea has a nuke small enough to attach to a missile of any kind. They could try dropping one from a plane... but most of their aircraft are from like the 1960's. I also find it unlikely that North Korea is going to do anything but threaten anytime soon.

True enough. I doubt they will ever do anything but threaten. When a nation as big as the Chinese is allied with you, and they say "stop doing that shit", and the rest of the international community says "stop doing that shit", you stop doing that shit.

[Elrundir]

And yet they just keep going. This morning they said that continued sanctions against them would be considered an act of war. ^^;;

[Breaker]

Aren't A-bombs retired technology now?

[Falcon Darkflight]

They still kill people.