Posted on 10/14/2006 8:17:41 AM PDT by genefromjersey
Some folks breathed a sigh of relief when the media announced no radiation had been detected following the North Korean nuclear tests.
Others,including a very knowledgeable correspondent,were not that impressed with the announcement, and explained why.
(You probably won't see this elsewhere !)
(Excerpt) Read more at insidestraight.typepad.com ...
Further, my contention is that "the smaller the yield, the more sophisticated the device" - another thing to give us pause. Yet the ill-informed press is trumpeting "no radiation escaped, so was it a nuke? No need for sanctions here!" Well, I'd ask them, "in an underground test, is radiation supposed to leak??? How can you take comfort that the test went as designed?"
Do not discount the possibility that Kim was / is acting under orders and is allowed to run his own "Neverland Ranch" to indulge his fantasies while appearing bizarre to the outside world. What should he care? He's getting his! Meanwhile, certain other nations can conduct their real research in plain sight. After all, there are plenty of stolen designs from the 1990's to test out and sales demos to conduct.
The leftwing in south korea has been steadily declining for awhile now.
Excellent comment !
Designs are one thing. Being able to manufacture it to spec, then assembling it properly are 2 other factors.
You may be right (that this is a physically small warhead, small enough to fit a Taepo-Dong 2), but I tend to believe that the easiers bomb to manufacture (for a first-timer) is still 4X to heavy for that missile to loft.
Targeting a Carrier Strike Group, or an Amphibious Ready Group would require some pretty fancy real-time intelligence -- even when using a Nuke. I don't think that is possible for the Chinese, much less the NK's.
Whatever grand essay has been developed in the rest of the article is immaterial since radiation has been detected even though Japan says they have not detected radiation.
Gee, I'm glad you were able to grasp the rest of the story without reading it !
Just read the excerpt. If there is something significant in the rest it will have to scroll across the screen or won't be read.
There are lots of reasons to discount the threat as not imminent, like your other point to me that targeting a carrier group is not an easy thing. True, but IMHO there's a lot of puckering going on as the number of years before we really gave to worry has shortened considerably. There is no joy to be had.
Not really.
Thanks. I don't follow links, mainly because I am on dialup and some of those pages bust the system. If something is worth bringing up, somebody will bring it up and comment. Maybe. Or not.
I think we're in basic agreement over the fact that we need to question our assumptions. I tend to be skeptical that the Chinese would give the keys to their nuke designs to the NK's. I don't know anyone else that would do it either. This is not to say that the Chinese aren't taking political advantage at our discomfort.
I think that basically China wants to control the territory of NK, but recognizes that the Kim-regime is not long for this world. If Kim gets a bomb - it vastly complicates things for the Chinese too.
My guess is that Kim is a 'Dead-Man walking'. China is going to take him out via assassination/coup. I think there has already been a few attempts (witness the expoding trains).
NK be Mordor.
Since it took them 30+ years to steal them from us and a lot of patient progress doing so, not to mention running restaurants in Little Rock with take out greens in black satchel cases -- they are not about to give much but Joe Wilson style tea parties to Kim-chee.
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