North Korea Vows Nuclear Test and Threatens U.S.
While I understand why a nation such as North Korea would want to acquire nuclear weapons, I can't help but think this isn't a good idea on their part. Most of the time they seem more bark than bite, but nonetheless, they do have nukes now. "Targeting" the US just doesn't strike me as sensible. Sure, we know the Norks hate the Yanks, technically they're still at war and are just "enjoying" a 50+ year ceasefire, and so on... but I'm pretty sure the reaction to an actual nuke hitting part of the US will make the reaction to 9/11 look a bit like a wet match.SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea vowed on Thursday to launch more long-range rockets and conduct its third nuclear test, saying that it would build a capability to strike the United States in the wake of the United Nations Security Council’s tightened sanctions against the country.
The North’s threat marked the boldest challenge its new, untested leader, Kim Jong-un, has posed at both his country’s longtime foe, the United States, and its last remaining major ally, China, and rattled governments in Northeast Asia that are undergoing sensitive transitions of power.
In a statement issued through state-run media, the National Defense Commission, the North’s highest governing agency, headed by Mr. Kim, said that “a variety of satellites and long-range rockets which will be launched by the D.P.R.K. one after another and a nuclear test of higher level which will be carried out by it” will be “targeted” at “the U.S., the sworn enemy of the Korean people.”
The statement, which used the acronym for the North’s official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, did not clarify when it would conduct such a test, which would be the first since Mr. Kim came to power following the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, in December 2011.
But citing preparations at the Punggye test site in northeastern North Korea, Army Col. Wi Yong-seob, deputy spokesman of the Defense Ministry of South Korea, said on Thursday, “North Korea can conduct a nuclear test as soon as its leadership makes up its mind.”
North Korea had previously hinted at the possibility of conducting a nuclear test, as its Foreign Ministry did on Wednesday when it issued a scathing statement rejecting a unanimous resolution that the Security Council adopted on Tuesday. The resolution tightened sanctions and condemned North Korea’s Dec. 12 rocket launching as a violation of earlier resolutions that banned the country from conducting any tests involving ballistic missile technology.
North Korea has since declared that it would shun any talk on denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, adding that it would not give up its nuclear weapons until “the denuclearization of the world is realized.”
The North’s statement on Thursday indicated that Mr. Kim, despite recent hints of economic reform and openness in North Korea, was likely to follow the pattern his father, Kim Jong il, had established when he ran the country: a cycle of a rocket launching, U.N. condemnation and nuclear test.
“It’s a major test for Kim Jong-un,” said Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea specialist at Dongguk University in Seoul. “Unlike the rocket launching in December, which the North has said was conducted because it was his father’s dying wish, a nuclear test will be Kim Jong-un’s decision, one for which he will be held responsible.”
By a “nuclear test of higher level,” North Korea most likely meant that it was seeking the technology of building nuclear warheads small enough to mount on long-range missiles, analysts here said. They said that North Korea could detonate a uranium bomb this time to demonstrate its ability to produce weapons-grade uranium. The North’s twp previous nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009, used some of its limited stockpile of plutonium.
A nuclear test would compel both Washington and Seoul to take a tough stance, dispelling hopes that Mr. Kim might use the inaugurations of new government in Washington and Seoul to open a new path of engagement.
Glyn Davies, Washington’s special envoy on North Korea, warned on Thursday that a nuclear test would be “a mistake and a missed opportunity” for North Korea.
“This is not a moment to increase tensions on the Korean Peninsula,” said Mr. Davies, who was visiting Seoul to coordinate the North Korea policies of President Barack Obama’s second-term administration and the incoming government of President-elect Park Geun-hye in Seoul. From Seoul, Mr. Davies will move on to Beijing and then to Tokyo to continue policy consultations with the new governments there.
President Lee Myung-bak, who will hand over the South Korean presidency to Ms. Park next month, said on Thursday that his “biggest worry” was that North Korea might launch a military provocation in time with the changes of hands in government in Seoul.
On Thursday, the North expressed bitterness at China and Russia’s endorsement of the U.N. resolution, denouncing “those big countries” for “ failing to come to their senses.” It said that North Korea’s drive to rebuild its moribund economy and its rocket program, until now billed as a peaceful space project, will now “all orientate toward the purpose of winning in the all-out action for foiling the U.S. and all other hostile forces’ maneuvers.”
“They are making a brigandish assertion that what they launched were satellites but what other country launched was a long-range missile,” the statement said, insisting that North Korea had a sovereign right to test rockets.
Moon Soon-bo, an analyst at the private Sejong Institute, said North Korea’s harsh reaction reflected the pain the isolated regime felt by the new resolution, which expanded the number of ways that countries can interdict and inspect cargo bound for the North.
North Korea said Unha-3 rocket it launched in December put a scientific satellite into orbit. But Washington said the launching was a cover for testing technology for intercontinental ballistic missiles. After analyzing the debris of the rocket North Korea fired in December to put a satellite into orbit, South Korean officials said North Korea indigenously built crucial components of a missile that can fly more than 6,200 miles.
Analysts speculated on Thursday that North Korea might test-launch one of its KN-08 missiles. KN-08, first unveiled during a military parade in Pyongyang in April last year, is the North’s biggest missile deployed yet but has never been flight-tested, according to Seoul officials.
Of course, while having their usual hate week against the Great Enemy they might, in fact, target closer adversaries. Or just make test demonstrations. Launch more junk into orbit. This isn't actual hot war we're talking about at this point. Even so, the North Koreans do seem to be building the capability to directly strike the US.
Thoughts on this?
That Americans (even apparently intelligent ones) actually fear this is ... It's crazy.
