At 10:39 a.m. local time on 9 October 2006, a small tremor shook North Korea’s North Hamgyong Province. The event was measured at magnitude 4.2 on the Richter scale by the US Geological Survey, although detectors in Japan, China and Australia detected localized seismic activity which may have been somewhat lower on the Richter scale.General agreement by experts, however, seems to suggest that a nuclear device was set off, and that a nuclear chain reaction was part of this event. Even if the test "fizzled", it would still have produced valuable data for the engineers and scientists constructing the weapon. They will now make the necessary improvements and changes to increase the yield of the weapon, and I think that an announcement for a second test will be made in a matter of months, if not weeks.
There have long been suspicions in the West that North Korea is in the process of developing nuclear weapons. In his state of the union address on 22 January 2002, the American President Bush labeled North Korea as belonging to the "axis of evil" together with Iran and Iraq, and it appears that these countries have been exchanging nuclear technology.
It does not take much to make a nuclear weapon. Banks of industrial grade centrifuges and a supply of fissionable material (usually Uranium or Plutonium), and knowledge of nuclear chemistry (the chemistry of radioactive transuranium elements), plus engineering skills are really all that is needed.
The science and engineering behind these weapons are old and well understood, and are freely available, at least for older designs such as the Hiroshima bomb (an uranium bomb) or the Nagasaki bomb (a plutonium bomb). In most of these designs, subcritical masses of enriched uranium or plutonium are blasted together or imploded and radiated with neutrons from a neutron source to set of an uncontrolled chain reaction in a supercritical mass of fissionable material. The resulting run-away chain reaction fissions large numbers of atoms in nanoseconds, and releases enormous amounts of energy at the nuclear scale by breaking bonds formed by the strong force between nucleons. This release of nuclear energy produces hard radiation (gamma rays and X rays), enormous amounts of heat and pressure, resulting in a very large explosion which at the low end will be measured in kilotons. In more sophisticated designs a fission bomb is used to set off a fusion reaction in deuterium and tritium atoms resulting in explosions measured in the megaton range. This is the hydrogen bomb.
To be sure, while the science and engineering of nuclear weapons are understood and now even old science, constructing a bomb is not without challenges. Uranium and transuranium elements are heavy metals, and apart from the dangers of their radioactive nature, are also chemical poisons that are often difficult to work with. Enrichment (which involves the separation of isotopes to make fissionable material) is a difficult engineering challenge, and working safely with the nuclear materials in the construction of the bomb is not easy.
It is however, doable for a poor and backwards country. And this is what North Korea seems to have demonstrated.
The CIA fact book estimates that the GDP of North Korea is about 40 billion dollars. This is not much more than the GDP of Zimbabwe, which is about 28 billion dollars, and somewhat less than the GDP of Cuba (about 40 billion dollars).
Generally, North Korea is considered a poor place with an incompetent economy, bad leaders, and economic output per capita less than that of an average Zimbabwean. It is run by a megalomaniac leader (Kim Jong Il) with a rubberstamp Supreme People’s Assembly in an oppressive Stalinist State where people have no individual freedoms. Normally, such a basket case would be ignored at worst by the rest if the world, or be the recipient of aid at best.
North Korean scientists and engineers do not have free access to Western resources. The export of industrial tools necessary for the making of a nuclear weapon is controlled by the International community. North Korea is also isolated in its own region. Japan is hostile, and border disputes with China, as well as refugees which flow from North Korea into China, results in strained relations with its most important neighbour and trading partner.
Yet, in spite of this, this very backwards and poor country appears to have produced a workable nuclear weapon, and it is also well on its way developing missiles which may be able to deliver this weapon over hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometers. To be sure, some difficult challenges remain, but if nothing is done, then it may eventually succeed in producing a workable nuclear tipped missile which could strike Japan or even further away.
The news of North Korea’s nuclear bomb has caused consternation in the West and especially in Japan. It is known that North Korea and Iran are exchanging nuclear technology, and all indications are that Iran is working on its own bomb, perhaps in collaboration with North Korea.
An Iranian bomb will upset the balance of power in the Middle East. At this time Israel is the only Nuclear Power in the region, but it may be joined soon by a threatening Iran.
Meanwhile, a North Korean bomb will also upset the balance of power in East Asia. South Korean insecurities will be enhanced, and the immunity a nuclear weapon provides will allow North Korea to take a much more threatening and bold position along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) which was established at the end of the Korean War to separate the warring parties from one another.
More importantly, the North Korean bomb proves that even an isolated, backwards and poor state can manufacture nuclear weapons. As in any population, the North Korean population does contain its share of technological and scientific geniuses, and enough of them to build a bomb. The hostility of an Iran or North Korea to the West may also induce them to provide radicals with the bomb or help them to construct their own, with unthinkable results.
In the United States these events have generated some comment, and I thought for a moment that some Republican members of Congress fell on their knees to thank the gods for the North Korean bomb. The Republican Party, whose members of Congress are facing a difficult election in November, is usually seen as the party which is better at providing international security, and Americans have traditionally sent more Republicans to Congress when feeling insecure because of international events.
This time around, however, Americans have given the news of the North Korean bomb a big yawn, and the momentary hope that this will turn the tide for Republicans evaporated as soon as new poll numbers became available. The Mark Foley scandal, President Bush’ unpopularity, the increasingly unpopular Iraq war, and other domestic issues, still dominates the political discussion in the US, and the North Korean bomb could sweep these issues aside.
Should Americans be concerned about the North Korean bomb? Only time will tell.
But it is conceivable that many other peoples in other parts of the world should thank their lucky stars that they have become bystanders, and that their disagreements are not anymore as closely connected with the West’s fortunes as it were during the Cold War.