North Korea: why bother with a test?

The US does, but it's still experimental. Though I'm usually not a supporter of the US missile defense system in its current form, this is essentially the kind of situation where such a system could actually be useful. Any real war where nuclear weapons will be involved will either involve too many to shoot down, or missiles launched from submarines which are a completely different kind of situation. A lone, relatively low-tech ballistic missile like that could provide a way to actually test the system, not to mention it would probably make the DPRK shut the fuck up for a while. As a bonus, it might produce more of that awesome stalinist propaganda you just can't get anywhere but from the KCNA (North Korea's "News" agency).

Perhaps even a new hall of fame entry at NK News explaining why their missile simply disappeared.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Likely, North Korea would aim their missiles at Japan more than the US since they're closer, and well, it's essentially taking hostage the second largest economy in the world, so they could likely get something out of it. After all, their main purpose here is blackmail and nothing else.

Originally Posted by LeHah

1.) A mid-range weapon like the one they're testing *wouldn't* be able to hit America with a nuke. To hit the West Coast, they'd have to trade off the weight of an atomic warhead for a lighter ballistic weapon due to the amount of fuel it would take to give the missile it's best range. It's a simple issue of weight.

Yes, they could hit America - but if they did, it would not be able to be an atomic warhead of any type.

There's still much unknown about the Taep'o-dong 2 missile. Estimates for the range vary somewhat, from 3500 to 6000 km, even more in a few estimates. Add to that the fact that from what I've read the missile appears to able to be used in a 2 stage or 3 stage configuration, the latter perhaps resulting in a range increase, but most importantly in a payload weight increase, from somewhere below half a metric tonne, to somewhere aroung 800kg, perhaps more. Essentially, it means that if they do manage to make a missile capable of hitting America, which I doubt is possible for now, it's likely they'll be able to use a nuclear warhead.

Originally Posted by LeHah

2.) What Kim may have is a hydrogen bomb - like the one we dropped over Hiroshima. Yes, thats bad - but you'd need about 3-5 of them to destroy a modern city, and apparently Kim doesn't have all that many to begin with.

What the hell are you smoking? The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was a gun-trigger type, highly enriched uranium fission bomb. There was no such thing as hydrogen, or lithium or whatever else you might find into other bomb designs. Any bomb using hydrogen is a thermonuclear weapon, using a first stage fission bomb as a way to start the fusion reaction for the second stage, usually through radiation implosion. And those are in the megaton range, many time the power of the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bombs. The only design that I know of which is not a true thermonuclear weapon but uses hydrogen in the Soviet "Alarm Clock" design, which is more of a boosted fission bomb and can reach a few hundred kilotons in term of power. Though I'm not sure why North Korea would use that.

Besides, they have plutonium, it's already been established. It's not (was not?) in a usable form yet, being part of nuclear waste, but North Korea has a reprocessing plant, so they essentially have access to plutonium. From there, it's true that they have a bit of work to do, plutonium can only be used in implosion-trigger type fission bombs, unlike highly enriched uranium which can be used to build simple gun-trigger type bombs. And implosion bombs are harder to design and absolutely have to be tested.

What we'd need to know is, can they make the bomb small enough so it fits in their missiles. This is actually difficult to estimate. The hardest parts if you want to make an implosion-trigger type bomb are acquiring the plutonium and designing the bombs. They have plutonium. When it comes to the design, the theory behind nuclear weapons is essentially available in many easily obtainable physics textbooks, but not in a ready-to-be-used form, it takes some engineering. While the first bombs where really large, it was mostly due to the fact that the theory behind them was not as well-developped as it is today, and the fact is that it wasn't really necessary to make them smaller anyway, they were delivered with bombers. If North Korea decided to design a bomb, it's obvious they've done so with the goal of making it small enough to fit on a missile, unless they want what would amount to a large paperweight. It's longer and harder, but it gives you a much more useful bomb. From what I've seen, they've got a large number of people working on their nuclear projects, I think Yongbyon alone has a few thousand people in scientific personnel alone. So it's definitely possible for them to actually get a nuke, though how long it'll take, I have no idea.

Bottom line is, implosion weapons have to be tested. So far, so good, there hasn't been any test. If there's one, though, then you should begin to worry if you live in Japan or the West Coast.

Originally Posted by LeHah

3.) Fallout is bullshit. Nuke weapons clean up fairly quickly. This isn't to say there'd be no radiation poisoning but it wouldn't be the end of the West Cost by a long shot.

It wouldn't be the end of the west coast, but to say there is nearly no fallout is somewhat untrue. It all depends, quite frankly. It's difficult to estimate, it depends on the strength of the bomb, the material used, plutonium or uranium, and how well the bomb works, that is, its efficiency. Those are a few of the factors, but I don't know enough to actually be able to agree of disagree with you.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by LeHah

They have a missle that can hit America - but the weight of a nuke warhead PLUS the fuel needed to make it to our shores would render it too heavy to move. It's one or the other. They do not have another type of missile (as far as we know) that can reach farther than that and theres no modification that can undo or change the laws of gravity to get that missile any farther than it can.

There are, as a matter of fact, modifications which can add range or payload capacity to a rocket. It's called adding more stages to your rocket. If you can drop more dead weight more often, then you stop wasting your thrust accelerating what is essentially a useless metal hulk. It's not entirely difficult to prove with the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation. As I've said in my original post, the Taep'o-dong 2 exists in 2 or 3 stage configuration. The first stage remains the same for the Taep'o-dong 2, but this can make a significant difference.

I've already mentioned that the estimates for the missile's capabilities vary from source to source, and I'm not even sure the North Koreans themselves really know exactly what range they can get with the thing.

So far neither of us provided any actual quantitative evidence for our respective opinions, so I'll go ahead and do so, roughly. Take the W-50 thermonuclear warhead, once used on Pershings and for which manufacturing began in 1963. The W-50 weighted 410 pounds, less than a quarter of a metric tonne. To give ourselves a margin of safety, let's triple this number. We get less than 700kg. 700kg is at the lower boundary of the payload weight estimates I've seen for the Taep'o-dong 2 in its 3 stages version. When you consider that the same estimates place the missile's range around 6000km and sometime higher, can you still say that a Taep'o-dong 2 with a nuclear warhead won't be able to get off the ground with the same certainty?

It's a rough calculation, I'm aware of it. But estimates themselves vary quite a bit, so it's difficult to do better than that. As for the warhead specifications, it's also difficult to make estimates here, but I believe a relatively powerful warhead from more than 40 years ago, with its weight tripled, is likely something that a nation existing today can achieve if all it wants is a weapon it can aim at someone, and not an efficient, powerful bomb. I know that North Korea is a backward hellhole for most part, but when you pour 25% of your nation's GDP in the military, you can probably develop technology available 40 years ago even if your people are starving. The DPRK's GDP is 40 billions, so that's 10 billion for the military. Compare this to the estimated 310 million it cost South Africa to develop nuclear weapons, ramp up the number to 500 million, 1 billion even, just in case estimates are wrong, and ask yourself: I'm the dictator of the worst hellhole on the planet, do I want to spend one tenth of what I spend on my military each year to develop nuclear weapons? Oh, wait, you say I already have spent fuel and the reprocessing plant to extract plutonium from it? Likely your answer will be "Yes, I'd like that very much".

Originally Posted by LeHah

You lost all sense of legitimacy here.

Apparently, all ballistic weapons around the world need your approval or something? Yes, I'm sure they do, generic internet jerk.

Says the guy who called the Hiroshima bomb an hydrogen (original italics) bomb. The reason I've said "That I know of", was precisely because it's possible that there exists an obscure design using hydrogen that I've never heard of, but frankly, I'm fairly confident in my knowledge when it comes to nuclear weapons. And it'll remain that way until you show me that "hydrogen bomb" dropped on hiroshima, or, to a lesser degree, what design those North Korean "hydrogen bombs" might use along with a basic explanation of the bomb's operation. Until then you can shove your generic internet jerk comment where it came from.

Originally Posted by LeHah

They have it - but they don't - but they have it! Make up your mind.

The truth is they have the ability to create enriched plutonium which could be used in a warhead, yes. But they lack the delivery system, as well as anything substantially viable as a detonation package, according to the reports. See, they could flip the switch and detonate the so-called enriched uranium - but it may not create the explosion that you'd expect given their limited technology with this stuff.

The reason I've added that "(was not?)" in my original post, is simply that nobody knows if they really have started to extract plutonium or not from their spent fuel. They have plutonium, but the question is whether or not it's in usable form or mixed with a lot of other stuff. And we also know that they have a reprocessing plant capable of separating plutonium. It all comes down to them having decided to go through with this or not, but even if they haven't, they can change their mind, so for all intent and purpose we can just go ahead and say they have plutonium in usable form.

I'll go ahead and assume that when you said uranium in your above quote, you really did meant plutonium. If it were highly enriched uranium, they'd have no problem actually building a bomb. All they'd have to do is make a simple gun-trigger type bomb, the kind the scientists during the Manhattan project didn't even test before dropping it on Hiroshima. So assuming you meant plutonium, yes, you're right, but that's essentially what I've said before: implosion trigger-type devices have to be tested first. No country would be retarded enough not to do so. It's why I've said that as long as there isn't a nuclear test in NK, there's no need to worry ('cept for chemical weapons, but they're orders of magnitude less dangerous anyway).

The key issue here is the design. As I've said before, a bomb which is only deliverable through a bomber is useless to NK. This is precisely why they'll design their warhead small enough to fit on a missile from the start. And since it's suspected that they've been at it for some time now, and have invested significant resources, it's not so much a question of if, but rather, when.

Originally Posted by LeHah

The Bikini Islands are (mostly) free from radiation - and look how many times we tested there?

True. But it's been some time since the last test. A few years may not be much for an atoll, but if it hits a large city, it's a serious economic setback. Not to mention that the safety regulations for what is safe to visit, and what is safe to live on, are different. But as I've said, it's really difficult to say as it depends on so much stuff, and it's not something I know too well anyway.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I actually kind of agree with that article. At this point, destroying the missile on the launch pad might very well be the best course of action. The main goal here for North Korea is to get a weapon useful for blackmail (or "negociations", if you like euphemisms). Right now that one missile doesn't really pose a threat because, one, it's untested, and two, there doesn't seem to be too many ready, which makes sense as you usually do not start full scale production until you've done some real testing. It'll either won't make it to its intended target, or have a chance of being intercepted too high to risk using it for real. The former can be solved with testing, the latter by having more than one missile ready. So North Korea needs to complete that test, then make modifications and repeat until they get something that works. Then it's all a matter of making more of those missiles.

Another consequence this would have is that a number of other states would likely get access to this technology. North Korea is known to sell ballistic missiles to other nations. But the real problem is that they also sell ballistic missile technology to other countries, meaning that if they test a long range missile, perfect it, and THEN get wiped off the map, or even merely lose their test and production facilities, other states will be able to build similar weapons. If this were to happen, then its likely those countries would put whatever missiles they produced out of the reach, or at least hidden, from cruise missiles or airstrikes. Not to mention it likely wouldn't be easy to strike at all the sites that would pretty much come up at the same time. Speaking of which...

It's likely no coincidence that this new missile test from North Korea pretty much happened to coincide with the current trouble over Iran's nuclear program. Iran is easily one of North Korea's best customer when it comes to ballistic missiles. It's even suspected that both countries cooperate on ballistic missile development. In fact, Iran's Shahab-5 is widely believed to be close to a direct copy of North Korea's Taep'o-dong 2, with good reasons if you consider the estimated specifications and the use of the exact same fuel and oxidizer, in both cases a mix of gasoline and kerosene and a mix of nitrogen tetroxide and nitric acid, respectively. Iran and North Korea might not have actually planned this together, but North Korea is likely doing this since it knows it won't get a good opportunity to test its missile very often. Iran might not currently be drawing enough attention away from North Korea for Kim's taste, but North Korea certainly is drawing attention away from Iran, so even if that missile explodes on the launch pad, it'll likely have done some good for Iran-North Korea.

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With the Taep'o-dong 2's failure, I bet some heads are going to roll in the DPRK. And I don't necessarily mean that figuratively. It also seems that the KCNA still hasn't issued any statement on the events. Unfortunate, though they might just be taking their time in order to release something truly worth of NK News' hall of fame. I hope.

That aside, it's nice to see that the Taep'o-dong 2 failed that early, as it really limits whatever data they got out of that test. They were nowhere close to deploying the second stage, so even if they find what went wrong this time and fix it, plenty could go wrong and lead to another total failure next time.

What I'm not sure is why they launched those SCUDs and whatever other glorified V2s. Perhaps it wasn't a test, but a full scale attack on Japan and the West Coast, except all their missiles failed, so no one actually noticed. Or Kim really doesn't like the Sea of Japan.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I was actually joking about the whole "attack-but-no-one-noticing" thing. Still, it is true that everyone is getting pretty relaxed now that he's done with what was essentially the equivalent of flinging feces in the general direction of the US. But I really can't see what sort of truly menacing project he could have under wrap. I mean, missiles with nuclear warheads are essentially the best the DPRK could hope for, and with the missile part failing as it did, then the nuclear part becomes useless. The one thing which could have happened is that they really did destroy the Taep'o-dong 2 in flight, and will launch another one from somewhere else now that people are less worried so it has a greater effect. But they'd have to be fairly sure that their missile will work as expected, not to mention that those missiles likely aren't being mass-produced yet, so each one fired is a very significant expense, mostly of time but perhaps resources depending on how exotic the raw materials, if they're machining and assembling the whole thing by hand.

Still that's pretty far fetched I'd say. Or perhaps Kim is actually an evil genius and has developped an earthquake generator or some other doomsday device so he can ransom the world for "One... Hundred... Billion Dollars!". Or he'll unleash frickin' sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their frickin' heads.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Hey, who would have thought...

[Link removed]

Seems the link doesn't work anymore. Anyway, it basically said NK was preparing another Taep'o-dong 2 for launch, and though it wasn't on the launch pad yet, it was in final stages of assembly.

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Yeah, I've actually read about the train thing. It's probably intended for a full-size model railway in the basement of one of Kim's mansions.

I can just imagine the conversation between the crews of the trains and their superiors once back to China. "They've kept the train." "What? Who? Bandits?" "Well, I suppose you could call the North Koreans that..."

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Actually, train-related matters aside, China doesn't care much for North Korea. It's been that way for some time now, the main reason they don't want to be outright hostile towards North Korea is that it would give North Korea a reason to try the same shit they're doing with South Korea, Japan and the US, namely blackmail. Add the fact that a collapse of North Korea would send boatloads of people crossing the border into China, including a large number of starved, fanatical soldiers, and you can sort of understand why China is trying to keep their relations with North Korea as they are now.

China has no reason to improve those relations either. They've got nothing to gain from a stalinist hellhole with less than 30 million people. As for ideology, let's be frank here: China doesn't give a fuck about that anymore. The fact that China is essentially capitalist aside, China is much more interested in actually making tangible gains in industrial and financial power than to spread any kind of ideology, let alone one they're not even following anymore.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Russia, I'm not exactly too sure why. But in China's case, it's essentially what I've said, they don't want to appear outright hostile to North Korea.

EDIT: The KCNA finally released a statement about the tests! Sadly it's nowhere as hilarious as I'd expect, just the typical half-coherent stuff they usually publish. They didn't even speak of the Taep'o-dong 2 failure.

Here's the link for anyone interested: http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2006/200607/news07/07.htm#1

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Yeah, but one launch failure doesn't really mean that much. I mean, the Vanguard rocket which put the first US satellite in orbit exploded on the launch pad the first time it was used. The second time didn't work either, but eventually they did manage to put a satellite in orbit with that same rocket. North Korea just being unlucky this time shouldn't be discarded.

Of course that doesn't necessarily mean that their missile isn't a piece of shit either. But waiting for, at the very least, the second test is probably a good idea before laughing at them.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Yeah, they're obviously responsible for all the evils in the world. If only there was a country willing to get rid of those greedy capitalist dogs and enact an economic policy based on self-reliance, it'd probably turn into a paradise, no less!

Oh...

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That's mostly true. I'm not sure about the whole "keep the US out and force the unification of Korea" thing, though. If anything, the reason Kim wants a nuke is to be able to make sure no one's actually going to invade so he can keep watching porn and drink expensive booze. He might also want to use it as a way to bargain external aid when too many of his people are starving or if he happens to need something else. The worst he might do, for the outside world, is sell nuclear devices in exchange for hard currency, something they already do with ballistic missiles. That could be a problem.

As for saying it has nothing worth seizing or destroying, it might not be entirely true either. There are a few facilities which could prove dangerous in the long run, mostly related to nuclear research. The Yongbyon complex is at the top of the list. Even if North Korea fails in making a bomb, they still have the ability to extract plutonium. In fact, the so-called "Radiochemistry Laboratory" at Yongbyon can reprocess 100KG of plutonium annually, and I'm sure a number of other states would be extremely interested in by-passing what is essentially the hardest thing to conceal when attempting to build an implosion device.

Links to my sources:
Info on the Yongbyon Radiochemistry lab
Useful clickable map of the Yongbyon complex
Various WMD related maps of North Korea
Note that some entries aren't entirely up to date.

I was speaking idiomatically.