N. Korea says it will conduct nuke test

[KashifAsrar]

N. Korea says it will conduct nuke test

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea said Tuesday that it will conduct a nuclear test as part of measures to bolster its self-defense amid what it calls increasing U.S. hostility toward the communist regime.
"The DPRK will in the future conduct a nuclear test under the condition where safety is firmly guaranteed," the North's Foreign Ministry said in a statement, using the country's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The statement gave no precise date of when a test might occur.
Pyongyang has said it has nuclear weapons, but is not known to have conducted any test to prove its claim. It has not mentioned a nuclear test in previous public statements.
"The U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions and pressure compel the DPRK to conduct a nuclear test, an essential process for bolstering nuclear deterrent, as a corresponding measure for defense," said the statement, carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
The North's "nuclear weapons will serve as reliable war deterrent for protecting the supreme interests of the state and the security of the Korean nation from the U.S. threat of aggression and averting a new war and firmly safeguarding peace and stability on the Korean peninsula under any circumstances," the official English translation of the statement said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061003...SgByQWs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3OTB1amhuBHNlYwNtdHM-

 

[KashifAsrar]

North Korea to bring forward test date Agencies


Beijing: North Korea may bring forward the date of a planned nuclear test after generals were angered by a comment made by China’s UN ambassador.

Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya responded to comments made by US diplomat John Bolton last week, who said that although Britain, France and Japan had made clear a statement was needed to warn Pyongyang against testing, he was not certain "what North Korea's protectors on the (U.N. Security) Council are going to do".

Guangya responded, "I'm not sure which country he is referring to, but I think that for bad behaviour in this world no one is going to protect them."

The remark angered North Korean generals who resented the notion of needing China’s help and urged leader Kim Jong-il, to bring the test date forward.

The test could now take place as early as this week, according to a source close to the North Korean government, who said, "North Korea is especially unhappy with China".

The comments come after warning shots were fired on Saturday along the border between North and South Korea.

 

[Neo]

Nuclear Proliferation - Why North Korea Wants Nukes
October 25, 2006
spincycle

The testing of a nuclear device by North Korea has drawn the ire of US, South Korea, and Japan, among others. Countless penny-a-quote pundits have come forth with their opinions as to why North Korea developed nuclear weapons, with most “analysis” limited to understanding North Korea’s development of nukes as an act of villainy by the autocratic “thug” ruling the “hermetic” kingdom. That the puerile minds of non-analysts bloated on clichéd Hollywood fare will offer such trash is expected but the relative lack of other explanations is stunning.

Why does North Korea want nuclear weapons? I argue that North Korea wants nuclear weapons for the same reason India and Pakistan wanted them, and that is as a deterrent against hostile action from other states. Walter Pincus, of The Washington Post, traces North Korea's initial interest in nuclear weapons to the threats made by US presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower to use nuclear weapons against North Korea during the Korean War.

"In 1950, when a reporter asked Truman whether he would use atomic bombs at a time when the war was going badly, the president said, "That includes every weapon we have."

Three years later, Eisenhower made a veiled threat, saying he would "remove all restraints in our use of weapons" if the North Korean government did not negotiate in good faith an ending to that bloody war.

In 1957, the United States placed nuclear-tipped Matador missiles in South Korea, to be followed in later years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, by nuclear artillery, most of which was placed within miles of the demilitarized zone." N. Korean Nuclear Conflict Has Deep Roots (N. Korean Nuclear Conflict Has Deep Roots (WP) )


Aside from the initial nuclear threats, today over forty thousand American troops man the Korean peninsula and another thirty thousand stay on a base in Japan. Stack on to this the fact that Japan is widely acknowledged to have capability to produce nuclear weapons at a short notice, and we can begin to understand North Korea’s motivations for developing nuclear weapons as a response to its threat perception.

One may argue that understanding the motivations behind North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear capability does not fundamentally change anything for either U.S.; South Korea or Japan, all of whom still see a nuclear tipped North Korea as a threat. I believe differently – understanding North Korea’s actions in terms of its threat perception can inform our policy in multiple ways. Firstly, if you look at North Korea’s actions as a primarily defensive measure then one may argue that North Korea will probably only use nuclear weapons if attacked. This posit is most likely to hold true because U.S. owns an arsenal of over 10,000 nukes and any usage of nuclear weapons by North Korea will evoke a swift, debilitating response.

Secondly, the lessons learned should inform US diplomacy in the future – especially towards Iran, Cuba, and Iran. Threats from US will only hasten these countries attempts to develop nuclear arsenal.

Lastly, we all need to adjust to the idea of a nuclear capable world. Nuclear weapons, as recent past has shown, are not particularly hard to develop or acquire – this is I say given three third-world countries, namely Pakistan, India, and North Korea, have been able to develop them. Aside from this, a slew of countries, including Israel and Japan already have nuclear weapons or can easily make them. In short, nuclear weapons technology will continue to proliferate, and there is very little we can do to stop this process.

This brings us to question of the repercussions of such a world. The fact remains that the probability that anyone will use a nuclear weapon is remote given that it will bring universal international castigation and a swift response from other powers. Secondly, given the rapid rise in ability of non-nuclear weapons like say MOAB or cluster bombs to afflict harm and destruction, and the comparatively less vocal condemnation on their use will bias countries towards using these “conventional” weapons. Thirdly, possession of nuclear weapons doesn’t equate to the capacity of reliably delivering them and even if one possesses the technology for delivery, the threat of universal condemnation and a swift response limits the probability of their use to nearly zero.

There are a few legitimate concerns about a nuclear tipped world, and they have been dealt with below. Possession of nuclear weapons by a nation does limit U.S. choices against that nation, but the concern is largely theoretical for any usage of nuclear weapons will result in a very strong response from US. The second concern is about the ability of nuclear weapons to annihilate civilization. This concern stems from our understanding of the severity of the nuclear threat from cold war days when a nuclear war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union could have produced complete annihilation.

The scenario today is a bit different, and war between the U.S. and Russia, the only other power capable of delivering a similar nuclear response, is remote. Of course, conditions can change, but it still seems unlikely that we will reach such a scenario. Another facet that has garnered a lot of attention is the threat of terrorists using dirty nuclear bombs. There are two parts to the issue – one is state-sponsored terrorism which will be dealt in much the same way as response to conventional attack, and the second is threat of terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons from stockpiles of nations. This second threat must be dealt with US trying to provide infrastructure and monetary assistance to countries to help them secure their stockpiles of nuclear material.

In all, we can take two things away from this discussion – the threat emanating from nuclear proliferation is greatly exaggerated, and that clichéd panic button responses of putting blanket sanctions against nations are unlikely to work.

http://desicritics.org/2006/10/25/081013.php