[North Korea] The Dear Loser comes into his own.

[Max Peck]

Nah, probably just a plain old fission bomb...

North Korea nuclear H-bomb claims met by scepticism

International scepticism and condemnation have greeted North Korea's claim to have successfully carried out an underground hydrogen bomb test. If confirmed, it would be North Korea's fourth nuclear test since 2006 and mark a major upgrade in its capabilities. But nuclear experts have questioned whether the size of the blast was large enough to have been from an H-bomb. South Korea called the test a "grave provocation" but said it was difficult to believe it was from such a device.

Hydrogen bombs are more powerful and technologically advanced than atomic weapons, using fusion - the merging of atoms - to unleash massive amounts of energy. Atomic bombs, like the kind that devastated two Japanese cities in World War II, use fission, or the splitting of atoms.

Bruce Bennett, an analyst with the Rand Corporation, was among those casting doubts on Pyongyang's test: "The bang they should have gotten would have been 10 times greater than what they're claiming. "So Kim Jong-un is either lying, saying they did a hydrogen test when they didn't, they just used a little bit more efficient fission weapon - or the hydrogen part of the test really didn't work very well or the fission part didn't work very well." The data "doesn't support suggestions that the bomb was a hydrogen bomb", Chinese military expert Du Wenlong told state broadcaster CCTV. A South Korean politician, Lee Cheol-woo, said he was briefed by the country's intelligence agency that the blast "probably falls short" of a hydrogen detonation. But former British ambassador in Pyongyang John Everard warned "an explosion of that size is quite enough to wipe out a city and I think that, of course, is deeply worrying". South Korean President Park Geun-hye, said further analysis was needed to determine the nature of the test, while calling it "a strong challenge to international peace and stability".

[Rip]

Am I the only one that sees stories like this and sheds a tear in mourning the death of the DPRK twitter farce? That was some good stuff!

[LawBeefaroni]

Nah, probably just a plain old fission bomb...

North Korea nuclear H-bomb claims met by scepticism

"So Kim Jong-un is either lying, saying they did a hydrogen test when they didn't, they just used a little bit more efficient fission weapon - or the hydrogen part of the test really didn't work very well or the fission part didn't work very well."

I'm going to guess that he's not lying. He certainly believes that they successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb. Whether they actually did is another story, but when he says he wants an H-bomb, you give him what he thinks is an H-bomb. Like he can tell the difference anyway. "Big loud boom, I am a deity, we got H-bomb!"

[PLW]

Am I the only one that sees stories like this and sheds a tear in mourning the death of the DPRK twitter farce? That was some good stuff!

Ohh it's back. Patrick caught some WSJ reporter in his net just yesterday.

[AWS260]

Am I the only one that sees stories like this and sheds a tear in mourning the death of the DPRK twitter farce? That was some good stuff!

Ohh it's back. Patrick caught some WSJ reporter in his net just yesterday.

Fantastic!

[Sepiche]

I'm going to guess that he's not lying. He certainly believes that they successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb. Whether they actually did is another story, but when he says he wants an H-bomb, you give him what he thinks is an H-bomb. Like he can tell the difference anyway. "Big loud boom, I am a deity, we got H-bomb!"

Yeah, I heard one expert today saying it wouldn't be impossible given how North Korea's research is run that the higher ups were told this was a H-Bomb, but it wasn't actually.

[Rip]

Am I the only one that sees stories like this and sheds a tear in mourning the death of the DPRK twitter farce? That was some good stuff!

Ohh it's back. Patrick caught some WSJ reporter in his net just yesterday.

So shutting it down was a swerve of its own? Brilliant!

[xwraith]

I'm going to guess that he's not lying. He certainly believes that they successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb. Whether they actually did is another story, but when he says he wants an H-bomb, you give him what he thinks is an H-bomb. Like he can tell the difference anyway. "Big loud boom, I am a deity, we got H-bomb!"

Yeah, I heard one expert today saying it wouldn't be impossible given how North Korea's research is run that the higher ups were told this was a H-Bomb, but it wasn't actually.

My guess is that the bomb is more of Sakharov's Layer Cake vs a Teller-Ulam device.

[Unagi]

I'm going to guess that he's not lying. He certainly believes that they successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb. Whether they actually did is another story, but when he says he wants an H-bomb, you give him what he thinks is an H-bomb. Like he can tell the difference anyway. "Big loud boom, I am a deity, we got H-bomb!"

Yeah, I heard one expert today saying it wouldn't be impossible given how North Korea's research is run that the higher ups were told this was a H-Bomb, but it wasn't actually.

When he starts to hear (I assume he doesn't keep himself off the internet) the international community talking about how he was only tricked into thinking it was an H-Bomb, he may feel like killing off some of these guys that lied to him.

And, it strikes me that this could be, in part, part of the point of the western world's comments on the bomb not being quite "H-Bomb" intensity. So, even if it WAS, it could result in NK killing off some of it's nuclear scientists.

Just had me thinking...

[El Guapo]

I'm going to guess that he's not lying. He certainly believes that they successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb. Whether they actually did is another story, but when he says he wants an H-bomb, you give him what he thinks is an H-bomb. Like he can tell the difference anyway. "Big loud boom, I am a deity, we got H-bomb!"

Yeah, I heard one expert today saying it wouldn't be impossible given how North Korea's research is run that the higher ups were told this was a H-Bomb, but it wasn't actually.

When he starts to hear (I assume he doesn't keep himself off the internet) the international community talking about how he was only tricked into thinking it was an H-Bomb, he may feel like killing off some of these guys that lied to him.

And, it strikes me that this could be, in part, part of the point of the western world's comments on the bomb not being quite "H-Bomb" intensity. So, even if it WAS, it could result in NK killing off some of it's nuclear scientists.

Just had me thinking...

Somewhere in Pyongyang, someone is practicing "No, it was totally an H-bomb. The international community is lying to you" in the mirror over and over and over again.

[LawBeefaroni]

I'm going to guess that he's not lying. He certainly believes that they successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb. Whether they actually did is another story, but when he says he wants an H-bomb, you give him what he thinks is an H-bomb. Like he can tell the difference anyway. "Big loud boom, I am a deity, we got H-bomb!"

Yeah, I heard one expert today saying it wouldn't be impossible given how North Korea's research is run that the higher ups were told this was a H-Bomb, but it wasn't actually.

When he starts to hear (I assume he doesn't keep himself off the internet) the international community talking about how he was only tricked into thinking it was an H-Bomb, he may feel like killing off some of these guys that lied to him.

And, it strikes me that this could be, in part, part of the point of the western world's comments on the bomb not being quite "H-Bomb" intensity. So, even if it WAS, it could result in NK killing off some of it's nuclear scientists.

Just had me thinking...

It seems like it would be difficult to get all those western analysts to lie in unison. And quash the data. Certainly less likely than NK successfully detonating a hydrogen bomb.

[Rip]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33D3NOl0-ag

Congrats NK!

High Five!!!!!!!

[Montag]

The power of the fusion bomb is the subsequent fission afterwords. Initial fission gets the temperatures and pressures needed to start fusion. The fusion creates enough energy / neutrons to cause natural uranium or U-238 in a shell / tamper to be able to fission where they could not sustain a chain reaction normally. The DU or U-238 is boosted to a high yield. If DPRK didn't go for this boost, it could still be a low yield H-bomb.

[GreenGoo]

The power of the fusion bomb is the subsequent fission afterwords. Initial fission gets the temperatures and pressures needed to start fusion. The fusion creates enough energy / neutrons to cause natural uranium or U-238 in a shell / tamper to be able to fission where they could not sustain a chain reaction normally. The DU or U-238 is boosted to a high yield. If DPRK didn't go for this boost, it could still be a low yield H-bomb.

I did a fair amount of reading after xwraith's comments about the type of bomb it might have been, and it seems extremely unlikely to be a hydrogen bomb given that it's energy output is so close to previous tests they've accomplished. Even low yield H bombs tend to be an order of magnitude greater than regular fission bombs.

While it's possible to make low yield H bombs, they still are usually in the megaton range.

You're right that a typical modern H bomb starts with fission which pressures a central core into fusion and then kicks off more fission on the outer layer (making it extremely dirty, apparently) but even just a fission/fusion bomb is a large jump in energy when compared to a fission only bomb.

I'm not saying it's not possible in this case, but it seems unlikely.

I am in no way an expert on this subject, I've just spent some time reading.

[The Meal]

South Korea is escalating. With K-pop. A move so strong it's only been used once before in the past decade.

[Max Peck]

Why even a failed test makes North Korea’s nuclear arsenal scarier

But was this an H-bomb? And if so, does it really matter?

Hydrogen bombs were nicknamed after the heavy isotopes of hydrogen that are used as fuel in the fusion reaction — deuterium and tritium. Unlike fission, an enormous amount of energy is needed to initiate the fusion of atoms. Consequently, weapons designers came up with a two-stage design that uses a smaller fission bomb basically as a spark plug for the fusion fuel. It’s actually the X-rays from the primary that result in the compression of the fusion fuel (radiation implosion) in the secondary. Whereas fission weapons yield explosions in the hundreds of kilotons, thermonuclear warheads can have much higher explosive impact because they are limited only by the amount of fusion fuel. Add stages and you can design a bomb, like the Soviets did, at 100 megatons – almost unimaginably more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. They don’t have to be large – in fact the U.S. stockpile currently has a warhead (B-83) whose yield can be dialed down into the low kiloton range or maxed out at 1.2 megatons. But to design a thermonuclear warhead in the kiloton range takes a lot of experience, which the North Koreans don’t yet have.

It’s no wonder that experts doubt Kim’s claims. But it’s hard to tell. Seismic readings help with an estimation of the yield of nuclear weapon tests, but little else. In this case, a seismic event equivalent to 5.1 on the Richter scale indicates a test of between 10 and 20 kilotons. North Korea might have tested another fission device or a fusion-boosted fission device. The latter does trigger a fusion reaction within heavy hydrogen isotopes (deuterium and tritium) so Kim wouldn’t be entirely wrong to call it a hydrogen bomb, but the point of the design t is to make the fission reaction more efficient. This would be a bad development since it would help North Korea lighten its warheads to extend the range of its ICBMs.

[GreenGoo]

Why even a failed test makes North Korea’s nuclear arsenal scarier

They don’t have to be large – in fact the U.S. stockpile currently has a warhead (B-83) whose yield can be dialed down into the low kiloton range or maxed out at 1.2 megatons. But to design a thermonuclear warhead in the kiloton range takes a lot of experience, which the North Koreans don’t yet have.

This is what I read as well. Imagine 1980's cellphones. Sure we have tiny phones today, and they operate pretty much the same as the ginormous phones from the 80's, but cellphones didn't start the size of a credit card for a reason, and the same goes for H bombs. From what I read, it is extremely unlikely that NK could jump from the simpler fission bombs they've successfully tested previously to an H bomb just slightly bigger than their previous fission bombs.

It takes a large amount of expertise, both in technical knowledge and experience, to make a "small" H bomb and NK just isn't there yet.

edit: I'm not ignoring the rest of the article, I just didn't have any comments for it.

[Max Peck]

Virtually everything I've been reading indicates that the yield was too small for it to be a full thermonuclear device, but nobody seems to be completely ruling out a fusion-boosted fission detonation (which could be described as an "H-bomb" with a certain degree of truthiness). If that is the case, the test is still bad news since it would mean they have made progress in reducing the physical size of a warhead, which is one of the necessary milestones they need to achieve if they want to be able to use nuclear-armed missiles. The problem, of course, is that with just the seismic data to go on, it's a lot easier to determine the yield than the actual design of the device.

[GreenGoo]

The problem, of course, is that with just the seismic data to go on, it's a lot easier to determine the yield than the actual design of the device.

Right, but with multiple development histories to go on (the Americans and the Russians, I didn't read up on how the UK got theirs), the "steps" involved in getting to a true H bomb seems to imply that they would be skipping a few in order to be there yet (or even at the fusion boosted stage).

I have no opinion on this myself, only what I've read (which has been a fascinating trip down history lane, including a piece on Oppenheimer and McCarthyism).

[Max Peck]

The problem, of course, is that with just the seismic data to go on, it's a lot easier to determine the yield than the actual design of the device.

Right, but with multiple development histories to go on (the Americans and the Russians, I didn't read up on how the UK got theirs), the "steps" involved in getting to a true H bomb seems to imply that they would be skipping a few in order to be there yet (or even at the fusion boosted stage).

I have no opinion on this myself, only what I've read (which has been a fascinating trip down history lane, including a piece on Oppenheimer and McCarthyism).

You do realize that we're going back and forth agreeing with each other, right?

Again, the commentary I'm seeing is virtually unanimous in saying that it is not feasible for this to have been a true thermonuclear/fusion detonation; the yield was too low, and it would require them to have made a huge leap in technical capability. However, a lot of the chatter seems to indicate that a hybrid fusion-boosted fission detonation could be within their capability, which would mean progress in the miniaturization of the device, which would get them one critical step closer to having nuclear-armed missiles (and would provide a veneer of substance to the "H-Bomb of Justice!" claim from the DPRK). Or it could just be a plain-vanilla fission test -- a shiny birthday present in advance of Dear Leader's big party today. Time will tell. Maybe.

[LawBeefaroni]

South Korea is escalating. With K-pop. A move so strong it's only been used once before in the past decade.

There was that unconfirmed skirmish in the DMZ a few years back.

[GreenGoo]

South Korea is escalating. With K-pop. A move so strong it's only been used once before in the past decade.

There was that unconfirmed skirmish in the DMZ a few years back.

That was awesome, thanks.

[xwraith]

The power of the fusion bomb is the subsequent fission afterwords. Initial fission gets the temperatures and pressures needed to start fusion. The fusion creates enough energy / neutrons to cause natural uranium or U-238 in a shell / tamper to be able to fission where they could not sustain a chain reaction normally. The DU or U-238 is boosted to a high yield. If DPRK didn't go for this boost, it could still be a low yield H-bomb.

I did a fair amount of reading after xwraith's comments about the type of bomb it might have been, and it seems extremely unlikely to be a hydrogen bomb given that it's energy output is so close to previous tests they've accomplished. Even low yield H bombs tend to be an order of magnitude greater than regular fission bombs.

While it's possible to make low yield H bombs, they still are usually in the megaton range.

You're right that a typical modern H bomb starts with fission which pressures a central core into fusion and then kicks off more fission on the outer layer (making it extremely dirty, apparently) but even just a fission/fusion bomb is a large jump in energy when compared to a fission only bomb.

I'm not saying it's not possible in this case, but it seems unlikely.

I am in no way an expert on this subject, I've just spent some time reading.

It helps that I just finished reading Richard Rhode's Dark Sun

Really I think the only way we (civilians) are going to know if this test has a fusion component is if somebody releases that they detected the right radionuclides.
It looks like it can take upwards of 60 days for these to be detected

[Scraper]

There's a new documentary on Netflix called the Propaganda Game. It's by a Spanish team (But it's all in English) and out of all of the documentaries I've seen of North Korea this one has the most interviews with actual North Koreans that I have ever seen. Mind you there are still government minders there the whole time, but he got more video of the people in Pyongyang than I have seen anywhere else. The other great part about it is that he humors the people he talks to and asks them questions about their beliefs and really engages in conversations with them without trying to impose his own beliefs on them. As a result he gets them to talk more. And as you can imagine they all believe that the US is a great evil hell bent on destroying them and the only person who can save them is Kim Jong Un.

They even have a Spanish guy who actually lives in North Korea and is either completely brain washed by them or is being paid so handsomely that he mindlessly spouts their BS as if it's the truth. He was fascinating to watch.

[El Guapo]

Mind you there are still government minders there the whole time ... And as you can imagine they all believe that the US is a great evil hell bent on destroying them and the only person who can save them is Kim Jong Un.

On account of this the documentary can't tell us anything about the effectiveness / impact of North Korean propaganda. If the government minders are there, they can't say anything other than what they said without risking their lives and property for no reason.

[Scraper]

Mind you there are still government minders there the whole time ... And as you can imagine they all believe that the US is a great evil hell bent on destroying them and the only person who can save them is Kim Jong Un.

On account of this the documentary can't tell us anything about the effectiveness / impact of North Korean propaganda. If the government minders are there, they can't say anything other than what they said without risking their lives and property for no reason.

I thought the same thing prior to watching the documentary. But after watching it I think many of the people he talked to are sincere in their beliefs. They have been brain washed from the time they were born and they see nothing to contradict their teachings. This is doubly so for the people living in Pyongyang, they are the privileged in North Korea, I bet most of them haven't even been more than 10 miles away from the city to see the other parts of North Korea.

All I can really say is watch the documentary and judge their honesty for yourself.

[El Guapo]

Mind you there are still government minders there the whole time ... And as you can imagine they all believe that the US is a great evil hell bent on destroying them and the only person who can save them is Kim Jong Un.

On account of this the documentary can't tell us anything about the effectiveness / impact of North Korean propaganda. If the government minders are there, they can't say anything other than what they said without risking their lives and property for no reason.

I thought the same thing prior to watching the documentary. But after watching it I think many of the people he talked to are sincere in their beliefs. They have been brain washed from the time they were born and they see nothing to contradict their teachings. This is doubly so for the people living in Pyongyang, they are the privileged in North Korea, I bet most of them haven't even been more than 10 miles away from the city to see the other parts of North Korea.

All I can really say is watch the documentary and judge their honesty for yourself.

I'm sure some percentage of them genuinely believe it. But given their incentive structure (which includes a strong incentive to sound convincing when they say it), the number of people who believe it could be anywhere between 0% and 100%, and there's no way to know where in that range the real answer is.

Sounds like an interesting documentary regardless, in any event.

[Canuck]

Not sure if this is the regular North Korea thread but apparently North Korea has just done a missile launch. No idea if it was successful. It's all over the Japanese TV right now.

[Max Peck]

They're claiming it's a satellite launch (which would also make it a de facto ballistic missile test).

North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Sunday carrying what it has said is a satellite, South Korea's defense ministry said, in defiance of United Nations sanctions barring it from using ballistic missile technology. North Korea had notified U.N. agencies that it planned to launch a rocket carrying an Earth observation satellite, triggering opposition from governments that see it as a long-range missile test. It initially gave a Feb. 8-25 time frame for the launch but changed that to Feb. 7-14 on Saturday. The rocket was launched on a southward trajectory, as planned, passing over Japan's southern Okinawa islands, Japan's NHK reported, and appeared to have successfully separated its first stage booster, South Korea's Yonhap reported.

[Rip]

[Isgrimnur]

Tumble on, you crazy dictator:

(CNN)The satellite North Korea fired into space on Sunday is "tumbling in orbit" and incapable of functioning in any useful way, a senior U.S. defense official told CNN.
...
South Korea has recovered about 270 pieces of debris, believed to have come from the rocket launch, from the ocean Sunday and is working to analyze the objects, a South Korean Defense Ministry official told CNN.

However unlike previous launches, North Korea appears to have affixed a self-destructing device to the rocket booster in order to prevent other parties from studying its capabilities.

[Rip]

[stessier]

I can never remember, is that the real one or Tareeq?

[GreenGoo]

Tareeq. It's fun that you we can't really tell the difference though.

[stessier]

I thought the "gibbering paroxsyms of terror" was a little too literate, but otherwise yeah, that's what I expect.

[Isgrimnur]

Newsweek

North Korea, which conducted its fourth nuclear test last month and launched a long-range rocket on Saturday, could begin to recover plutonium from a restarted nuclear reactor within weeks, the director of U.S. National Intelligence said on Tuesday.

James Clapper said that in 2013, following its third nuclear test, North Korea announced its intention to “refurbish and restart” facilities at its Yongbyon nuclear complex, to include the uranium enrichment facility and its graphite-moderated plutonium production reactor shut down in 2007.

"We assess that North Korea has followed through on its announcement by expanding its Yongbyon enrichment facility and restarting the plutonium production reactor," Clapper said in prepared testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"We further assess that North Korea has been operating the reactor long enough so that it could begin to recover plutonium from the reactor’s spent fuel within a matter of weeks to months," he said in his annual Worldwide Threat Assessment.

How much rice and fuel oil are we going to have to buy to turn it off again?

[Isgrimnur]

CNN

The North Korean regime lost contact with one of its submarines earlier this week, three U.S. officials familiar with the latest information told CNN.

The U.S. military had been observing the submarine operate off North Korea's east coast when the vessel stopped, and U.S. spy satellites, aircraft and ships have been secretly watching for days as the North Korean navy searched for the missing sub.

The U.S. is unsure if the missing vessel is adrift under the sea or whether it has sunk, the officials said, but believes it suffered some type of failure during an exercise.

[Blackhawk]

Maybe they opened a window to get some air.

[GreenGoo]

Isgrim or someone will have to produce the article, but I'll just bring up the topic of an American tourist who just received 15 years of hard labour in NK for trying to steal a propaganda banner.

I think tgb put him up to it.

[Lassr]

I am still absolutely baffled as to why anyone would want to visit that country. You look the wrong way and you are locked up and used as a bargaining chip for the wackos.

It is to a point that I no longer feel sorry for these people.