January 6, 2016

North Korea has had a "complete success" setting of a hydrogen bomb.

Or so it says.
The North’s announcement came about an hour after detection devices around the world had picked up a 5.1 seismic event along the country’s northeast coast.... The tremors occurred at or near the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, where three previous tests have been conducted over the past nine years....

The North Korean announcement said... that for the North to give up its nuclear weapons while Washington’s “hostile policy” continued would be “as foolish as for a hunter to lay down his rifle while a ferocious wolf is charging at him.”

31 comments:

rhhardin said...

A H-bomb takes out not only the city but also the nearby news media, which is a plus.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

So is that a Norklear weapon?

Rusty said...

I doubt they have the technical capacity to build a hydrogen bomb. Probably justa run of the mill nuke.
Hey. Didn't Bill send Albright to prevent this sort of thing?

damikesc said...

I must continue to question the point of the UN or any "international" body at this point. What, precisely, is it that they do? They don't stop nuclear proliferation unless the US President wants it stopped (note: Obama doesn't). They don't stop genocide. Their peacekeepers sexually assault women trying to survive.

David Begley said...

iran does its nuke test 30 days after it gets the $100b from us.

"We fooled you."

Hagar said...

Or it is the Chinese that is sending a secondhand warning.

William said...

Things you don't know: Are there more psychotic assholes in Pakistan, North Korea, or Iran, and which psychotics are more likely to act on their psychoses?......During the Cuban missile crisis, a Soviet submarine commander gave the order to launch a nuclear missile. The order was countermanded by the commissar on the ship. That's how close we came to Armageddon.......I don't expect to die in an earthquake caused by fracking, but there's a fair chance there will be a nuclear war somewhere, sometime.

traditionalguy said...

They are only reacting to a bad Video about a short, fat Korean Ruler of the World.

Send for Hillary. She will handle this the way a woman handles a man. If she can't handle it, Susan Rice will do her thing and it never happened.

MikeR said...

No way backward North Korea can make a hydrogen bomb. It is apparently really hard. They were able to make a feeble regular nuke.

Unknown said...

They world all wants a chance at the bargaining table with Pres. Obama before he leaves office. Why wouldn't you? No real threat of any aggression against your country from this President, but a pretty good chance of getting some aid and furthering whatever destructive tech your working on.

Anonymous said...

Rusty said...
I doubt they have the technical capacity to build a hydrogen bomb. Probably justa run of the mill nuke.


There is a third option.

When you set off what you hope will be a Thermo-nuclear explosion e.g. "Hydrogen bomb", stage one is a nuclear explosion e.g. a fission bomb, which is used as the energy source for the fusion second stage.

thus what you hope will be a Thermo-nuclear explosion at 1 megaton might end up being a 10 KT fizzle if the second stage does not function

jr565 said...

"The North Korean announcement said... that for the North to give up its nuclear weapons while Washington’s “hostile policy” continued would be “as foolish as for a hunter to lay down his rifle while a ferocious wolf is charging at him.”

and by the same token, would we be so ferocious towards North Korea if they weren't so insistent on getting weapons and acting provocatively.
Switzerland does none of those things and we are neutral with them. SOut Korea doesn't do those things and they are our allies.
To our enemies and the left they are reacting to our policies. But we are reacting to THEIR policies.
If Iran was not trying to get nukes we wouldn't be saying we need to contain them. If Iraq hadn't violated 15 resolutions Clinton wouldn't have called for a regime change.
North Korea is the rabid wolf in the analogy, not us. And we are now the one pointing the rifle at the charging wolf. Don't act like a wolf, we won't point our gun at you.

Peter said...

There's a somewhat murky line separating fission weapons from H-bombs. Mostly the term "H-bomb" is (or should be) reserved for true two-stage (Ulam-Teller) device, but arguably the term could be applied to a boosted fission weapon as it, too, obtains some of its energy from fusion.

Not that I'd expect journalists would know enough to recognize or understand the difference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boosted_fission_weapon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermonuclear_weapon

Hagar said...

It has been a while, but I think I remember reading ("The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb"?) that there is a cheap and easy (relative to this business) of making a low-yield H-bomb.
The geniuses at Los Alamos and Livermore disdained this and insisted on working out the mechanics of building the real thing before going to testing on the atolls in the Pacific.

Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...

Send for Hillary

Their H-bomb development was already happening under her watch.

Heck of a Job, Hillary!

hombre said...

"Ferocious?" Obama? Really?

Next week NK will announce the existence of a cargo plane that can fly all the way to Iran and Kerry will give them $100 billion to forego the flight.

Foreign policy you know.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

This is very Black Lives Matter-y. They are very pissed because they don't think we think about them enough, so they act like shitheads, then say: You made me do that.

Unknown said...

@ EMD: "peace in our time"

n.n said...

Kim Jong-un is not Muammar Gaddafi.

exhelodrvr1 said...

"No way backward North Korea can make a hydrogen bomb. It is apparently really hard."

Yeah. Nothing to worry about, and we can continue to ignore them. Also Iran, and China re the Spratley Islands, and Russia making inroads in eastern Europe and Syria, and ISIS.

Unknown said...

I heard a Chinese exile say once that NK is just the lips but China is the teeth. Maybe NK was the teeth but the point was that there's only one mouth and us acting like there are two is what China relies on and exploits. He said that in every matter to do with NK the US should turn to and deal exclusively with China and treat every porovokation as Chinese in origin, because that's near enough to the complete truth that it makes no difference. This sounds about right to me but, if it's correct, it's way too uncomplicated for policy makers. We've got Smart Diplomacy on the job nowadays.

Rusty said...

The Drill SGT said...
Rusty said...
I doubt they have the technical capacity to build a hydrogen bomb. Probably justa run of the mill nuke.

There is a third option.

When you set off what you hope will be a Thermo-nuclear explosion e.g. "Hydrogen bomb", stage one is a nuclear explosion e.g. a fission bomb, which is used as the energy source for the fusion second stage.

thus what you hope will be a Thermo-nuclear explosion at 1 megaton might end up being a 10 KT fizzle if the second stage does not function

Which is probably more to the case, Sarge. The bad news that they are capable of learning from their mistakes. Maybe Albright was there for some good Kimchi.

Quaestor said...

This is mostly boosted fission. The seismic signature of this detonation is 5.1 (or 4.9 according to the Chinese) which is the same as the 2013 Nork test, which had an estimated yield of 6-10 kilotons (Hiroshima was 18kt) If the detonation were truly thermonuclear we'd likely have seen a bigger tremor.

Nevertheless this is bad. Thanks to Obama's castration of the US military Japan is not confident we are even able to deter the Norks, let alone willing. (Obama wills nothing but a lower golf handicap.) Without that confidence the urge to counter the Hermit Kingdom with a nuclear deterrent of her own may prove irresistible to Japan. The Chinese won't like that.

Thank you, Lord Zero, creator of Earth's biggest shit sandwich since the KT Event.

Fernandinande said...

DPRK News Service says:

Hooligans invade German city of Köln, raping women at will. Citizens long for days of order and prosperity under German Democratic Republic.

Record harvest of edible turtles and terrapins ensures tasty nourishment for workers of North Pyongan Province.

U.S. Press Secretary Joshua Ernest flailed as dung-eating vulture, distinguished only for his base character and low intelligence.

All-Korea Poetic Society prizewinner announced:
Winter's bite chills mankind
Warmth returns through memories
Of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un.


U.S. college students stage nationwide protests over "authenticity of ethnic food." DPRK youth study higher mathematics and military theory.

Ministry of Physical Culture and Sport bans Bullfighting and Sumo wrestling due to their immoral and perverse nature.
...
Witless oaf Marie Harf of U.S. foreign ministry urged to desist from cretinous rantings concerning DPRK internal affairs.
...
Dissident U.S. newspaper Infowars claims negro singer Tupac Shakur was assassinated by C.I.A. on orders of racist president Bill Clinton.

Fernandinande said...

DPRK News Service

Japanese bandit warlords must cease bellicose rhetoric against peace-loving Korean people, or suffer under red rain of fiery annihilation.

Spontaneous celebration erupts in Pyongyang streets as joyful workers cheer latest developments in DPRK science.

DPRK science awes lesser nations in successful detonation of 250 megaton hydrogen bomb. 10,000 years of life to Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un!

Respected scholar Donald Trump states U.S. Senator Ted Cruise was born a wretched slave in Canada.

Barack Obama weeps before camera, confesses his unfitness to be president. Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un enjoys confidence of all DPRK peoples.
++

So there!

Fernandinande said...

Funniest website I've ever seen.

Famed judge Anthony Scalia admits that U.S. courts are nothing but a pack of impudent swine, issuing jiggery pokery and argle bargle.

International outcry results from racist persecution of U.S. political prisoner Bing Crosby.
(w/pic of Bill Cosby).

dmoelling said...

Freeman Dyson, a noted Physicist has expressed an opinion that building a strong anti-missile defense was the only truly moral response to Nuclear proliferation. His argument built on protecting lives etc. but was in direct response to the past (and present) position of many Democrats that defense against missiles was provocative. This was of course the same position the Soviets took on Reagan's star wars program.

The US public believes we have a much stronger system than we do, partly from confusion of battlefield systems like the Patriot and watching too much Hollywood space operas. A ring of anti-missile ships and bases around NK and Iran would be a calming influence

ken in tx said...

Our first H bomb was as big as a small house and only good for blowing up the island on which it was built. If this really was an H bomb, it would be of this type.

Moneyrunner said...

The Norks say they tested an H-bomb. Team Obama says they didn't. I don't know who to believe. It's why Trump is gaining support.

Anonymous said...

Anybody else find it ironic that this happened on the same day that Obama was all over the news for making it marginally harder for a few people to get guns?

The Godfather said...

I care whether it's an H-bomb or an A-bomb, but I don't care THAT much. What I really care about is whether the bomb can be delivered to a US target or a US-allied target. And if not now, when?

Second: If the US retaliates against a NORK nuclear strike on the US or a US ally, where will the prevailing winds carry the fall-out? I'm guessing either Japan or China.