North Korea May Cancel Nuclear Test

Is it deja vu all over again?  And we thought that they would delay the missile launch and instead launched on Dec 12.  Fool me once, fool me twice.

Then again, perhaps the regime's twisted sense of humor is along the lines of "let's just see what kind of reaction we can stir up in the international community."  Or maybe let's deliberately stir something up and try to somehow embarrass the US and its allies.

Then again, maybe this is the nuclear form of "creeping normalcy."  In just the same way they have moved 70% of its military force to the frontline areas over the past few decades and it has just become "accepted" and all of the intelligence indicators and warnings have at one time or another been activated and yet nothing has yet become of them, perhaps the regime is playing this game to desensitize us with rumors of a nuclear test so that we will get tired of crying wolf and then one day when we are ignoring them they will go ahead and test.

But who knows?  All I can say for sure is that we cannot expect the grime to function as a normal state in the international community and we had better keep that in mind in all our dealings with it.

V/R

Dave

North Korea May Cancel Nuclear Test

North Korea's earlier nuclear tests were in 2006 and 2009

By VASUDEVAN SRIDHARAN: Subscribe to Vasudevan's RSS feed

February 10, 2013 7:03 AM GMT

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/433418/20130210/north-korea-nuclear-test-pyongyang-kim-jong.htm

Video grab from KCNA shows Unha-3 rocket launch at North Korea's West Sea Satellite Launch Site (Reuters)

North Korea has hinted it may halt preparations for a third nuclear test as the country's mouthpiece says the outside world has misinterpreted Pyongyang's recent announcements.

"The US and hostile forces jumped to conclusions that the republic is planning the third nuclear test, citing their hypothesis and argument," said the propaganda weekly, Tongil Sinbo.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had vowed to take "substantial and high-profile important state measures" over the ongoing speculation about a nuclear test in the country. The remarks were widely seen as a direct reference to an imminent nuclear test, although Kim did not say so explicitly.

The latest report in the weekly, however, warns that the US and other countries do not know what Pyongyang means by important measures - whether it is the much-feared nuclear test or something even worse.

The mouthpiece says that the measures "are aimed at safeguarding its national interest and not at threatening anyone", adding: "It remains to be seen what the important state measures are, though it is clear that any US reactions to them may prove to be only irrevocable losses."

Only a week ago, Pyongyang was forced to remove a promotional video that reportedly showed a city attacked by North Korean missiles. The city was indirectly referred to as New York.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/433418/20130210/north-korea-nuclear-test-pyongyang-kim-jong.htm

Nuclear Test Could Open Window on North Korea

While perhaps some analysts might quietly hope this happens so they can gain intelligence, I think the bigger issue is what does the US and international community do if it does.  So what if we gain more insight into their program?  We are likely to have more problems with the north when a lack of response from the US and international community further emboldens them.  It will be an internal propaganda boom for the regime – they test in the face of sanctions and nothing but verbal condemnation occurs.  Ironically, we may have created the right conditions for a test.  There is the perception that we have "maxed out" international sanctions and that nothing more can happen to the regime.  But even more importantly the regime perceives that in time (perhaps this summer, next fall there will be pressure to re-engage diplomatically – Madam Park will want to give her trust politick a chance so conducting a nuclear test so close to the missile launch has created a kind of inoculation for the north – eventually the ROK and US will come back to the table and the north will manipulate the situation for a time to gain political and economic concessions.  So while the analysts may hope to gain a window into the program – the bigger "so what" is  - so what will we do about it?

V/R
Dave

January 30, 2013

Nuclear Test Could Open Window on North Korea

By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/world/asia/us-analysts-see-opportunity-if-north-korea-tests-nuclear-bomb.html?ref=global-home&_r=0&pagewanted=print

WASHINGTON — The world is warning North Korea against going ahead with its third nuclear test, but inside the American intelligence community, some officials are quietly hoping it happens. A test could give them their first real view in years into whether the North has made significant progress toward a weapon that could threaten the United States or its allies.

Since the North’s last test, in 2009, during President Obama’s first months in office, the United States has lost much of its visibility into what a former senior intelligence official says is on the cusp of becoming a “runaway program.”

Inspectors have been ejected from the country, and new facilities to make nuclear fuel have appeared. And after the North warned last week that it would now conduct a “higher level” test “targeted” at the United States, Kurt M. Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia, conceded that “we don’t know the kind of test that is anticipated.”

Now the hope is that an underground blast will answer several mysteries. Can the North Koreans produce a bomb out of uranium — a program they invited a visiting American nuclear scientist to glimpse two years ago — as well as the plutonium bombs that they exploded in 2006 and 2009? Can they make a warhead small enough to fit atop one of the long-range missiles they successfully tested last month?

In short, is it possible that the country that gained a reputation as the Keystone Kops of nuclear nations, setting off nuclear explosions that sputtered and missiles that crashed into the sea, has actually gotten its act together to the point that it now may pose a significant threat?

“It’s clear that there is now an expectation that this test could cross a threshold and yield data we haven’t had,” said Michael Green, a senior director for Asian affairs in the National Security Council under President George W. Bush. “We know a lot about their programs, but not the most important part: how far along are they? And we won’t know that until they test.”

The test could show, he said, “whether they can build a bomb that can approach Hiroshima or Nagasaki levels, and that would tell us a lot about how far they have proceeded on weaponization.”

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/world/asia/us-analysts-see-opportunity-if-north-korea-tests-nuclear-bomb.html?ref=global-home&_r=0&pagewanted=print

Why sticks don't work with North Korea

For diplomacy to work, the north has to participate.  Mr. Armstrong's  conclusion is completely logical from the point of view of the ROK, China, Japan, Russia and the US.  Unfortunately the Kim Family Regime does not have a similar view and since it has never conducted diplomacy in accordance with any acceptable international standard for the last 60 years I am not optimistic it will at any time in the future.  Certainly the actions of Kim Jong-un and the regime over the past year have reinforced that.  Actions speak louder than words (although north Korean propaganda is pretty loud too). But it is better to jaw jaw than war war.

So, where do we go from here?  The United States and the United Nations have little choice but to impose sanctions in response to North Korea’s actions, which clearly violate earlier sanction conditions. But it is hard to see how such sanctions can deter a determined and defiant North Korea, especially if the sanctions are not rigorously enforced. The best we can hope for is that the latest confrontation will finally bring all sides together – including both Koreas, the United States, China, Russia, and Japan – to solve this issue. 

Diplomacy, not threats or sanctions – and certainly not military action – is the only viable path to resolution.

V/R
Dave 

January 25th, 2013

11:59 AM ET

Why sticks don't work with North Korea

By Charles Armstrong, Special to CNN

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/25/why-sticks-dont-work-with-north-korea/

Editor’s note: Charles Armstrong is the director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia University. The views expressed are his own.

Anyone who has followed North Korean affairs for the last several years (or the last two decades) could have predicted North Korea’s defiant response to the U.N. Security Council resolution this week condemning North Korea’s rocket launch last December and strengthening international sanctions against Pyongyang. But it should also be clear by now that while carrots only occasionally deter North Korea’s provocative behavior, sticks – whether in the form of sanctions or threats of military action – only make North Korea defiant and more bellicose.

In 1994, the first time the United States proposed taking the North Korean nuclear question to the United Nations, North Korea announced that any impositions of U.N. sanctions would be considered “an act of war.” In 2006, and again in 2009, North Korea responded to U.N. sanctions not by giving up missiles and nukes, but ratcheting up the rhetoric. In the past, promises of security and economic aid have persuaded Pyongyang to freeze or reduce its missile and nuclear programs: North Korea halted its plutonium program for eight years following an agreement with the United States in 1994, adhered to a voluntary moratorium on missile tests from 1998 to 2006, and shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor in 2007 as part of a multilateral agreement. The record may not be terribly encouraging, but carrots do occasionally work.

Much has been made of the fact that North Korea this week directed its threats specifically against the United States (before issuing a warning to South Koreaearlier today), calling America its “sworn enemy” and claiming that its would “target” the United States with its weapons. But this too is nothing new. North Korea has for years denounced America’s “hostile policy” toward Pyongyang and has long insisted that its nuclear program is designed to defend the country against an American attack. North Korea’s ability to strike American territory with missiles is questionable, and North Korea almost certainly lacks the technological capability to mount a nuclear weapon on a missile. Neither side is willing to back down, but threats and sanctions are unlikely to resolve the key issues dividing them.

(Continued at the link below)

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2013/01/25/why-sticks-dont-work-with-north-korea/

N. Korea tells China planning nuclear test: report

I think this is one of the reasons that analysts continue to say that a nuclear test continues to seem to be imminent.  I hope as we continue to read analysis and assessments of what the Kim Family Regime will do next and keep in mind the importance of denial and deception as a major part of all north Korean strategy as evidenced by the 12 DEC launch.  

The US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said satellite photos as recent as December 13 showed Pyongyang was determined to maintain a state of readiness at Punggye-ri.

I think maintaining the Punggye-ri facility in a state of readiness provides the regime with options and keeps analysts guessing and provides opportunities to try to discredit those who appear to be crying wolf.

V/R

Dave

N. Korea tells China planning nuclear test: report

by Staff Writers

Seoul (AFP) Jan 12, 2013

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/N_Korea_tells_China_planning_nuclear_test_report_999.html

A North Korean official has apparently told Chinese authorities that the communist state is planning to conduct a third nuclear test in the coming week, a news report said Saturday.

"We've heard a North Korean official in Beijing told the Chinese side that the North planned to carry out a nuclear test between January 13-20," the Joongang Ilbo daily quoted an unidentified Seoul official as saying.

South Korean officials have a policy of not commenting on intelligence matters.

"We're now stepping up surveillance over the Punggye-ri nuclear test site," the official said in reference to the North's only nuclear test site, where tests were carried out in 2006 and 2009.

With the UN Security Council still debating possible sanctions against the North following the launch of a long-range rocket last month, there has been widespread speculation that Pyongyang may carry out a third nuclear test.

However, Professor Yang Moo-Jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul said there were "no signs of a nuclear test being imminent".

"Chances are slim that the North might push ahead with a nuclear test in this winter season, especially when China is insisting on a moderated response to the rocket launch to prevent a third nuclear test taking place," Yang told AFP.

Last month a US think-tank citing satellite photos said the North had repaired extensive rain damage at the nuclear test site in the northeast of the country and could conduct a detonation on two weeks' notice.

The US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said satellite photos as recent as December 13 showed Pyongyang was determined to maintain a state of readiness at Punggye-ri.

South Korea's Unification Minister Yu Woo-Ik told a parliamentary committee last month it was "highly probable" the North would likely follow up the successful rocket launch with another nuclear test.

"Judging from analysis of intelligence, significant preparations have been made," he said.

(Continued at the link below)

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/N_Korea_tells_China_planning_nuclear_test_report_999.html