US Finally Realizes Korea Has A Hydrogen Bomb (Daniel 7)

The US is starting to think that North Korea might actually have tested hydrogen-bomb components

[Business Insider]
Armin Rosen

North Korea’s claim that it detonated a hydrogen bomb during an apparent nuclear-weapons test on January 6 were widely dismissed by experts and the US government as well. But it turns out that Pyongyang might have tested components from a hydrogen bomb after all.

According to CNN, inconclusive sampling of air near the test site by US spy aircraft, along with the unusual depth at which the test is believed to have occurred, have led some US officials to suspect that North Korea actually did test elements of a hydrogen device.

“The test was conducted more than two times deeper underground than originally assessed — at a depth consistent with what might be needed for a hydrogen bomb,” CNN reports, while cautioning that “the size of the seismic event and other intelligence indicates it was not likely a fully functioning device.”

Seismic information indicates that North Korea tested a weapon with a comparable explosive yield to the nuclear device the country detonated during its last previous test in 2013 — a 10-kiloton bomb that created a fireball one-fifth of a mile wide. After the January 6 test, numerous arms-control experts said it was highly unlikely that North Korea had tested a hydrogen bomb, though possible it had tested a more typical fission-based atomic weapon “boosted” with hydrogen isotopes for increased yield.

Even a failed test of hydrogen-bomb components could signal an alarming shift in North Korea’s weapons capabilities.

A hydrogen bomb, aka a thermonuclear weapon, uses a plutonium- or uranium-based reaction to heat hydrogen isotopes, creating a kind of nuclear-feedback loop with the potential to dramatically boost the amount of energy that reaction ends up releasing. A thermonuclear weapon is more complicated and destructive than a typical atomic bomb.

As Alex Wellerstein, a nuclear historian at the Steven Institute of Technology and creator of Nuke Map, told Business Insider on January 6, a country that’s mastered thermonuclear-weapons design suddenly has a number of possible options open to it.

For instance, a country with a thermonuclear capability could build “a very thin-cased bomb of low yield [in this case 1 to 10 kilotons, or 1,000 to 10,000 tons of TNT] that would emit a lot of radiation relative to its blast power.”

The so-called neutron bomb, or “enhanced radiation,” weapon isn’t all that hard to develop once a country has mastered more basic hydrogen-bomb technology.

(Reuters)
Map locating North Korea’s nuclear facilities.

North Korea would still face the technical hurdle of miniaturizing a hydrogen device for delivery by ballistic missile. The US wasn’t able to construct a functioning neutron bomb of any size or weight without extensive testing, and North Korea may not have the testing data or carried out the trial-and-error process needed to actually build a functioning hydrogen device.

But if North Korea really did test hydrogen-bomb components, it could signal an interest in eventually developing far more destructive weaponry — bombs of horrifically high yield whose development might not remain outside Pyongyang’s technological grasp for long.

Bush Helped Cause The Present South Asian Nuclear Crisis

Bush Administration Nuclear Policy Enabled India’s H-bomb Program

The aftershocks of the Bush administration just keep rolling in, this time in India.

By Russ Wellen, January 25, 2016.

In December, the Center for Public Integrity published an investigative report by Adrian Levy titled Experts worry that India is creating new fuel for an arsenal of H-bombs. It was also published in Foreign Policy with the more alarming title India Is Building a Top-Secret Nuclear City to Produce Thermonuclear Weapons, Experts Say.

The Indian government has appropriated a large chunk of land in the southern Karnataka state to build a military complex of nuclear research laboratories and testing facilities. Also ostensibly intended to produce fuel for India’s nuclear reactors and submarines, it seems that, writes Levy

… another, more controversial ambition, according to retired Indian government officials and independent experts in London and Washington, is to give India an extra stockpile of enriched uranium fuel that could — if India so decides — be used in new hydrogen bombs (also known as thermonuclear weapons), substantially increasing the explosive force of those in its existing nuclear arsenal.

Bear in mind that because India never signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),it’s a “rogue” nuclear nation like Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea, and not subject to inspections by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). Presumably, India seeks to build up its arsenal to counter Pakistan, right? Not necessarily. Levy:

Gary Samore, who served from 2009 to 2013 as the White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction, said “I believe that India intends to build thermonuclear weapons as part of its strategic deterrent against China.”

The Bush administration’s deal of cooperation with India implemented in 2008 was controversial because India was not a signatory to the NPT. (Bear in mind that with all the heat we have kept on Iran for decades about its nuclear research, it’s a signatory to the NPT — just one we haven’t got along with.) Levy again:

Opponents of the deal complained … that it did not compel India to allow inspections of nine reactor sites known to be associated with the country’s military, including several producing plutonium for nuclear arms. The deal also allowed 10 other reactor sites subject to IAEA inspection to use imported uranium fuel, freeing up an indigenously-mined supply of uranium that was not tracked by the international community and could now be redirected to the country’s bomb program.

Given India’s “need to build up [its] nuclear deterrent arsenal as fast as possible,” it should “categorize as many power reactors as possible as civilian ones, to be refueled by imported uranium, and conserve our native uranium fuel for weapons grade plutonium production,” strategist Krishnaswamy Subrahmanyam, a longtime adviser to the Indian government, notoriously wrote in December 12, 2005, in The Times of India. [Emphasis added.]

Which is exactly what India is doing. Thank you George Bush for expediting thermonuclear weapons in the Indian subcontinent. Though the West might be able to dodge direct involvement in a nuclear war between India and China or Pakistan, the ensuing nuclear winter would have a devastating effect on the entire planet for years to come.