13 ms·
North Korea Announces That It Has Detonated First Hydrogen Bomb
- FreedomToCreate 11y agoExtremely worrying for South Korea and Japan. Not sure how China treats this. This is like a crazy neighbor who you learn just got a gun.
- dbcooper 11y agoI suspect that if they developed an H-bomb it would be due to China's assistance ...
- jjoonathan 11y agoI thought the only reason why China supported NK was because they don't want to clean up after a fallen regime and deal with the stream of refugees. Giving NK a H-bomb would not help with that goal, it'd increase instability if anything. I don't know much about geopolitics so I could be very wrong.
- dbcooper 11y agoNote the "if they developed". I don't think they tested an H-bomb.
- gizmo686 11y agoNK having an H-bomb makes it far less likely for other countries to try and destablize NK. Additionally, if they start to get destbalized, then having a bomb makes it far more likely that countries like the US would support the regime (because, as much as we do not like the idea of NK having a nuclear weapon, it is still preferable to all of the groups that will take control of it after NK falls)
- 1stop 11y agoThat doesn't make sense: The groups that would take control: Japan: Likely already have this tech, ally of US Korea: Likely already have this tech, ally of US Russia: Already have this tech China: Already have this tech USA: Already have this tech Or do you mean some minor group, rather than a state taking control of a failed NK?
- akerro 11y agoBut dropping a bomb like that on Japan, US, S. Korea will kill skilled, educated people, destroy their technology, infrastructure and put country to a recession. Dropping it on NK will, like, kill thousands of slaves and destroy no meaningful infrastructure.
- garrettgrimsley 11y ago>thousands of slaves People.
- corin_ 11y agoAgreed. But there's a potential moral debate to be had around the subject. Imagine if you were given this scenario: "x" people will be killed tomorrow, you can't change that. There are three options for which people will be killed, either "well-off", "in poverty" or "random". You can choose one of the three, if you don't make a choice then one of the three will be randomly picked and the deaths still occur. Would killing the people in poverty be better because you're wiping out more misery, would it be worse because you're letting financial state influence death? And as much as ethically we want to think that all people are equal, let's not forget that most armys would be willing to kill 10 opponents to save the life of 1 colleague, and taking the US as an example I suspect (could be wrong..) a poll of the US would see most people willing to kill 10 North Koreans to save the life of 1 American, without having any other information about the 11 people who might die.
- sbjustin 11y ago
- eklavya 11y agoPakistan's nuclear and missile program wouldn't be possible if not for China.
- sanoli 11y agoIn both these cases (NK and Pakistan, assuming NK got tech from China), was there a lot of money involved? I mean, does China do it also for the money, or is it mostly geopolitical influence?
- ckarmann 11y agoIf NK regime falls down, likely it's going to be South Korea who is going to get refugees and to clean up the mess, since their long-term objective is to unify Korea and only the NK regime is preventing that. The problem China does not want to have is a US ally at his border.
- chrisdevereux 11y agoI am 99% sure that both China and the US would be happy with a deal along the lines of "The regeime goes, but NK stays a Chinese satellite", assuming that such a deal were feasible without risking huge destruction and loss of life.
- Shivetya 11y agoat one time that might have been true but I would suspect that rational heads in China would not want to give such technology to an inherently unstable regime. Similar to how Russia operated, their allies might end up with nukes in their territory but they were Russian nukes, same as the US. In the last decade or two, I doubt China wants a more dangerous North Korea. It could be that NK is attempting to play China like it plays the rest of the world. We always assume China is pulling all the strings but maybe NK knows some strings it can pull too
- jandrese 11y agoWhat would the Chine government's motive be to help the Kim government upgrade to H-Bombs? They're already a political liability and most people in the region are nervous about them having atom bombs in the first place. It just seems like a bad idea.
- steve19 11y agoInstead of watching Chinese island building in the South China Sea, they will be looking East. Can't see China being upset about this.
- mc32 11y agoIt depends on what their calculus is. Getting to play in the south China sea at the expense of instability in east Asia is probably not the bargain they are after. NK is to China what the sidekick is to the strongman. or the Capo to the Godfather. He's insufferable and creates you headaches, and provides diversion, but he's your sidekick... except if you go to far one day, it'll be goodbye.
- foobarian 11y agoI wonder how much those countries profit from NK. A typical pattern with undeveloped countries is they give up resources cheaply in exchange for high tech.
- apocalyptic0n3 11y agoThis is more like that crazy neighbor getting a grenade and immediately removing the pin while walking near a crowd. It's Brick in the first Anchorman fight.
- 91bananas 11y agoBrick killed a guy! Yeah!
- Zelphyr 11y agoAnd we all know how fast that escalated. Seriously. They should probably find themselves a safehouse or a relative close by. Lay low for a while.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoMixing up your analogies, but you never ever want to kill a guy standing in the crowd with an armed grenade.
- Htsthbjig 11y agoNot really. South Korea is used to it, in fact war never officially ended between NK and SK. North Korea always had guns and South Koreans are prepared for the worst. The only way the NK regime could survive(international aid) is looking crazy, but not too much. Too much and they will be wiped from the face of earth. Too little and they won't get aid, and people will revolt against people in power.
- ddoolin 11y agoThis "crazy neighbor" of ours got their gun a decade ago, not today.
- cpursley 11y agoDisagree. The chances of NK using a nuclear weapon offensively is 0.03% They're crazy in Pyongyang, but not stupid. Same situation if Iran builds one. Doing so would be suicide, and they know it. This is about defense. Also, I'm glad you brought up the point about a neighbor with the gun. When somebody has a gun, you're not likely to walk over and screw with them. Nuclear weapons have lead to a great peace between nation-states.
- cpursley 11y agoBy the way, I would like to see US & Russia decrease their nuclear arsenal size by half or more. But there's no denial that since the advent and usage of the nuclear weapon, there's been no major world war. We're in one of the, if not the most, peaceful times in recorded human history. Even considering the current instability in the middle east. http://www.fallen.io/ww2/ http://www.fallen.io/ww2/
- dghughes 11y agoComing from a family that thinks they are Gods isn't crazy already?
- cpursley 11y agoThey don't actually believe they are Gods, of course. They project this image to maintain control of a brainwashed populace. I'd say their leadership is rather rational for their objective (which is to maintain total control and thwart intervention of the west).
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- dbcooper 11y agoApparently their last test was also detected at magnitude 5.1, so I suppose that this was probably not an H-bomb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mas.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mas.... >On February 11, 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey detected a magnitude 5.1 seismic disturbance,[13] reported to be a third underground nuclear test.[14] North Korea has officially reported it as a successful nuclear test with a lighter warhead that delivers more force than before, but has not revealed the exact yield. Multiple South Korean sources estimate the yield at 6–9 kilotons, while the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources estimates the yield at 40 kilotons.[15][16][17]
- esnard 11y agoCorrect link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mas...
- jandrewrogers 11y agoIf that was a hydrogen bomb test, it sounds an awful lot like the trigger did not achieve the intended criticality with respect to the fusion component. This would not be surprising in that their prior fission tests also had dubious yields.
- iaw 11y agoI suspect that this was a very powerful (for NK) fissile weapon and not an actual hydrogen bomb as claimed (regardless of if they had fusible materials in the device).
- OvidStavrica 11y agoIf that was indeed a fusion weapon, then North Korea may have just handed the presidency to Trump.
- nikdaheratik 11y agoThe fact that the measurements we got so far show it matches their previous detonation makes me wonder if it was an H-Bomb, or at least if it was a successful one. Since they have a fission bomb as part of the core, it could just be a failed H-bomb or, as someone else said, an attempt at a tritium enriched bomb. As far as U.S. presidential politics goes, meh, it's 10 months from the election, we don't even know who the candidates will be for either (especially the GOP), and the only people who should be sweating are S. Korea and Japan.
- negamax 11y agoHow so? So Trump can aggressively address a nuclear armed country. This is ridiculous line of thinking. Only thing he will be good for is making empty threats like Kim Jong. And will surely get US isolated by those rhetorics.
- qbrass 11y agoHe'll make empty threats, which will get him votes. OvidStavrica never said he was the best candidate to deal with the situation.
- jandrese 11y agoTrump will just say he's going to bomb NK flat and that'll energize the base that thinks Obama is a total coward for not killing all of those filthy foreigners already.
- meagain20000 11y agoThe real question is whether there are enough people who will follow his kind of pandering. It seems obvious that the guy has absolutely no principles. He will say anything. I don't think there are enough of of them. If there are enough of them then I'm being stupidly naive and have not read the mood of the country correctly. If so we are all fucked, white, yellow, brown, black.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- trhway 11y ago60 years ago it took several years from fission to fusion bomb. H-bomb is simple once you got the fission one. NK got their first fission several years ago. So it is about time. It is frequently suggested that NK explosions are [half]failures because of low yields. Well, making low yield fission or fusion bomb is actually much harder then a powerful one and historically the pinnacle of nukes have been the low yield "neutron" ones. The low yield ones are also much more scarier as a weapon because they require lower threshold of craziness to use - i.e. sending a 1MT ballistic missile on a city even Kim III may be not ready to order while 0.5KT is just like that Chinese port explosion several month ago. Anyway, giving the amount of tech assistance NK got in 199x from former Soviet researchers, one can only blame NK economy on why it has been taking them so long to join the club.
- Symmetry 11y agoMaking nukes out of small amounts of plutonium is indeed hard to do but making a small explosion using a large amount of plutonium is much easier than making a large explosion from a large amount of plutonium.
- mikeash 11y agoExactly. If NK's tests are low-yield because they're testing miniaturized devices intended to produce a low yield, that's scary. But it's far more likely that they're trying to make a bigger bang and it's just not working right.
- pdonis 11y ago> H-bomb is simple once you got the fission one. I don't know that "simple" is a good description. The key design concepts are known, yes; but the level of technical precision and skill required to build a fusion bomb that will work is much higher than what is required to build a basic fission bomb that will work.
- mvardin 11y agoYou can see it in wolframalpha http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=earthquakes+in+north+korea http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=earthquakes+in+north+ko...
- gadders 11y agoAnd in ten years time, we'll have the "pleasure" of seeing similar from Iran.
- threeseed 11y agoNo chance. The problems associated with the sanctions were far more of a problem for the Ayatollahs than the benefits of having a nuclear weapon. Obama was spot on with the diplomatic solution. Pretty sure Iran is quite fine with its proxy wars and regional destabilisation. They are getting pretty good at it and causing far more headaches for the West.
- gadders 11y agoLet's circle back to this thread in ten years, if HN is still here ;-)
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- quantumpotato_ 11y agoWhere do I sign up for these North Korean press releases?
- hyperliner 11y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/northkorea https://www.reddit.com/r/northkorea
- theinternetman 11y agoFunny how this is now considered a bad thing when the only country ever to murder innocents and children with one is America.
- pc86 11y agoJust so we're clear, you're saying that a nuclear-armed North Korea is a good thing? I just want to make sure we're on the same page.
- corin_ 11y agoI'd assume that rather than saying it's a good thing he's just accusing the US (and friends of the US) of being hypocritical. A tired and fairly pointless thing to say, but not as bad as saying that a nuclear-armed NK is a good thing.
- pc86 11y agoI get where you're coming from and I agree that's probably not what he meant (but who knows). But his wording does leave open the interpretation that "Bad Thing happened 70 years ago. This is Less Bad than Bad Thing so it isn't really all that Bad."
- ageofwant 11y agoThe US has 4500 warheads, Russia 4700, The UK 210, France 300, China 250, India 105, Pakistan 120, Israel 100. What moral ground has anyone to deny NK its sovereign right to do the same ?
- knowaveragejoe 11y agoIs this a serious statement? Have you ever done much in the way of research on North Korea?
- ageofwant 11y ago
- sanxiyn 11y agoLast time North Korea did nuclear test, Comprehensive Nulcear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization(CTBTO)'s radionuclide monitoring station at Takasaki, Japan successfully detected Xenon. So let's wait for CTBTO. http://www.mofa.go.jp/press/release/press3e_000001.html http://www.mofa.go.jp/press/release/press3e_000001.html By the way, CTBTO has a website: https://www.ctbto.org/ https://www.ctbto.org/
- hodwik 11y agoThe CTBTO already said they saw it: "At 01:30:00 (UTC) on 06 January 2016 the CTBTO's monitoring stations picked up an unusual seismic event in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The location is very similar to the event our system registered on 12 February 2013. Our initial location estimate shows that the event took place in the area of the DPRK’s nuclear test site. The DPRK also claimed today that it has conducted yet another nuclear test, the fourth since 2006."
- sanxiyn 11y agoYup, seismic result is in, radionuclide takes some time. CTBTO explains how it does monitoring in a lot of details here: https://www.ctbto.org/verification-regime/ https://www.ctbto.org/verification-regime/
- martincmartin 11y agoThis shows they detonated something, but not whether it was fission or fusion.
- jrlocke 11y agoIn arguments over the relative safeness of the world it is often pointed out that relatively few people have died recently in terrorist attacks, but as N. N. Taleb points out, the distribution of deaths by terrorist attacks is a fat tailed one: the current average does not preclude much higher future numbers. Such devices as this in the hands of such actors as NK give us more concrete feelings for the real risks involved. More focus needs to be paid to these sorts of risks, we will be lucky to live out our lives without a major nuclear terrorism event.
- serge2k 11y ago> More focus needs to be paid to these sorts of risks Yeah, we should really up the level of fear and tension over the terrorists.
- cpursley 11y agoThe Russians, the terrorists, and NK - oh my. Everyone must hand over a very large chunk of your paycheck to the defense industry or they bad guys going to come get all of us in our sleep!
- nikolay 11y agoWell, the Russians are a convenient threat, but they are compatible with us (in terms of views), reasonable, and educated people. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey are the real enemies of the Western civilization and I can't believe we allow them to be our allies! I personally don't know much abut North Korea, and although it's definitely a threat, I feel that all this is just a show.
- ck2 11y agoWe are never ever going to free those poor people in North Korea. Such horrible lives. China should be ashamed for perpetuating this. Was hoping to see within my lifetime a re-unification like Germany but that's basically never going to happen. Unless they find oil in Korea, unlike Iran we are never going to give a damn, politically, morally or otherwise.
- serge2k 11y ago> unlike Iran we are never going to give a damn, politically, morally or otherwise. Disagree, the US troops and mines have been there for a long time. South Korea is doing well exactly because the world cared and the US in particular continues to.
- sametmax 11y agoIran by itself hasn't attacked another another country for more 2 centuries (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/01/201212485135149579.html http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/01/20121248513...). Meanwhile, not only all our countries did it in the very last decade, but we surrounded Iran with military bases. So we are not doing it because Iran is a threat. Occidental countries are technically more threatening (http://www.globalresearch.ca/we-re-going-to-take-out-7-countries-in-5-years-iraq-syria-lebanon-libya-somalia-sudan-iran/5166 http://www.globalresearch.ca/we-re-going-to-take-out-7-count...), we just don't see it because we don't threaten each other. We are doing it for other reasons. They got oil and a strategic position in the middlewest, There is probably a lot more to know to understand the motivation to make it the number one enemy. Bottom line, we are not good doers, and attacking NK doesn't bring anything to our table, so we won't do it.
- ck2 11y agoUh, we invaded Iraq and absolutely destroyed the country and decimated the population - because we were going to be "greeted as liberators". Certainly the people of North Korea need liberators, even if it takes them a few generations to appreciate it. South Koreans don't need to be saved, North Koreans do. However the entire world should be doing the liberation, not just the USA. In fact for once maybe they can leave us out of it and just tell China "end this" or we'll destroy your economy by not buying anything from you for as long as we can. But hell, look at Syria and the refugee crisis. Imagine if Assad had nuclear weapons.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- mkehrt 11y agoThis seems incredibly unlikely. Anyone with a good machine shop and some fissile material can build a fission bomb in their garage (ok, it's not that easy). But fusion bombs are another beast altogether. Fusion bombs work by setting off a fission primary stage inside a closed container, which ignites fusion in a deuterium secondary stage. But the devil is in the details. The energy from the primary (in the form of either neutrons, heat, or X-rays; which one it is is highly classified) needs to be focused through an interstage (the details of which are, again, classified) into some sort of styrofoam (really) medium which turns into plasma. This somehow starts fusing the deuterium inside it, which involves the use of a fissile "spark plug" to produce more neutrons. And deuterium isn't that easy to come by. The whole process is so tricky that the British couldn't get it to work for a long time after the Americans gave them plans. So, yeah, I don't believe it.
- jandrese 11y agoI like to think that NK built their bomb based on plans they found on the Internet from some Anarchist Cookbook wannabe and are now scratching their heads as to why it didn't work properly.