
North Korea claims success in fifth nuclear test - niccolop
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-37314927
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vocatus_gate
I'm working on a research base in Antarctica and we have one of the very few
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) detectors in the Southern
hemisphere on our station. It's pretty interesting how fast the detection
network can sense and locate a nuclear blast above a certain yield. North
Korea is frequently discussed when referencing the effectiveness of the
system.

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asimuvPR
Do you keep a blog?

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vocatus_gate
I don't but I do post some pictures with detailed descriptions to an Imgur
album here: [http://imgur.com/a/ijX9Q](http://imgur.com/a/ijX9Q)

~~~
asimuvPR
Thank you.

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tomelders
China needs to put this particular Genie back in it's bottle. Having a mad dog
on a leash is a reckless and juvenile diplomatic strategy and we're starting
to see that China doesn't have as much control over NK as it pretends to.

~~~
yclept
Do you not think China is helping NK develop their ballistic missiles and
nuclear technology?

~~~
bcg1
Common sense (which probably is not worth much when it comes to international
relations) suggests that without China's aid DPRK would quickly collapse.

Presumably China does not want to see this happen because re-unification with
South Korea would be a possible outcome (although I suspect the South Korean
economy would have trouble absorbing the North Korean population without
significant aid from the US and "international community"), and that would put
a strong US ally right on China's border.

In my mind the only peaceful resolution to this situation is a diplomatic
agreement with China, which would seem to be exceedingly difficult to achieve
without a massive effort on the part of the US. Unfortunately, given the level
of rancor and demagoguery against China that is showing itself in US politics
at the moment, not to mention provocative actions such as the TPP and Abe's
desire to change Japan's constitution to arm itself, the aforementioned
peaceful outcome seems unlikely to me.

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hkjgkjy
Is there any way the world could become more peaceful, and we could get rid of
the seemingly eternal gun-pointing happening between the USA (+ NATO), China,
Russia etc? Curious to hear what possible steps can be taken to calm the
worlds warmongerers down further. What are possibilities for the future.

~~~
forgetsusername
> _is there any way the world could become more peaceful_

The world _is_ becoming more peaceful.

And in theory, nuclear weapons make the world more so, which is why these
countries pursue them. Despite what the mainstream news likes to report,
there's a microscopic probability that the DPRK would attempt to use a nuke
offensively.

~~~
pearjuice
[citation needed]

~~~
Iv
[http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/spectacular-video-putting-
wwii...](http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/spectacular-video-putting-wwii-deaths-
perspective.html)

Skip to 14:00 for the relevant part.

The number of casualties in conflicts has going down FAST in the second part
of the 20th century. We are in a historical worldwide period of unprecedented
peace.

The most recent aberrant point in that downward path has been the Iraq war.
But even this one pales in comparisons of the horrors of the past.

~~~
SimonPStevens
If you're going to watch that video (and you should, it's great), I would
suggest watching it on the source website[0]. It has a better interactive
version where you can move around the charts, and I'm sure they would prefer
to get the traffic directly rather than some intermediate site that's just
embedded the video.

[0] - [http://www.fallen.io/ww2/](http://www.fallen.io/ww2/)

(I love wait but why, and Tim Urban writes some fantastic stuff, but this
particular page is just an embedded video)

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crispyambulance
I can't help but detect a weird affectation (a combination of proud and pushy)
in the voice of the newscaster. I don't know Korean or any Asian language, so
I can't tell, is that a normal newscaster voice for North and South Korea?

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dovdov
"Great." Oh, wait...

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/north-korea-
ban...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/north-korea-bans-sarcasm-
kim-jong-un-freedom-speech-a7231461.html)

~~~
wkerner
Don't give Facebook any ideas!

~~~
yitchelle
Wait..That is not news worthy enough for Facebook's algorithm.

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butler14
probably worthwhile the world powers reminding themselves that policies of
nuclear deterrence rely entirely on rational agents

~~~
cmdkeen
The DPRK can be thought of as rational in that they follow reason and logic,
it may not be the same reason and logic that other world leaders and states
follow but that doesn't mean that it isn't there and isn't possible for
Western strategists to try and factor that in.

~~~
your_ai_manager
I would agree that normally governments make geopolitical decisions in a
rational ways. But due to governments being emergent systems you have rare
events in which individual incentives can line up to make irrational decisions
happen. Look at what happened with the Brexit vote for example.

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s_q_b
Since the comparison between North Korea and other dictatorships keeps
arising, I feel compelled to note that North Korea is truly an edge case.

Nothing in Western democracies, Middle Eastern theocracies, or even African
dictatorships comes close to the horror that is North Korea. They torture
people _for entertainment_ , without even a pretext. They _kidnap children_ to
serve as sex slaves for their leadership. They _starve families_ to the point
that parents beat their own children over _single grains of rice._

North Korea is such an extreme outlier that no other extant nation compares.

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GarrisonPrime
A forecast:

(1) NK eventually attacks a sovereign nation. Most likely, their nukes will be
used as a threat to back up their aggressive actions rather than being
actually used.

(2) China, at first perhaps tentative and apologetic, eventually joins in with
strong anti-NK policies and pressure.

(3) NK doubles down, building up its offensive capabilities and maybe
launching more attacks.

(4) Very sad day for the innocent North Koreans living under the regime. The
US, or China, or the UN, or all of the above smash NK into the dirt.

(5) Profit.

~~~
verroq
More like

(1) Continued rattling and blackmail for international aid

(2) Eventually becoming a nuclear state that nobody wants to touch cementing
itself in perpetuity

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throw2016
The US is the only country to have used nuclear weapons casually and
rationalized it like all other things later. This was a crime against humanity
and nothing can change that. It an act of barbarism and savagery unprecedented
in human history. Why the second one?

And to confirm its absolute disregard for human life since then has proceeded
to stir up trouble in dozens of other countries and destroyed millions of
lives in pursuit of its own financial interests, the latest victims being
Iraq, Libya, Syria and with Iran in crosshairs.

Entire regions some just coming out of hundreds of years of destructive
colonialism found themselves head first in old world politics of violence and
self interest couched in the modern language of human rights, democracy and
peace.

That's a tally easily of hundreds of millions of lives in disarray or
extinguished just from the latest meddling in the middle east purely because
of financial interests. But yet all these blatant crimes against humanity for
some reason are all ok. Because?

Nobody's human rights have been protected, democracy has not been advanced,
but 'interests have been secured' on the back of entirely fictional narratives
and fabrciated intentions. This is mind boggling.

This is perhaps the same kind of self serving rationalization and reckless
disregard for human life that advocates first strike against North Korea. If
these are the good guys who are the bad guys?

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s_q_b
If the United States' military posture was not so depleted at this point, I
would say that it is time to seriously consider a conventional first strike.

Right now, North Korea cannot deliver a nuclear payload anywhere. It's one
thing to create a nuclear test device, but it's another matter entirely to
miniaturize it for delivery.

However, if allowed to progress unimpeded, North Korea will soon have missile
technology that can reach Japan consistently. Around the same time, their
miniaturization project will likely be complete. At that point, other nations
will lose the option of intervention.

North Korea's government is simply... _unstable_ , in both senses of the word.
There is simply no other way to put it. The more closely one examines the
country, the more disturbing the picture becomes.

They cannot be allowed to have a permanent nuclear deterrent.

~~~
gaius
_I would say that it is time to seriously consider a conventional first
strike._

NK has its estimated 10000 conventional artillery pieces in range of Seoul -
they will pound it to rubble the old-fashioned way. You can (theoretically)
intercept a single ballistic missile, but there is no defence against a mass
artillery bombardment.

~~~
taneq
Sure there is: Conventional artillery is slow. It'll pound Seoul into rubble
_given time_ but if they actually tried it, after the first 30 minutes, one of
the superpowers would glass them.

Edit: Hmm. You lot make some good points about just how many 'small' hits they
could pull off, assuming that each gun emplacement has ammo etc. so I did a
bit more research. Seoul Capital Area has an area of ~11,000 kilometers
square[0]. Assume a generous affected blast area of roughly a hectare per
shell (we're talking about shelling a population center here so you don't have
to level every building to have a serious impact) and that's 1.1 million
shells (if they're firing with uniform distribution, which they won't be) to
seriously damage the city. Assuming a normal distribution where they all aim
haphazardly for the CBD and let fly, it's even worse, call it 500k shells at a
guess.

10k emplacements, if they have 50 shells each, will deliver this in (as per
post below) 8.3 minutes. So yeah, even if it can't "pound Seoul into rubble"
it would be a highly undesirable outcome for the South Korean people.

I take it back. Conventional artillery isn't slow if you have enough of it.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul_Capital_Area](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul_Capital_Area)

~~~
bhickey
Estimates put their artillery deployment at 13,000. Even assuming they fire
for a minute before being completely destroyed by counter battery fire, we're
still talking 65,000 shells coming over the border. Push it out to 30 minutes
and you've got 2m inbound shells.

~~~
unprepare
is it safe to assume they would have 2 million shells available at once?

Given their extreme poverty, i would think their stockpile of ammo is rather
skimpy (surely better invested in than other things in the country, but 2
million shells in 30 minutes sounds like it would be quite an economic outlay
for them)

~~~
arethuza
Their spending on armaments is probably one of the causes of the poverty in
the general population.

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faragon
The end for this could come with voluntary incorporation of North Korea as a
Chinese new province.

~~~
indubitably
Why would NK do that?

~~~
faragon
Because of the need.

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sidcool
Today is the Foundation Day of DPRK. Probably their version of fireworks.

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shafiqissani
At this point it is hard to believe this is not US agenda.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
What rational basis do you have for claiming that?

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verroq
Has North Korea become "too big to fail"?

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azernik
Well, that, and that and too strategically important to China to fail. However
frustrated the DPRK makes them, they still don't want an American-allied Korea
on their border.

~~~
gaius
Serious question: why? What do they envisage happening in that scenario? Korea
invading them seems unlikely, they trade with the US all the time, and there
have recently been massive American forces on their border in Afghanistan with
noone batting an eyelid.

~~~
dermotbrennan
Manchuria is close to Beijing and is a relative easy area in China for armies
to travel through. It's not mountainous or particularly forested/swampy.

Japan invaded through Manchuria in WW2 so it makes sense for China to have as
big a buffer zone as possible in that area.

The border between china and afghanistan is very mountainous and very far away
from Beijing.

~~~
gaius
But China is a strategic nuclear power - the idea that a unified Korea would
risk violating their territorial integrity is far-fetched, they are far more
likely to be attacked by the North out of desperation!

~~~
speeder
China tends to think extremely long term, both in then past and future.

For example: one of the most criticized of China behavior, that is the
occupation of many parts of mongolian and related lands, is a way to prevent
another Khan starting another Yuan dynasty.

Similarly China had many wars with Korea, and don't trust them (neither do the
Japanese, thus why they don't move a finger to get rid of North Korea either,
nevermind blatant racism in Japan, like the fact that nonasians can expect to
get citizenship after about 20 years trying, while many second and third
generation Koreans still aren't allowed to be citizens)

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bobedybobbob
I'm all for the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons but also find it amazing
what their scientists can do working with such limited resources.

