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A North Korean Hydrogen Bomb?
North Korea says it’s successfully tested a hydrogen bomb. It will take days or even weeks to confirm what it really was. Something certainly does seem to have blown up: There was a 5.1 seismic event near Punggye-ri, which is where the past three nuclear tests were conducted.
There’s good reason to be highly skeptical of DPRK propaganda. It’s more plausible, as Jeffrey Lewis pointed out a few weeks ago, to imagine they’re experimenting with fusion fuels to boost the yield of a fission explosion.
But whether it was a fourth fission bomb or a hydrogen bomb, no one’s treating this as a joke. South Korea is holding emergency meetings, as is the UN Security Council. Shinzo Abe’s comments suggest that Japan is certain that this was, at least, another nuclear test:
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe condemned North Korea’s announcement that it had carried out a hydrogen bomb test on Wednesday, calling it a “serious threat” to Japan and a “grave challenge” to nuclear non-proliferation efforts.
“I strongly condemn this,” Abe told reporters.
“The nuclear test that was carried out by North Korea is a serious threat to the safety of our nation and we absolutely cannot tolerate this,” he said.
Given the North’s improvements in missile technology, there’s no way any American can view this as merely a “regional concern.” It’s not clear whether they know how to mount a nuclear weapon on a missile, and the conventional wisdom has long been that they have no clue how to build an H-bomb. But it would be a big mistake to think they’ll never be capable of it.
As Jeffrey Lewis noted,
One of the major themes of the early part of China’s nuclear program is how committed China was to matching the other nuclear powers in the possession of intercontinental-range ballistic missiles armed with multi-megaton thermonuclear weapons. A lot of Americans had trouble accepting this idea. We thought of China as being too backward to have such aspirations. That was, I argue, precisely why China wanted such weapons: because China’s communist leaders had a different vision of China’s place in the world and the development of thermonuclear weapons was a way of achieving that vision.
I think something similar is happening with North Korea. We think of the country as impoverished, both in terms of economy and leadership. Well, that’s not how the government in North Korea sees itself—and anyone who does, keeps such thoughts to himself. Pyongyang’s propaganda apparatus argues—and this is what Kim was saying—that North Korea is a technological powerhouse. The North Korean propaganda line argues that this power is demonstrated by a series of achievements culminating in space launches, nuclear weapons and, yes, even thermonuclear weapons.
So, while a staged thermonuclear weapon is likely more than North Korea can, at the moment, achieve technically, it is a mistake to rule out the aspiration by Pyongyang. An H-bomb might not conveniently fit our perception of North Korea, but perhaps that is Kim’s point.
So, Ricochet, how do you think the United States should handle this? It’s not reality TV. It’s just reality.
Published in Foreign Policy, General, Science & Technology
Concretevol and Dave L have mentioned this, but I want to hammer it home: The South Koreans are seriously afraid of war with the North, not because they fear they would lose, but because they know they (and the U.S.) would win.
By way of comparison, consider the situation if Canada were replaced by some Canada-sized failed state, and that this failed state and the U.S. had the same relative demographics as North and South Korea. Now imagine the U.S. forced into a war, eventually winning, and trying to absorb this failed state. The U.S. would suddenly more than double its land area and become responsible for the welfare of 158 million impoverished peasants with a average yearly income of $1,200. After all the fretting we’ve done over 12 million illegal aliens, think about trying to deal with 158 million new welfare cases. And oh, yeah, they’ve all been thoroughly broken and brainwashed to hate us. From everything I’ve read, this is the aftermath of war from the South Korean perspective.
The South Koreans saw what Germany went through during reunification, and the South Koreans know that their situation would be worse. They want no part of it.
I was shocked to learn that in the somewhat short time that Korea has been divided there are noticeable physical differences between South Koreans and their cousins from the North (primarily due to poor diet) and those that escape to the South are easily picked out and sometimes discriminated against.
If a world war is starting in a forest and nobody cares to hear it, are we still doomed?
Can you give us your estimate of NK inflicted casualties and damage should they react by invading SK? I think your projections are way conservative.
I am not at all surprised but would like to read more about this. It might be similar to the case of American businesses that are on corporate welfare integrating into a free-market society.
From historical records it seems the only way to make this work is 40 years of wandering in the desert until the old generation dies off. These days we’d need some pretty big deserts, though. Also miraculous supplies of food and water.
Uh, no. The South Koreans get a vote, and I can assure you that they wouldn’t agree with your assessment of either the risk or its likelihood of success.
I have not studied the situation carefully. But I very much doubt that artillery would get very far, since those emplacements are dialed into the fire control computers on the South Side. Any shot from the North would be hit in return, very quickly indeed (one soldier told me that before the first round landed, the return fire to that location would already be on its way).
Aircraft? No impact.
Troops? A meat grinder awaits. Absolute annihilation. Deaths on the South Side would be basically limited to Friendly Fire.
Which leaves rockets (within some reason, dealt with by return artillery, and also by anti-rocket defenses). These would be most successful. I’d reckon 10k casualties in Seoul.
Far preferable to waiting for the Norks to have nukes mounted on missiles.
See above. The South Koreans know it would succeed. The risk from their perspective is what happens when you win. That, and a deep cultural fear of any change.
Claire,
Here we go again.
Yep, nothing like equal opportunity death.
Don’t worry about your national origin, race, color, creed, gender, species, phyla…
Regards,
Jim
No, they don’t. The US violates treaties all the time, and nobody ever cares except people like us. If the US wanted to take out the Nukes in North Korea, they could do so. If we wanted to spread propaganda and airdrop small arms to the Nork citizenry, we could do it, too. The South would surely squawk, but so what?
You understate the numbers. This was an old forecast:
Look at the estimates for the First Gulf War – they were nowhere near right.
There are reasons that institutions play it safe, and manage expectations. The resulting estimates are far, far away from what actually happens.
Manfred – what on earth is the case for waiting for the Norks to be better armed?
And those body bags were for early casualty expectations, not totals.
You know how the military is always fighting the last war?
When it comes to casualty projections, the military uses World War I assumptions.
The first problem is that previous estimates on the amount of conventional weaponry pointed at Seoul suggests that even if we preemptively launched a massive bombing campaign on their artillery, the city would be devastated. Massive causalities even under best case scenarios.
I am disinclined to provoke North Korea even if I was confident we could get all of the nukes as it is the South Koreans who pay the price if they react with conventional weapons.
Secondly, I am not confident we would be able to get them all. Miss even one and the consequences are dire.
You are not analyzing this…analytically. In Gulf War 1, we attacked the Iraqiis after months of preparation and with surprise totally on our side – after a massive, unrelenting aerial bombardment and reduction of opposing forces. The NK attack on SK is not anything like that scenario. What this subject needs is real analysis, not rosy projections. Your recommendations succeed or fail based on these numbers. If casualties and material damage can be depended on to be not too high, then you get a gold star. If your projections are highly optimistic, everyone will look elsewhere for planning the future.
The case is that there is probably a high price to be paid to destroy NK’s nukes and ability to rebuild same. Your plan is very creative but poses a considerable risk: that NK decides to retaliate (and they may not, of course) with conventional attack/invasion/bombardment on SK.
NK having nukes does not mean there is a strong likelihood they would use them. I would argue that there would be little likelihood they would use them. For what possible gain? We would just nuke them back, and SK and Japan might get their own…if NK is too provocative in its threats, etc..
The US would have to buff up its ballistic missile force to defend CONUS and Allies, and presumably pay for other countermeasures, so waiting NK out until it peacefully implodes or changes is not cost free.
The wild card is how crazy NK’s rulers are. If they are known credibly to be so irrational that MAD strategies do not work with them – then I could be persuaded we not passively accept a nuclear NK future. Depends a lot on intelligence estimates – which haven’t been all that accurate over the last decades, have they?
Is this not what we are doing with Mexico now? A large failed state that dislikes us intensely (but likes our money and resources). Our answer is to outsource our jobs and manufacturing to them and insource illegal labor and crime from them. In the end when it equals out Mexico will be a better place to live and the US a lesser place to live. But hey as long as our elites can make money and do not suffer it is all good.
Right now, those nukes are large and not easily moved. The consequences are dire once they can go on a missile.
Agreed.
We have learned, though, that dictators end up believing they have capabilities that are not actually there. Saddam’s WMDs were not what he thought they were. I am sure Nork leadership is told things about their nuclear program that are simply not true – the people down the chain have more incentive to tell their superiors what they want to hear.
Not sure why everybody is so in a twitter. Obama will give a speech and apologize for America’s past wrongs and how the US became in existence and great solely because of North Korea’s help. They he will run a hashtag campaign and other multimedia stuff. Call the GOP to the carpet and blame them for all that is wrong. Give North Korea a large amount of money. I believe the pot is up to 160 Billion now. Thus kicking this can down the road a little further till a grownup can deal with it.
Wouldn’t that have happened with any President though.
Again, I don’t know if American Presidents make a huge difference here. Now I’m sure the vast majority of us agree that the Iran deal was terrible mistake but I doubt that Mitt Romney would have been able to prevent Iran from getting the bomb.
I am confident that the United States military could even now prevent Iran from getting a bomb. I have found all arguments to the contrary unpersuasive.
I believe we need anonymous to guide us about whether this is a H bomb. Also it would be a mistake to compare NK’s army with that of Iraq. These are real fighters. I have friends that fought them.Also the people are thoroughly brainwashed There is quite a lot naive ideas being thrown out here on Ricochet. This would not be won with windup radios.
PH, why do you think the radios are considered such a threat by the North? Because they surely are.
Is it naive to propose giving their people the ability to defend themselves?
I think your ideas would serve to destabilize NK popular support – to what degree is hard to tell from this remove. I just think NK leadership would ‘go ballistic’ as soon as you started the program – maybe literally so. And your destabilizing methods would need some time to take effect, is that not true? So you would need to poke at that hornets’ nest for awhile before the entire edifice began to collapse in NK. That period would be fraught with sturm und drang – not easy for any President to sign up for. Can’t remember a President that had that kind of moxie. You would probably need some kind of crisis trigger like Bush 1 and 2 needed to invade Iraq.