NightWatch
For the Night of 25 May 2009
South Korean, Japanese and US diplomats will hold talks this week about how to respond to the latest North Korean provocation.
”The Democratic People's Republic of Korea successfully conducted one more
underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of the measures to bolster up its
nuclear deterrent for self-defence in every way as requested by its scientists
and technicians.”
”The current nuclear test was safely conducted on a new higher level in terms
of its explosive power and technology of its control and the results of the
test helped satisfactorily settle the scientific and technological problems
arising in further increasing the power of nuclear weapons and steadily
developing nuclear technology.”
”The successful nuclear test is greatly inspiring the army and people of the
DPRK all out in the 150-day campaign, intensifying the drive for effecting a
new revolutionary surge to open the gate to a thriving nation.”
”The test will contribute to defending the sovereignty of the country and the
nation and socialism and ensuring peace and security on the
Comment: The announcement revealed four points not mentioned in international commentary. First, the scientists and technicians needed another test. Their requirements are seldom mentioned in public, but NightWatch has insisted that science drives the testing programs; politics drives their timing. In other words, the scientific establishment has practical scientific reasons for testing independent of political calculations.
Their requirements are subject to the needs of the political system they serve, which is intrinsic to communist systems since the time of Lenin, and, in recent times, of almost all political systems. The significance of this is that the scientific results of the 2006 test mandated a follow-up at some time. The needs of the political leadership dictated when. The scientists had to be ready to test when the political leaders called.
The trigger was the international blowback against
The second point is the tacit admission the 2006 test was less than satisfactory. The references to a new, higher level of explosive power that helped satisfy the scientists convey this admission.
The third point is the open admission the testing is related to nuclear weapons. This is not new but prior to 2006 the North never admitted it had a nuclear weapons program. The admissions have become more open and more explicit in proportion to the skepticism of the nuclear powers and the international criticism of the north. It is inversely proportionate to the lack of aid and other valuable gain produced by the test.
The North expects to be rewarded for becoming a
nuclear-armed state. That is its strategic assessment of the final outcome of
Finally, the statement termed the test as reinforcing the 150-day campaign to make the North prosperous. This has two implications. The 150-day campaign is not related to the test, and is about economic progress. The linkage of the nuclear test to the 150-day campaign exposes the leadership’s enduring expectation of economic benefits from going nuclear. Apparently Kim and his men and women think if they do it big enough, they will get rewarded.
The Test
Location: British Geological Survey's stations in
Devon, Herefordshire and Aberdeen reported the “epicentre of the
explosion was in the county of Kilju, deep in the mountains of north-eastern
North Korea and the location of the P'unggye-yok nuclear test site” which was
used in the October 2006 experiment. Unidentified analysts were reported to
have estimated “today's test to have been carried out in a similar way to the
previous one, when a horizontal hole was drilled into the side of
The fissile material. According to the Guardian account, the
North Korean scientists most likely used plutonium in a fission explosion. Plutonium is the fissile material produced at
Yongbyon, which
Test size. Russian
sources said the test was between 10 and 20 kilotons, which puts it close to
the size of the
CTBO reported
The leadership might not have wanted to use much plutonium for this kind of demonstration; deliberately chose to perform a low yield test, as part of a miniaturization program, for example; or the scientists might not yet have mastered nuclear explosion technology. The CTBTO’s comparative measurements do not build confidence in the North’s mastery of nuclear weapons technology, which would seem to have been a primary political as well as military objective. Thus, even this test does not appear to be an awe-inspiring clear-cut demonstration of nuclear prowess.
Was the event a surprise to the US? No. The initiator of action always has control of the timing of his actions, but the need for an action and the probability of its occurrence in a foreseeable time period are easily predicted and bracketed. Just about anyone interested expected this after the North perorated about the need to build its nuclear deterrent and publicly signaled its intent to do so as part of its response to the UN Security Council’s President’s statement on the missile test in April.
Failure to follow-up a threat with supporting and convincing action makes a leadership the object of ridicule. The North regularly falls into this trap because its science is not yet world class in missiles or nuclear explosions, not even South Asian, and no one apparently wants to risk telling Kim Chong-il the truth.
Comment: The North’s weapons developers always have
tried to use short cuts in reverse engineering or in modifying the design of
advanced weapons systems. They perform
fewer tests and fewer launches than the Russians or the
If CTBTO’s data is closer to accurate than the Russian announcement, nobody needs to care much more about today’s test than about the 2006 test, for now. Based on CTBTO’s assessment, the North’s technical skill after three years of work is still less than impressive. CTBTO’s data suggest the North’s scientists might have achieved a one kiloton detonation – big, but not remotely close to determinative in a conflict.
Applying General Rupert Smith’s analytical method to today’s test (See Smith’s, The Utility of Force), the North Koreans have intensified the long standing confrontation by raising the stakes of a conflict. This means the North has made conventional war impossible and ensured that it loses in any escalation to nuclear conflict.
The test means the North has acknowledged it cannot survive
without nuclear weapons to deter an attack and probably will not survive with
them. However it can cause damage to
To illustrate by analogy, arguably the most salient impacts
of nuclear testing in
One solution to this dilemma is
Another is the Indian General Staff’s acceptance of limited
warfare without decisive battlefield results.
Applying those concepts to
However, there are threats in which limited applications of military force are useful to keep the peace and enforce international commitments, by preventing encroachment, for example. The dispute over sovereignty off the South Korean northwest coast and the offshore islands is such a circumstance. North and South Korean planners must analyze and evaluate the escalation paths to nuclear war from naval shooting incidents, among other scenarios.
Assuming the North actually detonated fissile material for a weapon of mass destruction, the risks and pathways to nuclear escalation must now be examined every time, all the time, by South Korea, China, Japan and Russia, as well as US forces in South Korea. This is costly and annoying.
Arguably the largest danger is the condition of intelligence. North Korean intelligence about Allied intentions is fundamentally inaccurate and biased by the regime’s need to present itself to its own people as under constant, existential threat without justification. The big lie is essential to maintaining internal control, discipline and support to the absurd military-first policy.
The Allied corollary to the North’s myopia is the poverty of diagnostic and predictive intelligence about North Korean decision-making, resulting from the state’s obsession with security.
The danger is misperception. Both sides do misread each
other daily in low stress circumstances. This shortcoming worsens in conditions
of stress and crisis. Only visceral instincts in favor of caution/survival in
the face of risking national annihilation have prevented
The challenge for the Allies is to modify threat management
practices to accommodate a nuclear armed
Missile launches. To add to the stress of the moment, the North launched missiles yesterday reportedly to deter Allied reconnaissance of the test site – another indicator that regional governments expected a test, though the precise moment was not knowable. Yonhap reported short range ballistic missile tests also are likely on 26 May. These actions are provocations to change a confrontation into a conflict.
In the simplest interpretation, the North is throwing a tantrum to be noticed despite the regional ripple effects. Off hand, that appears to be the behavior of a desperate leadership that has run out of options for saving its people through its own imagination and creativity. It is looking for outsiders to save it … the mouse squeaked today and wants to be rewarded.
China-North
“According to a Korean Central News Agency report,
the DPRK has announced that it conducted a second nuclear test on 25 May.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of
On 25 May 2009, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) conducted a
nuclear test again, in disregard of widespread opposition from the
international community. The Chinese government expresses resolute opposition
to this.
To realize non-nuclearization on the peninsula, oppose nuclear proliferation,
and maintain peace and stability in
Maintaining peace and stability in the
Comment: The North Koreans do not care – or perhaps
are pleased -- that their test today insulted
North Korea-China:
India-Austria: Riots erupted in major cities of
Though the bloodshed occurred a continent away, news of the
attack, by text messages and mobile
phone calls sent from the vast community of Sikh émigrés in Europe, came to
While in Vienna, six young Sikh men armed with guns and knives stormed into a hall where hundreds of worshipers had gathered and shot at the sect leaders, said S. R. Heer, a senior official at the sect’s hospital and school in Jullundur, a large provincial town in Punjab. One of the leaders, Guru Sant Rama Nand, died of his injuries, while the other, Sant Niranjan Dass, was in stable condition following surgery, Mr. Heer said.
The two men were the leaders of the Ravidass sect. These are
Sikhs who revere a saint of the same name believed to have been born in the
15th century to a family of leather workers, considered “untouchables” or
outcastes, and known today as Dalits. Many
Dalit Sikhs, devotees of the Ravi Dass sect, started migrating to Europe in the
1960s, helped set up Ravi Dass temples, known as gurdwaras, and played host to
preachers from Punjab, for whom Europe and
The European requirement for cheap labor for menial tasks
breeds this kind of development as well as its ripple effects in
Russia-Lebanon: Today,
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said the international community must recognize
the result of
Lavrov said, "It is important that the results of these
elections are recognized not only by Lebanese society but also everyone who is
interested in the continued and natural development of
No international news services are reporting on the
emergence of
The Russians go with the result and defend it, provided the result frustrates US policy objectives.
End of NightWatch
for 25 May.