Japan braces as North Korea threatens hydrogen bomb test in Pacific

There is no excusing North Korea's provocations, of course. If there is any positive to be seen in this insanity, it is that the North's recent provocations and Trump's talk appear to be helping tighten the economic screws on Kim's regime, seeing as how China has taken further steps by halting bank loans. If there is strategy in this, it is to force the situation to a head and end the sort of stalemate we have seen going on for so long. If that is the strategy at work here, then war is not the desired outcome! It is to see that regime either finally collapse or back down on the nuclear arms development and surrender what they have, in my estimation. The stakes here are enormous, though, and there really is no telling how much of this is Trump being as mentally unstable as Kim and lashing out because, frankly, no one has the authority to stop him.

 

Sure there is, they learned from Obama that the US deserts its friends and grovel before its enemies.
This is all the Obama legacy.

 

Your partisan nonsense is best left out. You're not helping foster a productive and informative discussion this way.

 

Gee, that's interesting....our friends hate trump and fear he is a loose cannon. They must have pretended to like Obama, right?

 

detonating a 100 kt nuke in the middle of the Pacific would be a dangerous and frightening step.

 

Despite all of NK's current missile-madness this one seems a bit far fetched. I mean, where exactly in the Pacific ocean is NK supposed to detonate this bomb...?!

I feared that, at some point, Kim would attempt to detonate a nuclear bomb above ground. But, you know, where he can actually be expected to get away with it; on home soil.
(I doubt Kim cares much about any radioactive fallout that might hit the local population.)

But how is he supposed to get away with detonating a nuclear weapon outside of North Korea?!
Besides, Kim is, effectively, a prisoner in his own country. If leaves for any reason (even on a boat) he'll be quickly seized upon.

 

The US needs to launch a preemptive strike against the missile launch site, if there are some indications that a hydrogen bomb is actually loaded into an ICBM. You can never know for sure if it's just a test or a hydrogen bomb is going to be dropped on Guam or Hawaii. Nuclear fallout will be all over the entire Pacific even if the bomb nearly misses Guam or Hawaii, which needs to be prevented.

 

Since you cannot refute my post you post personal insults.
Good job!

 

It's going to be a nasty war when ever the line is crossed and right now I am starting to think it's going to be sooner than later. I think our best bet here as I believe I have said before is to give South Korea and Japan nuclear weapons.

 

I personally don't see it as taunting, I see it as warning. Not that I'd base my opinion on a newspaper (especially the Guardian), but I'm coming around to thinking that a preemptive strike is now necessary, because I think the megalomaniac is becoming more megalomaniacal by the day. Just be sure to restrict any military strikes to military targets.

 

It's truly frightening because it's highly likely to happen some time in the future if things continue this way. I don't think people are aware of potential danger.

Here's what could happen if North Korea sets off a huge nuclear explosion in the Pacific Ocean
http://www.businessinsider.com/north-korea-thermonuclear-explosion-pacific-effects-2017-9?r=UK&IR=T

While the military considered Shrimp and Bravo a success, its repercussions were disastrous. Researchers underestimated the device's explosive power by nearly three-fold — and many were nearly killed when an artificial earthquake shook their concrete observation bunker 20 miles away.

Author and film producer Eric Schlosser, writing in his book "Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety", captures the raw power of the blast through the perspective of scientist Bernard O'Keefe:

"About ten seconds after Shrimp exploded, the underground bunker seemed to be moving. But that didn't make any sense. The concrete bunker was anchored to the island, and the walls were three feet thick.

"'Is this building moving or am I getting dizzy?' another scientist asked. 'My God, it is,' O'Keefe said. 'It's moving!'

"O'Keefe began to feel nauseated, as though he were seasick, and held on to a workbench as objects slid around the room. The bunker was rolling and shaking, he later recalled, 'like it was resting on a bowl of jelly.' The shock wave from the explosion, traveling through the ground, had reached them faster than the blast wave passing through the air."

The scientists ultimately escaped alive, but Marshall Islanders located 100 miles from the blast were not so lucky.

Shrimp's four-mile-wide fireball destroyed about 200 billion tons of Bikini Atoll coral reef, turning much of it into radioactive fallout that spread all over the world. The worst of it sprinkled over atolls to the east, killing many people by causing radiation sickness.

Today, the 250-foot-deep, 1-mile-wide crater left by the blast is visible from space.

If North Korea decides to blow up a hydrogen or thermonuclear device — and the most powerful in the Pacific — we could only hope it is not close to the ground.