quote:I dont' see how it's Bush's fault. It's North Korea's fault for being stupid enough to build nuclear weapons when they've got the kind of poverty they've got. I don't even see the point in having nuclear weapons besides swaggering around saying, "We've got them." when using them would be so highly idiotic.
I don't think they are stupid. Consider the message that the Bush administration has sent the North Korean government in the past 6 years through our words and actions:
"Dear North Korea, we think you are evil, and we are going to preemptively invade all evildoers - unless they already have nuclear bombs, in which case we won't invade them and instead will consider them to be a global power. But if you develop a nuclear bomb, we will consider you evil. Of course, we will consider you evil anyway."
Given this policy by the U.S., I think it is pretty rational for North Korea to do what they have done with their nuclear program, at least in the short run.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
Throwing food and technology at them was working (unsurprising; they desperately needed both). We weren't throwing any significant sums of money their way except in those forms. Only a good deal after we stopped doing so did they take the seals off their reactors and retake possession of the existing nuclear material. They first made several efforts to restart negotiation.
NK doesn't behave like we do, but that doesn't make them irrational in the sense of not responding to incentives. The deal we had with NK was a giant carrot that they knew they needed to bring their population out of the dark ages (literally; much of NK is without power). Without that carrot, the only option they had for providing sufficient power was their illegal nuclear plants, and if they're reopening those they might as well go whole hog and have a bomb program.
No doubt they love the opportunity to have a bomb, but they've had that opportunity for many years (as long as that nuclear material has been sitting under seal) and did not take it until we removed the carrot. Any explanation supposing they were going to create a bomb anyways needs to explain that behavior.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:What, if anything have we accomplished in Iraq? They never posed any threat except on a terrorist front, and I don't see how stirring up the hornet's nest in the region has done anything to keep terrorists at bay.
...actually, Iraq never even posed a threat on a terrorist front. Hussein was brutal, but he was at least an enemy of Wahabbists.
Bush screwed up in more ways than are obvious even now. I'll be really interested in seeing the scope of Iran's influence in 2015.
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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posted
You people are ridiculous. You don't commit to conventional warfare when dealing with a country that deals in unconventional weapons. It would begin almost as badly as it would end.
Blaming one man for the unfortunate postures and scientific advancements of historically unfriendly nations doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You could repace Bush's name with hundereds of others more responsible for this than him going back at least 60 years. I won't do it here and now but trust you can come up with some yourselves.
Edited: That up there was mainly directed at vwiggin and Lyrhawn
Posts: 1156 | Registered: Jan 2004
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quote:Originally posted by airmanfour: [QB] You people are ridiculous. You don't commit to conventional warfare when dealing with a country that deals in unconventional weapons. It would begin almost as badly as it would end.
Kind of like invading Iraq to deal with 9/11?
I didn't say an invasion is necessarily the best answer, but it certainly would be nice to have that option if we wanted to do it.
quote:Blaming one man for the unfortunate postures and scientific advancements of historically unfriendly nations doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
To borrow from Dags, good thing that wasn't what I was saying.
I said: "This is the key point. NK is probably a non-rational actor so it really doesn't matter who is the president: NK is going to get the bomb no matter what."
quote:You could repace Bush's name with hundereds of others more responsible for this than him going back at least 60 years. I won't do it here and now but trust you can come up with some yourselves.
Again, I'm not blaming Bush for NK getting the bomb. However, Bush is responsible for the way the war is being conducted in Afghanistan and Iraq, which has greatly reduced our ability to effectively deal with Iran and NK.
quote:Edited: That up there was mainly directed at vwiggin and Lyrhawn
Why? It doesn't seem like you even read my post.
Posts: 1592 | Registered: May 2000
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quote:Originally posted by airmanfour: You people are ridiculous. You don't commit to conventional warfare when dealing with a country that deals in unconventional weapons. It would begin almost as badly as it would end.
Blaming one man for the unfortunate postures and scientific advancements of historically unfriendly nations doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You could repace Bush's name with hundereds of others more responsible for this than him going back at least 60 years. I won't do it here and now but trust you can come up with some yourselves.
Edited: That up there was mainly directed at vwiggin and Lyrhawn
I'm not blaming him for the situation in North Korea, I already said that. I do however think he was grossly negligent in other ways. It isn't just that our military isn't able to respond. Besides, how many missiles does N. Korea have? Do they even have bombs SMALL enough to fit on an ICBM? I know they don't have a bomber with the range or size to carry one.
So what, at the moment, are they going to do to us? They can't exactly pinpoint a US army in North Korea with a nuke if we were to attack with one. They'd have to threaten Tokyo or Seoul.
Either way, it's not JUST our military he rendered unable to respond to grave threats, he also made it politically very difficult to respond to looming threats, not just domestically, but internationally. We don't have the credibility we had five years ago, we can't rush off to war and grab a coalition along the way, it won't work. China doesn't want us in their back yard, and half the EU just plain doesn't trust us anymore. And who else is out there to offer us any substantial help? Especially in East Asia?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Tresopax: I don't think they are stupid. Consider the message that the Bush administration has sent the North Korean government in the past 6 years through our words and actions:
"Dear North Korea, we think you are evil, and we are going to preemptively invade all evildoers - unless they already have nuclear bombs, in which case we won't invade them and instead will consider them to be a global power. But if you develop a nuclear bomb, we will consider you evil. Of course, we will consider you evil anyway."
Given this policy by the U.S., I think it is pretty rational for North Korea to do what they have done with their nuclear program, at least in the short run.
This is a very good point.
Expanding on it, given that they've (Jong) already demonstrated that the regime is more important than the people, in any scenario where the N. Korean regime is about to fall to an invasion, the N. Korean leader could even set the nuke off on the ground as invading forces approached. They could even hide it in a city and wait for an army to walk in. Or they could target a carrier task force that was supporting the invasion. Yes, we have some anti-missile weapons and *maybe* our intellegence could destroy all the nukes before an actual invasion, but those weapons have not really been tested in combat and intel can always fail (Iraq being a good example) That possiblity of success (whether small or not) is enough to make a foreign leader think twice about an invasion, and quite tempting for a leader that probably worries about N. Korea being invaded just as Iraq was.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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I would not trust China's statements regarding N. Korea.
It is entirely possible that in the past China supported N. Korea's nuclear ambitions in the hope that world attention would then be divided between them and N. Korea. It is even possible that they support N. Korea now on the theory that in the case of a show-down with the States, they could go "Hey, we feel rationally about this and we totally agree with you. However, N. Korea is a bit nutty and if they aren't appeased/feel unthreatened ....well, they might just do something crazy and it wouldn't have anything to do with us." It is even possible that they wanted to setup N. Korea as a bad-boy so they could get the credit when they slap it down.
We do not know China's motivations/strategy in this situation and it might be unwise to assume that this situation is or is not what they want, and that the situation has or has not backfired.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
I think the test was a fake. 1000-ton yeild? Please do we even make them that small? That is one tenth Nagasaki, there are many reasons to fake the test, to create the stir without wasting the nuke comes to mind. I will be interested to see if the we can prove it one way or another.
[ October 10, 2006, 08:39 PM: Message edited by: General Sax ]
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That would be 1 megaton, unless I'm mistaken. NO WAY they tested something that big. Someone's math is off.
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
General Sax, how do you "fake" a magnitude 4 earthquake without detonating a bomb?
Some website I glanced at the night it went off said that a rule of thumb was 1 kiloton=mag. 4 earthquake.
I agree with Kirk or his link, there's a good chance the bomb did not fully explode. But even a partial failure could provide the NKs with valuable data.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
You use a thousand tons of TNT. We did it before Trinity and I seem to recall a rather suspiciously large blast in North Korea a couple years back, it was so large we thought it might be nuclear.
quote: That would be 1 megaton, unless I'm mistaken. NO WAY they tested something that big. Someone's math is off.
Sorry, it was one kilo ton, my math was faulty. I am used to thinking in kilo tons not just tons when it comes to blast force from atomic bombs.
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
General Sax, I'm unconvinced that it was a conventional explosion. Do you have any evidence or is just a theory? For one thing, the seismic signature would be different. Secondly, detectable Gamma-rays would be emitted by a nuke. If it was a conventional bomb, I suppose countries that have Gamma-ray detectors could supress the fact that they did not detect a Gamma-ray pulse, but why?
I saw "Atomic Annie", the only gun to fire an nuclear artillery shell, during a field trip to Ft. Sill, OK when I was a kid.
I didn't realize the US had developed tactical nukes in the 10-100 ton range. I've also never heard of the Davy Crockett recoilless rifle which fired a tactical nuke in the 10-20 ton range. According to wikipedia, 10 tons is the practical limit for a fission bomb.
This would be alarming to a rookie Davy Crockett crew:
quote: A common myth is that with no shielding or protection from either blast or radiation, a Davy Crockett crew would have been unlikely to survive any engagement, also claiming that the blast area of the warhead was greater than the range of the weapon. In fact, though the device could be fired to a dangerously short range by an inept crew, the maximum range of both versions is far longer than the [dangerous] distance. . .
posted
Weapons based on the W-54 warhead had a yield ranging between 10to1000tons / 0.01to1kiloton of TNT.
According to the Richter Magnitude Scale, SouthKorea's report of 3.6 would be an energy equivalent to ~0.25kilotons of TNT while the US's report of 4.2 would correspond to ~2kilotons of TNT.
Not that the above says much about whether or not NorthKorea actually detonated a nuke.
According to GlobalSecurity's article on DivineStrake, a non-nuclear explosion of 0.7kilotons of AmmoniumNitrateFuelOil would be equivalent to ~0.6kilotons of TNT. And coal mining companies routinely set off ANFO explosions equivalent to several kilotons of TNT. ANF0's specific weight is approximately the same as water, one metric ton per cubic metre. So the NorthKoreans coulda just pumped a slurry of ANFO -- enough to fill a ~6.6metre/~22foot cube for a magnitude 3.6 explosion up to a ~13.3metre/~44foot cube for a magnitude 4.2 explosion -- down into an old mine shaft, collapsed the entrance tunnel or sealed it off with dirt and concrete, then set the ANFO off to mimic a nuclear explosion.
So North Korea has had the material to make a bomb, and the know-how to make a bomb, and even briefly a bomb, before the Clinton agreement. Based on how Baker states it, the bomb was probably dismantled during his term. However, the material and know-how were still around.
During the Clinton agreement, NK's bomb making material was under seal, and their plants capable of making substantially more bomb material were inoperative, despite already being capable of making a bomb with what was on hand.
Only after Bush made it clear the US would not proceed any further under the Clinton agreement framework did NK break the seals on its material and plants and proceed with construction of a bomb. Even then they didn't break the seals for months, after repeated requests to reopen diplomatic channels.
This effectively demonstrates that NK would not have done the same thing no matter what the President did. NK was doing something completely different, despite ample opportunity, until the Clinton agreement was completely scrapped by Bush.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
I thought it became apparent that NK broke the Clinton agreement some time back -- but we didn't notice for several years -- into the Bush Administration time.
Posts: 9538 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Haven't read of any gamma ray pulse originating from NorthKorean being detected, nor of an EMP. As far as I am aware, there have still been no traces of radioactive air contaminants detected by any of NorthKorea's neighbors or by US spy planes.
posted
Both sides broke parts of the Clinton agreement repeatedly -- we routinely delayed shipments of food and construction materials, and they routinely obstructed diplomatic progress. They probably broke their side first, but none of the breaks on either side were particularly egregious -- delays, not reversals. Not to mention that the consequences of calling them on those breaks seems to have been rather greater than whatever benefits (if any, I don't see them) there may have been in doing so.
The big part of the agreement remained unbroken, though. Their nuclear material and plants were under seal. We know that because under seal means cameras and all sorts of other detection devices. When NK decided to break that part of the agreement, they did so very openly. They even told us in advance and said they were going to unless negotiations were reopened.
On our side, we had been continuing to slowly progress towards supplying the LWRs (Light Water Reactors, for nuclear power) we promised. Shortly after the Axis of Evil speech, Bush cut that progress off completely. A few months later, NK came out with the threat to break the seals.
This is hardly surprising. NK cannot come anywhere near meeting its power needs without either substantial outside power, its old nuclear power plants, or new LWRs. Under the agreement they had been getting power while the LWRs were constructured. Without any possibility of LWR construction and the possibility of power being cut off, the only way to power the country would be to break the seals on the plants.
Once that's done, they really didn't have any reason not to go whole hog and restart their nuclear weapons program.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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quote:Luxembourg is next to go And, who knows, maybe Monaco We'll try to stay serene and calm When North Korea gets the bomb Who's next, who's next, who's next; who's next?!
posted
News that I have heard, but cannot back up with links since work won't let me go to news sites.
1) Now gamma radiaton or other physical proof of a nuclear explosion have been detected, but that is not surprising considering that this was an underground test. How far underground would determine what may or may not have escaped, and how the earth would have couchioned the blast. Any exact readings are still being calculated so determining the size and compostion of this explosion is still mostly guesswork as of now.
2) A train load of explosives driven down a deep coal tunnel could produce similiar sized readings. Why would NK do that? Because Jong is nuts and nobody knows what he'll do.
3) If I remember correctly, a few years into President Bush's first term the Sec of State visiting NK dropped a bombshell--proof positive that NK was breaking the most important parts of the safegaurds--still working on their bomb program. That is when the treaties were broken and NK went ahead and started building bombs in public.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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quote:A train load of explosives driven down a deep coal tunnel could produce similiar sized readings. Why would NK do that? Because Jong is nuts and nobody knows what he'll do.
As I understand it, a large conventional explosion can be distinguished from a nuclear explosion based on the shape of the detonation wave. Essentially, the detonation wave from nuclear explosion has a much sharper leading edge than the detonation wave from conventional explosives.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Looking like my theory is gaining ground. It is not surprising that NK would want to seem armed and dangerous, Saddam felt the same way, making every effort to appear to be a big league player with WMD's. It is a play that can backfire, as Saddam found out.
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
This is only related to this thread in a tangental, "land war in Asia" way, but...
Is anyone worried about China in ten to fifteen years? It's estimated that of the generation currently in its teens, 1 out of every 6 men won't be able to find a wife. Haven't wars started from things like this, as a way to get rid of the excess men? Crusades? It's not like these guys are going to be able to go to other Asian countries either, to get girls, since the sex ratios in the whole region are typically at least slightly in favor of boys.
If I were India (also with an unbalanced ratio, but not as bad) or any of the Asian countries to China's south, I'd be worried.
Of course, it could also lead to just social unrest, and possibly a revolution. Or polyandry. Posts: 2409 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
It is also the hidden secret behind Islamic unrest, the ability to take three wives leaves two men with nothing worth living for. Yet the possibility of multiple wives holds an enticement nobody wants to relinquish. If we really want to get to the 'root' of the problem in the middle east, the place to start is by making polygamy illegal where we hold sway.
Of course that is the end of our balance of power in the region, step hard on that toe and the whole place goes up in flames. I think our gift of monogamy may be the greatest moral gift we have enshrined in our legal system. We have such luck to live inside a system that insures a somewhat equitable distribution of the opposite sex.
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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Looks like N Korea tried to mask its symptoms of impotence with some of its knock off viagra. I think things look to be getting bad for Kim Jong Il, he cannot rule and be a laughingstock at the same time.
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posted
Should be noted that a lack of radiation is not conclusive as it depends on how deep the detonation was.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
We got sanctions. Meh. There was a time when Europe would have sent in the gunboats in response to a provocation like this, and installed a Governor-General. None of this messing about with friendly dictators and sanctions.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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posted
It is never too soon to start making fun of Mon- Chee-Chee Kim Jong Il. It makes him crazy and as crazy as he is already, his mistakes will be magnified until he falls flat on his face.
Posts: 475 | Registered: Aug 2006
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posted
A friend of mine sent me this inquiry. I myself initially chuckled at Russian scientific incompetence, thinking that they must have used some of their cold war Olympic judges to measure the blast. However another saw a more sinister line of speculation...
quote:The discrepancy between the Russian estimate of the North Korean claimed nuke test was about 20 to 30 times larger than those of the United States, Japan and South Korea - all based on seismographic measurements. It was instantly suspicious. With that in mind, consider a technical assessment of the North Korean blast by the Federation of American Scientists published at the Strategic Security Blog. There is no question that the political and security implications of the test are huge and almost entirely negative. The technical implications are more mixed; the technical significance of the test is somewhat less than meets the eye. There was early confusion about how large the explosion actually was, with U.S., French, and South Korean seismologists reporting a yield equivalent to about 500 tons of high explosive, that is half a kiloton, while the Russians reported that the yield was in the range of 10 to 15 kilotons, or twenty to thirty times larger. From the beginning, the source of this huge discrepancy was difficult to understand. Soon, the Russian seismic data were released and it became clear that even their own data did not support the Russian claim. Most reports as of yesterday had settled on the lower yield figure of about half a kiloton. [Emphasis added.] Now the question is, why would Russia knowingly overestimate the success of the North Korean test? Did they know something we did not? Did they have confidence of the size of what was to be tested and based their ‘estimates’ on that knowledge? Is this potentially proof that it was indeed a dud and not a dupe by the North Koreans? To be sure, this adds curious context to Russia’s relative silence following the provocative NoKor test, a silence which was followed by effectively dropping a boat anchor in the American sanctions proposal. Remember that China opposed the proposal only after Russia was first to balk. Perhaps it is time for President Bush to once more ‘see the heart and soul’ of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was five years ago, shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks in a November 2001 meeting between the two leaders in Crawford, Texas, when President Bush said, “And the more I get to know President Putin, the more I get to see his heart and soul, and the more I know we can work together in a positive way.” One would be naturally curious as to what the President may find in the former KGB operative this time around. It appears possible that the Russians are running interference for the North Korean nuclear program just as they have been for the Iranian nuclear program.
It has been confirmed, I believe by seismic analysis that the dinky whittle bwast was nuclear so at least some of the hundreds of millions of American dollars coming off the presses were wasted making a blast any major mining concern could duplicate.
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