North Korea "Conducts Nuke Test!"

[dioditto]

And to defend a country being attacked by its highly aggressive and militant northern neighbour, an attack that was cleared by Stalin (and Mao), is easily within the security concerns of the US. Especially considering the security environment of the day i.e. SK security was guaranteed by the US post WWII.

It was Stalin et al who gave the green light to fight a proxy war.

The koreans were fighting a civil war. I suppose if that's the case for waging a war, then the british or french or european powers should have get involved in American civil war.

 

[RubiconNZ]

A few dozen nukes is not an equalizer, not a deterrent and there is nothing mutual nor assured about it. As I pointed out earlier in the thread, it only serves to legitimize a nuclear attack by other parties.

Yeah I think thats sums it, it just give the world body some thing bigger to throw at, while nuclear retaliation by the US or any other nuclear member was questionable now it is questions of how many to use

 

[dioditto]

A few dozen nukes is not an equalizer, not a deterrent and there is nothing mutual nor assured about it. As I pointed out earlier in the thread, it only serves to legitimize a nuclear attack by other parties.

If nukes is not an equaliser, nor a deterrent to be "scare of".. why is american so scare of it right now?

 

[dioditto]

I'll agree with I think China has shown restraint, I at this time do not have a problem with PROC having the bomb, of course I was not around during the development period otherwise I may think differently

And what's not to say that NK will be like Chinese, showing restraint?? perhaps, follow China's foot steps and open to market economy 30 years down the track?

 

[Grand Danois]

The koreans were fighting a civil war. I suppose if that's the case for waging a war, then the british or french or european powers should have get involved in American civil war.

Areas of responsibility was decided by the Great Powers during WWII and they were supposed to withdraw. The USSR left all their kit to the DPRK army. The US didn't equip the SK army, considering it an internal affair. The US was withdrawing, nothing but supervisors left. However, with the all out conventional attack, NK overplayed its hand making it a proxy war.

The was nothing civil war about NK attacking SK. They were de facto nation states.

 

[RubiconNZ]

The koreans were fighting a civil war. I suppose if that's the case for waging a war, then the british or french or european powers should have get involved in American civil war.

The English did, they were quite supportive of the Confederacy as they liked access to their cotton

This also brings into play the whole idea of intervention, Somalia, Rawanda, then Yugoslavia, now Sudan, all could be easily listed as civil wars, comes back to damned if you help damned if you don't.

 

[Grand Danois]

If nukes is not an equaliser, nor a deterrent to be "scare of".. why is american so scare of it right now?

IMV proliferation issues. Different from the local strategic environment, which can be handled well enough by SK & Japan.

 

[RubiconNZ]

Unfortunately I have to go, rats
I believe the world now must step up and say no whole heartedly to Nuke Proliferation, if the World keeps making allowances for countries for what ever reason to have the bomb how can you start disarmamment, or even encourage a halt in development, by all rights south korea should get the bomb now who wins with that?
Anywho gotta fly till next time

 

[dioditto]

I think so, IMO if you haven't used them in 40 years youve proven yourself to have restraint, if Israel was seeking domination of the middle east then I would of course have a problem with it, I think Israel restraint despite years of overt state sponsored terroism and at times full warfare, and plus with reference to China now that I think of it the US and UN fought a lond bloody war against Communist China just before they devloped their bomb they showed a disposition to agression, not to mention their involvement in Vietnam

Another point :
I don't see how israeli shows any restraint in the recent Israel-lebanon Israel-palestinian war. The disproportional violence israel inflicted is disheartening to say the least. The reason for such disproportional violence is that both Lebanon and Palestine have nothing to fight against Israel. Israel can do whatever it wants, and it did. If both countries had credible deterents such as nuclear weapon, would you think such disproportional violence would even erupt in first place?

 

[dioditto]

Unfortunately I have to go, rats
I believe the world now must step up and say no whole heartedly to Nuke Proliferation, if the World keeps making allowances for countries for what ever reason to have the bomb how can you start disarmamment, or even encourage a halt in development, by all rights south korea should get the bomb now who wins with that?
Anywho gotta fly till next time

I am all for the disarmament.

But for it to work, everyone must give it up. The argument of NPT just seem hypocritical when you have ALL 5 of the UNSC holding on to large stock piles of it (plus Pakistan, India, and Israel and now North Korea) and would not let go.

You simply can't have someone with a machine gun in the room while holding everyone hostage. (regardless of regime)

Let's just all have fist fights.

 

[.pt]

Dioditto,

Last reply, as this is turning political, and we both have different views on the matter, so the webmaster might not like this discussion.
1. Please don´t call me racist, or imply i´m one, because you don´t know me, andi have never posted something that points to that conclusion, i think.
BTW, i live in Portugal, and i know a few Arabs. Morocco and Algeria are on our doorstep.
2. I partially agree with you, when you say that there may be some fear in Arab countries, about Israel´s nukes.
That fear, if the countries involved are rational and sane players, may be healthy, in that it prevents temptations to escalate or initiate conflicts.
In my opinion, that is not the case of NK or Iran.
3. Equality, as you explain, is the concept of MAD doctrine, so used in the cold war. But, and its a big but, it assumes that the contenders are rational.
4. No i don´t think the Arabs as a people to be fools, or stupid. Not, anymore so than the average European or American, except for cultural diferences and education (mean level of). It´s their political leadership i´m not so sure of.
5. In the case of an all out nuclear exchange in the middle east, with both sides having nukes, Israel is bound to suffer more. It´s a small country, with population concentrated in urbanised areas. It makes for a juicy civilian and military target. Most of its neighbours have much more territory, and are more widely dispersed, except for their cities, of course.
6. As far as i know, Israel never used its nukes as leverage, with any neighbour country, for any kind of concessions. One exception (never officially confirmed) is their pressure on the Americans to step up their suply effort, in the 1973 yom kippur war.
7. As for absolute guaranties, in any country that has nukes, even the US, or Britain, France, etc, wich have a proven record in the handling of nukes, and in their political situation, nothing is totally assured. But the probability of some madmen achieving control of the weapons is much more lower in those countries, than, say..NK.
8. A few dozen nukes may not be enough to scare the US, or China, but in the case of SK, or Japan, they are more than enough to spark great fear and terror. And given the way that NK has behaved in the past, it can be said that, without a counter they can either completely destroy SK or badly hurt Japan, so to these countries it´s assured , if NK chooses to do so. It´s not mutual, because these countries do not have nukes, and are not a threat to NK.The problem here is not the weapon, but the people that have it, they just aren´t stable and predictable. So , it ´s best to not let them have these dangerous toys.
9. end of discusion for me.
Best regards.
.pt

 

[radiosilence]

Ofcourse it is about power monopoly. If you and I were to do business, try meet me in the desert unarmed and bring a suitcaseful of cash - while I bring a G36, a baretta and machete. And let's see who gets the better end of the deal.

i all take the G36 and a baretta you keep the machete.
gotta give you credit, you held your own against an onslaught.

 

[dioditto]

Dioditto,

Last reply, as this is turning political, and we both have different views on the matter, so the webmaster might not like this discussion.
1. Please don´t call me racist, or imply i´m one, because you don´t know me, andi have never posted something that points to that conclusion, i think.
BTW, i live in Portugal, and i know a few Arabs. Morocco and Algeria are on our doorstep.
2. I partially agree with you, when you say that there may be some fear in Arab countries, about Israel´s nukes.
That fear, if the countries involved are rational and sane players, may be healthy, in that it prevents temptations to escalate or initiate conflicts.
In my opinion, that is not the case of NK or Iran.
3. Equality, as you explain, is the concept of MAD doctrine, so used in the cold war. But, and its a big but, it assumes that the contenders are rational.
4. No i don´t think the Arabs as a people to be fools, or stupid. Not, anymore so than the average European or American, except for cultural diferences and education (mean level of). It´s their political leadership i´m not so sure of.
5. In the case of an all out nuclear exchange in the middle east, with both sides having nukes, Israel is bound to suffer more. It´s a small country, with population concentrated in urbanised areas. It makes for a juicy civilian and military target. Most of its neighbours have much more territory, and are more widely dispersed, except for their cities, of course.
6. As far as i know, Israel never used its nukes as leverage, with any neighbour country, for any kind of concessions. One exception (never officially confirmed) is their pressure on the Americans to step up their suply effort, in the 1973 yom kippur war.
7. As for absolute guaranties, in any country that has nukes, even the US, or Britain, France, etc, wich have a proven record in the handling of nukes, and in their political situation, nothing is totally assured. But the probability of some madmen achieving control of the weapons is much more lower in those countries, than, say..NK.
8. A few dozen nukes may not be enough to scare the US, or China, but in the case of SK, or Japan, they are more than enough to spark great fear and terror. And given the way that NK has behaved in the past, it can be said that, without a counter they can either completely destroy SK or badly hurt Japan, so to these countries it´s assured , if NK chooses to do so. It´s not mutual, because these countries do not have nukes, and are not a threat to NK.The problem here is not the weapon, but the people that have it, they just aren´t stable and predictable. So , it ´s best to not let them have these dangerous toys.
9. end of discusion for me.
Best regards.
.pt

I apologise for implying you maybe a racist, but I still do not see the logic to categorically fear, or brand a particular group of people as insane, irrational, and suicidal.

And the 2nd point for handling the nukes, I think you failed to realise the nuke WAS USED in WWII. Proven record? I think not. Britain and US have both in various times contemplated to use nukes against its enemies after WWII. Is it fair to say that these are not creating terror in the minds of opponent, that only now, when our opponent is dishing out and we in turn, is now on the receiving end of that fear? Remember, what goes around comes around. You seem to be on an assumption that we have a god given right not to be living in fear, while anyone else should be living in terror.


As for Israel to use nuke as concession, it doesn't have to. It only have to imply. Would I even need to mention I have a gun pointed at you when you are disarmed and talking business deal to make you feel uncomfortable?

And it is also funny you have such double standards when it comes to judge how and who have nukes. When NK have nukes it is " more than enough to spark great fear and terror". While at the same time, you disregard the fear that middle east people have of Israel. A country who is willing to dish out disproportional violence on its neighbours.


As for probability of some madman taking control of nukes in the western country, I only ask you to look who exactly is in the whitehouse.

 

[Grand Danois]

I am all for the disarmament.

But for it to work, everyone must give it up. The argument of NPT just seem hypocritical when you have ALL 5 of the UNSC holding on to large stock piles of it (plus Pakistan, India, and Israel and now North Korea) and would not let go.

You simply can't have someone with a machine gun in the room while holding everyone hostage. (regardless of regime)

Let's just all have fist fights.

Ah! I see shoot and scoot is the game of the day!

The NPT only restrains Western powers, as the rest don't give a crap. So how is it a tool for "enforcing global apartheid through nuclear weapons?"

There is no hypocrisy on account of the NPT... It is not about having nukes, but acquiring.

 

[Pursuit Curve]

Ok, so they have done a below ground test of a Hiroshima size weapon. Do they have a weapon that they can deliver?

I realise that the big picture is a Asian arms race, not the fear of the DPRK.

 

[swerve]

The koreans were fighting a civil war. I suppose if that's the case for waging a war, then the british or french or european powers should have get involved in American civil war.

A civil war in which one side was armed (very heavily, much more than the other side) by & closely allied to the USSR. One great power was already involved, from before the war started.

 

[Grand Danois]

Ok, so they have done a below ground test of a Hiroshima size weapon. Do they have a weapon that they can deliver?

I realise that the big picture is a Asian arms race, not the fear of the DPRK.

Actually the low yield for a 1st gen device could indicate

• a misfire.
  
• a conventional explosion.
  
• a nuclear device being set off, rather than an actual weapon.

The latter indicating that it can't even be used as a mine.

 

[swerve]

I apologise for implying you maybe a racist, but I still do not see the logic to categorically fear, or brand a particular group of people as insane, irrational, and suicidal.

I don't think fearing a particular group of people, or calling them insane, is racist when that group is not an ethnic group, but a small & atypical subset, e.g. a cult, or the leadership of North Korea. If that group behaves in an insane manner (& in the case of the North Korean leadership, it does - they show rationality within an insane set of assumptions), then it is reasonable to call it insane.

 

[swerve]

The NPT has primarily been used by the US to prevent Japan, Germany and Australia from going nuclear.

BTW, North Korea is not legally bound by the NPT since it withdrew from it a few years ago - as the treaty allows.

 

[kams]

Did they really test a Nuke?

The sesmic readings unusually low, US reporting tremor of manitude 4.2, South Korea reporting between 3.58 to 3.7 on Reichter scale. This translates to a yield equivalent to 500 T to 1 Kiliton of TNT. Thats very low.

Verifying North Korea Nuclear Test May Take Weeks, Experts Say

By Jeff Bliss and Judy Mathewson

Oct. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. government is unable to confirm North Korea's claim that it detonated a nuclear device, U.S. officials said.

U.S. intelligence agencies detected a blast of less than a kiloton, a U.S. intelligence official said on condition of anonymity. Scientists said that would be unusually small for a nuclear device.

``An explosion of TNT that was sufficiently large would look the same on a seismograph as a nuclear explosion if the TNT were exploded all at once,'' said Arthur Lerner-Lam, a senior research scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, which helps the U.S. monitor compliance with nuclear test ban treaties.

The Bush administration first learned of the explosion in a call to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing from Chinese officials yesterday, Christopher Hill, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia and the Pacific, said in an interview. While Hill said on CNN that it may take ``a couple of days'' to figure out what happened, scientists said it may take weeks or even months of seismographic studies and comparison of air samples and other data. Meanwhile, Hill said U.S. officials are proceeding as if North Korea did what it said.

`Lots of Questions'

``There are lots of questions about this test,'' said Jim Walsh, a nuclear weapons expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who visited North Korea last year. While the tremors detected were within the range of nuclear tests, they were on the lower end, he said.

``It's very unusual for countries that are testing for the first time to have such a small test,'' Walsh said. ``People are going to ask whether this was a failed test -- in other words, a fizzle -- of a much larger bomb that only half went off, or a fake.''

Determining if North Korea is telling the truth about the nuclear test or bluffing is vital for the U.S. and its allies, nuclear-policy analysts said. A nuclear North Korea will alter the balance of power among its neighbors, particularly China, South Korea and Japan, and may have repercussions for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

``It will test the foundation of the U.S. security alliance with South Korea and Japan,'' said Daniel Pinkston, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. ``In the worst-case scenario, it could cause a collapse'' of the nonproliferation treaty.

Tremor Detected

The U.S. Geological Survey detected a tremor of magnitude 4.2, which is ``within the range'' of previous underground nuclear tests by others, said Bill Leith, a seismologist at the agency. Amy Vaughan, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake Information Center, said the tremor occurred in the mountainous northeastern part of the country. South Korean officials said their instruments detected a tremor of magnitude 3.58 to 3.7.

Lerner-Lam said data show the North Korea seismic event was an explosion and not an earthquake because it took place close to the Earth's surface.

Everything from the type of device to the type of rock surrounding the device when it exploded underground can produce widely varying data, Lerner-Lam said. ``There are also lots of variables about how the explosion was buried and tamped that could explain some variation in the estimate'' of its explosive power, he said.

Previous underground nuclear tests by other countries yielded a much greater blast. For example, independent experts concluded India detonated a thermonuclear device on May 11, 1998, that yielded as many as 25 kilotons, according to the Federation of American Scientists, a Washington-based research and policy group.

Show of Lethality

Policy experts said they doubt the North Koreans purposely limited measurement of the blast because they were interested in showing other countries the lethality of their weapon. Also, the rock in the region where the detonation took place is particularly hard and difficult to cut through.

The seismic measurement depends on how much space the North Koreans had around the device. More space for the device results in fewer measurable shock waves. During the Cold War, the U.S. thought the Soviet Union was carving out bigger cavities for their underground nuclear tests to hide the blast's power.

Researchers are aided by sensors installed around the world by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to track seismic and atmospheric activity, said David Mosher, a senior policy analyst at Rand Corp., a Santa Monica, California-based policy group. The U.S. and its allies also probably will fly airplanes around North Korea to collect air samples to see if they contain radio nucleotides, he said.

North Korea did they test a nuke?