Outline · [ Standard ] · Linear+ N Korea test its first nuke

[racedraper]

sooo it begins. the world changes.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,218699,00.html

[Hallsgator]

O boy

[Iplayfootball_90]

Crap, North Korea is the first country I am acutally afraid of them attacking us over here.

[11chaos]

North Korea is flocking nuts, or at least their president "Lil Kim" is. I hope nothing happens because I would literally get back from Afghanistan and have to go to Korea. Maybe get a few days off but that's it.

[Marino63]

By some accounts the NK nuke test was about as successful as their test of their long-range missile back in July- which is to say that it wasn't successful at all.

If there's a silver lining to the test, it's that NK is roughly where we were in early 1945.

The seismic event corresponding to the blast indicated a yeild of less than 10,000 tons (1 kiloton) of TNT- about 2/3 the size of the Hiroshima bomb.

There's every reason to believe that the weapon they tested, and any others they may have, are every bit as bulky and heavy as ours were circa 1945, meaning that the weapons are around 9 feet long and weigh upwards of 10k pounds. That being the case, they have no missile- right now anyway- capable of delivering it, even over a fairly short range (their long-range missile had a payload of, I think, 2000 pounds or so). Seoul, SK, however, would be in range and that's bad enough.

The only way they could deliver it to a target in the US is to put it on a container ship and try to smuggle it into one of our ports- a real possibility, sadly, but one that we are making but slow process to prevent (our scanners that would detect radioactive elements won't be fully installed at all ports until after 2010, though it will be at most major ports by 2008).

The real danger here is that NK will sell a nuke to Iran or, less likely, Syria. NK already sells missile technology to the Iranians- despite agreeing several times not to do so. Ahmadinijiad has said that he'd like to see Israel "wiped off the face of the earth" and a nuke would mean he'd not only have motive but means.

[racedraper]

N Korea is planning a second test

Condaleeza Rice says that the US will use NUKES to defend Japan

Its getting scary real scary.

[Marino63]

race-

Our national defense policy has pretty much always been (well, since someone other than us got nukes and that was the USSR in 1949) to regard an attack on one of our Allies as an attack on the United States and for us to react with at the very least proportionate force.

What might make things a bit different now than at other times is that we have a President who, when pushed, might actually follow military doctrine.

The purpose of nuclear weapons, at least to this point, has never been as a first-strike weapon (at least not since we started talking about them in megatons rather than kilotons)- it's to make the OTHER GUY know that, if he launches, he's a dead man and so is his country. The USSR understood that...I'm not quite as sure that the dog-eating potbellied dictator in Pyongyang understands that.

[racedraper]

Yeah Marino your right. Some say he has a right to test because we did.

But alot of people dont realize that once the have gain a full tactical nuke that they will sell it to the highest bidder,and who is that Iran and Venezuala.

Also sence Japan has already hundreds of enriched uranium they would want to gain nukes for thier protection.

Yes the cold war was bad due to the fact that both sides had enough nukes to blow the earth up 10000 times, but we and they knew that if one would use it that thboth countries would suffer greatly and thus a stail mate. But the smaller counties dont care about the big picture.

[Marino63]

>nods<

The US and USSR could always count on the rationality of their leaders to ensure that nukes would- probably- never be used. I just am not convinced that Il is rational. He might think that he now has the biggest firecracker in the area and that somehow gives him extra clout.

What it really does is dramatically increase the chances that other nations in the region- Japan, South Korea, even Taiwan- might seek nukes in order to counterbalance the threat North Korea presents. I'm not sure a Far East arms race is in anyone's interest, especially China, which still resents and fears Japan (and, to an extent, justifyably so because of past misdeeds).