Slashdot Mirror
North Korea Says It Has Conducted Nuclear Test
ScentCone writes "North Korea says that it has conducted its first nuclear weapons test and 'brought happiness to its people.' Japan and China earlier issued an unusual joint statement saying that such a test would be 'unacceptable.' As of 11:10PM EST, the USGS says that it has not detected any unusual seismic activity on the Korean peninsula in the last 48 hours." From the article: "The North said last week it would conduct a test, sparking regional concern and frantic diplomatic efforts aimed at dissuading Pyongyang from such a move. North Korea has long claimed to have nuclear weapons, but had never before performed a known test to prove its arsenal. The nuclear test was conducted at 10:36 a.m. (0136 GMT) in Hwaderi near Kilju city, Yonhap reported, citing defense officials." Update: 10/09 05:50 GMT by J : The U.S. Geological Survey reports a 4.2 magnitude quake; South Korean news is reporting a 3.58 magnitude event; the White House apparently confirms a nuclear test.
Actually, this is not so much about terrorists as residual cold war thinking. Most political scietists would treat this as either the fallout of superpower foriegn policy from the cold war, or indeed claim that the cold war is not in fact over.
America is acting no different from usual so it is not right to claim it is run by violent religious extremists. That's a comparative qualitative assessment. It is instead run by what would be known as 'realist' (not the dictionary def.) ideologists - those who would unilaterally further America's interest..
"Nukes are the most useless weapon any country can have"
Nukes may be useless in that it's pointless to launch them (unless you do want to bring about the armageddon), but they do have a purpose. Being a nuclear power almost guarantees that your country won't get invaded. Nobody would risk you launching your nukes as a last ditch effort to "save" your country.
Reason it's called a peacetime weapon.
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
The other day I read a story where they interviewed a Chinese soldier who was disgusted with the NKs. Why? Because they returned a border crosser, a young woman. This took place on a bridge over a river that divides China and NK. As soon as she was signed over, the NKs took a sharp steel wire and ran it through the flesh between the thumb and forefingers of a hand. They led her away screaming. Apparently, this is routine behavior. Other Chinese border guards related stories of NKs running the wire underneath the collarbones of returnees, harnessing them together. Needless to say, these people are not seen at the border again.
In the same article, there were stories of NKs sneaking into China, robbing banks, in general making trouble. However, most of the border crossers are coming to China to find prosperity and freedom. Yes. Prosperity and freedom. In a country that we usually associate with wage slavery and oppression. The woman at the bridge knew she would be killed. They must all realize they will be killed, yet they risk being returned. Now that has *got* to be one lousy place to live.
I don't see how the NK regime can last. It's just a question of how it's going to go down. If I were the premier of China, I'd make a secret deal with SK to put a military sqeeeze on the place, since NK would probably be overwhelmed by a Chinese invasion. The Chinese could really come out looking like good guys if they then turned it over to SK for re-unification ala Germany. I'm not that optimistic though. I think we're more likely to see the "Korean autonomous zone" or some such nonsense that's really part of the Chinese empire. Maybe real soon now.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Contrary to North Korean propaganda, North Korea having nukes has more to do with Russia, Japan, China, and South Korea than it does with the United States. Northeast Asia is currently the most economically dynamic area of the world. And yet, in the center of this region sits a basket case. A country in a cult of personality throwback to the early 1950s, still fighting the Korean War.
While China continues its relentless march to economic modernity and eventual superiority, while South Korea has the most advanced internet culture in the world (see recent slashdot story still on the front page from the New York Times), and while Japan is pretty much the most advanced nation on the planet, according to a number of measures (GNP, life expectancy, etc), North Korea keeps its citizens in prisoner camps, rummaging for leaves to eat, while it focuses every ounce of its words to the world and every drop of its resources on military belligerence. And counterfeiting currency. And making methamphetamine. And now nukes.
North Korea can easily kill a quarter million people in Seoul anytime it wanted to with conventional weapons in a couple of hours. Its rockets could carry a number of nasty things to Tokyo very easily. And now nukes.
I really don't see North Korea's neighbors tolerating this scenario much longer. I don't see how they can. China has been reluctant to muzzle its maddog little psycho neighbor since it frightens the hated Japanese more than anyone else, but surely China can see now how North Korea's insane belligerence threatens China's economy just as much as it gives the Japanese nightmares. And North Korea, famously, when presented a line in the sand, does all it can do to cross it. But going nuclear may be a line in the sand it should not have crossed, if self-preservation was ever its goal. But self-preservation never seems to have been North Korea's goal. More like a headlong rush into self-realized armageddon.
I don't see this ending well, I really don't. Don't go to Seoul or Tokyo for awhile folks, I'm really worried about Northeast Asia right now, I don't see this ending well. North Korea has too much of a deathwish. And now nukes.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
A "dud" (or partial) sounds consistent with everything else we know.
We know that it's probably a plutonium device (using processed fuel from a reactor that had been secured and monitored until they kicked out the inspectors).
A plutonium device is an implosion device, and implosion devices are usually much harder to get right the first time (hence the need for testing).
To keep things in perspective - they're still a long way from being able to put an operationally reliable device on an operationally reliable ICBM.
But this is still very bad news.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
You'll also get invaded if your enemies believe you aren't a rational actor.
You think so? Personally, I think that's precisely a good reason not to invade. Knowing ol' Kimmy, he'd nuke your invading forces inside of his borders, even if they occupied an area populated by a bunch of his people. He'd turn around and say that being vaporized 'brought happiness to the people of North Korea, and the patrriotic people enjoyed having their flesh melt off of their bones'
I'd give 'em credit for that kind of move, so long as he thought such a move wouldn't signifigantly disrupt his sphere of influence--his ability to make everyone do what he and his generals want them to do. I think he could easily get away with using a tactical size nuke to stop invading forces, even if it took out a few dozen villages, and only his generals would have a chance to dispose him afterwards.
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
Anyone want to explain why the seismic station at Inchon, South Korea appears to be quiet at the time of the blast (1:35 UTC)?
Here's the raw seismic data at Inchon.
I see an event at Inchon at about 14:30 UTC on Sunday, but it's 11 hours earlier than the reported blast.
I do agree that by cutting a deal with New Delhi, the US govt essentially squashed the NPT. But then, that's what happened to the Kyoto treaty as well.
The NPT by itself is a relic of the cold war and extremely biased. What it basically says is that 5 countries can build and maintain as many Nuclear weapons as they want while the rest of the world should not. Ideally, if Nuclear Non Proliferation was to work, the NPT should have contained a timetable for the reduction/removal of all nuclear weapons, including those stockpiled by the big five. The NPT isn't about reducing the risk of a Nuclear Winter. Its about maintaining a military advantage and is purely political in its framework.
I'm all for reducing the risk of Nuclear Proliferation, but I'm not convinced that NPT is the tool to use. What we need is for the big 5 to show the way and reduce their stockpile and then enforce the NPT.
It's not a nuke.
d ata/INCN_24hr.html
Compare the purported "nukular test":
http://aslwww.cr.usgs.gov/Seismic_Data/telemetry_
Notice how long this lasts.
To a _real_ nuclear test
http://can-ndc.nrcan.gc.ca/recent/980528_e.php
Again, notice how long this lasts. Hint: look at the scale of both graphs.
One of these things is not like the other.
I'm sure that you can figure it out for yourself.
--
BMO
North Korea is going to collapse in an internal military coup.
Well, a coup of some sort. Chances are, China will be a major backer of any such event too.
From the analyses I've been reading, it is likely that this nuke test was a military coup of sorts, as was the missile test a few months ago. The military is the largest power structure in the DPRK and shooting off their weapons as a show of strength against the perceived threats of just about every other country is a big goal of theirs, big enough to override the concerns of the rest of the government regarding sustainability (foreign aid has dried up to a trickle in the last few years, and their recent efforts at counterfeiting US dollars have not gone over so well either).
Despite the typical demonization of western media, 'dear leader' Kim certainly understands that these tests are not likely to improve relations with any other country and are not in the best interest of maintaining his dictatorship and his role has chief party animal. So in that sense at least, the fact that the tests have occurred suggests that his grip on control of the country is not iron-clad.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Sorry to say it, but your units aren't right. I have attempted to reverse-engineer your mistake.
300 billion antineutrinos per fission is just wrong, as are 3e11 antineutrinos per steradian. I think you meant 3e11 antineutrinos per square meter at 1Mm distance, which is right in line with what I calculated. (I assumed twice as many neutrinos per fission as you did, and used the published size of Kamiokande to estimate its cross section at 200 square meters -- which accounts for the factor-of-400 difference between our numbers.)
What people are forgetting is the clear and present danger NK presents to China. NK is still stuck in a cold war with the US and SK, while China has moved on. Remember; NK lives on good will from China, and there are almost no defenses on the border to China. The DMZ is a nightmare for invading, but the north border is just to walk over. Mark my words, if there's an invasion of NK, the Chinese are on the side of the West and probably among SK soldiers. The political views of NK are a far cry from what China wants as its neighbour.
US either better bomb this guy back to the Stone Age, or else be prepared to have nukes floating all around the world.
Speaken like a true American. Wage wars, but plz not at home. Why care about collatoral damage, as long as it is so far away?
I happen to work in Seoul right now, and I'm actually more afraid of Bush & his friends than North Korea. NK will not attack the South unprovoked because even their nutcase of a dictator knows that such an act will certainly end his reign. However, if you provoke him and lead him to believe he's about to be invaded/bombed/..., he might actually be tempted to send a couple of missiles down to Seoul, just to prove that NK is dangerous.
I hope that the U.S. and Japan won't push it too far.
North Korea doesn't need a deterrent because the US won't invade unless North Korea crosses the border first. The US has seen significantly more hawkish characters than Bush and Rumsfeld on the topic of Korea. No one wants to fight there. It's horrendously mountainous, the winters are bitter cold, and the elite corps that would be handling any nuclear weapons are bound to be even more fanatical than the best of the Iraqi Republican Guard.
That said, the descriptions from the Russians about North Korea's bomb place it at 3m in length and weighing about four tons, which is far more than any North Korean missile can mount and more than most of their planes can handle. There is zero chance of North Korea mounting nuclear missile attack in the next few years, and they would have to learn some very powerful miniaturization tricks before they could threaten anyone at a significant range.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
It sure as heck should be scared! If you haven't read this yet, you gotta check it out:
= /opinion/2006/04/16/do1609.xml
e s
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml
The other really scare force in the world is well documented here:
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmar
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
It is more complicated than that. N. Korea (among other countries) have territory disputes with Japan. Japan's hands are tied because of Article 9 forbidding Japan from using threat or use of force to settle disputes. And it's unlikely that Japan could defend itself successfully against N.Korea if a hot war were to erupt. Part of the agreement with the US is that the US provides defensive forces, and works as a proxy to lean on nations that have disputes with Japan.
But probably the biggest issue is that Kim Jong-il is a lunatic. Saddam Hussein was not a lunatic. That is the biggest difference between a war with Iraq and a war with N.Korea. Also Saddam's military was quite small, while N.Korea's military is the fifth largest in the world. (roughly the same number of troops as the US)
I think everyone agrees that a war with N.Korea between any nation (Japan, US, S.Korea) would be an utter nightmare. And the nightmare has only gotten worse with the progress N.Korea has made with thier nuclear arsenal. We cannot entirely trust Kim Jong-il to simply use nukes as a negotiation strategy, he may actually use them (and claim that somehow he was provoked).
What better way to assert N.Korea's sovereignty than to lob a nuke on one of the disputed islands in the Sea of Japan? Sort of an "if I can't have it, then nobody can"
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
There are a variety of complicating factors as to what all this adds up to, but the unifying element is Japan.
Since WW2 Japan has had an explicitly 'peaceful' constitution that precludes it from engaging in any military action other than self-defense.
In recent years though Japanese politicians and strategists have been reconsidering this posture, due largely to the continuing belligerence of North Korea, and more recently because of the strong nationalist and anti-Japan sentiments emanating from China.
Memory of Japanese nationalism and militarism within East Asia is very very strong (partly because of Chinese govt efforts to remind everyone of Japan's atrocities at every opportunity). There is great suspicion within China and Korea (Nth and Sth) of Japan. If Japan becomes alarmed by Nth Korea's (and they will) they may start down the path of a more expressly offensive military posture, even to the point of pursuing their own weapon. At this point China would be very very angry and nervous indeed. An arms race in East Asia is a real possibility.
In this light - the absolute best thing the US government can do right now is to immediately reassure the Japanese government and people that they are still very much protected by the US nuclear umbrella, that there is no need for Japan to pursue its own nuke, and that they should restrain their understandable urge to assume a more offensive military posture.
In this situation the US needs to make sure that there is no possible excuse for China and Japan, and to a lesser extent, Sth Korea, to begin an arms race. The best way to do that is restrain Japanese militarism, be firm with Nth Korea, and involve China in everything it does to resolve the situation.
The wild card in all of this is Taiwan. Taiwan is going through a very interesting political situation - and Taiwanese pro-independence politicians might be considering using such sentiment to shore up their own position (rocked by a corruption scandal). Taiwanese independence will almost certainly force China to attack Taiwan (they've always said they would), and so the US could be dragged into a war it can't actually fight.
We live in VERY interesting times.
Chemical weapons are essentially only useful on human targets. Bombs are at least able to destroy infrastruture and equipment.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
I personally know some guardsmen that will disagree with that statement.
Those people DO deserve our respect and sympathy. Regardless of their reasons for doing so, they are fighting and dying so YOU don't have to. If they didn't do it, there would be a draft and you would be rolling the dice.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
"Why didn't you go for the National Guard, hmm? Your chances of being deployed over seas to hostile combat zone are dramatically reduced in that organization."
I met an Ohio National Guardsman the other day who has been deployed three out of the past five years and has seen two combat tours in Iraq (and told me a depressing story about a child with a bloody arm who was wired with explosives and killed the medic who tried to help him). He left the active duty military shortly before 9/11 becasue he thought being a part timer would allow him to spend more time with his family.
Oh and I met him in the train station in Heidelberg Germany. He is away from home again.
Dear Lord, my bullshit detector just pegged. Please note: I am rather a lefty and in favor of social programs to help those who are poor or otherwise disadvantaged.
That "poverty level" is by U.S. standards, which means USD 4700 per person per year. That seems pretty low, but consider that most of the world is at approximately USD 700 per person per year. So our "poor" are nearly 7 times better off than the average person around the world. Also, starvation is virtually impossible in the U.S., even for homeless people. In fact, the very poor are one of the most likely groups in the U.S. to be grossly overweight.
This is predicated on your phony insinuation about poverty in the United States. Below the poverty line it is possible in many parts of the country to not only meet basic needs but to have comforts that are totally unknown in most of the world. Hell, our market basket includes things like beer, tobacco, computers, TV, jewelry, and sports equipment.
I know it's superfashionable to bash the U.S. at every opportunity, and frankly it is embarrassing that we have a problem with health care in this country (but that spans the middle class as well, so it's not a poverty issue), but at least pick on the problems we actually have rather than make up new ones.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
As a Japanese person living in Tokyo, I need to add a few facts to this.
Since WW2 Japan has had an explicitly 'peaceful' constitution that precludes it from engaging in any military action other than self-defense.
Actually, the Japanese constitution (9th paragraph) states that the only use of armed forces can be for self defense. That said, there is a plethora of laws that forbid it from doing even that. If North Korea, or any other country starts shooting Tepodong missiles into Japan, we still can't retaliate. We can't shoot missiles back into North Korea. Fuck, we DON'T EVEN HAVE LONG DISTANCE MISSILES to shoot back with! We have a sorry excuse of a missile defense system, that has been proven to be very unlikely to work if we really need it. The only thing we can do, at the moment, is shoot enemy armies if they decide to launch a full land invasion. I don't think the Maniac with Don King's hair is even that stupid. My brother-in-law pilots a tank in the self defense force, and he doesn't want war, explicitly because it'll make him a sitting duck.
In this light - the absolute best thing the US government can do right now is to immediately reassure the Japanese government and people that they are still very much protected by the US nuclear umbrella, that there is no need for Japan to pursue its own nuke, and that they should restrain their understandable urge to assume a more offensive military posture.
Won't work. Why? Because us Japanese don't want the U.S. to bring nukes into the country. There are a very few vocal people that have said otherwise, but the silent masses (and the not so silent government) has repeatedly demanded that the U.S. do not bring any ships carrying nuclear weapons into the country. What we want the U.S. to do is stop playing "I pretend to care (but really could care less since there's no oil involved)" and actually do something. Something like persuade Russia and China so that we could actually get full, binding, international sanctions against North Korea through the U.N. Last time N.K. shot missiles in the general direction of Japan (7 in total, on July 4th) we got soooo close to getting this through. But then China demanded they would veto it if the a full, binding sanction was included in the language. They wanted to keep it to "strong language" and nothing fully binding. In short, it read "If you don't stop now, we'll... tell you to stop again!!" No wonder Jong-Il doesn't seem deterred by another "Stop! Or else!" call from China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and the U.S. Us Japanese people don't want nukes, we don't want to make nukes, we don't want to use nukes. And we sure as hell don't want to be bombed AGAIN with nukes. We want someone with a spine against China to help get our claims through. (On a side note, we also want a prime minister and cabinet that has a spine...)
Anyhow... even if all I wrote turns out to take a 180 degree U-turn and change, you still can't change the fact that the Japanese self defense force probably can't even win a war against North Korea, even if every single surrounding nation agrees that Japan can go ahead. The Japanese self decense army is under prepared, under staffed, and does not have the necessary equipment. We have no missiles. Our jet fighters were deliberately modified so that they don't have fuel tanks large enough to fly a round trip to Korea and back. (They can't be easily retrofitted either... owning such a jet was considered, at the time, unnecessarily provocative.) Our guns are inferior to even the North Korean AK-47 knock downs, since Japan cannot legally purchase arms, and had to develop everything internally, which turned out to be very, very expensive, and hard to use in a real war. (The old Model 66 assault rifle, when dis-assembled, broke down into 30-some odd parts, including some very small springs, which my brother says would be impossible to re-build in the field. People lose parts when undergoing re-build training in the baracks!) Even th