| Title | North Korea Reportedly Detonates Hydrogen Bomb, Following Submarine Missile Test | |
| Date | Wednesday January 06 2016, @06:33AM | |
| Author | takyon | |
| Topic | ||
| from the defense-against-american-imperialism dept. | ||
The NYT reports that North Korea has announced it has detonated its first hydrogen bomb dramatically escalating the nuclear challenge from one of the world's most isolated and dangerous states. "This is the self-defensive measure we have to take to defend our right to live in the face of the nuclear threats and blackmail by the United States and to guarantee the security of the Korean Peninsula," said a female North Korean announcer on the state-run network. "With this hydrogen bomb test, we have joined the major nuclear powers." The North's announcement came about an hour after detection devices around the world had picked up a 5.1 seismic event that South Korea said was 30 miles from the Punggye-ri site where the North has conducted nuclear tests in the past.
"North Korea's fourth test — in the context of repeated statements by U.S., Chinese, and South Korean leaders — throws down the gauntlet to the international community to go beyond paper resolutions and find a way to impose real costs on North Korea for pursuing this course of action," says Scott Snyder, a Korea expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. According to the Times, the test is bound to figure in the American presidential campaign, where several candidates have already cited the North's nuclear experimentation as evidence of American weakness — though they have not prescribed alternative strategies for choking off the program. The United States did not develop its first thermonuclear weapons — commonly known as hydrogen bombs — until 1952, seven years after the first and only use of nuclear weapons in wartime.
The New York Times is reporting a claim made by the North Korean government in which is says that it has detonated a hydrogen bomb:
a claim that, if true, would dramatically escalate the nuclear challenge from one of the world's most isolated and dangerous states.
In a brief announcement, about an hour after seismic detectors around the world picked up a 5.1 magnitude seismic event along the country's northeast cost, officials said that the test was a "complete success." But it is difficult to tell whether that boast is true, and it may be weeks or longer before detectors sent aloft by the United States and other powers can determine what kind of test was conducted.
The apparent North Korean test took place at or near the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, where the three previous tests have been conducted over the past nine years. But if the North Korean claim is true, this one was of a of a different nature.
Like most of the rest of the world who know something about the physics of these devices, I'm very skeptical of this claim, given that, even on a slow news day, the North Korean government has about as much credibility as the boy who cried wolf.
The Washington Free Beacon reports that North Korea successfully launched an ballistic missile from a submarine after a previous test had failed:
North Korea's military carried out a successful ejection test of a new submarine-launched ballistic missile recently, an indication that an earlier test failure has not derailed the underwater missile program, U.S. defense officials said. The test of the submarine-launched missile, or SLBM, which the Pentagon has called the KN-11, from a submerged submarine on Dec. 21 took place near the port city of Sinpo, where the capability is being developed. The facility is located along the North Korean coast of the Sea of Japan.
The test followed a Nov. 28 ejection tube launch failure that damaged North Korea's first missile submarine, which officials identified as the Gorae, Korean for whale.
No additional details of the test could be learned, including whether the missile's engine ignited after the ejection or whether the missile took flight. North Korean state-run media did not publicize the latest test. In May, North Korea announced that its developmental SLBM was flight tested from what analysts believe was an underwater test platform. One official said that based on the latest successful ejection test, North Korea could be as little as a year away from deploying a submarine armed with a nuclear-tipped missile. Other analysts remain skeptical that the North Koreans can master the technology for submarine missile firings.
Also at Bloomberg and Reuters.
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