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It is credible. If you read the CNN story there is seismic readings which support the claim at least partially. Plus Japan, South Korea, and the US aren't calling them liars and are being very measured in what they're saying which hints to me that they think something took place.
If this is confirmed, I am really interested to see China's stance. South Korea and Japan are definitely going to raise security concerns. The crazy neighbor now has a gun.
I don't think this changes anything re: South Korea and Japan.
North Korea has a fission bomb for at least 10 years. They don't have small enough warheads or good enough missiles to do anything with them.
The only card the DPRK has in a conventional war with ROK is that they have the ability to destroy Seoul with fairly "dumb" weapons before they are wiped out. Nukes don't change that equation.
Initial seismic reports are pretty underwhelming for a fusion weapon, so maintaining some skepticism on whether this is a significant new capability is probably merited until we get some radiation data.
Their Atomic Bombs had notably low yields [1], suggesting that the designs were poor. I'd be really surprised if they managed to successfully construct a Hydrogen Bomb.
Re:
by gwern on Tuesday January 05, 2016 @11:14PM
(#10848485)
Hydrogen bombs may not be harder to design because the fusion step has so much room for error; IIRC, André Gsponer and Jean-Pierre Hurni's technical report _Fourth Generation Nuclear Weapons_ http://web.elastic.org/~fche/mirrors/www.cryptome.org/2014/0... says that hydrogen bombs are actually much more reliable and hard to get wrong to the point where it's surprising that recent nuclear states like India or Pakistan don't start with h-bombs and work their way down to the trickier a-bombs.
>On February 11, 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey detected a magnitude 5.1 seismic disturbance,[13] reported to be a third underground nuclear test.[14] North Korea has officially reported it as a successful nuclear test with a lighter warhead that delivers more force than before, but has not revealed the exact yield. Multiple South Korean sources estimate the yield at 6–9 kilotons, while the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources estimates the yield at 40 kilotons.[15][16][17]
The 5.1 earthquake for this bomb would suggest a smaller explosion than the bombs at the tail end of WW2, however that depends on a lot of things. Looking at this list it would suggest about a ~600 ton explosion http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/richter_magnitude_scale
If I had to guess the seconds stage of their bomb significantly underperformed / didn't fire if it was a true h-bomb
Most of the energy from large H-bombs still comes from fission.
You can surround the fusion stage with natural uranium. While natural uranium has to much U-238 to undergo a runaway chain reaction, the fission reaction emits enough high energy neutrons to induce a significant fission reaction.
The only country that could do something about NK is China. The won't. Takes eyes off of the South China Sea. I wish they would just annex the country.
Re:
by jsnk on Tuesday January 05, 2016 @11:05PM
(#10848443)
What a timing. South Korea's Left and Right haven't been polarized in years since South Korea and Japan settled on Comfort Women tragedy. In less than a month, Koreans are now faced with this news that will surely erupt new discussions on how to deal with North Korea.
Well, on the bright side, they've probably killed more of their own people through allocating resources to such a thing instead of food and whatnot than they'll ever manage to take out with the weapon.
Re:
by arrrg on Tuesday January 05, 2016 @10:59PM
(#10848424)
How is that the bright side? Those people are innocent! It's not as though you can blame them for being born in North Korea! (And those who starve are guaranteed to not be those who are in power.)
Plus, I'm not sure to what degree actual starvation is currently a problem in North Korea. It's probably more about e.g. health care not being modern?
> Plus, I'm not sure to what degree actual starvation is currently a problem in North Korea. It's probably more about e.g. health care not being modern?
No, it's not about just about health care. They literally have massive food shortages, particularly outside Pyongyang.
North Korea has a fission bomb for at least 10 years. They don't have small enough warheads or good enough missiles to do anything with them.
The only card the DPRK has in a conventional war with ROK is that they have the ability to destroy Seoul with fairly "dumb" weapons before they are wiped out. Nukes don't change that equation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_North_Korean_nuclear_test
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mas...
>On February 11, 2013, the U.S. Geological Survey detected a magnitude 5.1 seismic disturbance,[13] reported to be a third underground nuclear test.[14] North Korea has officially reported it as a successful nuclear test with a lighter warhead that delivers more force than before, but has not revealed the exact yield. Multiple South Korean sources estimate the yield at 6–9 kilotons, while the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources estimates the yield at 40 kilotons.[15][16][17]
If I had to guess the seconds stage of their bomb significantly underperformed / didn't fire if it was a true h-bomb
I'm not well schooled in nuclear bombs. What's the payload, how does this compare to their previous tests, and what's next?
You can surround the fusion stage with natural uranium. While natural uranium has to much U-238 to undergo a runaway chain reaction, the fission reaction emits enough high energy neutrons to induce a significant fission reaction.
Here's a New York Times report: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/06/world/asia/north-korean-tr...
No real detail, though. Artificial earthquake detected. North Korea apparently claims a successful hydrogen bomb test.
Deleting the post because of the URL and title change.
Plus, I'm not sure to what degree actual starvation is currently a problem in North Korea. It's probably more about e.g. health care not being modern?
No, it's not about just about health care. They literally have massive food shortages, particularly outside Pyongyang.
It's also little to no consolation that the Kims regularly purge the military ruling classes as well, while the people starve.