A Further Look At North Korea -- The World's Nuclear War Head Boutique

Dear Warwick:

On a cloudy Sunday morning, it is great to get some good news. No one prays more than me that the human race will never again see a nuclear weapon detonated in anger. Now let us look carefully at what was said here.

Most of this article was well researched and well thought out. They did not seem to know about the 22 teams of scientists that the US government keeps on standby to go in a do nuclear forensics in the event an American city is attacked with nuclear weapons. This indicates that the people in authority here consider the probability of such an attack high enough to warrant the funding required for such an effort. Also please bear in mind that the stated US policy is that if an American city is attacked with nuclear weapons, nuclear retaliation will be carried out on the state that was involved in the manufacture and providing of the weapon. Please hold that thought for a moment.

I discount Iran as a source of nuclear war heads for some terrorist group. Their biggest enemy is Israel. If they could destroy Israel and get by with it, they might "go for it." They know that Israel possesses 150-200 nuclear war heads. The types of war heads they have are not known. I suspect they range from small tactical devices to 5 megaton "city busters." As a matter of interest, authoritative reports state that most of these weapons are kept at sea. If Israel was attacked with nuclear weapons, they might retaliate against the country that provided such a weapon. We cannot rule out another scenario. Perhaps you have seen the 1964 movie Dr Strangelove with Peter Sellers. In the movie the Soviets had a doomsday machine buried deep underground. If they were attacked with nuclear weapons, the doomsday machine would be detonated and the whole world destroyed. Any one considering a nuclear attack on Israel would have to look at another very dark possibility. If Israel suffered a nuclear attack and was destroyed, they might launch all of their nuclear weapons and effectively destroy all of the countries in the Middle East. I am sure this goes through the minds of their enemies who would think twice before attacking Israel with a nuclear device.

Pakistan gives me some concern. They seem to have put fail safe devices on their weapons. They are acutely aware of the consequences to them if one of their weapons were used in a terrorist attack. The danger there is a group of low-level employees with jihadist sentiments. That is a long shot. As long as the world keeps up the pressure on Pakistan, there is a low probability of one of their weapons going astray and ending up in a terrorist act.

North Korea is the country that scares me. I doubt that Kim Jong Il and his generals are psychopaths and insane. Just the opposite, they are very clever guys. They are also desperate for money to maintain their life styles and power. More troubling is the propensity they have shown for criminality. I gave you the example of the North Korea ship loaded with heroin that was intercepted by Australian authorities. I also talked about counterfeit money. There are probably many other criminal acts that have been "hushed up." They have a very valuable commodity in these nuclear devices. Someone spent a huge amount of money to get their nuclear program to this point. Most troubling is that it might not have been them. That investor wants a return on his investment.

Let us assume that North Korea sold some war heads to a rouge state or group. Let us assume these weapons were smuggled into certain cities and detonated. If European cities were victims of attacks, they might not have the scientific resources in place to figure out where the bombs came from. They would have to rely on teams from the US. You also have only the UK and France that are nuclear armed. From the North Korean standpoint, there is a low probability of nuclear retaliation from Europe if some of their cities are attacked.

If US cities were attacked by weapons smuggled in, they face the scientific teams that eventually would figure out where the bombs came from. Then the US nuclear retaliation policy would come into play. You have some problems that come up. China might take the position that if North Korea is attacked with nuclear weapons they would retaliate with a nuclear attack. Even if China stood aside after seeing positive proof of the North Korean's involvement in a nuclear attack, any nuclear munitions delivered on North Korea would create radioactive fallout that would affect China and Russia. A nuclear retaliation might not be feasible. A conventional attack would involve massive casualties. Other countries might not have the stomach for such huge losses. The North Koreans know all of this. This makes them feel confident that they could survive after selling such weapons. In fact in the North Korean's leadership minds, they might feel that they could then extort huge sums of money from the rest of the world to stop other nuclear attacks.

Warwick I hope I am wrong. I just gave you the worst possible case.

with kindest regards,
-JackW

Debunking Myths About Nuclear Weapons and Terrorism
STRATFOR TODAY » May 29, 2009 | 1426 GMT

Thomas Starke/Getty Images
A warning placard on a container at a decommissioned nuclear facility
Summary
STRATFOR’s Geopolitical Intelligence Report on May 26 generated many questions and responses from our readers concerning various scenarios of nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation. We take a closer look at issues of terrorism, loose nukes, unstable and unpredictable world leaders and clandestine delivery in a follow up to our coverage of nuclear weapons in the 21st century.
Analysis
STRATFOR’s Geopolitical Intelligence Report that examined North Korea’s nuclear test elicited many questions from our readers regarding nuclear terrorism and the role that could be played by irrational world leaders in actually using such a weapon or device. STRATFOR examines these issues.
Terrorists and Apocalyptic-Minded Jihadists
Concerns about nuclear terrorism have been a reality since even before Sept. 11, 2001 — though a profound lack of situational awareness in the wake of those attacks spawned a deep concern about what plans al Qaeda might already have in motion for the weeks and months that followed.
In planning the 9/11 attacks, al Qaeda enjoyed financing that included patronage from Saudi royalty and — perhaps even more importantly — sanctuary from which to operate in Afghanistan. Hardened radicals, bent on re-establishing a Caliphate across the Muslim world, al Qaeda had time and resources to consider devoting to potential chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear (CBRN) programs. Their only success (they tinkered unsuccessfully with biological and chemical weapons) was in weaponizing hijacked civilian airliners.
Related Links
Nuclear Weapons: Devices and Deliverable Warheads
Nuclear Weapons: The Question of Relevance in the 21st Century
Nuclear Weapons: Terrorism and the Nonstate Actor
Presently, al Qaeda is a shadow of its former self, and empirical evidence in the years since 2001 has shown a steady erosion — especially after the July 2005 London Underground and March 2004 Madrid bombings — of the apex leadership’s capability to orchestrate global strikes. Al Qaeda’s remaining leadership is on the run and focused only on operations in the Middle East and South Asia. Al Qaeda “franchise” operations have undoubtedly sprung up around the world, but these are far less capable and far more localized than the pre-Sept. 11 al Qaeda phenomenon.
Though al Qaeda is only one example, it is important to note that the immense security, sanctuary, financial backing and time that al Qaeda had was insufficient to begin attempting to produce a crude nuclear device in any meaningful way — the furthest they got was attempting to procure nuclear materials that turned out to be fake, sold to them by con men. Even chemical and biological weapon pursuits (which were certainly explored and experimented with) were not seriously or successfully pursued, given the complexity and cost.
Efforts to clandestinely build a nuclear device require a coherent and consistent investment measuring in the billions (if not tens of billions) of dollars over a period likely spanning a decade or more. They require large, fixed, well-powered and vulnerable installations for a variety of aspects of the effort. These installations represent an enormous risk and opportunity cost for a terrorist organization. The international community closely monitors some of the equipment required, and they will concentrate an enormous investment of intellectual, financial and material resources into just the sort of target that the United States can bring air power to bear upon.
Though the history of the use of CBRN in terrorist attacks is limited, the fact of the matter is that most cases where groups have considered pursuing these capabilities have ultimately led to them being abandoned in favor of more obtainable and efficient tactics. They simply fall well short of the destruction wrought by simpler and more conventional explosive devices. Pound for pound, dollar for dollar and hour for hour of effort, high explosives are far more effective at inflicting massive casualties. The innovation of using hijacked civilian airliners as human-guided cruise missiles is far more in line with al Qaeda operational thinking than concepts of concentrating so much in easily targetable facilities for long periods of time. Doing so runs in the face of basic operational security considerations for any terrorist organization.
For further reading on STRATFOR’s perspective on the full spectrum of weapons of mass destruction, see the following analyses:
Biological Weapons
Chemical Weapons
Radiological Weapons and ‘Dirty Bombs’
Nuclear Weapons
Loose Nukes and Clandestine Acquisition
But what about acquiring a nuclear weapon that has already been built? The security of nuclear weapons is and has long been an important concern.
However, the effort involved in actually trying to steal a nuclear weapon would entail a significant dedication of resources and an immense intelligence effort beyond the reach of almost any terrorist organization. Indeed, the odds of a failure are high, no matter how careful and meticulous the planning. Some nuclear weapons facilities around the world are obviously not as hardened as others, but taken as a whole, they are some of the hardest targets on the planet, and the personnel better vetted than almost any other institution.
Even the lightest attempt to begin probing runs the risk of not only failing to acquire a bomb, but setting off a series of alarms and red flags that brings such an aggressive investigative and law enforcement/military response down on the terrorist organization that it could be completely wiped out before it ever attempted to target its true objectives (whatever they might be).
And even if one could be stolen or otherwise acquired, modern nuclear weapons have been designed to include a series of (highly classified) safety features. Though all nuclear weapons are not created equal, these range from permissive action links without which the device cannot be armed (a feature Pakistan is now thought to employ) to configurations that will actually render the fissile core(s) useless if improperly accessed. The security of nuclear weapons in Pakistan has long been something STRATFOR has kept a close eye on, and something we continue to monitor. The Hollywood scenario of a terrorist group stealing away with a nuclear device in the night and automatically being able to arm it at its convenience is not grounded in reality. Furthermore, the theft would be difficult to carry off without setting off the same alarms and red flags that would leave little opportunity for the device to be smuggled particularly far — much less half way around the world.
Nuclear weapons are complex devices that require considerable care and maintenance — especially the small, modern and easily transportable variety. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, fears arose of a series of Soviet suitcases containing sophisticated nuclear devices were somehow lost. These fears persisted into the 21st century, well after the fissile and radioisotope materials in the design would have decayed significantly enough to effect the performance of the weapon, in addition to the diminished functionality of its other components after being handled roughly over the years.
Irrational Actors
One of the questions that arose from our analysis of the North Korean situation was that it was governed by a reliance on rational actors. There was a concern that STRATFOR was too quick to assume that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il or Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could be considered rational.
Historically, every leader makes mistakes and missteps. Some are certifiable: Josef Stalin utterly refused to believe his advisers when they insisted that Nazi forces were poised to invade in 1941. Even after the invasion began, he refused to believe it until his most trusted advisers actually traveled to the front lines.
But despite Stalin’s ruthlessness when it came to cracking down on the population of the Soviet Union, he did not throw a nuclear weapon at the United States the moment he got one, even though many in the West feared that he might. Running a country as Stalin ran the Soviet Union for as long as he did requires a certain rationality, and most importantly, a personal nature that clings tenaciously to continued existence. Overseeing the defense of that country against the Nazi onslaught and then implementing an aggressive crash nuclear program takes coordination and focus.
No one can run a country by themselves. They require loyal and competent administrators. A certifiable and apocalyptic-minded leader is simply unlikely to rise so far — and is even less likely to command the respect and loyalty of those necessary to actually run the country for any length of time.
Kim Jong Il undoubtedly ranks very high among the world’s most idiosyncratic world leaders. But he has deftly transferred and consolidated control over a country that was run by a single individual, his father, for nearly 50 years. By balancing various groups and interests, he has both maintained internal control and loyalty and kept the attention of some of the world’s most powerful countries focused on North Korea for more than 15 years. Indeed, he has overseen the allocation of resources necessary to build both crude intercontinental ballistic missiles and crude nuclear devices while faced with crushing international sanctions. This is the track record of a competent (if annoying) leader, not a crazy one.
If Kim was merely suicidal, he has had the artillery, artillery rockets and short-range ballistic missiles at hand to destroy Seoul and invite a new Korean War since before his father died — a choice that would be far quicker, cheaper and even more complete than the prototype nuclear devices that North Korea has so far demonstrated. Rather, his actions have consistently shown that his foremost goal has been the survival of his regime. Indeed, he has actually curtailed much of the more aggressive activity that occurred during his father’s reign, such as attempting to assassinate South Korea’s president.
While Kim’s actions may seem unstable (and, indeed, they are designed to seem that way in order to induce an element of uncertainty at the negotiating table), Pyongyang regularly uses ballistic missile tests and even its nuclear tests as part of a larger strategy to not only keep itself relevant, but to ensure regime survival.
As for Ahmadinejad and his fiery rhetoric denying the Holocaust, calling for the destruction of Israel and defying the United States, he has not lost steam in recent months before the country’s next presidential election in June. This rhetoric has a role. Not only is it populist, and intended for domestic consumption, but it is also a strategy, similar to North Korea’s, to cultivate perceptions and influence behaviors by making Tehran appear crazy and unpredictable. Regardless, even if he is reelected, the true power in the country is the clerical leadership, not the country’s highly-visible president. Although the executive in Iran does indeed wield considerable power, the complexity of the Iranian political system allows for several layers of oversight.
Furthermore, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — the true leader in Tehran — has consistently relied upon consensus when it comes to policy- and decision-making. Under his direction and authority, the various institutions — the executive, Parliament, the Expediency Council, the Supreme National Security Council, the Assembly of Experts, the Guardians Council, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and others all have a say in the final policy on a given matter. Though there are extremist elements within some of these institutions (such as the IRGC), Tehran’s senior leadership has consistently demonstrated itself to be far more rational than Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric suggests. In short, even if Iran did have nuclear weapons, it would not be Ahmadinejad — or any potentially like-minded successor — with his finger on the proverbial button.
Furthermore, any fears associated with Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons must be balanced against the policies of Israel, which is not known for its subtlety or half measures. The Israelis deploy a fully functional nuclear triad, and have a variety of survivable means for delivering a decisive retaliatory blow against Tehran if nuclear weapons were ever used against them. This is not doubted by anyone in Tehran.
Truly crazy and suicidal leaders have a difficult time becoming leaders of a country even capable of considering trying to developing a nuclear weapon, much less being able to see the process through to the end over the course of a decade. But the leader of a country has worked to get to that position. They may have taken risks, but they were generally calculated and they want to enjoy the fruits of that labor. The consequences for miscalculating with nuclear weapons is annihilation — not only for themselves, their family and the power base that they have toiled to build, but for the entire society.
Nuclear Weapons and Proxies
Another concern is that North Korea, Iran or Pakistan might hand off a nuclear weapon to a non-state actor or proxy of some sort — one that would detonate it at a mutually-agreeable target as soon as possible. Subsets of this same issue are whether one of these countries might not use a shipping container or some other clandestine means to carry out an attack on the United States or another target — the deniable use of nuclear weapons.
Three factors must be considered when addressing the above concern. The first is an issue of trust and control. Non-state, militant proxies like Hezbollah rely on patrons like Iran for support and training. But they have their own interests as well — and they hold those close. Despite its own rhetoric about Israel, for example, Hezbollah’s senior leadership often owns property in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon, and has grown wealthy off the proceeds. They are no more interested in seeing their livelihood and retirement destroyed in the Israeli retaliation than Tehran. This older generation does not have complete control over the organization (nor is it a monolithic, unified entity), and there is certainly no shortage of young, ideologically motivated militants in Lebanon.
But that assumes Tehran would ever hand over a nuke to Hezbollah in the first place. Proxies must be kept dependent, otherwise they cease to be proxies. They do not share some deep bond of trust. Though there may be some shared ideological affinities (like their hatred of all things Israeli), they attempt to maintain control over their proxies. Handing over even a crude nuclear device is anathema to that relationship and would destroy the dynamics by which the country enforces its will as a patron. It would have provided an organization that it can never fully trust with the one true guarantor of sovereignty.
Second, the nuclear device is the product of an immense, expensive national effort. Each individual weapon or device — especially early on — represents an enormous investment of national resources. By handing one over to an outside group, the country not only has no assurance of it being employed in the way they want, but opens itself to the prospect of that immense investment being wasted or misused. Because a meaningful nuclear deterrent rests on not one weapon, but many, the incentive will be for the country to consolidate its stockpile and deploy it to multiple locations that it has strong control over in order to work towards establishing that deterrent.
Finally, there is the issue of risk. A nuclear weapon used in a terrorist attack — not just against the United States or Israel, but anywhere in the world — will be followed by the most intense, broad and meticulous investigation in human history. The idea that because a bomb was involved in a terrorist attack that the fissile material that made it possible will not be traced ruthlessly to its source simply does not hold water. The necessary investigative processes are not only possible and well understood, but work to improve and further refine them has only intensified and received additional funding after 9/11. Indeed, a country providing a nuclear weapon to a non-state group could not have even reasonable assurances that it would not come back to haunt them, either through investigation or interrogation of those that carried out the attack.
Far from being able to carry out a nuclear strike clandestinely or deniably, Tehran would be opening itself up to responsibility and accountability for Hezbollah’s actions. Again, the material will almost certainly be traced back to Tehran. And it would be Tehran that suffered the consequences.
Indeed, the closest Pyongyang has come to this is an attempt to share some civilian technology with Syria — its trial run with the idea of low-level proliferation of some civilian (though inherently dual-use) precursor technologies. It quickly decided that the entire idea was too risky and sold Syria out to Israel and the United States, resulting in Israeli airstrikes in Western Syria in 2007. So while the concern about technology sharing is real (and validated by the now infamous network of A.Q. Khan), there are also limitations to how much one country is willing to risk for another. The Israeli bombing and North Korea’s betrayal of Syria will not be soon forgotten.
And if countries like Syria and North Korea cannot trust each other when it comes to such high stakes, the idea that a country would be willing to trust a non-state actor is even more problematic.
Ultimately, such doomsday scenarios cannot ever be completely ruled out, and continual, ever-improving efforts to further secure global nuclear stockpiles and vigilance over them are certainly warranted from a security standpoint. But man has controlled nuclear weapons for more than half a century, and we do not see the latest nuclear crisis playing out any differently than every other nuclear crisis that has come before it. Furthermore, STRATFOR does not subscribe to the idea that countries build nuclear weapons in order to use them immediately, thereby triggering nuclear war, or freely hand them off to non-state actors that would.

Further On North Korea--The World's Nuclear War Head Boutique

Dear Warwick:

This is a great article full of truisms. However what is not mentioned is the criminality of the North Korean regime including smuggling boat loads of heroin, counterfeit currency, etc. You can use Google to find a lot of information. They are desperate for money.

There is an excellent book by Dr. Robert Zubrin called Energy Victory. Its main thrust is a plan to make the US energy independent in 10 years based on what the Brasilians did. What I really liked about the book was several chapters on radical Muslims and how they use petro dollars. Please buy the book on download just to read those chapters.

We all know in economics that if the money is there, the need will be met. There is a lot of jihadist money out there to buy a nuclear weapon. The people in charge in North Korea might sell some war heads to some of these well-funded people. This is not a great subject for a novel or a remote possibility. Based on the past criminal activities of this regime, it is a real possibility. The people in power in North Korea might believe that such a weapon could not be traced back to them. They might further reason that even if the weapon was traced back to them, the Chinese would protect them from nuclear retaliation.

The supreme irony would be that people in the US, Europe, etc. who buy all of this oil from the Middle East might find their oil purchase money used to buy nuclear war heads that destroy their own cities.

A Strategic Report On North Korea:

North Korea conducted a nuclear test on Monday, a little more than two and a half years after its first such test in October 2006. Since the early 1990s, North Korea has been engaged in a public balancing act between nuclear development and negotiations with the international community — particularly the United States. One of the key factors driving the North’s nuclear program is its own insecurity when faced with the United States’ full might. At its core, the nuclear program is about regime survival — not only now, but into the future.

Pyongyang’s focus on a nuclear program is rooted in its history. The Korean War showed North Korea how quickly the U.S. military could reverse a situation, pushing the North’s forces from their nearly complete conquering of the Korean Peninsula back up to the Yalu River line in a matter of weeks. But even before the vast difference in military capability between North Korea and the United States was reinforced by that war, North Korea, the united Korea before it and even the earlier Korean kingdoms occupied a rather insecure geographical position in Asia.

The Korean Peninsula traditionally has been an invasion route and contested territory between the two regional competitors, China and Japan. It has developed a limited repertoire of tactics to deal with this unchosen geographic position: It can attempt isolation (the so-called “Hermit Kingdom”); play regional competitors against one another (a similar strategy was employed, ultimately to failure, as Korea sought to avoid the push of colonialism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries); or find a third-party sponsor to provide protection from its neighbors (for example, as the United States provided protection for South Korea in the second half of the 20th century).

North Korea has employed varieties of these tactics — from playing the Russians and Chinese off one another during the Cold War (and exploiting both powers� fears of a U.S. occupation of the entire peninsula) to developing a fortress mentality, closing itself off to outside ideas and influence. Even North Korea’s nuclear program, in some ways, has been used at times to draw U.S. attention and maintain U.S. involvement in part to ensure the peninsula doesn’t end up once again stuck between an aggressive China and expansionist Japan.

But the nuclear program, as it developed, also was a manifestation of North Korea’s “Juche” self-reliance philosophy — a philosophy born from centuries of having to rely on others and almost always being sorely disappointed in the end. By developing a nuclear capability, even if in the early stages, North Korea is moving closer to a point where neither its neighbors nor the United States have many options for threatening it without facing a deadly response.

For decades, Pyongyang maintained a massive conventional military, replete with short- and medium-range missiles, rockets and artillery aimed at the nearby South Korean capital, Seoul, as a deterrent to any military action against the North. But this was not seen as a sufficient deterrent to the United States — which continued to carry out military operations around the world against seemingly powerful regimes that ultimately were unable to respond in a manner that truly threatened Washington or even made it think twice. Pyongyang could not be sure that Washington would always consider Seoul as the deciding factor, its threats to turn the city into a “sea of fire” notwithstanding.

Pyongyang’s nuclear and long-range missile programs, then, were part of an effort to demonstrate that North Korea would be able to respond to the United States or other distant aggressors. Initially, Pyongyang was willing to trade away its developing capability in return for more concrete assurances from Washington (whether through a formal peace accord or normalized relations) that Pyongyang would not end up in the U.S. military’s gun sights. But Pyongyang quickly found that its conventional deterrent, coupled with the very different views found among its neighbors and the United States (Beijing rarely agreed to the most stringent sanctions, Seoul was often conflicted about risking destabilizing the North, and Japan opposed concessions), meant that it could escalate a threat, then partly back down in exchange for an economic or political reward — all without really halting its nuclear and missile progress.

The 2006 nuclear test, part of a concerted effort to draw the United States back to the bargaining table, triggered a perhaps surprisingly soft response. In essence, the United States and others gave Pyongyang a sound talking to, and then returned to negotiations. This convinced some among the North Korean elite, particularly in the military, that not only would North Korea never have to give up its nuclear deterrent, but it also could accelerate development with little risk of backlash. This thinking came to the fore again after Kim Jong Il suffered a stroke in 2008, without a clear line of succession. The situation set off intensified maneuvering in Pyongyang as various factions — including the military — sought to take advantage and gain strength.

North Korea’s attempted satellite launch last month and the nuclear test on Monday are both as much about demonstrating Kim Jong Il’s continued strength at home as they are about warning the world (and particularly the United States) not to mess with Pyongyang while the reorganization of top leaders is under way. But it is also an attempt by Pyongyang to show the world that North Korea is both willing to follow through on its threats and not afraid of the consequences (perhaps because it has seen how ineffectual the “consequences” of past actions were).

In essence, North Korea is saying that it does not need to rely on anyone else — that is has found another way to ensure the security of the Korean Peninsula from its neighbors, without relying on outside exploitation. This is, of course, not entirely true: North Korea remains heavily dependent upon China for energy, food and cash, and has grown used to periodic food and fuel aid handouts from the international community, South Korea and the United States.

But to summarize the North Korean behavior as mere attempts to attract U.S. attention or to bargain fails to take into consideration the deep-rooted insecurities of North Korea and its predecessor states on the Korean Peninsula. What the “shrimp between two whales” is trying to do is find a way to avoid being crushed or eaten. It may not fit exactly with international norms, but it has worked for Pyongyang so far.

North Korea Threatens Armed Strike, End to Armistice (Update1)
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By Heejin Koo

May 27 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea threatened a military response to South Korean participation in a U.S.-led program to seize weapons of mass destruction, and said it will no longer abide by the1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.

“The Korean People’s Army will not be bound to the Armistice Agreement any longer,” the official Korean Central News Agency said in a statement today. Any attempt to inspect North Korean vessels will be countered with “prompt and strong military strikes.” South Korea’s military said it will “deal sternly with any provocation” from the North.

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak ordered his government to take “calm” measures on the threats, his office said in a statement today. Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary, Takeo Kawamura, echoed those remarks and called on North Korea to “refrain from taking actions that would elevate tensions in Asia.”

The threats are the strongest since North Korea tested a nuclear weapon on May 25, drawing international condemnation and the prospect of increased sanctions against the communist nation. South Korea dispatched a warship to its maritime border and is prepared to deploy aircraft, Yonhap News reported, citing military officials it didn’t identify.

“This rapid-fire provocation indicates a more aggressive shift in the Kim Jong Ilregime,” said Ryoo Kihl Jae, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. “Kim is obviously using a strategy of maximum force.”

Markets Fall

South Korea’s benchmark Kospi stock index fell for a fifth day, the longest losing streak since February. The index declined 0.7 percent to 1,362.02. The won weakened 0.5 percent to 1,269.35 per dollar as of the 3 p.m. close of trade in Seoul.

The yield on government debt due in March 2014 rose six basis points to 4.58 percent, while the three-year yield added five basis points to 3.79 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News.

North Korea can’t guarantee the safety of ships passing through its western waters, KCNA said. The statement specified five islands controlled by the South that were the site of naval skirmishes in 1999 and 2002.

“What they are saying is that they will take military action if there is any action taken on behalf of the program such as boarding their ships, stopping and searching and so on,” said Han Sung Joo, a former South Korean foreign minister.

‘Deal Sternly’

South Korea’s military “will deal sternly with any provocation by North Korea, based on a strong South Korea-U.S. defense coalition,” Rear Admiral Lee Ki Sik of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in an e-mailed statement. North Korea was making “obstinate claims” about nullifying the armistice, he said.

The U.S. has about 28,500 troops stationed in South Korea, according to theUnited States Forces Korea Web site.

South Korea yesterday agreed to join the Proliferation Security Initiative, or PSI, set up to locate and seize shipments of equipment and materials used to make weapons of mass destruction.

President Lee had resisted joining the PSI until the nuclear test, even after North Korea fired a ballistic missile on April 5. His predecessor, Roh Moo Hyun, had said that joining the initiative would be too provocative.

North Korea has also fired five short-range missiles in two days in a further display of military defiance. The United Nations Security Council agreed in an emergency session on May 25 to condemn the nuclear test and missile launches.

‘Cessation’ of Hostilities

Under the July 27, 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War, both sides agreed to “a complete cessation of all hostilities” and pledged to accept the demarcation line that has become the world’s most-heavily mined demilitarized zone.

North Korea may be preparing to reprocess spent fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear reactor, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported earlier today, citing an unidentified South Korean official. Steam has been rising from the facilities, the newspaper said.

Kim is 68 according to research groups including the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute, while the regime says he is a year younger. He likely suffered a stroke last August, according to U.S. intelligence officials, and disappeared from public view before presiding over a parliamentary session in April, when he looked gaunt and aged.

To contact the reporters on this story: Heejin Koo in Seoul at

North orea--The World's Nuclear War Head Boutique

I got the sad news on Saturday that North Korea had detonated a nuclear devise underground. It was rated as a nuclear weapon equal in destructive power to the 20 kiloton bomb that destroyed Hiroshima on August 6,1945.

Such a nuclear weapon is not cheap or easy to build. One has to ask the question as follows:

"How does a bankrupt state with people living in starvation and without even the money to pay to keep the electricity going, get the money and technology to build such a weapon?"

Conventional wisdom is that Pakistan was supplying them with the technology in the past. Since the infamous Khan network was allegedly disbanded and the leading nuclear physicist placed under house arrest, that source of money and technology has appeared to have dried up. Or has it?

Iran is always another suspect. Why do they need North Korea if they are developing their own nuclear weapons?

A lot of people take comfort in the fact that the North Korean regime is a group of low-level delinquents putting on a show. All that is needed is a big enough payoff to calm down the broke regime. President George Bush tried that for a while. He had some good progress with the nuclear weapons program being stopped and even reactors shut down. When the US failed to keep up the payments and take North Korea off the list of states sponsoring terrorism, the agreement collapsed and we have this new show of their prowess with manufacturing nuclear weapons.

Let us "think out of the box" and consider another far more sinister scenario. Iran recently fired off a rocket with a 1200 mile range. This sent shutters through out the world and even caused the gold price to go up. In the old days of Nazi Germany and the Cold War, weapons were delivered with rockets, No more. The minute you fire a rocket into the atmosphere, satellites all over the world see where it is coming from and where it is going. It would be relatively easy to perhaps shoot the rocket down or to fire a retaliatory strike.

In the future if some rogue state or terrorist group decides to detonate a nuclear weapon on a city or other target of high strategic value, you will see the scenario that Tom Clancy put forth in his 1992 book The Sum of All Their Fears. In this book terrorist smuggle a small tactical nuclear warhead into the US and detonate it in Denver during the Super Bowl. The results were 200,000 casualties.

Dr. Robert Zubrin wrote an excellent book called Energy Victory. The main theme of the book was a plan to make the US energy independent based upon the model that worked well in Brasil. Dr. Zubrin devotes several chapers of this excellent book to terrorist groups and rich oil interests in the Middle East who are supported by oil money. This is our first clue.

Our second clue comes from a grudging admission made sometime ago by the US government. They admitted that 22 teams of highly-specialized scientists are on standby all over the US. If a nuclear weapon is detonated in the US or in an allied country, a team would be dispatched. Their primary job would be nuclear forensic work. The goal of this exercise would be to determine where the nuclear weapon came from so retaliation could be carried all. All of this is administered through the US Department of Energy. The career civil servant in charge of preventing nuclear terrorism admits that he does not sleep well at night. To spend this much money and devote this many personnel to such a project, it would appear that the US government considers such an attack inevitable.

Where is all of this leading? Quite simply, someone put up the capital to turn North Korea into a factory for nuclear war heads. As long as the US was "paying off" it was easy to take the money and avoid the risk of nuclear anihalation if one of their bombs was used against a city, for example.

Now the North Koreans see that they can make unlimited sums of money by making nuclear weapons for other clients around the world who would pay huge sums of money for such a weapon. They think that their old ally China will protect them from nuclear retaliation, even if one of their weapons is used. They are blinded by greed and making a fatal miscalculation. Sadly millions of people could suffer and die because of this amoral state.