
North Korea announces successful hydrogen bomb test - forgingahead
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35240012
======
profmonocle
Is there any reason to believe they actually tested an H Bomb? Wouldn't that
be a pretty big leap from low-yield atom bombs? It seems like the only
evidence it was thermonuclear is that the North Korean government said so, and
they're not exactly reliable.

Meanwhile, CNN is proclaiming "N. KOREA TESTS H-BOMB" on their front page,
which is a pretty far cry from them _claiming_ to have tested one.

~~~
wozniacki
Listen to the audio of the event:

[http://ds.iris.edu/ds/nodes/dmc/tools/event/5170265](http://ds.iris.edu/ds/nodes/dmc/tools/event/5170265)

[http://ds.iris.edu/ds/nodes/dmc/tools/event/](http://ds.iris.edu/ds/nodes/dmc/tools/event/)

~~~
sandworm101
For comparison, here is the link to the recent quake off the BC coast. You
don't need to be an expert to realize the differences between a bomb and a
natural quake.

Natural:
[http://ds.iris.edu/ds/nodes/dmc/tools/event/5169662](http://ds.iris.edu/ds/nodes/dmc/tools/event/5169662)

Bomb:
[http://ds.iris.edu/ds/nodes/dmc/tools/event/5170265](http://ds.iris.edu/ds/nodes/dmc/tools/event/5170265)

------
jayzalowitz
The 5.1 earthquake for this bomb would suggest a smaller explosion than the
bombs at the tail end of WW2, however that depends on a lot of things. Looking
at this list it would suggest about a ~600 ton explosion
[http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/richter_magnitude_scale](http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/richter_magnitude_scale)

~~~
bemmu
I wonder if they could just wait until a suitable earthquake happens, and then
just lie it was a bomb they detonated?

~~~
dredmorbius
Seismic, acoustic, and, especially, _radiation_ signatures tend to strongly
differentiate natural and nuclear device events.

Earthquakes virtually always develop over both time and space -- the
"epicenter" of an earthquake is the center or origin of the movement. Some
quakes occur over very long rupture zones -- the 2004 Boxing Day quake off the
coast of Indonesia involved several _hundred_ km of fault line, and moved
along that fault at several hundred km/hr (this is among the reasons why major
quakes can be felt over several minutes -- the rupture is literally happening
over that duration, and, depending on the location of the observer, the
seismic waves have to travel back to them).

An atomic blast begins and ends within a few thousands of a second -- at the
seismic scale it's both instantaneous and a point event.

A bomb will vent radioactive fission/fusion products and their decay products,
many of which are radioactive, and have signatures specific to the type of
weapon and design used. Even underground blasts will typically vent detectable
quantities to the surface and atmosphere.

~~~
sandworm101
Bombs also do not have any for/aftershocks. Not all quakes do, but it is a
tell.

------
arethuza
Perhaps worth noting that North Korea wouldn't be the first country to bluff
that they had exploded an H-bomb when they hadn't - the UK did this with some
tests in the 1950s:

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

~~~
stevefolta
The Soviets did it too:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_4)

~~~
arethuza
I think you could argue that the Joe 4 design was an attempt to design a
H-bomb using a different approach that turned out to be a dead end - the US
was aware of this design but never tested it.

Whereas the UK just plain lied and continues to be evasive about the matter to
this day - probably because the exercise was mostly aimed at the US.

~~~
m-i-l
The Grapple X on 8 November 1957 (a few months after the Grapple 1 on 15 May
1957) was a successful thermonuclear device[0], so it was only a short term
bluff.

Bear in mind that this was in the context of the British feeling betrayed by
the Americans on nuclear research - from
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Energy_Act_of_1946](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_Energy_Act_of_1946)
:

 _" Implementing the McMahon Act created a substantial rift between United
States and Britain. The new control of 'restricted data' prevented the United
States' allies from receiving any information, despite the fact that the
British and Canadian governments, before contributing technology and manpower
to the Manhattan Project, had made agreements with the United States about the
post-war sharing of nuclear technology. Those agreements had been formalized
in the 1943 Quebec Agreement. In the case of the United Kingdom, these were
developed further in the 1944 Hyde Park Agreement, which was signed by Winston
Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt"_

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Grapple#Grapple_X](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Grapple#Grapple_X)

------
sandworm101
My money: a boosted device. A fission weapon with a drop of liquid hydrogen
thrown in to qualify it as "thermonuclear".

It had to be an h-bomb. The korean people have been told that the regime
already has nuclear weapons. So any test has to be a marked improvement. The
only way up from nuclear is thermonuclear. Whether that H contributed anything
meaningful to the force of the blast is very much secondary (pun intended).

~~~
venomsnake
> The only way up from nuclear is thermonuclear.

Antimatter. Thankfully we have no idea how to make them yet.

~~~
sandworm101
That isn't too far in the future. Using antimatter as a neutron source to
prime a fission device is not total fantasy. With sufficient resources it
could probably be done today on the bench (ie not a weapon). Such technology
would allow for possibly very much smaller and/or more efficient fission
weapons.

~~~
randallsquared
Antimatter annihilation produces gamma, not neutrons. Priming a pure fusion
device seems far more likely.

------
scottyates11
Every time when North Korea wants to bargain for something, it tests a bomb.
Nuclear crisis is the only chip for the DPRK to survive in between the US,
Russia and China.

~~~
thaumasiotes
I was under the impression that the whole reason North Korea existed at all
was because China wanted it to be there?

~~~
WalterSear
As I understand itg North Korea is there because China doesn't want to have to
deal with what will happen when North Korea collapses.

~~~
thaumasiotes
I thought the point of North Korea was as a buffer zone so China wouldn't have
to share a border with a potentially hostile country like US-friendly South
Korea. That may be obsolete, but I'm pretty sure that was the reasoning of the
time.

~~~
simonh
The reasoning of the time was that China was trying to help North Korea
conquer South Korea completely. Remember the Korean war was during Mao
Zedong's rule of China and he was fully committed to a global Communist
revolution. Where others might see a buffer, he would see a staging area for
further revolution.

By the the time of Deng, North Korea was well established and successive
Chinese leaders have simply tried to maintain the status quo.

------
lenkite
If as a nation, you wish to be safe from US invasion/arm-twisting, you _must_
have nuclear weapons. It is the best possible deterrent against US
interference. Countries that do not have nuclear weapons must depend on US
benevolence - which tends to change from year to year depending on the
policies being followed by the US state department and administration.

If Saddam _really_ had nuclear weapons, there would have been no Iraq war and
no ISIS today.

~~~
GordonS
On the 'arm-twisting' side, the UK has nuclear weapons but are regularly
treated as a US 'bitch'.

Nuclear weapons are far from the only thing that can be used as leverage.

Totally agree with you about the Iraq war and ISIS though.

~~~
bobwaycott
Perhaps arm-twisting is more effective when the power doing the twisting is
known to have used nuclear weapons.

~~~
GordonS
...Except, in this case the power having the arm twisted also has nuclear
weapons.

------
csense
What happens if the rest of the world decides to strike first with e.g. a
massive wave of conventional missiles and bombers, combined with a ton of
defensive mines air-dropped into the DMZ?

Would it be enough to take out North Korea's nuclear capability and cripple
troop encampments on the DMZ enough that they can't immediately launch a
massive counterattack on South Korea?

~~~
maxlybbert
I think the road to destabilization would be for the US to give nuclear
weapons to South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, and then tell China to deal with it.

~~~
evanb
South Korea and Japan are already under our nuclear umbrella. It would be a
major change in our nonproliferation stance to give weapons out.

~~~
dogma1138
Well accept them into NATO and you can give out nukes like candy under the
strategic arms sharing clause.

------
njharman
George Carlin explained this here
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMwXR-1oajE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMwXR-1oajE)

~~~
graycat
Carlin neglected to make use of the Bush 41 statement "this will not stand"
\-- how could Carlin miss that opportunity!

~~~
pluma
When did we stop calling him Junior? There's not even a new actual
presidential candidate with the name.

Calling him "Bush 41" makes him sound more like a nu metal band than a former
president.

~~~
tjakab
Bush 41 is George H. W. Bush. Junior is Bush 43.

~~~
pluma
Senior then. I guess my comment serves as evidence for why the numbering is
useless for anyone not paying close attention to the sequence of US
presidents.

------
atomic_nuclear
Surely the first hydrogen bomb was constructed in 1952, not 1958?

~~~
caf
Yes, Ivy Mike was in 1952.

~~~
allep
depends on the definition of bomb: Ivy Mike was not a weapon, was a nuclear
device, as big as a building

~~~
arethuza
The Ivy Mike "Sausage" was big but it didn't fill the entire building - there
was a lot of instrumentation for that test. There was actually a weaponized
version of the Ivy Mike Sausage planned which was cancelled when they found
out how to make "dry" bombs using lithium deuteride.

You can see the Sausage in the pics on the Wikipedia page:

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

~~~
allep
that's the point, was not a weaponized device, does not mean it did not go
boom.

------
jensen123
I wonder if this would have happened if the US hadn't been meddling so much?
For example Bush's "Axis of Evil".

~~~
nitrogen
After watching documentaries about North Korea with smuggled film, it would
surprise me if the country could have turned out much different than it is
now.

------
efremjw
The myth of nuclear deterrence is an interesting concept
[http://setbpbx.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-
weap...](http://setbpbx.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-
weapons/issues/policy/PDFs/153_wilson\[1\].pdf)

~~~
simonh
I don't find the linked document at all convincing. To qualify as 'City
Attacks' we would expect that those bombs would have been dropped on the
largest population centres available as targets. In fact they were dropped not
on the most populous cities, or on the most populous parts of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, but actually they were dropped on the port and navy facilities at
Hroshima and the arms manufacturing facilities in Nagasaki. In fact the second
bomb was originally intended to be dropped on the arsenal at Kokura and was
switched to Nagasaki due to bad weather. yes they are cities, but they were
prioritised on military grounds.

For civilians, we generally think and worry about bombs targeting cities, but
most nuclear weapons are actually aimed at military targets. The primary
targets are the enemy's own nuclear weapons, military assets and
infrastructure come second and population centres last of all. The point of
nuclear deference isn't that if we have a war mum and dad will be killed, it's
that everyone will be killed.

The fact is we have vast amounts of direct testimony from US and Russian
military personnel and leaders, both at the time and in subsequent interviews
books and testimony, that deterrence was the primary consideration in their
defensive and offensive planning.

~~~
iSnow
>The primary targets are the enemy's own nuclear weapons, military assets and
infrastructure come second and population centres last of all.

Humbug:

"“The authors developed a plan for the ‘systematic destruction’ of Soviet bloc
urban-industrial targets that specifically and explicitly targeted
‘population’ in all cities, including Beijing, Moscow, Leningrad, East Berlin
and Warsaw,” Burr pointed out. “Purposefully targeting civilian populations as
such directly conflicted with the international norms of the day, which
prohibited attacks on people per se (as opposed to military installations with
civilians nearby).”

But other contemporary sources make it abundantly clear the Pentagon saw any
person tied to a war effort as a viable military target. A now declassified
1952 U.S. Navy film on chemical and biological warfare specifically states a
goal “to incapacitate the enemy’s armed forces and that portion of his human
population that directly supports them.” With similar thoughts in mind, the
U.S. Army had looked into radiological warfare and built deadly dirty bombs."

([http://warisboring.com/articles/this-cold-war-study-is-a-
cat...](http://warisboring.com/articles/this-cold-war-study-is-a-catalog-of-
nuclear-death/))

Civilians have always been targets and always will be.

~~~
simonh
Of course they are, and “Purposefully targeting civilian populations as such
directly conflicted with the international norms of the day" is complete and
utter guff. This was immediately after the systematic, thorough going
population centre bombing campaigns of WW II. Which planet are these people
from?

nevertheless the fact remains that most nuclear weapons are tactical or mid-
range and therefore not primarily suitable for population attack. The primary
reason Russian tank divisions didn't swoop through Germany in the 1950s wasn't
because atom bombs would rain down on Moscow (although they would) it was
because atom bombs would rain down on the tank divisions.

------
sandworm101
What is the significance of the depth being reported as 10km?

Is that some sort of minimum for a quake, or did they dig down 10,000m to fire
this thing off? That seems rather deep even for a large bomb, which this
wasn't.

~~~
mikeyouse
Initial reports had it at 10km deep -- which would've been far too deep for a
bomb test -- they've since been revised to 0km deep, which is what you'd
expect for a test beneath the surface.

The 10km was interesting since if it held up, it would have likely ruled out a
test, but it turns out that the first readings were wrong.

------
horsecaptin
Wouldn't this cause some kind of an earthquake that's detectable?

~~~
yk
Yes, USGS has detected it. The question is whether it was a nuke or
conventional explosive or something else.

[http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us10004bnm#...](http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us10004bnm#general_summary)

------
theworstshill
Imagine a world where every country has nuclear weapons and methods of their
delivery - a true democracy, or a diversity of democracies you could say.

------
Tharkun
Maybe they should focus their efforts on getting their food production going
so their people don't starve to death. Just sayin'...

~~~
zanny
You don't run a totalitarian regime in the interests of your people.

Its profitable to be a kingpin in the NK chain of command. Its what the dick
waving of nuclear arms is - look, we have a bomb, give us more free shit.

And it isn't even the threat of war. Its a threat of jumping the shark so they
have to be conquered, leaving the region with 25 million destitute refugees to
somehow deal with. Just for comparison, the EU is having huge trouble dealing
with 11 million Syrian refugees and only 4 million have fled the country.

------
meeper16
Not for long.

------
exaltedbaking
Any time discussion of the DPRK comes up, I inevitably see many people
repeating blatant lies about the country.

[http://anti-imperialism.com/2014/08/14/western-dprk-propagan...](http://anti-
imperialism.com/2014/08/14/western-dprk-propaganda-the-worst-occasionally-
hilarious-and-often-racist-lies/)

~~~
jqm
There is plenty of propaganda, sure. However that doesn't mean NK isn't a
state dangerous to the world in which you and I live.

------
hnamazon123
Good for North Korea!

It's important that there be Mutually Assured Destruction between North Korea
the imperialist US-backed South Korea.

We have nuclear weapons. Who are we to say that North Korea shouldn't have
them? That just wouldn't be fair.

~~~
s_q_b
Me. I'll say it.

Any regime which systemstically implements slave labor, mass starvation, and
utter lack of human rights should not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.

We do not want mutually assured destruction, especially with a nation
controlled by a non-rational actor. The principle won't operate.

Unfortunately, it is now too late. North Korea has a fusion bomb. Once second
closer on the doomsday clock.

~~~
JoshTriplett
I would go further and say "nobody should have a nuclear weapon". We only have
the one planet.

Can we hurry up and create strong AI already, before someone gets everyone
killed?

EDIT: Somehow I didn't expect that offhand ha-ha-only-serious comment to kick
off a massive discussion about the capabilities of AI. Fun, but not my
intention.

~~~
adventured
Nuclear weapons aren't primarily a threat to the planet, they're a threat to
densely populated cities.

Five countries detonated 2,000 nukes over 35 years. You could simultaneously
set off every existing nuclear warhead inside of Wyoming and it would have a
negligible health impact on most of the rest of humanity. You couldn't come
even remotely close to killing everyone with nukes, unless the global arsenals
were vastly expanded; the US alone has 27,000 cities. Russia's entire
stockpile could kill at worst 1/3 of all Americans, assuming they all worked
properly and hit their targets. The notion that nuclear war could end the
human race, is entirely a myth (which _is not_ to downplay the actual damage
such would cause).

~~~
jjoonathan
Then what's with the "enough nukes to destroy the world x times over" numbers
I remember hearing? Have we really disarmed that much? Or were the numbers
exaggerated?

~~~
adventured
Nuclear war would severely harm the nations hit. Russia as a nation for
example would all but cease to exist, as their population is extremely tightly
clustered in the west; the US by comparison is far more spread out (Russia
would have to hit every single US city that they could, in order of
population, and that still wouldn't destroy the US, but it would clear out
their entire arsenal on just part of one nation).

The desire has always been to make sure everyone is properly afraid of a
nuclear war, because of the destruction it would indeed cause. It's desirable
for it to be considered off the table entirely, a true last resort response.
There is a large gulf between an outcome that destroys all of the relevant
cities in the US and ending the human race. The 'mistake' is an intentional
over-estimation of how much destruction the whole can cause (Why? To properly
cause immense fear, so global nuclear war is thought of as a humanity ending
event; and that's probably sane reasoning). Back in reality, only a few
nations would be heavily destroyed, and the amount of radiation most of the
rest of countries would absorb wouldn't matter in regards to _survival_.

Some will claim it would cause nuclear winter, destroy the global food and
fresh water supply etc. It wouldn't come close to causing that. Nearly the
entire planet would remain fundamentally just fine (the nukes would be focused
on urban areas anyway). We know for a fact that large numbers of nuclear
detonations (eg 178 in 1962) don't just magically spread globally and start
killing everyone via destroying the food supply or other similar mass outcome
events. Specific small areas of the planet would not be fine of course, they
would be completely destroyed. An extremely small percentage of arable land
could be destroyed, even if it was specifically targeted. Within less than a
century you'd never know a global nuclear war occurred as far as obvious signs
in nature are concerned, outside of the specific areas that were hit.

