February 6, 2013 -- Updated 0027 GMT (0827 HKT)
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un,
center, poses with chiefs of branch social security stations in this
undated picture released by North Korea's official news agency on
November 27, 2012. North Korea said Thursday that it plans to carry out a
new nuclear test and more long-range rocket launches, all of which it
said are a part of a new phase of confrontation with the United States.
HIDE CAPTION
Kim Jong Un and his military
-- North Korea's plans for a new nuclear test,
like most things that happen inside the reclusive state, are shrouded in
mystery. But that's not stopping analysts and officials from making
some informed guesses about what's going on
Why is North Korea planning to conduct a nuclear test?
The North says the
"higher level" test is part of its military deterrent in its
confrontation with the United States, which it describes as "the sworn
enemy of the Korean people."
Its declaration that it
would carry out the test came just two days after the United Nations
Security Council voted in favor of imposing broader sanctions on the
regime in response to Pyongyang's long-range rocket launch in December
that was widely viewed as a test of ballistic missile technology.
The pattern of events is similar to the lead-up to the previous nuclear tests North Korea carried out in 2006 and 2009.
Kim Jong Un appears
likely to shrug off pressure from most of the international community,
including North Korea's main ally, China, and go ahead with a third
test.
"Neither the prospect of
stronger sanctions, nor the growing discontent of Russia and China with
his behavior, appears to deter North Korea's young leader," George
Lopez, professor of peace studies at the Kroc Institute, University of
Notre Dame,
Under the North's
power-driven ideology of songun, or "military first," the punishment
meted out last month by the U.N. Security Council requires a strong
response, according to Daniel Pinkston, senior analyst for the
International Crisis Group covering Northeast Asia.
North Korea "sees
international law, international institutions, collective security, arms
control and any other cooperative arrangement as undesirable and as
schemes to undermine their national security,"
A new test will also
give North Korea a chance to underscore advances in its nuclear program,
potentially moving it closer to a nuclear weapon that it can mount on a
long-range missile.
"To make its nuclear
arsenal more menacing and provide the deterrent power Pyongyang's
vitriolic pronouncements are aimed to achieve, North Korea must
demonstrate that it can deliver the weapons on missiles at a distance,"
Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University professor who has visited North
Korean nuclear facilities,
When is it likely to happen?
Given that North Korea
is one of the most isolated, secretive regimes on the planet, one that
views much of the rest of the world with suspicion, getting a clear idea
of what exactly it plans to do when is often far from straightforward.
Its announcement last
month that it would go ahead with a nuclear test didn't provide a
time-frame, so analysts and government officials around the globe are
interpreting satellite images of the test zone and parsing the language
in state media reports for clues.
Most of them agree that North Korea is technically ready and could carry out a test at any time.
The question is when the top leaders in Pyongyang will give the
political green light to go ahead with a move that is likely to further
sour relations with the country's Asian neighbors and the United States.
"I think by their
political calculations, this is where they're going to have, so to say,
the most bang for the buck and make it most effective for what they want
to try to accomplish," said Philip Yun, executive director of the
Ploughshares Fund, a U.S.-based foundation that seeks to stop the spread
of nuclear weapons.
Yun said this week that North Korea's recent statements suggest a test is "imminent."
How will other countries know if it has happened?
The test is expected to
take place underground at the North's Punggye-ri nuclear facility, and
the first indications that a test has taken place are likely to show up
on earthquake-monitoring equipment.
The area around
Punggye-ri has little or no history of earthquakes or natural seismic
hazards, according to U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) maps. But the
previous test, in 2009, registered as a seismic event with a magnitude
between 4 and 5.
Besides
earthquake-monitoring organizations like the USGS, the Comprehensive
Test-Ban Treaty Organization in Vienna, has a network of seismic, sonar
and radiation instruments designed to pick up nuclear tests. It also has
sensors that can detect gases that may leak into the atmosphere from
the explosion.
But determining the
sophistication of the nuclear device, and what kind of material --
plutonium or uranium -- was used, will be considerably more difficult,
experts say.
At some point, North Korea is likely to announce that the explosion has taken place.
"Pyongyang will almost
certainly claim that the test was successful and will tout its
sophistication. It will be difficult to distinguish truth from
propaganda, but experience shows there is often a nugget of truth in
North Korea's claims," says Stanford's Hecker. "It will be difficult to
distinguish truth from propaganda, but experience shows there is often a
nugget of truth in North Korea's claims."
What stage will North Korea's nuclear weapons program be at following a new test?
With hard facts about
the test so scarce, analysts are busy theorizing what exactly North
Korea means when it says the test will be of a "higher level."
There is a widespread
expectation that it will involve the use of highly enriched uranium,
whereas the country's two previous tests are understood to have involved
plutonium-based devices.
"A successful uranium
test indicates that Pyongyang has advanced centrifuge technologies and
related support systems," Notre Dame's Lopez said. "It means that North
Korea, if left unchecked, can both produce and export such material."
In an article for the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists last year, Hecker and another analyst,
Frank Pabian, speculated that North Korea could test two devices at the
same time, one using plutonium and the other uranium.
"Two detonations will
yield much more technical information than one, and they will be no more
damaging politically than if North Korea conducted a single test," they
wrote.
Some observers have even suggested that Pyongyang could make an early attempt at testing a thermonuclear device
which uses nuclear fusion to create a more powerful explosion. But
others say they don't believe the North has that ability within its
grasp yet.
In any case, the test is
expected to take North Korea closer to having a nuclear weapon it can
direct at its enemies. But actually achieving that goal still remains a
longer-term effort, according to Joseph Cirincione, president of the
Ploughshares Fund.
"I still think we're
years away from North Korea having a capability to deliver a nuclear
warhead on a missile even to a country as close as Japan or South
Korea," Cirincione said recently. "And they're even further away from
having a long-range missile that could hit the United States."
What are the consequences likely to be?
The region is already
braced for the test to take place, and countries like the United States,
South Korea and Japan are already preparing their response.
John Kerry, the new U.S.
Secretary of State, spoke to his counterparts in Tokyo and Seoul by
phone on Sunday, and all of three of them agreed that the North must
understand "that it will face significant consequences from the
international community if it continues its provocative behavior,"
according to a summary of the calls from the U.S. State Department
A push for fresh
condemnation and sanctions from the U.N. Security Council is likely, but
whether or not the new measures have much bite depends on China.
In the event of a new
nuclear test, Beijing is likely "reduce its assistance to North Korea,"
the the state-run Chinese newspaper Global Times said in an editorial
last month.
But it added that "if
the U.S., Japan and South Korea promote extreme U.N. sanctions on North
Korea, China will resolutely stop them and force them to amend these
draft resolutions."
Fundamentally, analysts
say, a new test won't upend the geopolitical situation in Northeast
Asia. But it will seriously harm the chances of any meaningful dialog
between Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington in the near future.
"It will signal that the
new regime, like its predecessors, has chosen bombs over electricity"
for its impoverished population, Hecker wrote.
Another test also
increases concerns about where North Korea's nuclear material will end
up in the long term, either because it decides to sell it or in the
event of a collapse of the regime, according to Yun of the Ploughshares
Fund.
"That's something that we really have to be concerned about," he said.
Read more: updatallnews
No comments:
Post a Comment