North Korea Conducts Nuclear Test

viyh writes "North Korea conducted a nuclear test on Monday, South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a ruling party official as saying. A magnitude 4.7 earthquake was recorded by the USGS in North Korea. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has called an emergency meeting of cabinet ministers over the test, Yonhap said."

Comments

Re:Scary

[aurispector]

Kim Jong Il is definitely not a nutjob. North Korea's internal politics are a pressure cooker like few on the planet. He's extremely smart, politically savvy and extremely ruthless. He learned at the feet of a master - his father - and successfully transitioned to power when it was widely expected he would fail. This is a man that thinks nothing of starving millions (as happened in the late '90's) of his own people if it suits his political needs. North Korea has survived for over half a century by using it's massive military to threaten the South and has played public opinion in South Korea like a violin.

Since China transitioned from a closed economy and withdrew much of it's overt support, North Korea has successfully used seemingly insane threats as negotiating leverage to obtain international aid many times. Because of China's residual support for the regime and their legitimate fear of massive numbers of refugees crossing the border, as well as resistance by (probably North supported) elements in South Korea it has been politically impossible to call North Korea's bluff. This is perhaps the one thing that could successfully break the back of the regime and initiate change in the North.

If it were possible to "pull the plug" on international aid and enlist China to stare down the North's military threats the regime would probably collapse, but it's unlikely China could be induced to do so given the flood of refugees they would inevitably have to handle.

Hence the "insanity" continues with no end in sight.

Re:War is peace

[Hal_Porter]

The odd thing about North Korea is that even without nukes it is offlimits for US military action for three reasons

First most people think the North Korean army would fight if attacked, unlike the Iraqi one. Their equipment is outdated, but they have numbers and determination would most likely kill enough Americans to trigger a Vietnam style withdrawal. I'd guess China would keep them supplied too.

Secondly North Korea has vast amounts of artillery aimed at Seoul, the capital of South Korea. It is theorized that if attacked they would shell Seoul. By the time the artillery had been destroyed by US airpower millions of South Koreans would be dead, and probably thousands of US pilots. The US government would most likely not be able to accept that loss.

Finally it's widely believed that China has told the US that NK is under its protection and that attacking it would move the US and China into an open state of hostility.

Now they do have nukes they could use them on US forces, Japan or South Korea. Actually I think that Japan or the US would probably be able to shoot down NK missiles or destroy them on the ground as they are liquid fueled and thus take time to set up. Also there are questions of whether they would be able to build a warhead that would fit on a missile. So compared to their conventional military and powerful allies, their nukes are not particularly useful.

Of course even a few dummy missile launches at Japan may trigger an extreme overreaction on Japan's part. Their current pacifism could be revoked quite quickly and while pointedly non nuclear it is widely believed that they could build a large nuclear arsenal very quickly if threatened. China would no doubt react by building up its own military. So an attack on NK would most likely leave South East Asia looking like a much more threatening place.