nuclear-news

Death of Kim Jong Il raises fears about North Korea’s nuclear arsenal

Pyongyang’s Neighbors Worry Over Nuclear Arms, WSJ, 20 Dec 11  By KEITH JOHNSON WASHINGTON—For years, the biggest questions surrounding North Korea have involved the isolated country’s nuclear devices and its missiles, some of which could reach Alaska.

How the country’s leadership succession will unfold in the aftermath of dictator Kim Jong Il’s death—and what that means for North Korea’s huge military and its nuclear arsenal—has now emerged in sharp relief.
On paper, the National Defense Commission has control of nuclear
devices and missiles. The NDC is headed by Kim Jong Il’s
brother-in-law, Jang Song Taek. Mr. Jang is widely expected to act as
an adviser to Kim Jong Eun, the youngest son of the deceased leader
widely considered to be in line for the country’s top post.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday that the U.S. doesn’t
have “any additional concerns beyond the ones that we have long had
with North Korea’s approach to nuclear issues.”

However, North Korea experts note that the country doesn’t have many
of the safeguards routinely used by nuclear states to prevent
unauthorized or accidental deployment of the weapons.

And given the Byzantine nature of the regime, informal control of the
devices could rest with other officials, or be held directly by the
supreme leader, speculate some analysts, including the Center for
Naval Analyses, a security think tank….
North Korea has one to two dozen nuclear devices, nuclear experts say.
The number varies because experts aren’t sure how much plutonium
Pyongyang uses for each device. But experts say there is no firm
evidence that North Korea has turned its nuclear devices into
operational warheads, which would require miniaturizing and toughening
the nuclear devices so that they could fit into a long-range missile.

North Korean nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 produced small
blasts—estimated at a fraction of the size of the explosions over
Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945—and the country’s recent missile tests
have been plagued by misfires and operational difficulties, North
Korea experts say…..
much is not known. North Korea’s leadership kicked out inspectors for
the International Atomic Energy Agency in the spring of 2009. The
country invited some foreign scientists, including Americans, to visit
a secret enrichment facility in 2010.

Since then, North Korea appears to have developed an alternative path
to nuclear weapons: highly enriched uranium, rather than the
plutonium-based bombs already in its arsenal. Uranium is less suitable
for powerful nuclear weapons than plutonium.  ….
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204058404577108741550255480.html

December 21, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | North Korea, weapons and war