North
Korea Tests A New Nuke
By
Moon Of Alabama
September 04, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- North
Korea
published pictures
of its leader Kim Jong Un admiring a
thermonuclear device or H-bomb. Hours later it
tested such a bomb in an underground explosion.
The North Korean news agency
announced:
Pyongyang, September 3 (KCNA) -- Respected
Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un guided the work
for nuclear weaponization on the spot.
He
was greeted by senior officials of the
Department of Munitions Industry of the
Central Committee of the Workers' Party of
Korea (WPK) and scientists of the Nuclear
Weapons Institute before being briefed on
the details of nuclear weaponization.
...
He watched an H-bomb to be loaded
into new ICBM.
Saying that he felt the pride of indomitably
bolstering up the nuclear forces at a great
price while seeing the Juche-oriented
thermonuclear weapon with super explosive
power made by our own efforts and
technology, he expressed great satisfaction
over the fact that our scientists do
anything without fail if the party is
determined to do.
...
The H-bomb, the explosive power of which is
adjustable from tens kiloton to
hundreds kiloton, is a
multi-functional thermonuclear nuke
with great destructive power which
can be detonated even at high altitudes for
super-powerful EMP attack according
to strategic goals.
The Peanut -
bigger
The Walter Cronkite of North Korean TV, Ri Chun
Hee,
showed more pictures from the visit
(vid) the visit and later announced the nuclear
test.
Some analyst
nicknamed the new device the Peanut. The bomb
type obviously differs from the implosion type
Disco Ball of
March 2016. The "Junche orientation" component,
which presumably guarantees the ideological
conformity of the device, seems to be the round
white box on the left :-/.
(More
seriously: Juche refers to self-sufficiency -
i.e. North Korea made the components and built
the device by itself.)
A
graphic in one of the pictures
shows the
peanut within the warhead bay of a Hawsong-14
Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile.
An hour after the above release, earth-quake
detection monitors in south Asia went off. A
seismic event of 6.1 to 6.3 magnitude on the
logarithmic
momentum magnitude scale
was detected in the area of Punggye-ri. Like
earlier North Korean nuclear weapon tests in the
same area, the event happened exactly on the
half hour mark (at 12:00am local time). The
magnitude points to a large device with an
explosive power between 100 kilotons and 1
megaton TNT equivalent. (All previous North
Korean nuclear tests were in the low kiloton
range.) Some detection stations found another
seismic event of 4.6 magnitude shortly
thereafter. If confirmed it was likely caused by
a "cave-in" of the sub-terrain test chamber. It
will take some time to assess
the data and to
come to more precise estimates, but the
qualitative different size of this test compared
to previous ones is undeniable.
Added: A later statement by the North Korean
news agency
confirmed a
successful test of a two-stage thermonuclear
device. It claimed that no radiation was
released to the atmosphere.
One must now assess that North
Korea has the capability to make, launch and
deliver staged thermonuclear weapons up to
megaton size at ICBM ranges.
Most of China, Japan and at least the U.S. west
coast are in reach of such a weapon. With this
warhead size the somewhat dubious accuracy of
North Korean missiles has much less relevance.
Before the U.S. and South Korea started this
years invasion maneuver Ulchi on August 22,
North Korea had
warned that it
would test-launch four Hawsong-12 mid range
ballistic missiles towards the large U.S. base
on Guam if, and only if, the U.S. would continue
to use "strategic equipment" around its borders.
This referred to B-1B nuclear bombers and
aircraft carriers.
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The U.S.
understood and
scaled back the
planned maneuver. No "strategic equipment" was
used.
On August 28, when the maneuver had ended, North
Korea
launched a test
of a single Hawsong-12 medium range missile into
the Pacific. The missile crossed over Japan at a
height of 550 kilometer. (It thereby did NOT
violate Japanese air-space.) Earlier
tests had been flown in unrealistic steep
trajectories to avoid such an overflight. This
test was likely designed to prove to the U.S.
the capability to reach Guam.
On August 31 the U.S.
flew another
"show of force" with B-1B bombers and F-35
stealth fighter planes over South Korea. The
planes trained precision bombing with live bombs
at a South Korean training area. These plane
types are "strategic equipment" and the training
makes only sense in a "preemptive strike on
North Korea"
scenario.
One can understand today's nuclear test as a
response to these continuing U.S. provocations.
The U.S. will of course claim that only North
Korea is "provoking" here and it itself is only
"responding". But such a hen-egg discussion and
juvenile tit-for-tat is not only useless but
dangerous. History tells us that the U.S.
completely devastated
North Korea and killed some 20% of its
population, not vice versa. So far only North
Korea had to fear nuclear destruction. That has
now changed into a more balanced situation. A
preventive or preemptive war on North Korea is
no longer an option.
Today's event should convince even the dumbest
of the doubters that North Korea's claimed
capabilities are real. It should also
demonstrate to the White House that verbal "fire
and furry" insults, tit-for-tat shows of force
and further economic sanctioning of North Korea
and/or China
are,
as predicted,
only worsening the situation.
Phillipe
notes in the
comments that today is the opening of a BRICS
summit in Xiamen in China. Xi Jinping is giving
a big speech. He will not like this disruption.
China
strongly condemned
the test but there is little else it could
reasonably do.
North Korea has offered several times to
negotiate with the U.S. towards a peace
agreement. (As the Korea War only ended in a
ceasefire the nations are still at war.) It
offered to stop all its nuclear and missile
testing if the U.S. stops the large scale
maneuvers in South Korea. Russia, China
and South Korea
have long urged the U.S. to pick up on that
offer. The U.S. could have done so every day
since the offer was first made years ago. Not
doing so has only created the current situation
and today's events.
One September 9 North Korea will celebrate
its
Independence Day. Such occasions are often used
to demonstrate new capabilities. Today's first
KCNA statement included the lines:
[Kim
Jong Un] watched an H-bomb to be loaded into
new ICBM
...
[which] can be detonated even at high
altitudes for super-powerful EMP attack
A
strong nuclear explosion at great height can
cause an Electro-Magnetic-Pulse which does not
directly kill people on the ground but creates
some damage to unprotected electric and
electronic equipment. The EMP threat is
largely exaggerated
but a hobby horse of many fear- and war-mongers
in Congress. North Korea surely knows this and
the statement thereby touches a sensible point.
I find it unlikely that North Korea would go
with such an unproven concept. This is mere
trolling. But a September 9 ICBM missile test,
on a realistic trajectory and with a simulated
nuclear load, is definitely a possible next step
to up the pressure towards new negotiations.
I for
one feel no urge to witness a full Hawsong-14
ICBM test with even a dud megaton nuclear device
on board. If the White House feels the same it
must NOW stop further provocations and
immediately agree to open-ended talks with North
Korea.
This article was first published by
Moon Of Alabama
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