Posted on 01/24/2004 11:52:22 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
North Korea´s nuclear taunts
Don´t be panicked
Jan 22nd 2004 From The Economist print edition
Unchecked, North Korea will harm anti-proliferation efforts everywhere
MOST regimes in the illicit mass-destruction business try to hide their diabolical dabblings. Not North Korea. Its answer to American doubts about its nuclear boasts was to invite a private group of Americans earlier this month to view what it said was a lump of plutonium that will soon be turned into weapons unless America meets its demands. So where does that leave George Bush´s determination, as he put it again this week, to keep “the world´s most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the world´s most dangerous regimes”? In North Korea as much as anywhere, the global effort to halt and reverse the spread of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear ones, is at a tipping-point. Which way will it tip?
Sometimes the right way. Whatever weapons ambitions Iraq´s old regime still harboured ended with Saddam Hussein´s overthrow. Pressure there may have given anti-proliferation diplomacy a push elsewhere. America, Britain and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have started disposing of the nuclear bits and pieces, as well as chemical and biological weapons and threatening missile programmes, that Libya had secretly acquired before it surprised the world last month by saying it wanted rid of them all. But diplomacy is seldom so easy. Iran, caught last year in a web of nuclear deceit, has grudgingly “suspended” its once hidden uranium-enriching activities (enriched enough, uranium, like plutonium, can form the fissile core of a nuclear bomb) and agreed to more intrusive IAEA inspections. Yet Iran still insists it will hang on to its dangerous technologies. And, as with Iran, failure to get North Korea to kick its nuclear habit could damage anti-proliferation efforts everywhere.
North Korea´s recent trigger-fingering nuclear taunts are intended to panic America, China, Russia, South Korea and Japan, all participants in six-way talks to end this nuclear crisis, into a deal that would merely refreeze for now the North´s plutonium production (supposedly frozen once before under a 1994 deal), while turning a blind eye to evidence that it has been secretly pursuing a second uranium-enrichment route to a bomb. Troublingly, the tactic may be working with China. China´s economic leverage over North Korea is needed to keep up the pressure to disarm. Yet it now notes that North Korea denies trying to enrich uranium, despite an earlier admission to the contrary and other evidence from intercepted machinery shipments. Tiring of difficult diplomacy, China and others may be tempted to think that half a deal is better than none. They would be wrong. Earlier attempts to dismantle North Korea´s nuclear programme failed because they left the regime free to continue its threatening behaviour whenever it felt like it, which was often. And without comprehensive checks on all its nuclear activities, it also felt free to cheat on regardless.
Why not just learn to live with a North Korean bomb? There are, it has to be said, few good military options for dealing with the North´s defiance. No one knows where it has stashed its bomb-ready plutonium or even where any uranium work may be going on. Any strike would also likely provoke a counter-attack on the South, with many casualties. So why not simply let North Korea know that to use its bomb would be to invite obliteration from America?
The other sort of fallout Those tempted to leave North Korea´s nuclear ambition rampant or only half-checked should consider the widespread collateral damage that would cause. Like its missile technicians, North Korea´s nuclear experts could fan out, peddling their wares to anyone with the cash to buy (indeed, some may have done so). And its nuclear posturing has already stirred debate in Japan about its nuclear future. South Korea and Taiwan have both toyed with building bombs in the past. All three could turn nuclear at speed. Such nuclear turbulence would harm security all round, China´s included.
The only safe way to deal with North Korea´s claimed nuclear weapons is to get rid of its capacity to make them, “completely, verifiably and irreversibly”, as America has insisted. If North Korea refuses, it should face isolation from all. Other options, including military ones, may start to look less outlandish if diplomacy is seen to have failed.
I'm sure NK is quite versed in what our response would be. Funny no mention of Pakistan or Lybia.
If they even think they can get away with it, it is not a risk worth running...
If we wish to point fingers, we should point at Clinton and Albright. Then Congress of the 1950's who should have told the UN to shove it then and taken NK (and a good chunk of China) off the planet.
What happened to good old MacArthur? "That is our military objective -- to repel attack and to restore peace." Truman not once said the US goal was to WIN!
Every nuke is made w/ enriched uranium and/or plutonium. In multi-stage (or thermonuclear/hydrogen bombs) tritium is also used to boost the warhead yield. Examples from each reactor is maintained by the IAEA and the USNRC and each is as individual as a fingerprint or DNA.
We can analyze the fallout/residue of the blast and determine which reactor produced the fissile material it contained.
If a NK reactor is implicated in a nuke attack, I say we nuke them flat and glassy.
More than isolation
Retribution and justice
Remember the Pueblo !
Even the knowledge that the material is not from a "known source" is valuable - and other indicators will give away the manufacturer of it anyway. Were not talking about evidence in a US court; just enough reliable factors that would allow the US government to retaliate for an attack.
It's not even certain whether the sampling method you prescribe will work, simply because it's never been tested.
It has been tested - many, many times. It is a standard part of the training of US Nuclear Emergency Response Teams. They can tell where samples of fissile material and minute residue were manufactured, often naming the specific year and reactor involved, i.e. Hanford 2, 1981, used in Pantex Series XX warheads..... A member of my extended family is a former NERT member - their capabilities are amazing. They can gather analyzable samples by flying specially equipped aircraft through the fallout path of a radiological device.
We have already stated that preemptive strikes on terrorists, state sponsors, and rogue regimes w/ WMD capabilities is the policy of this Nation, i.e., the "Bush Doctrine". I'm with you: we should already have dealt w/ Kim Jong-il.
Sometimes people on this board get a little carried away w/ the "loose lips" crap. Who do they think their fooling? There are no secrets in physics: your average machinist and copier repair tech could collaborate to fashion a multi-stage nuclear device, assuming the availability of fissile material. THAT is the expensive/difficult part.
While I have NO specific knowledge, (good old legal disclaimer) of US tritium production since 9/11, I will hazzard an educated guess to say that we have been producing tritium steadily. As you may know, tritium is a very unstable isotope, and multi-stage weapons require the replacement of their tritium every 5-7 years, to keep the weapon from being a "fizzle", or fractional-yield.
Tom Clancey's Sum of All Fears gives an almost totally technically correct explanation of this process.
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