It looks like North Korea may have set off a nuclear explosion referred to as a ‘test’. Seismic data confirms that something happened. If this is true, I am truly saddened to hear it. I am a little concerned for the safety of Americans. I am much more concerned for the future of North Koreans…and South Koreans. Josh Marshall has an adequate run-down on the history of American diplomacy towards North Korea, but that is not really my focus. I’m not as much interested in pointing fingers about who is to blame, as I am in trying to assess what it all means. North Korea has a failed ideology. South Korea has struggled in the fifty-three years since the armistice was signed. They have struggled with military dictatorships and oppression. But they came through it with a vibrant society and economy. We probably all own some piece of electronic equipment that was developed or manufactured in South Korea. The people of the north deserve better. The Korean people deserve to be united, just as the Germans were. It would be nice if we could someday bring our troops home from the peninsula. North Korea’s actions make all of those things seem more remote and more fraught with danger.
And the threat of nuclear proliferation from North Korea is very real. They have few sources of revenue. The biggest nuclear threats remain elsewhere. The chance that we or Russia will mistake a flock of geese for a preemptive strike is still real. The chances of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan are much too high. And Israel might use nuclear weapons if they feel their existence is at risk. Compared to these threats, the North Korean threat is comparatively minor. But nothing is minor when it comes to the use of nuclear weaponry.
It’s a sad day. I am willing to say that the Bush policy has failed. I am not so sure that the Clinton strategy might have succeeded. North Korea was always one of our toughest foreign policy challenges. They appear to be a nuclear power now. Even prior to this test, they were already so militarily formidable that they could destroy Seoul in a few hours with an artillery barrage.
Interestingly, Kim Philby is more responsible for our current predicament than any other single man.
Just read where blame is being placed on Carter and Clinton but I think we might just as well place it on FDR and Truman. All the Republicans have done whatever could have been done to stall this event.
I think that diplomacy in this area starts with being able to pronounce the word correctly. However, the Bush efforts in diplomacy with N.Korea have certainly matched his efforts of diplomacy in the Middle East. Perhaps a few more meetings with Kissenger will help or a quick flight to a carrier in the Pacific will do the trick. God help us all.
Maybe it is time to allow the North some economic development- not that it would be viable as an explicit policy because it would seem like capitulation (although the South has been playing this split game for a while.)
A North where people have TV sets and full bellies, would be awfully hard to control using the 1950’s era cult of personality used by the Kim Il Sung regime. A population half mad from malnutrition is much easier to brainwash.
Going forward one of the key things to observe- does North Korea cash in its “nuke dividend” reducing its regular military expenditures now that it has a credible deterrent to any conventional attacks?
Hmm…how are the Bushies going to explain that this is okay for North Korea to be doing (and not a complete and total failure on Bush’s part), and that we really need to attack Iran instead?
Booman’s post outside of this political season would be an informative but mostly innocuous read at least for now. However, with the Bush repubs up against the political precipice, do we really know what the Bush repubs (not the N. Koreans) will soon do?
Remember this line from Dubya?
“I’m the Commander, see … I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the President … [I] don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.”
–GWB Speaking to the National Security Council
It’s beginning to look like the NK test was a failure. Produced a fizzled nuclear reaction. What does that mean?
“I love the US Geological Survey.
They’ve published lat/long (41.294°N, 129.134°E) and Mb estimates (4.2) for the North Korean test.
There is lots of data floating around: The CTBTO called it 4.0; The South Koreans report 3.58-3.7.
You’re thinking, 3.6, 4.2, in that neighborhood. Seismic scales, like the Richter, are logarithmic, so that neighborhood can be pretty big.
But even at 4.2, the test was probablya dud.
Estimating the yield is tricky business, because it depends on the geology of the test site. The South Koreans called the yield half a kiloton (550 tons), which is more or less–a factor of two–consistent with the relationship for tests in that yield range at the Soviet Shagan test site:
Mb = 4.262 + .973LogW
Where Mb is the magnitude of the body wave, and W is the yield.
3.58-3.7 gives you a couple hundred tons (not kilotons), which is pretty close in this business unless you’re really math positive. The same equation, given the US estimate of 4.2, yields (pun intended) around a kiloton.
A plutonium device should produce a yield in the range of the 20 kilotons, like the one we dropped on Nagasaki. No one has ever dudded their first test of a simple fission device. North Korean nuclear scientists are now officially the worst ever.
Of course, I want to see what the US IC says. If/when the test vents, we could have some radionuclide data–maybe in the next 72 hours or so….”
http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1230/nork-data-it-was-a-dud