North Korea Claims It Detonated Its First Hydrogen Bomb (nytimes.com) 412
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.
"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.
Meh. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Meh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who knows my history of posting on the whole Iran/nuclear topic knows that I'm about as far from an Iran apologist as you can get, but frankly your post is pretty much entirely bullshit.
Nuclear technology transfer has been in the exact opposite direction, rather than Iran transferring knowledge and information to Iran, it is in fact North Korea that transferred to Iran (and it's close ally Syria).
North Korea's nuclear programme stems back much further than both Iran and Syria, and in fact, Iran was still largely under Western influence long after North Korea had already decided to pursue the nuclear weapons route.
The early North Korean weapons effort was largely kickstarted by the USSR under the form of an initially civilian effort and this gave North Korea the initial technology it needed to start refining Uranium (the same sort of enrichment technology that has been at the heart of the current Iranian nuclear drama). As such, North Korea was doing what Iran is being criticised for 40 years before Iran really started though North Korea never really got anywhere through that time until the 90s when it benefitted from the AQ Khan network. That is, it was our supposed ally (as fucking usual) Pakistan that traded nuclear weapon technology with North Korea and made them a nuclear weapon capable state.
Whilst there has been ample evidence over the years that Iran has at least dabbled in pursuing nuclear weapons (though personally I think they did more than dabble) we don't necessarily know in much detail what shape that took. We do know however that when Syria's al-Kibar nuclear programme was unveiled by the fact Israel blew the fucking thing up, that it was basically an exact clone of North Korea's programme. Had Iran had it's own indigenous built programme with no outside influence, it would seem odd that Syria's programme looked like North Korea's, not Iran's, when Syria and Iran are far closer partners (to the extent that Iran is currently paying in the blood of it's special forces and top generals to prop up Assad right now).
Which is why in all likelihood, there's little that North Korea could gain from Iran. North Korea's programme is decades ahead, and whilst Iran was also a beneficiary of the AQ Khan network it still lacked the actual experience and knowledge of enrichment that North Korea had.
So the idea that Iran is somehow coaching the North Koreans makes absolutely no sense, NK's programme is a year short of 55 years in the making, whereas Iran's is sat at about 15 to 20 years at best, the bulk of which has been spent recreating that which NK already had been handed outright in the 1960s by the soviets.
For all the criticism I've had of Iran over the years, I'm optimistic about the nuclear deal. The biggest problem I've had with Iran's nuclear programme is simply that it's completely blocked the IAEA from confirming that it isn't producing weapons by outright blocking access to key nuclear facilities, and as such this is why I believe that the only reason Iran would do this is because it did genuinely have something to hide - there's no point suffering crippling economic sanctions just to pretend you're trying to make nukes if you're not. If Iran is now willing to allow full and thorough inspections, then I suspect that's because it's now got nothing to hide any more because it genuinely has given up on it's pursuit of nuclear weapons.
It's pretty clear that the path Ahmadinejad carved wasn't working for Iran, that Iran was getting weaker, poorer, and increasingly more isolated. The arab spring was the wake up call to Iran's elite that that path simply was not sustainable. Whilst I'm not particularly a fan of Rouhani, because he was still ultimately a vetted option and still under the thumb of Khamenei, he is at least reversing many of Ahmadinejad's bad ideas (like the pursuit of nuclear weapons) precisely because the alternative is collapse of the Iranian political system, and likely a Syria-esque civil war.
That is why it's both nonsense to sug
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Informative)
I'd like to see the hydrogen bomb small enough to cause a 5.1 earthquake
H-bombs can be designed with small yields. It is basically just a fission core with a lithium deuteride booster. You can make the booster any size you want just by putting in more LiD, which is non-radioactive, non-toxic, and requires no special shielding or handling. Early American designs held the LiD in place with Styrofoam. The hard part is building the fission core, which NK has already done in the past. Going from fission bombs to fusion bombs is not difficult, and every country that has attempted it has succeeded on the first try.
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It is basically just a fission core with a lithium deuteride booster.
Well, no, not really. A boosted weapon is vastly different than a true thermonuclear weapon. In a boosted weapon, you inject a small amount of Tritium into the Plutonium core. The fusion of the tritium causes a burst of fast neutrons, which in turn causes additional fission in the remaining Plutonium and/or Uranium tamper, significantly improving the efficiency of the weapon. This is significantly different than a thermonuclear weapon, which has distinct fission and fusion sections (which uses Lithium D
Quite a bit of not quite true stuff in there (Score:3)
There is such a thing as boosted fission weapons, which do have fusion fuel---deuterium and tritium, in the core of the fission primary. This is not an "H-Bomb". The fusion fuel provides comparatively insignificant energy output from fusion and contributes almost nothing to the yield---however, it does provide an extra boost of neutrons at close to the moment of maximum criticality, therefore substantially increasing the efficiency of the fission reaction. It is a physical 'neutron gun', and in practice,
Re: Meh. (Score:2, Funny)
5.1 earthquake?
That's just fatass Kim Jung Un stepping out of bed in the morning (next to a more beautiful chick than you'll ever lay. How fucked up the world is)
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Perhaps the atomic weapon program people are sabotaging their own program.
You know, I'd like to believe that; I'd like to believe that anyone educated enough to design and construct such devices would be resistant to such insanity.
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They popped a hydrogen filled balloon with a lit cigarette and declared success.
Must have been quite a balloon to register 5.1 on the Richter scale !
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I've noticed that the western media goes out of its way to portray North Korea as being a backwards country. For example, national TV is broadcast in high quality wide-screen PAL on the ground and 1080i via satellite. Japanese TV uses a pristine copy of the 1080i broadcast, but the western media like the BBC uses a low quality cropped to 4:3 version.
I'd love to know why this is. It's very misleading. North Korea has access to modern tech, and a hydrogen bomb is well within their means. The testing is just f
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It's not just the media itself, but the experts they hire and even people in high level positions of our own government don't seem to realize their government has the same computer technology and are in fact connected to the same internet we are.
There's this belief that because the vast majority of their people are peasant farmers that somehow people in their government and science administration are completely inept.
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to portray North Korea as being a backwards country
Because 99% of it is.
For example, national TV is broadcast in high quality wide-screen PAL on the ground and 1080i via satellite
Yes, and the less than 1% of the population who have a TV which can display it love the picture quality.
I'd love to know why this is.
Because there's only one "game" in the broadcast industry in their country, run by the government, and they get to use as much of the spectrum as they want for their TV.
It's very misleading. North Korea has access to modern tech
TV broadcasting and nukes, while both being "modern technology" are completely different kinds of technology. It's like saying "Well, they have indoor air conditioning, so they ought to be able to land a human on the M
Cold fusion? (Score:2)
They popped a hydrogen filled balloon with a lit cigarette and declared success.
So you're saying junior great leader Kim has achieved the Holy Grail of energy research?
Re:Meh. (Score:5, Funny)
From the article:
"an estimated explosive yield of six kilotons and a quake with a magnitude of 4.8 were detected Wednesday"
Hmmm....
One mole of Hydrogen will produce 241.8 kilojoules [wikipedia.org] of energy when burned.
A kiloton explosion releases 4.184*10^12 joules [wikipedia.org], so we're looking at 2.51*10^13 joules for this explosion. That would require 1.04*10^8 moles of hydrogen.
A mole of hydrogen is 22.4 liters, so that gives us 2.3*10^14 liters of hydrogen. That means the balloon had to be 230 cubic kilometers and, when popped, it would have sucked up all the oxygen in a surrounding area of about 547 cubic kilometers.
This tells us one absolutely undeniable fact; I'm really fucking bored.
Re:Why are South Korean youth so silent? (Score:5, Informative)
these West German youth knew they didn't have any real power, but they knew through song they could fight against their enemies.
The songs and protests were not directed against their "enemies". They were directed against the Atlanticist government of Helmut Schmidt, and the American deployment of Pershing Missiles in Germany. Rather than "fighting" their enemies, the protestors advocated unilateral disarmament and appeasement.
Why are South Korean youth so silent when facing a similar threat?
Perhaps they have more sense.
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North Korea is a very serious threat because their leaders have no real restraint and everything to lose if they aren't in control. To Kim Jong Un, the world begins and ends with himself, and he has complete control. If anything comes close to threatening his power externally, he has enough conventional artillery zeroed in on Seoul to demolish it and kill a significant portion of the population. And given his treatment of his uncle, I have no illusions that he would develop a conscience at the last minut
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So, you'd prefer the approach Chamberlain took with Hitler, and think Regan did it the wrong way with the U.S.S.R. Maybe you could give an example of how pacifism has successfully worked at disarming a despot?
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Does Ghandi and company count?
No, it does not.
That all happened due to the British Empire being tired, broke, and open to change.
10 people who did exactly what Ghandi did in the several hundred years before, were all taken outside and shot.
In any case, it doesn't apply because the British Empire wasn't a despot, it wasn't disarmed, and it still exists today with the same chain of government.
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Wow. Talk about false dichotomies.
Re:Meh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Meh. (Score:4, Insightful)
Could be worse they could have put a person called Bush on a boat (no aircraft carriers) and delcared misson complete!
Nah.
Worst case would be some clown who had no idea what he was doing pulling the US out of Iraq and allowing Al Qaeda in Iraq to grow into an organization that could take over actual territory, say, maybe calling itself something like "The Islamic State", such that it would then have the resources to conduct terrorist attacks like bombing airliners and mass shootings in disparate places such as Paris and Southern California.
That would be the worst possible outcome.
Good thing nobody in power in the US is that fucking naive and stupid.
Sadly, there was someone in power who was that stupid, and his name was George W. Bush. It was his administration that negotiated the exit-date with Iraq. Obama succeeded at getting a short extension, but ultimately his hands were tied.
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Glorious leader show us the way (Score:4, Funny)
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Always remembers me this scene from iron sky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Meh, I'll wait for confirmation (Score:4, Insightful)
We have sniffer/detector craft for just this reason.
I wait until we hear confirmation before believing anything NK says.
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seismic activity was confirmed by usgs (a 5.1 magnitude earthquake in the vicinity of a known Pyongyang nuclear site) before nk announcement actually .
generally speaking while nk uses grandiloquent propagandist language, they don't lie about actual events like this.
Re:Meh, I'll wait for confirmation (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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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.
One H-bomb is dirtier than one A-bomb. But if you realize the same explosive power with (multiple) A-bombs, then you get something dirtier than a single H-bomb. So, for the damage it does, the H-bomb is cleaner.
Nope. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
First, no, you don't need "multiple small A bombs to trigger" a fusion detonation. You need one. You can make multi-stage weapons like the Tsar Bomba, nobody seems to nowadays.
Second, you can supposedly make the tamper out of a lot of different materials (even lead) - but even if you decided to use uranium, any country with a big enough program to make an A-bomb would have a crapload of uranium metal sitting around.
Re:Meh, I'll wait for confirmation (Score:4, Informative)
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This is remarkably similar to the 2013 test, which was also magnitude 5.1. The USGS has a nice summary plot of the 3 previous tests [usgs.gov]. All else being equal (namely, the coupling between the test tunnel and the surrounding rock), it looks like this test was about as big of a "pop" as the 2013 test.
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Early satellite data is saying it was just an atomic bomb, the kind they have tested previously.
Some experts' very early assessment was that North Korea's device may not have been a true hydrogen bomb, and might instead have been a simpler fission device that had been "boosted."
NPR Story [npr.org]
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The reports I was hearing contained a lot of skepticism. There are a lot of claims that it was likely just an A-bomb artificially boosted to make the explosion bigger so it looked like an H-bomb.
Personally, I don't find that particularly reassuring. Whatever it was, it registered 5.1 on the Richter scale, which is more than enough to ruin the day of a lot of the 25.6 million people in Seoul.
Sooner or later... (Score:2)
As evidenced by early interviews with politicians, we are hamstrung in the US by partisan bickering, and cannot be counted on to fix this. The World will need to come together on this, or we're likely to affirm Fermi's Paradox.
Though it is prudent to remember early reporting is often erroneous, It was repor
It's clear now (Score:2)
That North Korean astronaut that went to the sun and back in 4 hours [1] recently was obviously going to collect hydrogen for this device.
[1] Yeah, yeah, I know the story was fabricated rather than being an official NK declaration.
Nothing to worry about (Score:3)
As soon as North Korea starts getting a little excited and starts sabre rattling and threatening other countries, China will tell them to shut the fuck up or they'll withdraw aid.
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And if they do, Kim Jong-un will start pointing their shit down to South Korea. He's batshit crazy enough to attempt it.
I wouldn't downplay the situation.
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Of all the comments (so far) you are the only one who seems to understand why NK rattles sabres on a regular basis...for aid.
Having read parts of their founder's "manifesto" I don't panic every time they light off rounds at SK. They just need to save face while at the same time asking for food.
If this is a real nuclear device, it might change things a bit, but if NK were to ever *really* decide to invade SK, they won't start with a show of force and theatrics, they'll just do it.
Nuclear Winter - the solution to global warming (Score:2)
NK can sell them to the highest bidder (Score:2)
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wait till they get better at this !
No they didn't. (Score:5, Interesting)
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... [usgs.gov]
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/... [wikipedia.org]
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 [wikipedia.org] weapon, or a failed fusion test, where the fusion secondary failed to ignite.
Dear China. (Score:3)
Hi! Please carpet bomb us! *SIGH* (Score:2)
Not-so-lil Kim and his cronies are playing with fire here.
If they think the US is going to accept their psychotic little cult-of-personality kleptocracy developing nuclear capability and the ability to actually lob one into the US, they're even nuttier than they've been reported to be.
It's as if they're begging to be carpet-bombed back into the stone age.
I'm hoping that this is a good thing (Score:2)
It's long been said that nuclear weapons are the first mechanisms of peace in human history. So I'm willing to say that I hope this is a good thing. I hope that, like everyone else, north korea doesn't wind up using it for anything more than garnering respect for their own sovereignty.
I do find it upsetting, disappointing, and just plain odd that the U.S.A. would try to stop a country from developing a technology that the U.S.A. developed 65 years ago. It would seem to be a futile effort. Obviously they
Its that time again (Score:2)
Christmas is over, and Kim Jong-un didn't get any presents from the west. He knows we're all real busy, so it probably just slipped our minds. So this is his discreet way of reminding us that, even though he's atheist, he still appreciates Christmas gifts.
North Korea does this every few years. Next there's a lot of diplomacy, we give them lots of food and money, and they promise to never ever, ever, do another nuclear test again. Pinky swear.
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A nuclear armed world is a polite world.
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h Only in the same sense that Saddam had WMD - no one can tell the glorious leader that they don't and live.
Re: Just wait until they can deliver it (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh fuck off.
I'm sick of being told by people that I need to be scared because the North Koreans / Mozlems / Commies / Mexicans are $minor_hurdle away from raping my wife, blowing up my house, and stealing my bike.
I'm SICK of being told to be scared and I won't fucking do it any more.
If the NKs have a bomb, good on em.
How about we stop fucking with the world's people and then they'll have no reason to want to blow us up?
Does anyone actually believe that "they hate us fer aar freedoms" ? Coz I sure as fuck do
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How about we stop fucking with the world's people and then they'll have no reason to want to blow us up?
Does anyone actually believe that "they hate us fer aar freedoms
Pope Paul VI said it more eloquently: If you want peace, work for justice. Those words, often ignored, are just as true today as they were in 1972.
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They'll still want to kill us simply because of what we represent, regardless of whether or not we "fuck with them."
And yet, it is the United States, which is the only country which has actually used nuclear weapons to kill other people.
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What is it you "represent"? Other than anonymity and cowardry?
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Yeah, right. Did you know that you are STILL formally at war with them?
I assume you are referring to the United States. The US never declared war with North Korea, so it is impossible to be "STILL at war with them." If you review history, what is often referred to as the Korean War was a civil war between North and South Korea, in which the United States engaged militarily under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council support for the South.
This is not to minimize the sacrifices made by many Americans in the conflict. Only to point out that it wasn't actually a dec
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And if you want the US to stop fucking with the rest of the world, then maybe the rest of the world should stand up and fight for themselves and stop living the socialist dream where socialistic ideas strip necessary funding from programs such as National Defense apparatus. The rest of the world would be in hell had the US not entered World War 1 and 2. Also if you do feel like we need to stop fucking with the rest of the world then maybe you should petition NATO and the UN to expel the US so we wouldn't
Re: Just wait until they can deliver it (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently, you believe we enjoy sending our children out to fight (and die) when in your ass is in a sling. The vast majority of us would prefer not to do so. When was the last time America actually saw any benefit from doing so? Did we steal the oil from Iraq, as many accused us of being motivated for? No, but because we screwed up with the Iraq II, nobody wanted to finish up what was started, and we've been left with the void that created ISIS.
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...and drove oil prices down. (Just pointing out the irony.)
While I am not interested in the US being the world's police force or moral compass, when looking at the alternatives I don't think it is the worst outcome. Other options are Russia, China, Japan, Germany, UK, India, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. Regional power centers don't work very well-- and pretty much every government acts in their own self-interest. Even when you have governments that act in the common good like Sweden, you are still stuck wit
Re: Just wait until they can deliver it (Score:4, Insightful)
When was the last time America actually saw any benefit from doing so?
Uh, American Imperialism in the form of military bases in almost every country in the world is extremely effective in pursuing and forwarding American economic interests. Not sure if you are aware of that.
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That's the problem with "American Exceptionalism". Most Americans that know of it believe it; it was at the utter core of the Monroe Doctrine, and most American Foreign Policy since.
Tom Brokaw's "The Greatest Generation" is just as bad. Was that time period also the "Greatest Generation" for the Brits? Possibly. For the Germans and Japanese?
Let's talk about the Brits. They had the World... and they let it go. Not easily and not without pain, largely for the Others. Great Britain has now turned largely Iso
Re:Just wait until they can deliver it (Score:4, Insightful)
So, what would NK do with it? The military leaders aren't completely insane like some dictators here and there. Not even the front figures are that insane.
They have to keep playing war to keep the population timid. Any longer period of peace and the population will not be as willing to make sacrifices for the state.
The occasional bullet shot at South Korea is mostly symbolic. They do just what they can get away with and SK doesn't retaliate because they don't want to harm the North Korean civilians.
The real players are China, Russia and South Korea (backed by the US.) here. NK just abuses the situation to keep control of their population.
No one of them takes any strong stance regarding NK since that would piss off the others.
If North Korea does something so inconvenient that any one of its neighbors feels that a war might be better then North Korea would be obliterated in a matter of days.
Having a hydrogen bomb or two with delivery mechanism is not going to change that.
Re: Just wait until they can deliver it (Score:3, Informative)
+1.
North Korea doesn't want a war with America or South Korea. They know they would be wiped out in a matter of days. They (the Kim regime) want to keep living like kings, with all the food, women, drugs, and praise anyone could ever dream of.
Of course they want the status quo, and the only way to keep that is through duping the populace with this perpetual war. They are like a thug who acts badass, but not badass enough to have someone actually react (get arrested or his ass kicked).
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They are a "thug" who likes instigating trouble to act badass but who would get trounced in an actual fight?
My god, North Korea is a real-life Internet Troll!
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North Korea is more like a life action version of 1984.
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North Korea doesn't want a war with America or South Korea. They know they would be wiped out in a matter of days.
I'm guessing you mean a nuclear war, because invading Best Korea would certainly not take a few days. Don't forget the Korean war and the problematic geography of the country.
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I'm guessing you mean a nuclear war, because invading Best Korea would certainly not take a few days.
Even with conventional weapons, the west could eliminate their navy and air force in very short order.
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If NKor as much as thinks of pondering about possibly considering the consideration of maybe firing a missile armed with a nuclear warhead in the general direction of the US, I doubt that much of the mainland would remain inhabitable...
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We don't have to occupy them. We can just completely disarm them. You are confusing our own genuine national interest with some misguided notion of empire or nation building.
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Is that why they've been so quiet? Get real. Here's a list of just the incidents since 2010. The list dating back to the '50s can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
January 27, 2010: North Korea fires artillery shells into the water near Baengnyeong Island and South Korean vessels return fire.[29][30] Three days later, North Korea continued to fire artillery towards the area.[31]
March 26, 2010: A South Korean naval vessel, the ROKS Cheonan, was allegedly sunk by a North Korean torpedo near Baen
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Before the Norks went to the Great Leader in the Sky, a lot of Sorks would die first because it doesn't take long to light off the Norks missiles which are aimed and ready for screwing S. Korea.
And after the war, the winning combatants would have to put up with world condemnation for killing so many innocent Norks. Plus, they'd have to fund the rehab of N. Korea.
And any build up before a war would have to counter the help Putin would give to the Norks, because he would see it as a way of raising the cost. H
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You really think anyone gives half a fuck about NKors? They have no money, the market is pretty much nonexistent. They may be interesting as wage slaves once the Chinese get cocky and actually want wages above a cent an hour, but who needs NKor for that when we have Africa?
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Probably they'll hack into Elon Musk's google drive and steal his rocket plans.
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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
Re:Just wait until they can deliver it (Score:5, Interesting)
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 [wikipedia.org] 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 [wikipedia.org] 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.org] 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.
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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.
South Korea tried engagement, an effort known as the Sunshine Policy which ultimately failed. They poured billions in development dollars into North Korea and held two summits, but in the end, there was no impact to the quality of life for the North Korean people, no softening of their stance (in fact, they provoked a naval battle with the South, resulting in the deaths of six South Korean sailors), and continued nuclear weapons development. True, there have been flaws in the implementation, and difficulti
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The North Korean regime may seem batshit insane, but they're not. They want power, they want luxury, they want to have a good life, but that's it. Li'l Kim ain't no Hitler. He's not into creating a huge war and riding the bomb to hell.
He plays with the fears of those that actually have anything to lose. Call him bluff and realize that he is far more terrified of losing his power, money and hoes than you are of his bomb.
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Please don't. He's one of the few regimes on this planet that is still entertaining. So few tinpot dictators are left today.
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Do you really think the Chinese likes having a nuclear-armed, inscrutable wack-job on their doorstep? They put up with NK because they like having a buffer between themselves and SK. I just hope they have some sort of 'kill switch' to eliminate the threat (for their own sake) in case he gets too far out of hand.
Inscrutable, attention whore, wack-job (Score:2)
The US elections are going on with no mention, the 24 hour news cycle ignores him until he tops his last incredible act, and then he has to deal with domestic issues...
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China doesn't have any border with a country that approaches 4,000 miles. The longest is 2,906 miles with Mongolia.
China does not want the refugees if the north goes (Score:3)
China does not want the refugees if the north goes down.
But they also don't want any fall out and the north can shell the shit out of seoul.
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and the north can shell the shit out of seoul.
That's for sure . NK is so full of shit that they don't need shells .
Re:Thermonuclear? (Score:4, Informative)
I guess I'm dumb, how is a pure fission warhead not thermonuclear?
Not dumb, but you could have looked it up on Wikipedia. Never the less:
- Fission works by splitting the nucleus of large atoms, such as Uranium or Plutonium. This works according to a surprisingly simply principle, called the chain reaction, which gets stronger, the more concentrated the active element is. This means that if you take a large enough mass of the right element and squeeze it together in a small enough volume (and quickly enough), then it will explode.
- Fusion works the opposite way, by fusing together light nuclei; the perhaps surprising thing is, fusion releases energy when you fuse light nuclei, but not when the nuclei are heavier - I think it is around iron that it changes. Fusion on ly happens at very high temperature and pressure, hence the name "thermonuclear". Incidentally, the process of fusion in a hydrogen bomb is set of by a fission device.
But look the subjects up - wikipedia is probably a good place to start.
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Does not explain why one is called thermonuclear and the other not.
From the meaning of the words, both reactions are "thermo" and "nuclear".
Re:Thermonuclear? (Score:4, Informative)
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Does not explain why one is called thermonuclear and the other not.
No, I thought about that after I had clicked send - the crucial difference is that in a fission reaction, the explosive reaction starts with "cold" Uranium, plutonium, ..., but in a thermonuclear, the big explosion does not happen until a very high temperature has been reached, hence 'thermonuclear' instead of just 'nuclear'.
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"Does not explain why one is called thermonuclear and the other not."
On an A-Bomb, the core functionality (physion chain reaction) comes from "pure" nuclear physics: you just (for a fairly complicated level of "just") put a critical mass of physible elements together, and the rest happens on its own.
On an H-Bomb, on the other hand, in order for the core functionality (fusion) to work, you first need a stupidly big exothermic reaction to happen since fusion won't happen on its own, therefore the two-staged n
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Judging by his punctuation I'd say no, not yet.
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while international policies of usa make it a personification of greed fuelled arrogance, russia/china are much further along that line. but calling it the most dangerous is taking it way too far. the main difference is, usa is still trying to make everything look legal. more dangerous nations are not hindered by that anymore (see russian conflict with ukraine; chinese advances in east/south china sea)
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So what you're saying is that it's a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Which does not, by any means, make it a sheep, or any less dangerous than wolves which are obviously wolves. Arguably, in fact, it makes it even more dangerous on account of it.