Even as North Korea came under international condemnation today after boasting that it had tested a nuclear device, there were serious doubts about the strength of the weapon.

We have assessed that the explosion in North Korea was a sub-kiloton explosion,” said the intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. He added, “We don’t know, in fact, whether it was a nuclear explosion.” He spoke as intelligence analysts in Washington were in the early stages of assessing the explosion.

New York Times

Note: PhotoShop Jihad on the NorKs.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 101 words, total size 1 kb.

I speculated last night that the North Korean nuclear test could possibly be "spoofed" by North Korea detonating a massive conventional explosive instead, just as the United States had planned with an operation called "Divine Strake" that was scheduled to take place in Nevada earlier this year using a massive ammonium nitrate bomb of 770 tons (Divine Strake was postponed, but may be rescheduled for 2007).

Some are stating that the seismic data is showing that the yield is even lower than that planned for Divine Strake, around 550 tons. This can be interpreted a couple of different ways, providing that the actual yield was in the range of 550 tons.

(1) The North Korean nuclear test was a fake. North Korea was hoping to get by on a bluff using a massive conventional explosion, hoping that it would be close enough to make the world think they had detonated the real thing.

(2) The North Korean nuclear test was a dud. Several experts are stating the possibility that the North Koreans detonated a shoddily built nuclear warhead that was more or less a dud, not achieving even a twentieth of the power one should expect from a plutonium warhead detonation.

And then there is the seismic data.

This is the seismic wave of a blast in North Korea that corresponds with the time that North Korea claims to have conducted their test, as currently shown on CNN.com.

I'm no seismic expert by any measure and would never claim to be, but does this data look similar to the seismic data of the confirmed simultaneous Indian nuclear tests of May 11, 1998, and a nearby earthquake that I culled from a Lawrence Livermore Web page?

The confirmed Indian nuclear tests show a massive initial spike, then much less intense aftershocks tapering off relatively quickly when compared to an earthquake. The north Korean blast seems to have ramped up before spiking and settling back down.

To my untrained eye, it appears that the North Korean test didn't act in the same way that the Indian detonation did, going from normal seismic activity to a massive spike before receding. It appears to have ramped up at first, then spiked, then tapered off.

I don't know if experts can easily determine the difference between a fizzled nuclear blast and a conventional detonation for the simple reason that I don't understand the physics involved. I would think, however, that even a partial nuclear dud would not "ramp up" as the North Korean test did, but just go off with much less of a "pop."

I'll turn this back over to the experts, but for now, the more I see, the more I question just how successful this test was. I don't know if it was a fake or a dud, but it certainly doesn't appear to be what we expected from a competently constructed modern nuclear warhead.

Updates: they are coming fast and furious, so hang on.

Josh Manchester, who I just met in person this past weekend and found to be very impressive, has a couple of posts I consider must-reads. Allah has compiled continuing breaking news from the beginning of this story on Hot Air. Start here and continue on here. Glenn Reynolds is of course providing roundups and passing out Instalanches here and here. Pajamas Media has an on-going thread here.

Mary Katherine Ham started off here last night and continues on today. No word yet on whether or not she's wearing the hated orange yet.

Wizbang has a roundup going as does another new friend, Sister Toldjah.

Expect information overload. I'm sure more is on the way.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 11:45 AM | Comments (24) | Add Comment
Post contains 619 words, total size 5 kb.

Developing:

North Korea said Monday it has performed its first-ever nuclear weapons test, which would confirm that the country has a working atomic bomb as it has long claimed.

The country's official Korean Central News Agency said the underground test was performed successfully "with indigenous wisdom and technology 100 percent," and that no radioactive material leaked from that test site.

"It marks a historic event as it greatly encouraged and pleased the (Korean People's Army) and people that have wished to have powerful self-reliant defense capability," KCNA said. "It will contribute to defending the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the area around it."

I suspect that we'll find out that this was a real test of a small nuclear warhead, but I would not be surprised in the least to find out that this was a large conventional blast like we had planned earlier this year in Nevada in an operation named "Divine Strake."

Time will tell, but I think North Korea miscalculated. They don' t seem to have any other threats to issue now that they've test-fired both missiles and warheads in the past year. They've essentially fired out with everything they have, and I don't see that they have anything with which to negotiate now.

Bad dictator. Dumb move.

Update: MKH and Allah are all over this. Back to my sick bed I go...

Update: Josh Manchester has a must-read analysis of the situation in his TCS Daily article, "Stalking the Hermit."

Update: Captain Ed ain't buying it. Not yet, anyway.

Update: Pushing their luck: Norks say they might test another. This could escalate quickly, both diplomatically and perhaps even militarily. Stay tuned...

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:33 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 293 words, total size 2 kb.

Terrorism ending not with a bang, but a whimper:

The Irish Republican Army has begun reducing its membership and shut down key units responsible for weapons-making, arms smuggling and training, an expert panel reported Wednesday in findings designed to spur a revival of Catholic-Protestant cooperation in Northern Ireland.

The British and Irish governments warmly welcomed the 60-page assessment of the Independent Monitoring Commission, a four-man panel that includes former directors of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the anti-terrorist unit of Scotland Yard.

The assessment reported that the IRA — which last year declared a formal end to its campaign to overthrow Northern Ireland by force and handed its weapons stockpiles to disarmament chiefs — had recently shut down three command units and "run down its terrorist capability.''
The report said the IRA has disbanded military structures, including the departments responsible for weapons procurement, engineering and training, and it had cut back rank-and-file members and stopped payments to them, the report said.

"We do not believe that PIRA is now engaged in terrorism," it added, using the group's full formal name of Provisional IRA. "We do not believe that PIRA is undertaking terrorist-type training. We do not believe that PIRA has been recruiting. ... The leadership is seeking to reduce the size of the organization. We have no evidence of targeting, procurement or engineering activity.''

The commission said the leadership of the IRA does not consider a return to terrorism as in any way a viable option and it continues to direct its members not to engage in criminal activity.

The Provisional IRA, (PIRA or "Provos") first emerged in 1969 to end Northern Ireland's status within the United Kingdom and force a united socialist Irish state through terrorist attacks. "The Troubles" lasted from the late 1960s until the late 1990s.

After 30 years of war, and an occasionally broken cease-fire measured in years, the Provos turned in their weaponry—thousands of small arms, grenades, some heavy machine guns and even surface-to-air missiles—in 2005. A year later, comand and control elements are slowly dismantling and recruitment has stopped.

The Provos called it the "Long War," and convincing arguments can be made that this was a sectarian conflict, or even a civil war.

The PIRA and other nationalist groups were only willing to negotiate a political settlement once they determined after decades of low-intensity warfare that loyalists and the British Army were not leaving. They finally accepted the inevitable, that they could not beat an indigenous government supported by its own military and police forces and strong external interests acting on the government's behalf.

Somehow, this all seems vaguely reassuring.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 02:54 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 447 words, total size 3 kb.

I'm sure Ted Koppel will tell us this was taken out of context:

Former Iranian president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has published a confidential letter by the late ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which has stirred a great deal of controversy in Iran, in part because the letter refers to a military commander's call to pursue nuclear weapons to be deployed against Iran's hostile neighbor, Iraq.

The letter's significance, and the critical timing of its disclosure, cannot be overstated. Until now, there had been no official voices in favor of nuclear proliferation and plenty of opposite declarations
led by Khomeini's successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has issued a religious decree, a fatwa, against it.

In his letter to political leaders, dated 1988, Khomeini does not make any judgment on the commander's position, which he mentions in passing in a narrative devoted to explaining the underlying reasons for his fateful decision to accept a United Nations resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Iran-Iraq War. These were the government's financial inability to persecute the war, failures in the battlefield, Saddam Hussein's backing by the United States, the increasing Americanization of the war, etc.

Khomeini's letter sets out the requirements of military commanders if they are to continue fighting against Iraq. It mentions more aircraft, helicopters, men and weapons, and also quotes the top commander saying that Iran would - within five years - need laser-guided and atomic weapons if it were to win the war.

I'm just thankful that Iranian's current leaders are past that militant desire.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 12:24 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 275 words, total size 2 kb.