North Korea Throws Down the Gauntlet with Nuclear Test as Powerful as Hiroshima, Outraging Entire World (News Round-Up)

by Damozel | The Guardian reports:

North Korea today risked further international isolation after it claimed to have successfully tested a nuclear weapon as powerful as the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.

The test comes less than two months after the North enraged the US and its allies by test firing a long-range ballistic missile...Officials in South Korea said they had detected a tremor consistent with those caused by an underground nuclear explosion. The country's Yonhap news agency reported that the North had test-fired three short-range missiles from a base on the east coast immediately after the nuclear test..

The underground atomic explosion, at 9.54am local time (0154 BST), created an earthquake measuring magnitude 4.5 in Kilju county in the country's north-east, reports said.

Meanwhile, certain members of the right are outraged that Obama did no more than point out that this is a matter of grave concern to the entire international community.  Sadly, Obama's foreign policy people have been pretty busy elsewhere, with other priorities. (cf. The New York Times)  The question is whether there is anything he can do about North Korea, besides work on Russia and China to exert pressure.  They ain't happy about the test either.

Of course, Bush's strategy for North Korea was, shall we say, inconsistent and ultimately -- as evidenced by this test -- a failure

Those who recall North Korea's 2006 test will also recall that the brave saber-rattling neocons of the Bush administration responded by "shift[ing] course and redoubl[ing] diplomacy."  (WaPo)  At The New York Times, David E. Sanger writes:

Efforts by the....Bush administration to push the country to collapse and then to try to seize its leaders’ assets, all failed.

So did Mr. Bush’s second-term strategy reversal, when he alienated hard-liners in his administration by reaching a deal with the North to dismantle its main nuclear plant, a step the North began last year.

In recent months, the North has renounced the accord and taken the first steps to restart operations and manufacture more plutonium for bomb fuel.

So much for the Bushies' effectiveness.  What you're seeing now is the outcome of Bush administration failures.

A C.I.A. assessment concluded that North Korea had built one or two nuclear weapons during the administration of the first President Bush, and in the spring of 2003, while the United States was focused on Iraq, the North expelled inspectors and harvested the fuel for six or more weapons. The second Bush administration said it would never “tolerate” a nuclear North Korea, but by the time it left office, none of that fissile material had been recovered.  (New York Times)

One outcome of the test may be a regional arms race.  Glenn Kessler points out at The Washington Post, "While North Korea is an isolated, xenophobic nation, accepting it as a nuclear power is unthinkable for many in the region and could spur U.S. allies such as Japan and South Korea to go nuclear."  (WaPo) 

However the scariest prospect, at least according to those allies, is the possibility that North Korea will sell its technology. 

...Japanese and South Korean officials acknowledge...[that] they are less concerned about a direct attack from the North — which would almost certainly result in a devastating, American-led response — than about North Korea selling its twice-tested nuclear weapons technology on the black market, much as it has sold missile and reactor technology in the Middle East....

“We’re back to the same problem Bush had,” one intelligence official said. “The threat is not that they will shoot off a nuclear weapon; it’s that they will sell nuclear material.”   (New York Times)

Russia,China, and most of the rest of the world are purportedly as unhappy about this as we are. (BBC News)

Russia's defence ministry estimated a blast of up to 20 kilotons - comparable to the American bombs that flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.....

Speaking outside the White House, US President Barack Obama said the US would work with its allies around the world to "stand up to" North Korea.

"North Korea has previously committed to abandoning its nuclear programme," he said.

"Instead of following through on that commitment, it has chosen to ignore that commitment. Its actions have also flown in the face of United Nations resolutions. As a result North Korea is not only deepening its own isolation it's also inviting stronger international pressure."

South Korea said the test was an intolerable "provocation" while Japan said any nuclear test by the North was "unacceptable", and both said they would ask for action from the Security Council.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was "deeply disturbed". UN Security Council Resolution 1718 demands that North Korea refrain from nuclear testing.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the test would "undermine prospects for peace on the Korean peninsula".

Russia and China echoed the words of condemnation with Beijing saying it was "resolutely opposed" to the test and Moscow describing it as a "blow to non-proliferation efforts".

Both urged North Korea back to the negotiating table.

.(BBC News)

Does this mean that China will be more open to sanctions against North Korea?  Nobody seems to know  .The Washington Post reports:

U.S. administration officials took encouragement from the quick responses from China and also Russia, in particular. The two nations, North Korean allies, joined in yesterday's condemnations. The Russian reaction was "firmer" than after the last nuclear test and the Chinese reacted faster with condemnation than after the April missile test, administration officials said. Both countries also joined in the Security Council's unanimous condemnation of North Korea during an emergency meeting yesterday.....

But analysts are skeptical that China's response means it will be more open to sanctions than in the past. It has traditionally been more concerned about regime instability on its border than nuclear weapons.

Obama hasn't focused much up to this point on his policy toward North Korea.  Why is that, you ask?. 

Obama inherited a sputtering multilateral diplomatic process on North Korea from the Bush administration, and initially U.S. officials suggested they would jump-start the talks with the offer of direct, high-level bilateral discussions. Still there were suspicions in Asia and Washington that the president intended to only manage concerns over North Korea's nuclear weapons, not resolve them, when he appointed a part-time special envoy to handle the talks. Senior officials during the transition concluded there were few good options for dealing with the North, but that downshifting of priorities could also have irritated Pyongyang.

Within weeks, North Korea spurned the administration's offer of direct talks and in April tested a long-range rocket. When the United States led an effort at the U.N. Security Council condemning the rocket test, North Korea angrily responded by suggesting it soon would test a nuclear weapon in order to strengthen its "deterrent."

The administration response to the North's rhetoric has been inconsistent, perhaps in part because the Senate, leaving a key policymaking role for North Korea unfilled, still has not confirmed Obama's nominee for assistant secretary of state for East Asia, Kurt Campbell. Other key players include James B. Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state; Stephen W. Bosworth, the special envoy; Jeffrey Bader, the top Asia specialist at the White House; and Gary Samore, the White House nonproliferation director.  (WaPo; emphasis added)

What will Obama do?  What can he do?  He does have at least one option, though nobody seems sure whether it will simply end up making things worse.  Sanger at  The New York Times writes:

Perhaps the most powerful untapped sanction available to Mr. Obama and his allies is contained in a United Nations Security Council resolution passed after the 2006 test. It authorizes the United States and other nations to halt and inspect shipping into and out of North Korea for contraband missile parts or nuclear materials. The sanction has never been enforced, partly because of concerns that it could escalate hostilities with North Korea, the poorest and least predictable state in Northeast Asia.

When asked whether Mr. Obama would seek to intercept North Korean shipping, a step that could paralyze the country’s trade, a senior administration official said, “That’s getting ahead of ourselves.”

Another senior official, however, said, “Other than having the Chinese cut off their oil, it might be the only step that would show them we are serious.”  (New York Times)

Will China do that?  At The Christian Science Monitor, Peter Ford discusses China's "difficult balancing act" vis-a-vis North Korea.  China's the source of most of its food and fuel, but fears instability in North Korea more than its nuclear program.  (CSM)

"China faces a very difficult balancing act," says Professor Cai, "deciding how much pressure to put on North Korea without leading to a collapse" of the regime that could lead to chaos and to millions of refugees pouring across the border into China.(CSM) 

At The Christian Science Monitor, Peter Ford observes that this most recent test may be fallout from a succession struggle within North Korea.

Domestic politics, rather than international factors, seem to be driving Pyongyang's behavior, a number of analysts suggest, even though North Korea said last month it was so angry at the UN condemnation of its April 5 missile test that it would resume nuclear activities and withdraw from six-nation talks aimed at denuclearizing the Korean peninsula.

Though outside observers caution that they have no way of knowing what is happening inside the secretive North Korean government as its leader, Kim Jong Il, believed to be battling ill health, two theories have emerged.

It is possible, says David Kang, a North Korea expert at the University of Southern California, that the test is a move by one faction "to show who is most loyal to Kim Jong II."

Alternatively, suggests Dr. Roy, Kim Jong Il is seeking crucial support from the military for his youngest son – tipped as a possible successor – and that "part of securing military support involves letting them ... move quickly to consolidate the nuclear program."... He "wants to be able to pass on a new relationship with the United States to his son, and that relationship is being recognized as a nuclear power," argues Ha Tae Keung, head of a radio station that beams news from Seoul into North Korea.. 

Martin Fackler at The New York Times has more on the succession issue.

Memeorandum has blogger commentary....

RECENT BUCK NAKED POLITICS POSTINGS

TPMtv's "The Day in 100 Seconds" (Memorial Day, 2009 Video)

SOWF: Taking Care of Fallen Soldiers' Families

Mile-Long Memorial: a Most Impressive Tribute to our Fallen Soldiers

Maine's Education Department to Settle Justice Department Suit for $1.5 Million

Desperate GOP Geniuses Make Moronic Misstep: Comparing Pelosi to Bond Character "Pussy Galore"

Right Wing Radio Ranter Gets Himself Waterboarded, Admits It is Torture After 6 Seconds (Video Included)

TPMtv's "The Day in 100 Seconds" (May 22, 2009 Video): Fox News Wants You to Choose Between Nat'l Security & Civil Liberties...

Chuck Hagel Supports Obama Against Cheney

The Daily Show: Dick Cheney versus Obama (The "Dueling Speeches")

Obama Administration Agrees with Bush Again: This Time re: Valerie Plame Wilson