North Korea just conducted another nuclear test

[Siege]

All the US will know is that somebody deonated a nuke on US soil.  Is there any way to find out where that nuke is from?  It can come from a variety of sources, e.g. Pakistan, Iran, even Russia.

AFAIK you can ID the mine the uranium was from.

Possibly the mine, pretty sure they can ID the reactor/enrichment facility. As long as they have a previous sample, of course

Its not hard to fake the level of enrichment. Just keep it at a lower level.

[The Brain]

The North Koreans use plutonium bombs, right?

[Maximus]

You tell me.

[jimmy olsen]

All the US will know is that somebody deonated a nuke on US soil.  Is there any way to find out where that nuke is from?  It can come from a variety of sources, e.g. Pakistan, Iran, even Russia.

AFAIK you can ID the mine the uranium was from.

That's a myth to make the civilians feel safer in the certainty that IDing the nuke will work as a deterrance.

And how would you know this?

[Maximus]

And how would you know this?

Are you questioning the American infantryman's knowledge of nuclear weapon production methods?

[jimmy olsen]

And how would you know this?

Are you questioning the American infantryman's knowledge of nuclear weapon production methods?

Yes.

[Syt]

And how would you know this?

Are you questioning the American infantryman's knowledge of nuclear weapon production methods?

They were thoroughly trained before going to Iraq, so that they could easily recognize WMD production facilities.

[Habsburg]

The North Koreans use plutonium bombs, right?

I must give you an update on your Tomb of Final Resting!!

There will be a fisson reactor to power the entire Tomb complex!!1!! 

The Titian Wing is nearly completed, and then we shall start on the Van Cleef and Arples precious stone education centre and theme rides.

Total Tomb/Theme Park completion is on schedule for 3Q, 2021.

Sir.

[Martinus]

North Korea Threatens Armed Strike, End to Armistice

May 27 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea threatened military action in response to South Korea joining a program to seize weapons shipments, and said it's no longer bound by the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.

South Korea's actions are tantamount to a "declaration of war," the official Korean Central News Agency said in a statement today. "If the armistice agreement loses its validity, the Korean peninsula will revert to a state of war."

The threats are the strongest since North Korea tested a nuclear weapon on May 25th, drawing international condemnation and the prospect of increased sanctions against Kim Jong Il's reclusive regime. South Korea yesterday joined the U.S.-led initiative to locate and seize shipments of equipment and materials used to make weapons of mass destruction.

North Korea can't guarantee the safety of ships passing through its western waters near the maritime border with the South, the KCNA statement said. South Korea's benchmark Kospi stock index fell almost 2 percent, paring earlier gains.

Under the July 27, 1953, armistice that ended the Korean War, both sides agreed to "a complete cessation of all hostilities" and pledged to accept the demarcation line that has become the most-heavily mined demilitarized zone in the world.

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak had resisted joining the anti-proliferation program until the nuclear test, even after North Korea fired a ballistic missile on April 5. His predecessor, Roh Moo Hyun, had said that joining the initiative would be too provocative.

"We will regard any intervention, searches or other minor hostile acts against our peaceful ships as an intolerable violation of our sovereign rights and will counter with an immediate and forceful military strike," KCNA said.

I would pay good money to see faces of the South Korean protesters who demanded about 6 months ago that American troops leave South Korea.

[jimmy olsen]

It doesn't look good.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30964350/

N. Korean nuclear threat growing, analysts say

Is secretive regime getting closer to being able to launch a warhead?

updated 2:30 p.m. ET, Wed., May 27, 2009

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea's second underground nuclear test has shown the world that it's only a matter of time before the secretive regime develops the ability to mount an atomic weapon on a missile, analysts say.

Monday's blast — by all accounts larger than its first one in 2006 — indicates the impoverished country will keep using nuclear development in efforts to bolster its regime and raise its stature against its main perceived adversary, the United States. The test has also raised fears of increased proliferation.

North Korea's defiance in carrying out the explosion, which followed its first test in October 2006 that resulted in censure and sanctions by the United Nations, has met widespread condemnation and cast more doubt over prospects for stalled talks aimed at the country's denuclearization.
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President Barack Obama said the blast and North Korea's test firings of short-range missiles off its coast "pose a grave threat to the peace and security of the world," while the North responded Tuesday by launching more missiles. And on Wednesday, the North warned South Korea that its decision to participate in a U.S.-led program to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction is equal to a declaration of war.

North Korea is believed to have processed enough plutonium over the years for at least a half dozen nuclear bombs.

That is paltry compared to the massive arsenals of nuclear powers such as the United States, Russia and China or even newer members of the atomic club like Pakistan.

Moving with determination
Still, North Korea is making measurable progress and showing its determination to posses a credible enough threat to protect its regime, and is unlikely to back down anytime soon given its increasingly strident tone on the world stage.

The North is now "more of a threat because they have more data and information about their bomb design," said Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank devoted to conflict resolution. "They're demonstrating this decisiveness."

The size of the explosion is still under debate and will require more analysis to determine. Initial estimates have ranged from a few kilotons to a Russian figure of between 10 kilotons and 20 kilotons.

The latter range, considered way too high by analysts including Pinkston and David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, would be comparable to the U.S. weapons that destroyed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.

Evidence suggests North Korea's ultimate goal is to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile, but analysts vary in their assessment of how close the country is to achieving that objective.

"It's a weapons program aimed at putting something on a missile to create a credible deterrent," Albright said. He said he thinks North Korea has the ability to mount a weapon now, though he added that questions remain about how reliable it would be.

'A matter of time'
Yoon Deok-min, a professor at South Korea's state-run Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, said North Korea appears to still be in the process of mastering the miniaturization technology required to place a warhead on a missile, though he called its ultimate success just "a matter of time."

He said its development of a nuclear-tipped missile is the "worst case" security scenario, noting the country has already deployed intermediate-range ballistic missiles that can travel as far as 1,860 miles. That would easily put South Korea and Japan into range and almost reach the U.S. island of Guam.

What is disturbing, Yoon said, is that the country is conducting missile and nuclear tests in close proximity. Monday's blast came less than two months after the North fired an intermediate-range rocket over Japan and into the Pacific. Though North Korea claimed it launched a satellite, the U.S. and other countries said it was meant to test ballistic missile technology.

Proliferation fears
Still, other analysts do not think the North will quickly master the delivery of a nuclear warhead. Cha Du-hyeogn, a research fellow at the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, estimates it may take about four years to accomplish.

Pinkston said if analysis of the blast ultimately reveals that it was at the lower end of the yield range given so far, perhaps as small as three kilotons, that might suggest "they are working on miniaturization."

Ivan Oerlich, vice president of the Strategic Security Program at the Federation of American Scientists, said early signs indicate the test was much larger than the one in 2006, though far smaller than the Russian estimate.

Proliferation fears have also increased as a result of the North's test, analysts said.

"The proliferation part of this is more worrisome than being hit by a North Korean nuclear weapon," Albright said, noting the North will likely have no qualms about selling its technology.

Bargaining chip
Some, however, see proliferation as a card the North might be willing to bargain away, provided it can achieve a satisfactory deal with Washington.

"North Korea wants to normalize their relations with the U.S. while they keep their nuclear weapons," said Kim Tae-woo, vice president of the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. "North Korea will promise not to proliferate" if it can achieve that, he said.

For Washington, that is unlikely to be acceptable. The United States, besides vocally condemning North Korea's nuclear tests, has consistently demanded that the country verifiably abandon its nuclear programs if it wants formal relations.

Given the growing chasm over its nuclear program — North Korea pulled out of six-nation talks aimed at its denuclearization last month after the U.N. Security Council condemned its rocket launch — and the North's increasingly strident tone, pessimism is growing for any quick end to tensions.

"The hawks tend to be in the driver's seat and I think that's the case in Pyongyang," said the ICG's Pinkston. "The prospects are quite bleak."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

[Ed Anger]

Dammit man, stop wetting your pants.

[Siege]

So, are they going to use their nukes or not.

[Razgovory]

This is a strange action.  I wish we had better idea what goes on there.  I doubt the Chinese are very keen on this.  They really need to reign this in.

[DontSayBanana]

Either they're super-geniuses, colossal retards, or just batshit insane. China would be less happy than we are about North Korean nukes, so why would they try to use that as a threat against the US? It'd be the best thing for Chinese-American relations in decades.

[Razgovory]

You know I'm begining to wonder if worries about North Korea were all wrong.  The old argument was that might become a wholesale nuke seller.  I wonder if instead they are using it as cover for an invasion of the South.  Threaten to destroy a Japanese city if the US intervenes.  Of course that's not a rational risk to make, but these guys are really strange.