. This blast was its largest and took place about about 380 kilometers northeast of its capital, Pyongyang.){kind=spacer}
THIRD TIME FOR N. KOREA: North Korea acknowledges it has detonated a third underground nuclear explosion to test its atomic capabilities (and serve as a warning to its enemies). This blast was its largest and took place about about 380 kilometers northeast of its capital, Pyongyang.
Image: Courtesy of the US Geological Survey
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North Korea’s latest underground nuclear weapons test Tuesday sends several messages to the international community, most of them unwelcome. For starters, this was the country’s third nuclear weapons demonstration and the first since Kim Jong-un took over in December 2011, indicating that Kim Jong-il’s successor has adopted his father’s confrontational approach to foreign relations.
In addition, the detonation—about 380 kilometers northeast of Pyongyang—touched off a seismic event measuring between magnitude 4.9 and 5.2, which corresponds to a weapon with an estimated explosive yield of six or seven kilotons, according to South Korea’s Defense Ministry, as reported by the Associated Press. The explosion surpasses the yield of North Korea’s 2009 nuclear test (estimated to have been between two and six kilotons) and a one-kiloton test in 2006.
Despite several United Nations Security Council resolutions to prevent North Korea from testing nuclear explosions or missiles, the country in December launched a rocket that put the country’s first satellite into orbit. This followed a failed rocket launch in April 2012. The takeaway is that the North is developing not just a nuclear warhead but the means to deliver it great distances as well.
For its part, North Korea accuses South Korea, backed by the U.S., of stepping up the “development and deployment of ballistic missiles with a firing range of 800 kilometers, capable of striking the entire region of the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, aka the North] as well as the deployment of Aegis destroyer's ship-to-ground cruise missile with a firing range of 500 kilometers and a long-range air-to-ground missile for fighters,” according to the Korea News Service. Aegis is a combat system developed by Lockheed Martin and deployed by South Korea’s navy on some of its ships.
Scientific American touched base with Frank von Hippel, a professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and co-founder of the school's Program on Science and Global Security, about this latest turn of events in North Korea’s quest to become a nuclear power.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
What does North Korea’s latest nuclear test (including the seismic activity that gave it away) tell us about their nuclear capabilities and objectives? For example, could we tell from a distance whether North Korea has switched from plutonium to uranium as a source of fuel for it weapons?
That we will only be able to tell if gaseous fission products leak out of the mountain and are picked up by U.S. and South Korean aircraft off shore or by land stations.
As dismal as this may seem, are these tests the best way for the rest of world to determine what North Korea is capable of, and how far it’s willing to go?
I think that they are trying to communicate that they have a ballistic missile–deliverable nuclear warhead with a Hiroshima-scale yield. That seems increasingly plausible.
What message is North Korea sending to South Korea, the U.S., China and other countries concerned about its deployment of nuclear weapons?
What they appear to want is respect and outside economic help that does not undermine the regime.
What repercussions can North Korea expect following this latest incident, and what more can be done to deter future tests?
I don't know. I used to think that a deal was possible that would persuade them to give up their nuclear weapon option but, now that they have it, it appears that they want to keep it and have the rest of the world accept that.
What does North Korea stand to gain by becoming a "nuclear power" and enduring additional sanctions imposed by the U.S. and other countries?
I don't think that they have much to gain beyond having a deterrent [against any attack]. But the fear is that they will export nuclear-weapons materials or technology, so we can't ignore them either.
(For a more in-depth discussion of North Korea’s nuclear ambitions with von Hippel, a former assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology during the Clinton administration, see our December 20, 2011, Ask the Experts, “North Korea’s Nukes: Does the Death of Kim Jong-il Mean Trouble for the U.S.?”)
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11 Comments
Add Commentdon't worry ,the elite has built bomb and solar event shelters . Nostradamus predicts pestilence....radiation disease.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere whole game plan is based on deception. They'll make missiles which can reach America, then export nukes to terrorist to let them do the dirty work and vaporize a half dozen or more large American cities.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho do you vaporize in retaliation then?
America needs to get tougher and stop this nation in it's tracks same as with Iran.
If it means nuclear war to irradiate the nations then so be it.
Otherwise we risk ending up like Pearl Harbor.
This is a highly simplistic and naïve way to look at things.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn reality, the North Korean Government is filled with paranoid, militant fanatics that think mostly with a bunker mentality. They value their survival and the continuation of the DPRK "system" over anything else, so giving terrorists WMDs is about the LAST thing they would do.
If you want to "get tough" on North Korea, there are PLENTY of effective ways to do it. For starters, we could start boycotting products from China since they are North Korea's primary benefactor. Along with their human rights violations, growing military capability, pollution and unfair economic practices that take away jobs in the USA, China's support for North Korea is more than enough motivation for me to try and avoid the "Made in China" label whenever I can.
While it is impossible to do it so soon after this nuclear test, it would be interesting to see how North Korea would respond to slightly scaling down US military presence on the Korean Peninsula. If they responded in kind, maybe we could back out a little more and let South Korea and Japan shoulder more of the responsibility for security in their own back yard. This wouldn't be a big scale-down, but maybe we could back off the trigger a bit.
A preemptive surgical strike could take out North Korea's entire nuclear infrastructure with minimum deaths.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNorth Korea is still smarting from the whipping they absorbed in the Korean War. If not for China's participation, the peninsula would be a unified, democratic state.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFrankly I don't worry so much about North Korea' military ambitions due to their incredibly suffering general population that limits their logistical abilities to wage sustained war. What I DO worry about is this their bomb or IRAN's? NK needs cash and fuel big time. Iran has both and needs a place to test their nuclear weapon research. The PERFECT place to do this is NK. 6 or 7 kilotons is a "small" device. That's just what Iran is looking for. My bet is Iran paid NK to test Iran's nuclear weapons efforts. Think about it: if Iran tries this at home the West will attack, but if this was for Iran in NK then all that will happen is a lot of wing and jaw flapping, yaddah, yaddah, etc. I thing we are in more trouble than the Western leaders will admit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's a pity that an impoverished nation should waste its resources on such projects. It may have 'the bomb' but to use it would mean the end of the world as they know it. They may have a few missiles aimed at their perceived enemies but the US has hundreds aimed at them. One act of aggression by them would be their last domestic and international act.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs you say there is paranoia at the personal level of the leaders. Who don't care a jot about anybody else.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese persons should be taken out as quickly as possible.
At all costs !
Cut off the head of the snake and the problem is almost solved.
Then their people will be able to at least eat !
Boycott chinese? You are ridiculous, most of american things belong to them
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe world knows what surgical means in america thousands of dead, the real problem is that you don't consider foreigners human. Don't you think that many people reading you is not considering to become able to make a surgery on you before you consider him and his family colateral damage?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome of these comments remind me of Buck Turgidson. Mr. President, we must not allow a mineshaft gap!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this