Regarding NK's Probability of A Second Nuclear Test

[Annie]

http://austinbay.net/blog/?p=1485

10/17/2006
A second NoKo nuke test in the offing?

— site admin @ 6:06 pm

As I wrote several days ago, we need to encourage North Korea’s nuclear test program. It burns up fissile material.

Key excerpt:

Satellite images indicate North Korea appears to be getting ready for a second nuclear test, officials said Tuesday, as the defiant communist regime held huge rallies and proclaimed that U.N. sanctions amount to a declaration of war.

China, the North’s longtime ally and biggest trading partner, warned Pyongyang not to aggravate tensions. The U.N. has condemned the Oct. 9 atomic blast, and U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill told reporters in Seoul on Tuesday that another nuclear explosion would be “a very belligerent answer” to the world.

As the White House acknowledged that the isolated nation might try a second test…​

Kim Jong-Il is a megalomaniac, but a calculating megalomaniac. He’s also paranoid. He now knows he has no friends. In an odd way I buy his claim that the UN sanctions package –as weak as it is– constitutes an act of war. The sanctions package is at least curling rope, if not a noose. He’s got a nuke. He also has a South Korean populace that now wants nuclear weapons. He has a Japan ready to re-arm. He has embarassed his Chinese neighbor.

The bitter irony of times is the ability of dictators to threaten neighbors with their own collapse. China and South Korea do fear the economic and social consequences of several hundred thousand (several million?) refugees.