North Korea Claims It Detonated Its First Hydrogen Bomb (nytimes.com)

HughPickens.com writes: North Korea announced it has detonated its first hydrogen bomb, dramatically escalating the nuclear challenge from one of the world's most isolated and dangerous states. "This is the self-defensive measure we have to take to defend our right to live in the face of the nuclear threats and blackmail by the United States and to guarantee the security of the Korean Peninsula," said a North Korean announcer on the state-run network. "With this hydrogen bomb test, we have joined the major nuclear powers." The North's announcement came about an hour after detection devices around the world had picked up a 5.1 seismic event that South Korea said was 30 miles from the Punggye-ri site where the North has conducted nuclear tests in the past.

"North Korea's fourth test — in the context of repeated statements by U.S., Chinese, and South Korean leaders — throws down the gauntlet to the international community to go beyond paper resolutions and find a way to impose real costs on North Korea for pursuing this course of action," says Scott Snyder, a Korea expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. According to the NY Times, the test is bound to figure in the American presidential campaign, where several candidates have already cited the North's nuclear experimentation as evidence of American weakness — though they have not prescribed alternative strategies for choking off the program. The United States did not develop its first thermonuclear weapons — commonly known as hydrogen bombs — until 1952, seven years after the first and only use of nuclear weapons in wartime.

Comments

Re:Meh, I'll wait for confirmation

[Antique Geekmeister]

If true, it's quite frightening. H bombs currently require multiple small A bombs to triggter, and the bomb casing is also typically made out of non-weapons grade uranium which reflects and focuses the A-bomb blasts onto the tritium and deuterium core. The result is far, far more radioactive uranium blown as vapor into the atmosphere than original US bomb designers were willing to admit, and a far larger radioactive fallout zone than the US was willing to admit before The Progressive published H-bomb details back in 1979.

I remember that article when published: it was quite frightening, and revealed a number of long-published lies about how H-bombs were "cleaner" than A-bombs.

Re:Meh.

[tibit]

I heard of an interesting possibility offered by a BBC analyst today: Of course this could all be posturing with full knowledge of the leadership. But perhaps the development facility is lying to the leadership about it. The leadership is completely crazy and demands things that might not be possible in their circumstances. The bomb makers might have detonated another fission device to buy more time, or simply to keep the disconnected-from-reality leadership placated.

Going further along this line of thinking: Perhaps the atomic weapon program people are sabotaging their own program. Better this than the crazy leadership bombing Japan or South Korea on a whim. They probably have the talent needed to develop a hydrogen bomb, but these people aren't stupid gullible fools anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if they said "fuck that" and only pretend to have a hydrogen bomb.

No they didn't.

[goodmanj]

Nuclear weapons create earthquakes, and you can roughly estimate the size of the bomb from the magnitude of the earthquake. In this case, we're looking at a 5.1 magnitude quake:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/ear...

There's an empirical law for calculating the size of an underground nuclear blast from the magnitude of the earthquake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

This law is a little sketchy (earthquake size depends on how tightly the bomb is packed into the ground), but taking it at face value I calculate a 45 kiloton blast. That's nowhere near a true fusion H-bomb (typically hundreds of kilotons up to megatons): it's consistent with a large fission bomb, a boosted fission weapon, or a failed fusion test, where the fusion secondary failed to ignite.

Re:Just wait until they can deliver it

[dj245]

It won't be long before China or Russia sells them a delivery vehicle, if they haven't done so already.

They have Seoul with a population of almost 10 million only 35 miles from the border and that's as good a hostage as any. North Korea must have people who know about the outside world and that they'd be obliterated if they attacked anyone. Even China might just roll over them to avoid western forces on their borders if necessary. He's realized that if you only seem "half dangerous" like Iraq, Afghanistan etc. you get invaded. If you are armed to the teeth and batshit crazy maybe you're not. He would, as far as I can tell be the first nuclear force to be invaded.

Having been to the DPRK, I don't think anyone can really understand it without visiting. 99% of what is written about the country is written by outsiders, and a substantial amount of that is written by South Korea, which is still at war with the North. So propaganda abounds.

Having said that, I don't completely understand the DPRK either, but many of the things they do make sense from their perspective. Many people there sincerely believe that South Korea and the USA plan to invade their country by force at some point. It isn't an unrealistic idea- the USA has a long history of invading and bombing places that we don't like. Every single year in April there are joint South Korea / USA exercises right off the coast of North Korea. These happen in disputed waters- Look at the Northern Limit Line and how it compares to the land border. If you look at it impartially, it is skewed in favor of the South. This is the part of the ocean where the USA and South Korea do combined exercises every single year in April. The USA and South Korea say these are defensive exercises to practice coordination of forces. I have no doubt that statement is both honest and true.

The problem is that North Korea sees that we are using landing craft in these exercises. There is one in the very first photo on the Foal Eagle wikipedia page. Hovercraft aren't generally classified as defensive vehicles. They are for making beach landings. I'm sure there are perfectly valid reasons (opening up additional fronts in a defensive war, etc) for having hovercraft in defensive military exercises. But North Korea doesn't see it that way. The US and South Korea escalate the situation every single year with the military exercises. They aren't stupid- they know they would lose a war, and they are quite understandably fearful of one. Paranoia isn't crazy when it has a solid basis in reality and history. Having nuclear weapons is the only card they can possibly play to ensure the survival of their way of life in the event of a real conflict. You may not agree with their way of life, but most people around the world are willing to defend their way of life to the death.

Poking North Korea annually with a stick hasn't worked. The only realistic action we can expect under the current circumstances is for them to continue sharpening their own sticks. It is time to stop believing that isolationism, military threats, embargoes, and sanctions can work on a country that has resisted for over 60 years. It is time for talk. Talking to them may go absolutely nowhere. I expect the first few talks will accomplish a whole lot of nothing. However, it is my opinion that so long as the US is spending billions propping up the South Korean military, making honest efforts to to end the conflict through discussions is the least we can do.