Doubts over North Korea test will not stop fear spreading

The North Koreans have hailed the “H-bomb of justice”, a devastatingly powerful thermonuclear device that will protect it against all its enemies, especially the United States and its bitter rival across the 38th Parallel, South Korea.

“Nothing is more foolish than dropping a hunting gun before herds of ferocious wolves,” the secretive communist government thundered as it announced its fourth nuclear test. The latest act of brinkmanship by Pyongyang reinforced its status as an international pariah state and shredded nerves around Asia.

South Korea’s ministry of national defence slammed the test as a “grave threat” to the peace of the Korean Peninsula and the world, and vowed to punish the secretive communist country.

The US, China and Japan have all condemned the North’s nuclear programme, but uncertainty remains about whether the blast was truly a powerful hydrogen bomb or if it was an atomic explosion in line with previous tests.

Hydrogen bombs are based on nuclear fusion and are hundreds of times more devastating than atomic weapons, which use nuclear fission. It is a lot more difficult to build hydrogen bombs, and many analysts believe the North still does not have the ability.

Missile capability

Also open to question is North Korea’s ability to deliver a nuclear weapon by missile, threatening its neighbours, especially South Korea and Japan, but also other countries in the region and the US.

Hydrogen, or thermonuclear, bombs are relatively lighter than atomic weapons and it is much easier to mount them on a missile. They also deliver a much greater yield than atomic weapons.

The South Koreans, bitterly divided from their northern counterparts since the end of the Korean War (1950-1953), and whose capital, Seoul, is the most likely first target in the event of a conflict, believe the explosion was unlikely to have been a thermonuclear device.

The Yonhap news agency quoted an unnamed military official saying the seismic data showed too weak an explosion.

“Only a few countries, including the US and Russia, have conducted hydrogen bomb tests and the size of the detonations reached 20 to 50 megatons,” the official said.

“The latest North Korean test amounts to six kilotons and it’s too weak for a hydrogen bomb,” he said.

Boosted fission

Lee Chun-geun, a researcher at the Science and Technology Policy Institute, told the North Korea News website that the device was more likely a reinforced, or boosted fission, nuclear bomb.

“The countries which have atomic bombs try to achieve reinforced bombs, but it is difficult to ensure the materials to make it,” Lee said.

While analysts reckon that the North may have exaggerated the power of the weapon tested, it remains a deeply threatening development for the region, a defiant act of provocation that will crank up fears of conflict in the whole continent.

“North Korea has never ceased nuclear development, as well as the missiles or submarines to carry [the devices]. For the Soviets and China, it took only five years to create the H-bomb from the atomic bomb,” said Kim Tae-woo, former president of the Korea Institution of National Unification.