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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
FakeJ/J that has been my point, but at least we would finish it rather than dropping picnic baskets and starting a war.
Russia is entirely unable to do anything in that theatre. A few airplanes in Syria and the large force in Ukraine…. they are overcommitted as-is.
So, this is a second chance for you to sheath your hostility and look at real life experience, not impressions extrapolated from tangential data. The evidence is very strong that life in Mexico is infinitely better than that found in NK. That Mexico cannot employ all its people so they immigrate to the US does not alter this fact. Their country lacks much in the way of geography to begin with, as compared to the US which is uniquely advantaged, so prosperity is going to be naturally harder to come by. They also suffered under Spanish rule which set them way back.
Your impression about the quality of life in Mexico is just miles off. My relations travel extensively in the country and are not just witnessing an isolated portion of it.
The freedom of movement, association, employment, religion, expression and business development are vastly superior to NK – those two countries are not even in the same universe.
Excellent links. Many thanks.
True that. Don’t see swaths of people having to resort to cannibalism in Mexico.
Well, the interesting thing is that they’re not. It’s a bit tricky to measure, the number of Mexican immigrants going back to Mexico now seems to exceed the number coming to the US:
Their methodology looks pretty sound to me.
In fact, about a million Americans have retired in Mexico. No American has ever retired in North Korea.
Not only are they in the same universe they are on the same planet.
I have no hostility toward Mexico and not sure why you think I do.
Nor have I said that Mexico is worse than DPRK. I just said why do we have to make up a pretend failed state called Canada when all we have to do is look south and see one that is well on its way to failure. I also do not consider Mexicans as stupid or blame their blight on past Spanish rule. They are their own people in charge of their own fate and this is the one they have chosen.
I have visited several places in Mexico but decided not to go back. I had an issue with the relative splendor of the tourist and other areas when a block or two away people are living in shipping containers using PVC pipes running into the streets for plumbing.
As for the Mexican paradise you describe I give a point in my defense.
http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21685521-governing-dangerous-job-death-and-mayor
People trying to reform the corruption in Mexico are being assassinated. From the last election 7 candidates were killed and 70 were attacked. In the past 8 years 40 mayors have been killed. Mass graves are found regularly. This is what a state that is heading toward political failure looks like.
apropos of nothing
Looks like this gentleman did just that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joseph_Dresnok
So how’s East Germany doing these days? I seem to recall that there was some economic drag on West Germany directly after reunification. What’s it like now?
Not true. 6 Americans defected to North Korea – One, Charles Robert Jenkins was allowed to leave, regrets his decision to defect, humbly accepted his punishment from the US Army and now lives with his wife in Japan. Another, James Joseph Dresnok, loves it there and can’t ever imagine leaving.
Sure, you have this problem well characterized. We might argue whether the difficulties you cite rise to the level of a “failed state” or not. The objection the rest of us have is to your putting Mexico in the same category as NK. Now, I confess to not having much knowledge of particulars of life in NK to ground this conviction in…but that is sort of the point, isn’t it?
Yeah, and then we would become a lot like North Korea ourselves, considering what we’d have to do to put down dissent at home and abroad.
They seem to get enough food and whatever else they need to keep making babies.
I believe there were some definite struggles there but it is in no way comparable from my understanding. N.K. seems to be almost a singular situation. Granted, I have just done some recent reading but am in no way an expert.
Ok, millions of Americans have retired to Mexico and ONE American has retired to North Korea. Not sure that strengthens the comparison but it is more accurate. :)
This is a really interesting discussion. I don’t think Russia is that much of a factor at all but China sure is. Some recent analysis of Chinese strategic documents that they are not interested in combat to defend North Korea from a 3rd party. That is by no means a sure thing however. As I stated earlier it is pretty clear that China has even less interest in millions of N.K. refugees pouring into China either and some of their military exercises seem to be more in line with sealing the NK/Chinese boarder.
I actually agree that in a military action tactical nukes seem like a good option but using them that close to China would be an interesting proposition. I just don’t think any of the actors here are interested in military action other than a possible strike specifically against their nuclear weapons program. Neither the USA, the South Koreans or the Chinese want to take over that wasteland of a country. That is the bottom line.
So it’s said, but how could it be so? The GDR fared much better than the Ukraine, certainly, but until recently Ukraine was on a perfectly plausible path toward integration into Europe — is it plausible to think that North Koreans have been more starved, tortured, abused, and brainwashed than victims of the Holodomor?
Possibly not, it’s true that starvation has been used many times to subdue a population. My own opinions are surely influenced by accounts from actual prison camps within N.K., which are places of incredible insane cruelty. It does seem that North Korea places a special emphasis on the brain washing aspect of totalitarianism combined with an incredible isolation from the outside world. I’m not arguing that it can never be changed or reunited with the south, rather that I don’t think anyone is rooting for a rapid overthrow.
It’s an old, old phenomenon that goes back thousands of years. People who lived their lives in prison or under a prison-like environment are a drag on the economy and culture when they are set free. It’s a tough adjustment for them.
Well, De Blasio, Emanuel and Sanders may be just the Progressive Comrades to start that trend….
Yes, it is. The Holodomor lasted 2 years. The NK regime has now lasted over 60 years. The prison camp system in NK is used to confine people for generations to expunge the sins of great-grandparents.
Sure, but for how long? A decade? Two? Five? I asked about East Germany precisely because West Germany was an economic powerhouse that deliberately saddled itself with a communist-benighted other half. It’s certainly true that North Korea is more of a hellhole than East Germany ever was, but the comparison deserves some thought.
anonymouss pictures of before and after in East Germany says it all. Freedom and liberty and free markets .
No more than 40 years for complete cultural-societal change at the extended clan level.
I base this on the the changes wrought in Singapore between the time of its founding in 1965 and what it looked like in 2005. At the founding, most people in Singapore spoke a Chinese dialect (Hokkien, Cantonese, Teowchew, among others, or Malay, English or a dialect of Indian). Within 20 years, most people who belong to a Chinese dialect group speak the dialect plus Mandarin, and a pidgen form of English, called Singlish. 20 years later it is English, then Mandarin and few speak the dialect. The economic advancement goes from a per capita GDP of $1500 USD to over $60K USD.
The former east Germany has had 25 years of economic development fettered by Green regulations, trade unions and over 50% taxation and still see what they have achieved.
Forty years, according to the Hebrew scriptures. A generation needs to mostly die off.
According to the Russian film, Pokrovsky Gate, released in 1982, after 30 years the people who had been set free will want their former masters to come back and take over again. (In the film, a comedy, it was the guy’s ex-wife who told us this. She kept trying to run his life for his own good after she married someone else, deciding who would be a suitable new girlfriend for him, etc. They all lived in a communal apartment at Pokrovsky Gate, so it was hard to really break up.)
But the 30 years was an eerily correct prediction if you take the story as an allegory about the Russian people and others in eastern Europe. So probably the Bible is right. Make it 40.
The film is one of the great ones of the late Soviet era, by the way. Fun to watch and rewatch. I’ve probably watched it a dozen times.
Yes, that’s a good point. There’s no cultural memory left at all of another time, no reference point to suggest that they’re enduring something unprecedented.
What percentage of the population, I wonder, has been traumatized to the point of being “unredeemable?” My instinct is to argue against the idea that there’s no way North Koreans can ever be liberated because they’re all by now so screwed up that they’d never be able to function in the modern world. I suspect that belief could be used to cloak cowardice and inaction, and I know I see the phenomenon at work when it comes to refugees from Syria.
What you’re saying is true: We know that, for sure, from satellite imagery and from refugees. At least 200,000 North Koreans are in prison camps, and some percentage were born there. But out of a population of 25 million, how many, I wonder, are too psychologically devastated ever to function in a normal society?
Instinctively, I’d think Instugator’s estimate is right: It takes about 40 years for a complete cultural change. Singapore is notable for being extremely unusual — but so is South Korea.
Yep, good point. I was nodding my head a Instugator’s comment thinking, “Forty years, that sounds right, instinctively.” Then I saw your comment and thought, “Oh, yeah. That’s why I think that instinctively.”
40 years is not an unreasonable period for an investment.