"No. If Japan gets hit, the world's largest repository of plutonium (that has yet to develop nuclear weapons)which
is also (with the exception of the U.S.) the world's most technically advanced nation, goes nuclear in a matter of
weeks if not days."
I suspect they are already nuclear "in pectore".
North Korea May Be Preparing Missile Launch
September 23, 2004
he United States and Japan have detected signs that North Korea is preparing to launch a ballistic missile capable of reaching almost anywhere in Japan, Japanese government sources said on Thursday.
The preparations were detected after the reclusive communist state refused to take part in a fourth round of six-party talks on ending its nuclear ambitions and said it would never give up its nuclear deterrent.
Tokyo and Washington had detected the signs after analyzing data from reconnaissance satellites and radio traffic, the Japanese government sources said.
North Korean military vehicles, soldiers and possibly missile engineers were converging on several Rodong missile bases in the northeastern part of the isolated communist state, they said.
The signs were first detected on Tuesday, the sources said.
"At this stage we don't think North Korea's missile launch is imminent," one source told Reuters on condition of anonymity. "But we still don't know whether North Korea is serious about missile launches."
Pyongyang said on Thursday the United States had chosen Japan as a "strategic vantage point" to implement a pre-emptive attack, a move it said aimed to bring North Korea under U.S. control.
"(The United States) plans to use Japan as an advance base in hurling into the Korean Peninsula a task force from its mainland and other areas in case of its emergency," said Rodong Sinmun, the North's main daily newspaper. (snipped)
http://www.ds-osac.org/view.cfm?KEY=7E4351424556&type=2B170C1E0A3A0F162820#
"I suspect they are already nuclear "in pectore"."
Agreed. I would imagine that the components are already idenitified and in place. All that would remain is the final turn of the screwdriver . . . the question is not *if* they would go nuclear but to what extent.
Ichiro Ozawa a couple years ago (longtime LDP godfather, super-nationalist and former(?) Tokyo mayor) talked of an ability to produce *thousands* of weapons.
That may be exagerrated, but China needs to think very carefully about a former enemy that could easily surpass them as a nuclear power within a matter of months.
China is largely responsible for this North Korean Frankenstein. Or at the very least, they looked the other way for too long as a nuclear threat to the U.S. was being armed.
Two can play that game.
If China wants a nuclear/SDI/military high-tech arms race in the region, they'll get one. That didn't turn out well for the USSR.
China needs to "end" this North Korean threat for all of us, but most of all, for themselves and their own future.