North Korea has successful nuclear weapons test

['97ventureowner]

http://abcnews.go.com/International/...ory?id=2543608
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapc....ap/index.html

[Oz]

Oh sh!t. There goes the neighbourhood

[thrasher]

Good for North Korea. It's a sovereign nation, they have the right to develop nuclear capabilities if they so wish.

[Toksin]

I wonder if the general population of Seoul packed their panties when they heard this.

[BNaylor]

Originally Posted by Toksin

I wonder if the general population of Seoul packed their panties when they heard this.

I doubt it. I talked to my son who is stationed in South Korea with the US Air Force and it is business as usual. The S. Korean stock markets took a dump though.

But a seismic wave of 3.58 was detected so the North Koreans probably actually pulled it off. Talk about intelligence failures.

South Korean officials said Monday that a seismic wave of magnitude-3.58 had been detected in North Hamkyung province, according to South Korean media reports. The blast took place at 10:36 a.m. local time Monday, or 9:36 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday evening.

[YogsVR4]

Originally Posted by thrasher

Good for North Korea. It's a sovereign nation, they have the right to develop nuclear capabilities if they so wish.

Good point. Its also true the rest of the world can choose to let those miserable bastards starve to death.

[Broke_as_****]

I question whether it was a weapon they built themselves or one they bought. And if they did built it then how much came from out of country and how much outside assistance was needed.

I kind of doubt this was even remotely an in house deal.

[BNaylor]

Originally Posted by Broke_as_****

I question whether it was a weapon they built themselves or one they bought. And if they did built it then how much came from out of country and how much outside assistance was needed.

I kind of doubt this was even remotely an in house deal.

Good point. Probably some misplaced Russian rogue scientists from the Cold War era or that mad scientist from Pakistan helping them out.

According to NBC news it was a low yield 1 kiloton explosion. That is less than 10% of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs but still a concern nonetheless. No one has been able to confirm via radiation leakage tests or surveillance. However Russians expert claim the following:

Russian experts said they believed the claim was accurate and that the explosion may have had the power of about 15 kilotons of TNT, roughly the same as the Hiroshima bomb in 1945. "We have no doubt that it was a nuclear explosion," said Russia's Defence Minister, Sergei Ivanov. Counterparts in South Korea and the US speculated it may have been on a smaller scale.

[cody_e]

Originally Posted by thrasher

Good for North Korea. It's a sovereign nation, they have the right to develop nuclear capabilities if they so wish.

What the hell!? Kim jong is a nutcase. So is Iran. Would you give assault weapons to prisoners? It's common sense. We need to stop them immediatly.

[thrasher]

Uh... George W. Bush is a militaristic, powermongering, bloodthirsty moron, and he commands the largest nuclear arsenal, by far, in the world, and nobody thinks twice about it. Besides, as I already said, North Korea is a sovereign nation, and as such they have the right to develop nuclear capabilities without the threat of illegal invasion/attack by other nation. I hope we don't have to go through the whole attacking sovereign nations pre-emptively debate, cause we all know how well that has worked in recent times. *cough * Iraq *cough*

[DinanM3_S2]

Originally Posted by thrasher

Uh... George W. Bush is a militaristic, powermongering, bloodthirsty moron, and he commands the largest nuclear arsenal, by far, in the world, and nobody thinks twice about it. Besides, as I already said, North Korea is a sovereign nation, and as such they have the right to develop nuclear capabilities without the threat of illegal invasion/attack by other nation. I hope we don't have to go through the whole attacking sovereign nations pre-emptively debate, cause we all know how well that has worked in recent times. *cough * Iraq *cough*

First of all, last I knew America does not have the biggest nuclear arsenal, Russia does. They built something like twice as many nuclear weapons then we did during the cold war. The world community generally accepts that the USA has nuclear weapons because everybody knows that we would only use them as a last resort. Nobody fled Kabul or Baghdad in fear of a ICBM flattening the city. Nobody in their right mind should fear a nuclear attack from the United States unless they themselves use them (don't mention WWII, I can go into a deep explanation about how that was justified, besides we are talking about the modern era of relative peace, not a world war situation). Call him whatever you want, but on the sanity scale, GWB > KJ-I.

North Korea shouldn't have nuclear weapons because of the fear this situation has created. Everybody in their right mind should be concerned about being attacked by North Korea, specifically if you live in South Korea, Japan, or the United States. It is no secret that the North seeks reunification of the peninsula and the comlete elimination of Japan as a threat. On top of all of this, North Korea has sold literally every single one of its weapons systems it has built to date to criminal and terrorist organizations and we have no way of knowing that they will treat this any differently. North Korea has also ignored virtually the entire international community regarding nuclear weapons, including its only real ally, China. This is a country that has disregarded numerous treaties and agreements to limit arms production, forcing millions of people into deeper and deeper poverty. North Korea is a country almost completely consumed by the military. 1/3 of its GDP goes into defense spending (the US is usually between 3-5%). There is a reason that every major country has condemned this decision (except Iran). Hopefully China will do its part in this matter and put the needed pressure on the DPRK to end its program. While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan has announced that he will not seek nuclear weapons in Japan, he campaigned on the promise to build a stronger Japanese military. China's willingness to pressure North Korea could be the decisive factor between peace and military action.

[Rbraczyk]

Russia is launching nukes with slingshots. We have precision guided nuclear warheads. There is 0 comparison.

Anyhow, China stopped backing North Korea, which should help out greatly.

[thrasher]

North Korea is a country almost completely consumed by the military. 1/3 of its GDP goes into defense spending (the US is usually between 3-5%).

Military spending relative to other countries

The current (2005) United States military budget is larger than the military budgets of the next fourteen biggest spenders combined, and nearly seven times larger than China's, which places second. The United States and its close allies are responsible for approximately two-thirds of all military spending on Earth (of which, in turn, the U.S. is responsible for the majority), and spend 57 times more than the seven so-called "rogue" nations combined (Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria). Military spending accounts for more than half of the United States' federal discretionary spending, which is all of the U.S. government's money not spoken for by pre-existing obligations.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in 2003 the United States spent approximately 47% of the world's total military spending of US $956 billion.

While the overall U.S. military budget has risen over time, as a percentage of its GDP, the United states spends 4% on military. This compares higher than France's 2.6%, and lower than Saudi Arabia's 10%. This is historically fairly low for the United States. While the spending budget has been slowly rising, the spending rate has been in a slow decline since peaking in 1944 at 37.8% of GDP. Even during the peak of the Vietnam War the percentage reached a high of 9.4% in 1968.

Yet some say that to compare government spending on the military to the total sum of all goods and services produced by the national economy in a year (the GDP) is to mislead, since the U.S. GDP has dramatically risen over time, and therefore the military budget can still go up, while simultaneously demanding a smaller percentage of the GDP. For example, according to the Center for Defense Information, the US outlays for defense as a percentage of federal discretionary spending, has from Fiscal Year 2003 consumed more than half (50.5%) of all such funding and is steadily rising.

Finally, it must be stressed that the recent invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are funded outside the Federal Budget (i.e. are paid for through supplementary spending bills) and are therefore external to the military budget figures listed above. In addition, the United States has long had a history of black budget military spending which is not listed as Federal spending and is not included in published military spending figures. Thus, the true amount spent by the United States on military spending is much higher than the figures maintained in the Federal Budget.

There is a reason that every major country has condemned this decision (except Iran). Hopefully China will do its part in this matter and put the needed pressure on the DPRK to end its program. While Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan has announced that he will not seek nuclear weapons in Japan, he campaigned on the promise to build a stronger Japanese military. China's willingness to pressure North Korea could be the decisive factor between peace and military action.

Hmmm...US leads military pre-emptive strike on North Korea ---> Drastically increased chance of nuclear launch by N.Korea ---> World War? Hundreds of thousands dead? Maybe, maybe not. Pretty risky considering that North Korea has another ally that it would gladly share nuclear technology with if the time comes. Other possibility, North Korea does not use nuclear technology for military purposes, and the situation remains standoff-ish between the US and North Korea/Iran. Neither of these is a good option of course, as nuclear weapons shouldn't even exist. But pre-emptive strikes spur reaction, not submission, which as I already stated is pretty risky given that N.Korea may have nuclear capabilities.

[DinanM3_S2]

The reason that I used percentages of GDP as opposed to raw numbers is that I think that it paints a better picture of how obsessed the North Korean government is with its military. I was trying to make the point that the people in North Korea are suffering in favor of a massive military for a country that small. Americans arn't suffering because of our military spending. American military spending divided by per capita income (~$41,000) only works out to about $1,700 a year per person. This is slightly misleading because the top 20% or so of American wealthiest pay for ~80% of all taxes. I would say that America's military is fairly well sized given our GDP, physical size, population, and involvement in world affairs. North Korea's military is rediculously large given the size of the country and its GDP.

Regarding a pre-emptive strike, I don't see it happening, especially not from the United States. GWB's language is very different in this situation compared to when we were going into Iraq, besides, he wouldn't have the political support to pull something like that off again. Every member of Congress' #1 concern is re-election, another war would ruin anyone who voted for a war's chances of winning another election and everyone knows this. Regarding a world war, these things are generally between major world powers, I wouldn't consider North Korea or Iran to be world powers. Everyone that matters (Russia, China, France, Germany, England, Japan) is against a nuclear North Korea.

At the moment, I seriously doubt North Korea's ability to even deliver a nuclear weapon. According to everything I've read (NY Times, CNN, BBC), they arn't capable of building a weapon small enough to fit onto one of their long range missiles and nothing is capable of crossing the border between the North and South. Any aircraft leaving the North would be easily spotted and disposed of. Even if they were capable of delivering a weapon, their only test was on the border of being a dud. Estimates say that the detonation was 1/2 a kiloton or possibly less, which is pretty bad even compared to America's WWII weapons.

I don't know what to expect from the situation, but I can be 99.99% sure that there won't be a major international war simply because the DPRK doesn't have any strong allies at the moment.

[BNaylor]

Originally Posted by DinanM3_S2

North Korea's military is rediculously large given the size of the country and its GDP.

Good post and rebuttal.

Here's some interesting data on North Korea.

Population as of 2004 - 22,659,553 million (estimated)

Over 1 million active soldiers and 4.7 million reservists.

That means at least 25% (give or take a few) of the North Korean people are military or associated with it based on 2004 statistics.

On the preemptive strike.....I agree forget it. That is a pipe dream. The American people do not have a stomach for another war especially with North Korea and the casualties that will be involved. Looking back at the Korean War (Conflict) if we are to learn from history we lost 33,000 in combat and approximately 100,000 were wounded. The Korean War was limited to a regional conflict and never evolved to a World War even with China's and the Soviet Union's involvement. Technically the Korean War never ended. Cessation is based on a truce only.

Hating GWB is one thing but giving ole Kim a pat on the back is absurd. No rogue nation or sponsor of terrorism has a divine or sovereign right to nukes.