North Korea Nuclear Test

[Teejay32]

That has been the Administration's approach - fuel the collapse of the regime instead of worry about proliferatoin. So far that approach has worked as well as the Administration's approaches on every other foreign policy issue.

The minute NK goes nuclear, and it may have already, that policy is a failure. But then, Iraq has been an obvious failure for at least two years, and the true believers won't acknowledge that yet. NK could trigger a nuclear exchange over there or just drop one of Tokyo, and loyalists would claim that that further proves the wisdom of their policy of talking tough

Six-party talks and exposing NK's duplicity to the world is not ignoring the problem. For all intents and purposes NK had a light-water reactor and their oil; it was theirs to lose. This might already have failed as a proliferation strategy, but instead of saying "the US failed" I'd say, if so, that diplomacy failed. The rest of the world needs a plan to deal with the shortfalls of diplomacy. It won't get one, as long as we're willing scapegoats for whatever goes wrong.

 

[Amity 3]

Not sure I agree. If the dollar ceases to be the default world reserve currency, we can't self-finance our debt. And that our debt burden incredibly more harmful. It's heading that way now, but gradually. A sudden shock could tip us. It's doubtful that China alone coudl make it happen. Japan also has large dollar resrves. But if it happened, not sure we would recover first

speculation's a hard monster to trap, I doubt China is going to take that windfall to start investing the Euro.

but what the hell do we know? this is going to be played out before us.

 

[sodaseller]

Six-party talks and exposing NK's duplicity to the world is not ignoring the problem. For all intents and purposes NK had a light-water reactor and their oil; it was theirs to lose. This might already have failed as a proliferation strategy, but instead of saying "the US failed" I'd say, if so, that diplomacy failed. The rest of the world needs a plan to deal with the shortfalls of diplomacy. It won't get one, as long as we're willing scapegoats for whatever goes wrong.

How did they have a light water reactor?

And who's talking diplomacy - I'm talking a straight buy off. How did that fail?

Really, I can't even figure out what point you are trying to make.

My point is real simple. NK either exploded or came close to exploding a nuke they would have never been able to had they not taken Youngbuon back online, which they couldn't have had we kept bribing them under the Agreed Framework

 

[Teejay32]

http://www.kedo.org/ That's your LWR project.

Straight buyoffs are for blackmailers and such, and I'd expect the same results.

 

[sodaseller]

http://www.kedo.org/ That's your LWR project.

Straight buyoffs are for blackmailers and such, and I'd expect the same results.

They don't have it - read it. Is that the support for the claim that have one for all intents and purposes? If so, wow. This is about as close to an operative LWR as extraordinary rendition is to rendition under the US Code.

As for the latter, I hear Clint Eastwood needs a new screewriter. Or is that just more Christopher Hill. In teh real world, we've been talking like that for four years now, and we see how well it's worked. Certainly shut down that program

 

[Geoff_M]

So what? Logistically, they would be decades away from anything that could hurt us, whereas the alternative was short term and certain. Taking Yungbuon back online led to substantial certainty that they woudl have substantial quanities of weapons grade plutonium in months.

If as several people has posted here is correct, and this test was a total dud, then it may turn out to be a bit premature to declare that NK's nuclear weapons program is off of the launching pad. Weapons grade plutonium may still be outside of NK's reach at this point.

The Uranium program was at least a decade away, and even if they had HEU tomorrow, that is far hardee to get on a warhead, so we would still be ahead.

Again, given the apparently surprisingly low yield of today's test compared to what would be expected with a Plutonium based device, if it in fact turns out to be a nuclear device it may point to their U program having exceeded the international community's previously expected timeline.

If the "no negotiation" approach had worked, bravo. But by all indications, it failed

It's a fallacy to imply that the US is unequivocally against negotations with NK, the US position has been an insistence that all relevant parties be at the table: NK, SK, China, Japan, Russia, and the US.

 

[LuvDuke]

Again, you are wrong. Read the post. The DNC press release quoted two legitimate sources for real and verifiable facts. The most important fact is that fact that the vast bulk of the plutonium held by North Korea was refined after 2002. That fact is from a respected independent organization that monitors nuclear weapons development.

The facts are clear that before bush took office, North Korea may have enough material for one bomb. Since bush taking office, North Korea has the material for 13 or more bombs. The bush administration has refused to negotiate with North Korea on the theory that if we ignore the problem long enough maybe the regime will fall. That policy has allowed or encouraged North Korea to refine enough material for a dozen or more bombs instead of just enough for perhaps one bomb.

I get my material from a number of sources. However, I do read and understand the underlying material which means that I knew immediatedly that Dawnct1 was completely and utterly wrong in the claim that light water reactors given in the Clinton deal was the source of the material for the bomb used by North Korea. (BTW, rummy was on the board of directors of the company that was going to build such reactors) To show you how silly and wrong Dawnct's claim is, the European Union and the US have both offered to give Iran a light water reactor to get Iran to give up its enrichment program because such a reactor would not be a risk for weapons development.

Sodaseller pointed out the North Korea restarted its heavy water reactor which is the source of the plutonium for its weapons program. I posted a story from the IAEA which clarified that the fuel rods from a light water reactor could not be used in a nuclear weapons program. These are all facts and I do not care if you do not like the sourcing of these facts.

I believe in the facts and will present the facts without regard of the source so long as I have confidence in such facts. In this case, the DNC press release just quoted the findings of an independent organization as to an important fact (i.e. that North Korea has obtained over 80% of its weapons grade material during the bush tenure in the white house). You can ignore that fact if you want but it is still a fact.

And some people ignore the factual link that's almost always present on a "biased" website. It's so damned easy to look at the title "The Daily Kos", pronounce/announce it biased, and never bother to take at the factual, unbiased links. And then they piously announce "I don't get my information from biased sources" and then complain they can't find any information.

I've seen it too many times now.

 

[LuvDuke]

I'm no expert on the North Korea problem and I can honestly say I haven't got the faintest idea of how to solve it.

However, just like in real life, you cannot keep doing the same thing and expect a different outcome. And there are too many people in this administration who will bet on the replay of a horse race.

If they've been trying the 6-party talk route for umpteenth years, and they're getting nowhere, it's time to try something else.

And this administration's obsession with attempting and boasting about isolating certain regimes has produced nothing but isolation for the US and the rest of the world is moving on.

 

[sodaseller]

If as several people has posted here is correct, and this test was a total dud, then it may turn out to be a bit premature to declare that NK's nuclear weapons program is off of the launching pad. Weapons grade plutonium may still be outside of NK's reach at this point.

Again, given the apparently surprisingly low yield of today's test compared to what would be expected with a Plutonium based device, if it in fact turns out to be a nuclear device it may point to their U program having exceeded the international community's previously expected timeline.

It's a fallacy to imply that the US is unequivocally against negotations with NK, the US position has been an insistence that all relevant parties be at the table: NK, SK, China, Japan, Russia, and the US.

I wish it were true that a dud, which I think it was, meant that the NKs had not obtained weapons grade plutonium. But that's a hard conclusion to reach. First, a lot of other things can go wrong even if you have weapons grade plutonium. From the very very little I understand, I would bet one of two things. Either all we picked up was the detonating charge, although that's a big detonating charge, or they got partial but not full chain reaction. There is one other possible scenario, and all of these come from someone with no real background, so take them with a grain of salt, is that they were using the degraded plutonium from 90-91 that was long suspected. The "dud" might be consistent with that conclusion, which would suggest that they have gotten no new weapons grade plutonium from the start up.

But it is hard to see how they could be running a plant for three years outside the AIEA and NPT so no accounting for spent fuel and NOT have extracted weapons grade plutonium. It might be the case that the plant is not operational due to dormancy, maintenance, spare parts, etc. Or maybe we sabotaged it somehow (bully), a tactic long rumored, and that the Israelis excel at (i.e., instead of rolling up an illicit supply network, which is hard, you just penetrate one supplier and introduce some adulteration into the process). Who knows? But I think that it is hard to conclude that they are operating Youngbuon, not accounting for spent fuel, and not extracting reprocessed plutonium

As for negotiations, yes we have made some offers through the South, although we subsequently backed off those. Our problem in these dealings and all others is that we always have two foreign policies. One group of representatives makes certain commitments and then Cheney causes them not to be fulfilled. I don't know that is what occurred here, but it certainly is plausible. We never have the one at top ensuring that we speak with one voice

 

[TheDoctor]

Even if it was a dud, it still means that North Korea is dangerous. Gov. Bill Richardson was on TV this morning and he made a good case that the US needs to get over the stupidity of refusing to negotiate with North Korea.

I negotiate for a living. The concept that it is a good negotiating technique to refuse to negotiate with anyone who is not your ally is just plain wrong.