Posted on 10/10/2006 6:11:26 PM PDT by Lunatic Fringe
MOSCOW, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- Russian military experts said Tuesday that North Korea has carried out a test of a nuclear weapon.
"Defense Ministry technical means registered the nuclear explosion and a mistake here is impossible," Maj. Gen. Vladimir Dvorkin, who formerly headed a Russian military researcher center, told Interfax News Agency. "A nuclear explosion can be accurately distinguished from a conventional explosion, say the explosion of 100 tons of conventional explosives."
While Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov also said that North Korea has become a nuclear power and called it "a serious blow" to non-proliferation, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that diplomacy must be the response.
In an interview with the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung, Putin said that the response should be "adequate." He also said that the international rule of law is important to allow small countries to feel secure, Novosti reported.
"Smaller states will then have no desire to obtain advanced weaponry to ensure their security," he said.
So, it was conventional then.
North Korea has managed to piss off all three Superpowers of the world (no I do not think we are the lone superpower).
Not a comfortable position to be in.
This is sort of predictable now that the US has stated that the test was a failure.
Fodder for the left in the upcoming election.
Saving face?
They do?
Well they built 10,000 of them, so yeah I'd say they do.
The Russians seem to want very much for the test to have worked.
Hmmmm.
Putin and his group lie every time they move their lips.
The Russians say its Nuclear
we say it wasnt
The Russians say that it was ten times the yield we say it was.
Whats the truth and why does it differ.?
It's a play on words:
"Russia: N. Korean explosion was unclear"
Or the Americans seem to want very much for the test to have failed. Hmmmm.
Code words galore. A basic translation would be something like "We're looking for ways to hamstring the US while we sell and proliferate every kind of weapons technology we want to anyone who will pay for it."
Um, yes
Speculation is that it could have been a "suitcase nuke" of 0.1 kiloton. That would be perfect for a small country with terrorist ambitions in lieu of a 5 megaton behemoth (also, very marketable). It might also spare the aquifers that they don't want to pollute.
Since the Russians (Lebed) said that Soviet suitcase nukes had gone missing, this might be a way for the Russians to save face. If the suitcase bombs HAVE disappeared, they must be somewhere.
All this speculation courtesy of the Belmont Club and some other MilBlogs.
Yeah. Are they sucking up to Kim? Or are they thinking "it was real?" Or are they thinking nothing is to gain by claiming it wasn't a nuke? They'll just detonate a real one if we taunt them.
Except that there's no seismic evidence of any nuclear detonation--unless you believe that the North Koreans have mastered nuclear miniaturization on the first try. I don't.
The truth, once again, is not on the side of the Russians. I wouldn't believe them if they said water was wet.
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