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North Korea (Superthread)

Any thoughts on this latest news? Is it possible to put together a nuclear bomb in less than 4 months? They just put together their Yong Byong reactor recently, which seems 'to me' like they had been making a second one all along all the while being falsely cooperative. I'm no expert on this subject, just highly interested.
 
Sonnyjim said:
Any thoughts on this latest news? Is it possible to put together a nuclear bomb in less than 4 months? They just put together their Yong Byong reactor recently, which seems 'to me' like they had been making a second one all along all the while being falsely cooperative. I'm no expert on this subject, just highly interested.

Here's one thought: It seems Kim Jong Il and his regime are really asking for it.  They seem to just really want to escalate this whole situation even further.  :o

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090526/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_nuclear


By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer Hyung-jin Kim, Associated Press Writer – 12 mins ago
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea reportedly tested two more short-range missiles Tuesday, a day after detonating a nuclear bomb underground, pushing the regime further into a confrontation with world powers despite the threat of U.N. action.

Two missiles — one ground-to-air, the other ground-to-ship — with a range of about 80 miles (130 kilometers) were test-fired from an east coast launchpad, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported, citing an unidentified government official.

Pyongyang also warned ships to stay away from waters off its western coast this week, a sign it may be gearing up for more missile tests, South Korea's coast guard said.

North Korea is "trying to test whether they can intimidate the international community" with its nuclear and missile activity, said Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

"But we are united, North Korea is isolated and pressure on North Korea will increase," Rice said. On Monday, President Barack Obama assailed Pyongyang, accusing it of engaging in "reckless" actions that have endangered the region, and the North accused Washington of hostility.

Wall Street was lower in early trading as North Korea's actions kept investors on edge.

North Korea appeared to be displaying its might following its underground atomic test that the U.N. Security Council condemned as a "clear violation" of a 2006 resolution banning the regime from developing its nuclear program.

France called for new sanctions, while the U.S. and Japan pushed for strong action against North Korea for testing a bomb that Russian officials said was comparable in power to those dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

China said it "resolutely opposed" North Korea's test and urged Pyongyang to return to talks on ending its atomic programs.

Russia, once a key backer of North Korea, condemned the test. Moscow's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, the current Security Council president, said the 15-member council would begin work "quickly" on a new resolution.

But many questioned whether new punishment would have any effect on a nation already penalized by numerous sanctions and clearly dismissive of the Security Council's jurisdiction.

"I agree that the North Koreans are recalcitrant and very difficult to hold to any agreement that they sign up to," Britain's ambassador to the U.N., John Sawers, told the British Broadcasting Corp. "But there is a limited range of options here."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he felt "frustrated by the lack of progress in the denuclearization process" and said North Korea's only viable option was to return to the six-party talks on disarmament, and continue exchanges and cooperation with South Korea.

Ban, on a visit to Finland, declined to comment on possible further sanctions.

"I leave it to the Security Council members what measures they should take," said Ban, a South Korean who once participated in international negotiations aimed at dismantling North Korea's nuclear program.

South Korea said it would join a maritime web of more than 90 nations that intercept ships suspected of spreading weapons of mass destruction — a move North Korea warned would constitute an act of war.

North Korea's nuclear test raises worries that it could act as a facilitator of the atomic ambitions of other nations and potentially even terrorists.

Its test of a long-range missile in July 2006 and its first nuclear test in October 2006 drew stiff sanctions from the Security Council and orders to refrain from engaging in ballistic missile-related activity and to stop developing its nuclear program.

South Korean spy chief Won Sei-hoon had told lawmakers earlier Tuesday that a missile test was likely, according to the office of Park Young-sun, a legislator who attended the closed briefing.

Yonhap reported that North Korea was preparing to launch a third missile from a west coast site, again citing an unidentified official. It also reported that three missile tests were conducted Monday.

North Korea had threatened in recent weeks to carry out a nuclear test and fire long-range missiles unless the Security Council apologized for condemning Pyongyang's April 5 launch of a rocket the U.S., Japan and other nations called a test of its long-range missile technology. The North has said it put a satellite into orbit as part of its peaceful space development program.

Monday's nuclear test appeared to catch the world by surprise, but Won told lawmakers that Beijing and Washington knew Pyongyang was planning a test some 20-25 minutes before it was carried out, said Choi Kyu-ha, an aide to lawmaker Park.

Won said Pyongyang warned it would test the bomb unless the head of the Security Council offered an immediate apology. Russia said the test went off at 9:54 a.m. local time (0054 GMT Monday, 8:54 p.m. EDT Sunday). Won confirmed that two short-range missile tests from an east coast launch pad followed.

North Korea's neighbors and their allies scrambled to galvanize support for strong, united response to Pyongyang's nuclear belligerence.

Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak "agreed that the test was a reckless violation of international law that compels action in response," the White House said in a statement after the leaders spoke by telephone. They also vowed to "seek and support a strong United Nations Security Council resolution with concrete measures to curtail North Korea's nuclear and missile activities."

Obama also spoke with Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso, the White House said, with the leaders agreeing to step up coordination with South Korea, China and Russia. Obama reiterated the U.S. commitment to defend both South Korea and Japan, U.S. and South Korean officials said.

North Korea responded by accusing the U.S. of hostility, and said its army and people were ready to defeat any American invasion.

"The current U.S. administration is following in the footsteps of the previous Bush administration's reckless policy of militarily stifling North Korea," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in commentary carried by the country's official Korean Central News Agency.

In Japan, the lower house of parliament quickly passed an unanimous resolution condemning the test and demanding that North Korea give up its nuclear program, a house spokeswoman said.

"This reckless act, along with the previous missile launch, threatened peace and stability in the region, including Japan," the resolution said.

"North Korea's repeated nuclear tests posed a grave challenge to international nuclear nonproliferation," it said. "Japan, the only nation to suffer atomic attacks, cannot tolerate this." Japan is considering tightening sanctions against North Korea, the statement said.

Russia called the test a "serious blow" to efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons and suspended a Russia-North Korean intergovernmental trade and economic commission, apparently in response to the test. The slap on the wrist was a telling indication that Moscow, once a key backer of North Korea, was unhappy with Pyongyang.

Seoul reacted to the nuclear test by signing on to the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative, joining 94 nations seeking to intercept ships suspected of carrying nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, materials to make them, or missiles to deliver them.

North Korea for years has warned the South against joining the blockade. The Rodong Sinmun last week said South Korea's participation would be "nothing but a gambit to conceal their belligerence and justify a new northward invasion scheme."

Joining the PSI would end in Seoul's "self-destruction" it said.

In Beijing, the defense chiefs of South Korea and China held a security meeting Tuesday, and they were expected to discuss ways to respond to the nuclear test, Yonhap quoted a South Korean official as saying.

___

Associated Press writers Kwang-tae Kim and Jean H. Lee in Seoul, Shino Yuasa in Tokyo, Matti Huuhtanen in Helsinki, Finland, and Mike Eckel in Moscow contributed to this report.
 
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,522103,00.html

North Korea Warns of Military Strike on South After Restarting Nuke Plant

Wednesday, May 27, 2009


KCNA via AFP


SEOUL, South Korea —  North Korea's military says it considers South Korea's participation in a U.S.-led program to intercept ships suspected of spreading weapons of mass destruction tantamount to a declaration of war against the North.

The communist North's military said in a statement Wednesday that it will respond with "immediate, strong military measures" if the South actually stops and searches any North Korean ships under the Proliferation Security Initiative.

The statement, carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency, said North Korea no longer considers itself bound by the armistice that ended the Korean War, as a protest over the South's participation.

South Korea announced its participation in the anti-proliferation program Tuesday, one day after the North conducted a nuclear test.

North Korea has restarted a weapons-grade nuclear plant and fired five short-range missiles in two days, news reports and South Korean officials said Wednesday, deepening the North's standoff with world powers following its latest nuclear test.

The missile launches came as the U.N. Security Council debated possible new sanctions against the isolated communist nation for its nuclear test on Monday. Retaliatory options were limited, however, and no one was talking publicly about military action.

South Korea's mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that U.S. spy satellites have detected steam coming from a nuclear facility at North Korea's main Yongbyon plant, indicating the North is reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods to harvest weapons-grade plutonium.

Its report quoted an unnamed official. South Korea's Defense Ministry and the National Intelligence Service — the country's main spy agency — said they cannot confirm the report.

The North had said it would begin reprocessing in protest over international criticism of its April 5 rocket launch.

North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium for at least half a dozen atomic bombs. The North also has about 8,000 spent fuel rods which, if reprocessed, could allow the country to harvest 13-18 pounds of plutonium — enough to make at least one nuclear bomb, experts said.
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Yonhap news agency carried a similar report later Wednesday, saying the gate of a facility storing the spent fuel rods was spotted open several times since mid-April. The report, also citing an unnamed South Korean official, said chemical-carrying vehicles were spotted at Yongbyon.

North Korea's military also says it considers South Korea's participation in a U.S.-led program to intercept ships suspected of spreading weapons of mass destruction tantamount to a declaration of war against the North.

The communist North's military said in a statement Wednesday that it will respond with "immediate, strong military measures" if the South actually stops and searches any North Korean ships under the Proliferation Security Initiative.

The statement, carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency, said North Korea no longer considers itself bound by the armistice that ended the Korean War, as a protest over the South's participation.

South Korea announced its participation in the anti-proliferation program Tuesday, one day after the North conducted a nuclear test.

North Korea test-fired three additional short-range missiles Tuesday, including one late at night, from the east coast city of Hamhung, according to South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae. He said the North already test-launched two short-range missiles from another eastern coast launch pad on Monday, not the three reported by many South Korean media outlets.

More could be planned.

North Korea has warned ships to stay away from waters off its west coast through Wednesday, suggesting more test flights.

Details of Monday's nuclear test may take days to confirm. Russian defense officials said the blast was roughly as strong as the bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II and was stronger than North Korea's first test in 2006.

In New York, U.N. diplomats said key nations were discussing a Security Council resolution that could include new sanctions against North Korea.

Ambassadors from the five permanent veto-wielding council members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — as well as Japan and South Korea were expected to meet again soon, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting is private.

The Security Council met in emergency session Monday and condemned the nuclear test. Council members said they would follow up with a new legally binding resolution.

How far China and Russia, both close allies of North Korea, would go remained the main question.

Russia, once a key backer of North Korea, condemned the test. Moscow's U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, also the Security Council president, said the 15-member body would begin work "quickly" on a new resolution.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu also said Beijing "resolutely opposed" the nuclear test. It urged Pyongyang to return to negotiations under which it had agreed to dismantle its atomic program.

North Korea is "trying to test whether they can intimidate the international community" with its nuclear and missile activity, said Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

"But we are united, North Korea is isolated, and pressure on North Korea will increase," Rice said.

Diplomats acknowledged, however, that there were limits to the international response and that past sanctions have had only spotty results.

North Korea seemed unfazed by the condemnation.

Thousands of Pyongyang residents, including senior military and party officials, gathered Tuesday in a stadium to celebrate the successful nuclear test.

Choe Thae Bok, a high-ranking party official, was quoted by North Korea's official news agency as saying that the nuclear test "was a grand undertaking" to protect the country against "the U.S. imperialists' unabated threat to mount a pre-emptive nuclear attack and (put) sanctions and pressure upon it."

North Korea blamed the escalating tensions in the region on Washington, saying the U.S. was building up its forces, and defended its nuclear test as a matter of self-preservation.

At the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, An Myong Han, a diplomat from the North Korean mission, said his country "could not but take additional self-defense measures, including nuclear tests and the test launch of long-range missiles, in order to safeguard our national interest."
 
Our inability to get China to restrain Pyongyang has been a dismal failure. The North knows we wont go to war so where do we get some leverage ? I think we need to play the nuclear card with Japan. If and I know its a big IF, we get Japan to announce its intention to become a nuclear power that I think it would be a wake up call for both China and Pyongyang.
 
For the question of how long it takes to build a working fission bonb: not long at all. General knowledge exists that would allow me to make a uranium "gun" type bomb given access to materials and sufficient motivation, and I suppose many other people could do that too in theory (many encyclopedias and Wikipedia provide more than enough starting materials for research).

A plutonium "implosion" type weapon is more difficult, but possible given 1940 vintage technology and enough resources (in the case fo the DPRK, slave labour could be enlisted to do much of the "dirty" work and reduce the amount of time and effort spent on securing "clean" conditions for manufacture and assembly of the physics package).

Most of the non nuclear components could exist stockpiled pre made as well, speeding up the actual assembly process.
 
More details on the escalating situation: Pyongyang just declared it is no longer bound by the 1953 Armistice. So does this mean war is imminent?  :o

Here we go!

North Korea threatens to attack South if ships searched

By Jon Herskovitz

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea, facing international censure for this week's nuclear test, threatened on Wednesday to attack the South after it joined a U.S.-led plan to check vessels suspected of carrying equipment for weapons of mass destruction.

In Moscow, news agencies quoted an official as saying that Russia is taking precautionary security measures because it fears mounting tensions over the test could escalate to war.


Adding to mounting tension in the region, South Korean media reported that Pyongyang had restarted a plant that makes plutonium that can be used in nuclear bombs.


North Korea's latest threat came after Seoul announced, following the North's nuclear test on Monday, it was joining the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative, launched under the George W. Bush administration as a part of its "war on terror."


"Any hostile act against our peaceful vessels including search and seizure will be considered an unpardonable infringement on our sovereignty and we will immediately respond with a powerful military strike," a North Korean army spokesman was quoted as saying by the official KCNA news agency.


He reiterated that the North was no longer bound by an armistice signed at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War because Washington had ignored its responsibility as a signatory by drawing Seoul into the anti-proliferation effort.

The U.N. Security Council is discussing ways to punish Pyongyang for Monday's test, widely denounced as a major threat to regional stability and which brings the reclusive North closer to having a reliable nuclear bomb.


Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed security source as saying a stand-off triggered by Pyongyang's nuclear test on Monday could affect the security of Russia's far eastern regions, which border North Korea.


"We are not talking about stepping up military efforts but rather about measures in case a military conflict, perhaps with the use of nuclear weapons, flares up on the Korean Peninsula," the source said.


Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, who called him on Wednesday, that Russia would work with Seoul on a new U.N. Security Council resolution and to revive international talks on the North Korean nuclear issue.


INVESTOR RISK


Seoul shares closed lower with traders saying the latest rumblings underscored the risks for investors stemming from troubles along the Cold War's last frontier. The main index has fallen 3 percent this week. The won currency was also down.


The nuclear test has raised concern about Pyongyang spreading weapons to other countries or groups. Washington has accused it of trying try to sell nuclear know-how to Syria and others.


The rival Koreas fought two deadly naval clashes in 1999 and 2002 near a disputed maritime border off their west coast and the North has threatened in the past year to strike South Korean vessels in those Yellow Sea waters.


Analysts say Pyongyang's military grandstanding is partly aimed at tightening leader Kim Jong-il's grip on power to better engineer his succession and divert attention from a weak economy, which has fallen into near ruin since he took over in 1994.


Many speculate Kim's suspected stroke in August raised concerns about succession and he wants his third son to be the next leader of Asia's only communist dynasty.


North Korea has been punished for years by sanctions and is so poor it relies on aid to feed its 23 million people, but that has not deterred it from provocations.

A U.S. Treasury Department official said it was weighing possible action to isolate the North financially. A 2005 U.S. clampdown on a Macau bank suspected of laundering money for Pyongyang effectively cut the country off from the international banking system.

The secretive North appears to have made good on a threat issued in April of restarting a facility at its Yongbyon nuclear plant that extracts plutonium, South Korea's largest newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, reported.

"There are various indications that reprocessing facilities in Yongbyon resumed operation (and) have been detected by U.S. surveillance satellite, and these include steam coming out of the facility," it quoted an unnamed government source as saying.

The Soviet-era Yongbyon plant was being taken apart under a six-country disarmament-for-aid deal. The surveillance had yet to detect any signs that the North, which conducted its only prior nuclear test in October 2006, was again separating plutonium.

'GRAND UNDERTAKING'

North Korea's meager supply of fissile material is likely down to enough for five to seven bombs after Monday's test, experts have said. It could probably extract enough plutonium from spent rods cooling at the plant for another bomb's worth of plutonium by the end of this year.

Japan's upper house of parliament denounced the test and said in a resolution the government should step up its sanctions.

North Koreans celebrated, with a rally in the capital of top cadres and military brass, KCNA said.

"The nuclear test was a grand undertaking to protect the supreme interests of the DPRK (North Korea) and defend the dignity and sovereignty of the country and nation," it quoted a communist party official as saying.

The North's next step may to be resume operations at all of Yongbyon, with experts saying it could take the North up to a year to reverse disablement steps. Once running, it can produce enough plutonium to make one bomb a year.

The hermit state has also threatened to launch a long-range ballistic missile if the Security Council does not apologize for tightening sanctions to punish it for an April launch widely seen as a missile test that violated U.N. measures.

(Additional reporting by Jack Kim, Rhee So-eui and Kim Junghyun in Seoul, Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo and Oleg Shchedrov in Moscow; Editing by Jonathan Thatcher and Bill Tarrant)
 
Start digging the bomb shelters?  ??? So does this mean that Norht Korea is now going to start "Flexing their muscles" even more to test reactions?
 
No one knows for sure. However NK has mastered the art of the tantrum, which is not meant to trivialize the threats of a very dangerous regime, knowing that the outside world will then make overtures and offer to talk. The NK government is well aware of the state of the armed forces of its potential foes and that they are heavily engaged in other theatres. I suspect they figure they will be able to extract more at this time by wild threats and insults.

On the other hand, the 56-year long truce may be over. At which point, my vaguely remembered Canadian army drinking songs of the fifties and sixties like "We'll Fight for the 'Good Chap' Sighman Rhee" and "Provost" will be back in vogue.
 
More details on the escalating situation: Pyongyang just declared it is no longer bound by the 1953 Armistice. So does this mean war is imminent?

IIRC, that armistice was never officially signed by South Korea anyway, essentially meaning the two halves of the continent have technically still been at war, only without a shot fired in anger.
 
Gates is in the region calling for unity among US allies against North Korea.

Seems only reasonable to do if North Korea threatens war.

From AP via Yahoo News:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090528/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_us_nkorea

WASHINGTON – The U.S. on Wednesday accused North Korea of "provocative and belligerent" behavior as Defense Secretary Robert Gates took on the delicate task of reassuring Asian allies of U.S. support without further provoking the communist government.

Gates flew to Singapore for meetings with foreign ministers aimed at a cohesive response to the North Korean atomic test. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton issued stern statements underscoring the firmness of U.S. treaty commitments to defend South Korea and Japan, U.S. allies in easy range of the North's missiles.

Gates' trip to meet with leaders from South Korea, Japan and other Far East nations had already been planned, but U.S. officials said North Korea's bomb and missile tests and heated rhetoric would dominate the discussions.

Gates is scheduled to visit the Philippine capital in Manila and will possibly discuss U.S. troop levels stationed there. He also planned to stop by two U.S. bases in Alaska on his way back to Washington next week.

(...)


North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium for at least a half-dozen weapons, but experts say it still has not mastered the miniaturization technology required to mount a nuclear warhead on a long-range

(...)

South Korea had resisted joining the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative, a network of nations seeking to stop ships from transporting materials used in nuclear bombs. It joined the coalition after Monday's bomb test — a move that North Korea described Wednesday as akin to a declaration of war.

(...)
 
Old Sweat said:
However NK has mastered the art of the tantrum

I'll admit that I don't have any degrees in international relations or anything like that, but to me, North Korea doesn't really seem to be throwing tantrums.  Personally, I see their little stunts as a way to either:
A: Get what they want, in terms of appearing like a superpower.

Or

B: The madmen in charge actually want to go to war.

They have been threatening to declare war for years for the smallest things, like boarding/searching a ship bound for NK.  So, I see it as a matter of either calling their bluff, or they are doing everything they can to be able to declare war.

Oddball
 
uncle-midget-Oddball said:
A: Get what they want, in terms of appearing like a superpower.

Or

B: The madmen in charge actually want to go to war.

Either way, we should drop one on them before they drop one on us.
 
I see their little stunts as a way to either:
A: Get what they want, in terms of appearing like a superpower.

When a child throws a screaming hissy fit, he is telling his parents "I'll act like this every time  you try to discipline me, until you learn your place".  Prompt action by the parents usually nips that in the bud, and the child stops throwing tantrums.  If the parent caves, the kid throws a tantrum every time he wants something, because HE is calling the shots.

When North Korea throws a screaming hissy fit, Kim Jong Il (of World Police singing fame) is telling the world super powers "I'll act like this every time you try to discipline me, until you learn your place".  Mealy-mouthed comments by the UN, OR governments that ought to know better just lead him to think that he is in charge.

World politics is really a lot like disciplining a child.  "I want this".  "You can't have it".  "I'll hit you"  "I'll send you directly to bed young man, and don't you dare raise a hand to  your elders".

Option B is just the tantrum-thrower raising the stakes.

I sometimes wonder if the solution to poor politics is proper parenting....
 
Gunnar said:
"I'll act like this every time  you try to discipline me, until you learn your place". 

"I'll act like this every time you try to discipline me, until you learn your place".

World politics is really a lot like disciplining a child.  "I want this".  "You can't have it".  "I'll hit you"  "I'll send you directly to bed young man, and don't you dare raise a hand to  your elders".

These are where calling their bluff comes into play. 

Little kid/North Korea  "I'm going to declare war if you look in my closet."

Parent/Damn near every other nation: " You're full of bullsh!t. Smarten up, or I'm going to take 'x' away from you."

It's bound to happen eventually, and when it does, the result will either be North Korea folding up in a defensive way and pouting, or they're actually serious and war breaks out.

Either way, we should drop one on them before they drop one on us.
We've had over fifty years of 'watching' to know where damn near every artillery battery aimed at Seoul is located.... question is, after they're gone, can a one million man army be stopped in less than 70 km?

(I'm on the same page as you btw. If it's going to happen, we might as well have the upper hand from the get-go)


Oddball
 
For those wondering about China's reaction to this whole escalating situation...

May 28 (Bloomberg) -- China has the ability to cripple North Korea by cutting off shipments of food, fuel, and luxury goods that Kim Jong Il doles out to loyalists. Kim’s nuclear detonation may put that leverage in play and test its impact on the leadership.

China is increasingly frustrated by North Korea’s defiance of United Nations resolutions designed to curb its atomic and missile programs and is worried that a nuclear-armed government in Pyongyang could spark a new arms race in Asia, analysts and a person familiar with the Obama administration’s policy said.

Until now, China has rebuffed U.S. and Japanese calls for tougher economic penalties against North Korean leader Kim, agreeing only on narrow UN sanctions aimed at regime-run companies and arms imports.

“China may be reaching a point of understanding that Kim is going too far,” said Dennis Wilder, a former Asia director for the White House National Security Council.

Should the Chinese leadership shift against North Korea, it isn’t clear what levers would be used or whether economic clout would translate into political influence over a regime in a possible succession battle, according to the person familiar with administration policy and experts on China and North Korea.

By normal measures of economic influence, China has overwhelming and growing power over North Korea. China accounted for 73 percent of North Korea’s international trade last year, up from less than a third in 2003, according to the Seoul-based Korea Trade & Investment Promotion Agency.

Oil, Food

China supplies 90 percent of North Korea’s oil demand, 80 percent of consumer goods and 45 percent of its food, Dong Yong Seung, a researcher on North Korean issues at the Samsung Economic Research Institute in Seoul, said.


China didn’t want to use stronger measures in the past out of fear of alienating possible successors to Kim or even sparking the collapse of North Korea, its ally of 60 years, and fomenting a refugee crisis along their 800-mile border.

An April 5 rocket launch, the May 25 nuclear detonation and subsequent short-range missile tests may lead China to work more closely with the U.S., the person familiar with U.S. policy said.

China’s foreign ministry said the country “resolutely opposes” North Korea’s nuclear test. On May 25 China agreed with the U.S., Japan and Russia to work toward a UN resolution censuring North Korea for its nuclear test and missile launches.   (....)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aiq8iNe42T3g&refer=home
 
Counting on China to help out is the fools option; China will do what is best for China's self interest (and leaving the US dangling and inducing fear, uncertainty and doubt into Russia, South Korea, Japan and other Pacific Rim nations can't hurt China's ambitions). Given the speed and ease with which China *could* throttle the DPRK (having essentially all the economic arteries in the palm of their hand) and the fact they have not should tell us something.

In the mean time, the grown ups look for the least worst options:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/05/inside-americas-mock-attack-north-korea/

Inside America’s (Mock) Attack on North Korea
By Noah Shachtman  May 27, 2009  |  7:07 am  |  Categories: Army and Marines, Rogue States

Even the hawks say there’s not much America can do, in response to North Korea’s nuclear test. But that doesn’t mean the U.S. military isn’t prepping for a war with the Kim Jong-Il regime, just in case.

In March, American and South Korean forces teamed up for the “Key Resolve/Foal Eagle” war game. 13,100 troops from outside Korea — and tens of thousands more, already stationed in the country — participated in the massive exercise, which focused on “deploying troops and equipment to Korea in the event of an attack,” according to a military press release.

Some U.S. and South Korean commandos made airborne jumps together from a helium blimp; others, from helicopters hovering above the Korea Strait. A third group ran a mock “operation to secure a suspected chemical weapons lab.” Unconventional weapons experts drilled in responding to a simulated strike involving “hundreds of WMD.” Navy helicopter pilots swept for mines, while Marine fighter pilots flew with their South Korean counterparts to “wipe out” simulated enemy aircraft.

The Americans and their allies kicked all kinds of butt in the exercise, of course. Other war games, testing out the North Korean scenario, didn’t end quite as cleanly. One ran by The Atlantic in 2005 forecast 100,000 or more dead civilians in the first few days. And that was if the U.S. could assemble the half-million to million troops needed for such an assault; none of the participants thought such a staggering number of troops could be gathered together, given all of America’s military commitments around the world.

Two years earlier, the Pentagon put together a very different kind of war plan for North Korea — one that didn’t involve ground troops at all. Instead, U.S. forces would lob bombs and missiles and electronic attacks in an instant “global strike.” Even nuclear weapons were considered, as part of the plan.

A similar “bolt from the blue” was proposed in a 2005 article for the Washington Post, by former Defense Secretary William Perry and Ashton Carter, who today serves as the Pentagon’s weapons-buyer-in-chief. They proposed taking out a North Korean long-range missile on the launchpad, to prevent the nuclear Kim Jong-Il from test-firing an ICBM. The surgical strike was, of course, never ordered. And the missile itself was kind of a dud.

In 2003, retired Colonel John Collins ran through the possible moves and countermoves in a military standoff on the Korean peninsula — from blockades to full-out nuclear strikes.  His conclusion: “Any of the U.S. options described above could trigger uncontrollable escalation that would create appalling casualties on both sides of the DMZ and promise a Pyrrhic victory at best. Unilateral actions by the United States without unqualified ROK [Republic of Korea] agreement and willing participation every step of the way would be immoral as well as ill- advised. Inaction while Kim Jong Il develops a robust nuclear arsenal and perhaps supplies nuclear weapons to U.S. enemies, unfortunately, would worsen any future confrontation.”

From a military perspective, crippling the command and control infrastructure then hammering the logistics pipeline would be the "best" options to limit the ability of the DPRK to prosecute or exploit an invasion (I doubt there is the political will to preemptively strike the DPRK), most North Korean units would die on the vine out of contact with the leadership and denied food, fuel and munitions. The mopping up would consume most of the energy and resourses of the Alliance, while China could quietly slip into the DPRK to begin "humanitarian" and "stability" operations.

See also Robert Kaplan When North Korea Falls

Phase One: resource depletion;

Phase Two: the failure to maintain infrastructure around the country because of resource depletion;

Phase Three: the rise of independent fiefs informally controlled by local party apparatchiks or warlords, along with widespread corruption to circumvent a failing central government;

Phase Four: the attempted suppression of these fiefs by the KFR once it feels that they have become powerful enough;

Phase Five: active resistance against the central government;

Phase Six: the fracture of the regime; and

Phase Seven: the formation of new national leadership.
 
But do you not think Kim Dong Eel(haha), would start a war seeing as he is more than likely going to die in the somewhat not-to-distant-future. ? just an opinion question. I know it seems he is setting his youngest son up to take over but would he rather trying to go out with a bang?
 
Thucydides said:
Counting on China to help out is the fools option; China will do what is best for China's self interest (and leaving the US dangling and inducing fear, uncertainty and doubt into Russia, South Korea, Japan and other Pacific Rim nations can't hurt China's ambitions). Given the speed and ease with which China *could* throttle the DPRK (having essentially all the economic arteries in the palm of their hand) and the fact they have not should tell us something.

Very true. However, perhaps it is too early to dismiss a possible PLA intervention into North Korea to serve Bejing's own interests, in the same way that the PLA invaded Vietnam, a fellow Communist country, back in 1979.

The Cold War context that led to that other invasion definitely does not exist anymore, but as this other article post indicates, Beijing is growing weary of Pyongyang's constant sabre-rattling which destabilizes the region and threatens the PRC's own continued economic prosperity. 
 
A few more updates..... good thoughts cougar daddy on the PLA possibly stepping in, however they may want to play this one out to further strengthen their own ambitions. As for Kim's sucessor it's still up in the air and only speculated. There were the reports as to his son Kim Jong-chul being a successor and then conflicting reports of a possible brother-in law(correct me if I'm wrong) who is high in the government office but not corrupted by the military ranks. Anyways, as for some new updates, Chinese ships are leaving the area and yet another short range missile.

YEONPYEONG, South Korea – North Korea defiantly test-fired another short-range missile Friday and warned it would take "self-defense" action if provoked by the U.N. Security Council, which is considering tough sanctions against the communist regime for conducting a nuclear test.

The North fired the missile from its Musudan-ni launch site on the east coast, a South Korean government official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the matter. It is the sixth short-range missile North Korea has test-fired since Monday's nuclear test.

The official did not give further details.

With tensions high on the Korean peninsula, Chinese fishing boats left the region, possibly to avoid any maritime skirmishes between the two Koreas. But U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the situation was not a crisis and no additional U.S. troops would be sent to the region.

North Korea, meanwhile, warned it would retaliate if provoked...........

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090529/ap_on_re_as/as_koreas_nuclear

 
A PLA intervention however welcome is not very likely. The Chinese would have to govern a bankrupt starving country until they could decide on who would govern the country. Of course the Chinese could then support unification under the ROK and hand the entire mess over to the ROK.
 
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