On monday, North Korea claimed to have had its first successful nuclear test. Even south Korea confirmed this, saying that north Korea had performed the tests. The test was performed underground under 'secure conditions' at 10:36 a.m. (0136 GMT). The Pentagon, however has yet to confirm the reports, although seismic reports do show intense activity around that time, in the area the test was claimed to have taken place. Various other agencies, however, deny the claims of seismic activity, including the U.S. Geological Survey's Rafael Abreau, who states 'we have not recorded any seismic activity from North Korea' Either way, the USA is losing its foothold as one of the leaders in Nuclear Technology as more and more small countries come into the power and ability to build their own nuclear weapons. Not only that, but as terrorist groups and crime syndicates become more powerful, nuclear materials are becoming even easier for countries to get their hands on. Watch out USA, watch out!

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Thats really bad because then the neighboors of North Korea are going to get mad about this and they are probably going to restrict and sanction them, so then that will lead to North Korea also getting mad and they are all going to be mad, then the United States will be mad because they are mad at their neighbors who are also mad and every one is going to be nervous and a little rock thrown from one side to the other will be enough to start another war. Which I guess we could already call a world war 3 if you count all the wars happening around the world. Which is pretty much the same thing, terrorist versus a countries military.

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Not only that but a nucular missle dosn't do small damage and it could affect countries around it. But since most of the united states said there was no activitie it may just be lies to scare them. Or else they really should be scared. And since our troops are in iraq we can't really help them in any way. But we shouldn't be concerned we have almost double the nucular power here then any where else if we see one coming i'm sure we can blow it up.

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It'll be interesting to see the USA's reaction to this, should they even react to this news at all, considering it wasnt too long ago that Bush was including N Korea and co in his hitlist. But still, if it falls into the wrong hands then it may possibly be bad news.

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True because they could get mad at us and pres a button and boom here comes a missle. The S. Korea security board is metting somtime to discuss this and i think the USA will just watch things so it dosn't go out of control. Any thing that could be deadly to the USA will be watched. This may mean more people trying to get here on boat so they don't get attacked. That means security at our borders and ship yards.

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World War 3 is coming, coming up faster that i thought!
You think not?! Think again!

Soon North Korea will launch the ultimate war against South Korea.
I hope i am wrong, but i doubt they are testing nuclear bombs for nothing.
That's just not the way North Koreans think and act.

Why USA (Bush) do nothing? Korea is really a big threat, a real threat, not like Iraque or Afeghanistan, North Korea is, and USA does not do a thing because they're afraid, usa only attacks countries which do not have real mass destruction weapons!

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And once they send one at us we can't do anything about it. We just sit and wait. We can send some back but that would do nothing because they would just send more at us and we would be killed. EVERY contry thats had a problem with Korea should be worried.

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I thought we already knew North Korea had nukes...
Anyways, I don't think the same methods of deterrance used in the Cold War and whatever are going to work anymore. So, we might just blow ourselves up, in which case there will be nuclear winter, so you could say that North Korea + Nukes = total death = no trap17.
Maybe?

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We knew that NK had enough material (Uranium) to produce about 5 nuclear weapons. However, to offically enter the club, you either have to sign the NPT or test one. They chose the ladder apparently. While the rictor scales show something happened, I haven't heard much from the offical crowd on exactly what the detections sats in orbit saw. There is some speculation that this test may not have been totally suspected as I took a look at the USGS charts from the Pakistan/India tests and today's "test" and there are some differences.

The politics of this is interesting. NK has basically signed agreement after agreement and broken every one in the past 15 years with both Clinton and Bush. Again, people are going around Bush bashing asking why we are in Iraq and not dealing with NK because NK is a bigger threat. The answer to that is China. NK is China's pet and this test is as much a threat to them as anyone else.

Yet, if the United States had intervened with a military strike and restarted the Korean War, what would people say then? NK has enough conventional arms and chemical weapons to kill a lot of people in the south and in Japan and would likely do so.

Also, the Bush administration took the same approach with NK that most of the people blasting him for inaction wanted him to do with Saddam: wait and let diplomacy work. Well it didn't. It would not have worked with Saddam, and will not work with Iran either. I was living and working in Germany around some former members of the Bundestag in 2002 during the build up. The story I got from them and looking on the inside of German/EU politics was rather interesting. The long short of it was this: Saddam owed France, Germany, and Russia a lot of money. All three of which could have used the cash to help with their economies (all in various stages of stagnation). Basically, the back room diplomacy was this: "If sanctions don't work in the next couple years, we are going to move to lift them because all we're doing is hurting the people."

Given the possible time frames, it was clear that the Bush Administration was rushing military action into Iraq. I supported the war then, and still do, on the basis that if the sanctions were lifted, every knew exactly what he'd do. I doubt there would be any major support to Bin Laden other than to hit the US (enemy of my enemy). Bin Laden and his group's idology was as much a threat to Saddam as anyone else in the region. Saddam was a secular dictator and I doubt he was stupid enough to let a such a radical group have an open door in his tightly controlled country. That being said, if they wanted to have meetings or needed some intel help with document forging, etc...I could see Saddam providing assistence in that way including Biochem weapon materials.

From talking with people that was part of the task force that searched for WMD's, it was clear Saddam had everything he needed to restart the program within months of having sanctions lifted. Although, there was always always one X-factor: we had nukes and Saddam was apparently (or at least his inner circle) always kept that in the back of their minds. "Those crazy Americans just might actually do it." To this day the message delivered by James Bakker in 1990 was: "If you use Chemical or Biological weapons, we have the means and will to retalliate". That's saying, "We got nukes and might just use them" in diplo speak. At the end of the day, Saddam and his senior staff was unwilling to deploy such weapons.

Kim Jong Il is by all accounts a loony. He has complete control of his people and likes it that way. He's shown a willingness to export other weapons and he seems to be the type willing to do business with anyone with the hard currency. This is a problem. However, once again the Bush bashers who ask why he didn't do anything about fail to ask the right question: Why didn't anyone else do anything about it? Just like Darfur. Why should it always be the US to step in. It's almost like "Hey rest of the world. Do you want us to be Global Cop or not? If so, quit your complaining. If not, shut up and do something yourselves."

Again, the big factor here is China. As much as China may have no love for Japan, the last thing they want is a paranoid leader with nukes. A military Coup isn't out of the question, with China as the primary backer, in this situation to prevent Il from doing anything stupid. I'm not sure how more sanctions is going to do anything. NK is already the most sanctioned country on the face of the planet and that doesn't seemed to have worked. (And I'll argue that sanctions have failed in every instance; all they do is hurt the average people, not the governments that lead them.)

Now they get the same lecture as everyone else: a nuke goes off in one of our cities, and we find out it's your plutoium, we're not going to ask who set it off, but we know where our missiles are going to land.

 

 

 

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Hopefully North Korea wouldn't actually try using nukes against China, Japan, or South Korea due to how close the countries are and the risk of international nuclear contamination. As for their nuclear test, I don't quite see the point of dedicating a valuable nuclear weapon to an underground test, unless they really weren't show if it would blow up or not, which wouldn't make much sense to me, since they have already performed one test this year, unless I'm mistaken.

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