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North Korea Now Making Missile-Ready Nuclear Weapons, US Analysts Say (washingtonpost.com)
schwit1 shares a report from The Washington Post: North Korea has successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles, crossing a key threshold on the path to becoming a full-fledged nuclear power, U.S. intelligence officials have concluded in a confidential assessment. The new analysis completed last month by the Defense Intelligence Agency comes on the heels of another intelligence assessment that sharply raises the official estimate for the total number of bombs in the communist country's atomic arsenal. The U.S. calculated last month that up to 60 nuclear weapons are now controlled by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Some independent experts believe the number of bombs is much smaller. "The IC [intelligence community] assesses North Korea has produced nuclear weapons for ballistic missile delivery, to include delivery by ICBM-class missiles," the assessment states, in an excerpt read to The Washington Post. "It is not yet known whether the reclusive regime has successfully tested the smaller design, although North Korea officially last year claimed to have done so," reports The Washington Post.
The elephant in the room is that they have been enabled, if not actively assisted, by China for decades. Sure is a good thing the US wasn't dumb enough to outsource a huge chunk of our manufacturing to the totalitarian country silently backing these guys and their nuclear ambitions for the sake of next quarter's corporate profits, huh?
The problem is that, for the moment, Japan has no nukes, and its military power, by and large, is defensive in nature (due to the confines of the post-war constitution). Japan, and to a lesser extent South Korea, both rely upon the United States to serve as their primary guarantor of security.
Now there's certainly a growing movement in Japan towards amending the constitution, and some view a nuclear-armed Japan as a possibility, and this is why it has long been in the US's interest to act as Japan's primary defense, so as to prevent nuclear proliferation.
If North Korea is allowed to continue its nuclear program, then it makes the possibility of other Asian states, in particular Japan and South Korea, becoming nuclear armed states more likely. Thus Pyongyang's program is likely to lead nuclear proliferation in the Asia-Pacific. This certainly doesn't serve China's interests, and for many in the region, a nuclear-capable Japan is going to raise some rather longstanding concerns over Japanese militarism.
The real problem here isn't whether NK should be allowed to continue working towards functional ICBMs. As the unity of purpose in the Security Council demonstrates, the one thing that everyone can agree on, even if they can't agree on anything else, is that North Korea gaining ICBM delivery of nuclear warheads. The problem is what to do about it. China seems prepared to back up its displeasure with sanctions, but NK is a master of evading sanctions. Further, it is a regime that seems to have no problem allowing large numbers of its citizens to suffer, so in the short, and possibly the medium term, I doubt the sanctions will impact its weapons program at all.
But a military attack against NK is going to have significant ramifications. Even with its conventional weapons, NK has spent six decades arming its border with SK to the teeth. While there is some debate over how much damage it could do to South Korea, there's no doubt that the regime, even as a death spasm, could cause tens, possibly hundreds of thousands of deaths. It could even do damage to Japan as well. Such an event would create heavy casualties, not to mention the significant blow to the global economy; South Korea and Japan are among the most economically important nations in the world.
There simply appears to be no good answer to this problem. An out and out attack could destroy the regime, but the costs would be very high. Allowing NK to pursue its nuclear weapons ambitions, which I view anything but absolute economic isolation enforced by a blockade (which is really a declaration of war anyways), is not going to stop those ambitions. We've been on this course for over a decade. NK has made no secret of its ambitions, and now doesn't even seem to want to use it as a pretext for aid from South Korea and the US, and fear over the consequences of outright military intervention has stayed the US's hand.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Lets have some real history here.
The Agreed Framework, negotiated by Clinton, froze the DPRK nuclear program in place. All the facilities were shut down and placed under international inspection. This lasted for 9 years - from 1994 to 2003.
But in 2003 "Dubya" decided to put his swagger on and concocted the "Axis of Evil" in a State Of The Union speech lumping Iraq, Iran and the DPRK together as if they were an alliance, then decided that fall to abrogate the Agreed Framework and also make more blustering remarks.
Result - the DPRK kicked out the IAEA, restarted their nuclear facilities and three years later began testing nuclear weapons.
The Democrats, under Clinton, shut down the NK nuclear program.
The Republicans, under Bush, goaded them into restarting it - and once the genie was out, it could not be put back in.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
The Democrats, under Clinton, shut down the NK nuclear program.
Even as they immediately started up a separate enrichment program, more or less immediately. Don't lecture about the facts and then leave the important ones out.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.