I didn't hear about the nuke test until The Today Show. I guess that's what I get for enjoying a nice evening without my Blackberry-- the sinking realization during the morning news that my workweek will now officially suck.
All the news is up everywhere-- just check Drudge or CNN, duh-- so nothing much to link here.
Still don't know how large the device was. NPR had Michael O'Hanlon on this morning, and he said roughly between 5 to 15kt, which is a blessing. Not just because the bomb wasn't larger, but because that's possibly indicative of the complexity of the device. Had the Norks fired off a 100kt weapon, I'd be more willing to fear the device was more sophisticated in design, and thus potentially more compact-- i.e., deliverable by missile. Keeping the blast in the sub-Hiroshima range may mean the Norks have a crude design.
Then again, I really have no idea-- this is just educated guesswork on my part, I haven't seen anything official yet. Once I do, I'll have to can the speculation, of course. But for now, my gut says "crude bomb." Alas, a crude bomb can still suck the paint off your house and give your family a permanent orange afro.
That said, the Norks may not have tested the device for design verification purposes, but for the reasons everyone in the outside world suspects-- that is, to bring political pressure on the United States and surrounding nations.
The diplomatic swirl this morning is entirely of the predictable variety-- condemnation, "strong action," blah, blah, blah. Whatever.
You know what over ten years of diplomacy got us all? A verifiably nuclear-armed North Korea. At every step along the way it was talk and trade, talk and appease. In return, we got *exactly* what no one wanted, as if we did nothing to stop it all. There might have been some silver lining in all of this had the United States built up some sort of broader consensus against North Korea in the meantime, but we were never going to have much luck in that respect, regardless of which political party occupied the White House. South Korea is terrified of a (more) failed state to its north, while China is not only terrified of that, they fear the prospect of a unified Korea-- a unified *nuclear* Korea-- even more.
As for the other usual suspects-- Russia, France, the U.K.-- their actions were all entirely predictable, at every step of the way.
Just as the North Koreans were predictable. We always knew Kim Il Sung and then Kim Jong Il wanted nuclear weapons, of this there was no doubt. We always knew they had a nuclear program intended to produce nuclear weapons, of this there was no doubt. We always knew that they were going to cheat on every single international agreement they ever signed, because it was in the nature of the regime to do so. Just because you're "rational" about survival doesn't mean you're not insanely crazy about everything else.
What's worst of all is how so many allowed themselves to be fooled by diplomacy. As if what the North Koreans really wanted were aid shipments and light-water reactors to power the Pyongyang streetlights. No, you fools-- they wanted nuclear weapons. Not because North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons would make the world take notice-- because North Korea's *possession* of nuclear weapons would make the world take notice.
Duh.
So, where do we go from here? I could waste a lot of words here about tough talk and sanctions, but putting sanctions on North Korea is like punishing a homeless person with an eviction notice, there's nothing we can do to punish them. China has leverage, of course, but they also have interests, and despite their harsh diplomatic language against North Korea for the test, I still can't help but believe that China isn't entirely against the principle of a nuclear client state. After all, if they want to distract the United States from their own actions, they now have a pretty big pit bull they can use against us.
There is, however, one set of sanctions that I would love to see implemented, although I'd be surprised if they were: a complete naval blockade of North Korea, with an associated inspections regime. Simply ban North Korea from having free access to the seas, as well as any ability to export weapons of any kind to client states in the Middle East and around the world. Will they react poorly? Yeah, probably. But the alternative is to blindly accept the possibility that North Korea will continue to export nuclear technology-- or even a nuclear weapon-- to nations or groups hostile to the United States.
Which brings me to my final conclusion about everything today: We are going to go to war with Iran.
If anyone cares to learn the lesson from the North Korean experience, it's unavoidably this: any nation that is determined to acquire nuclear weapons will lie, cheat, and steal, for years and even decades, in order to get them, and no number of carrots will entice them to do otherwise. Iran's intentions are precisely as clear as those of North Korea were ten years ago. Left unchecked, Iran *will* become a nuclear power. We either stop them now, or we repeat history again in the future. Only this time, rather than a nuclear-armed pariah state isolated by its neighbors and restrained by the most populous nation in the world, we'd face an unrestrained nuclear-armed state openly hostile to every single interest of America in the region, AND willing and eager to do something about it, including using terrorist groups to attack us and our interests.
No, the lesson is clear: we failed to stop North Korea from getting to this point, we must not make the same mistake with Iran.
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This posting was made on my personal computer.
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