Practicing dropping a nuclear bomb.

[Workingman]

We are well aware that all weapons need to be tested from time to time to make sure they still work as intended - even nuclear ones. It is why we fire off a (dummy) Trident every once in a while; so testing laser guided nuclear bomb systems is standard operating procedure for those who have them.

However, doing the test over the Korean peninsula in conjunction with a number of other countries, as the US (S Korea and Japan) have just done might not be the brightest idea. N Korea is not that pleased, and as it is an unstable dictatorship nobody knows how it could react.

I know the local allies have to be seen to be strong, but this test does look a touch provocative.

[TheOstrich]

Interesting that none of this has made the BBC TV news ....

Provocative more than likely, but then at least one of the super-powers needs to push back against the North Koreans and indicate that enough is enough.

[Suff]

There comes a time when you stop talking and start acting. American carriers have W88 gravity nuclear weapons with a yield up to half a megaton, each and they don't just carry one. It's prudent to remind someone, with a pitiful little 10kt nuke, just how bad things can get.

The elephant in the room, so far, is that the only reason NK is not a smoking, radioactive, hole in the ground; so far, is that they are not deemed worth the consequences.

Yet.

[Workingman]

I am sure that N Korea has access to Wikipedia for public details of US weapons to back up the work done by its own spies on those matters, and I am sure the US knows this as well.

When it comes to NK's nuclear arsenal we are a bit less informed. Estimates of its potential weapons yields are from 10 - 25kt, but we do not know how many they have or their delivery systems. The US will know but it is not saying, however, it is concerned enough to install its THAAD anti missile system. Would it really do that for a 'no consequence' backwater?

It is certainly true that any of NK's weapons are pitiful when compared to US weapons, but take a step back. Say they have a handful of warheads in the mid range of estimates - about 15 - 18kt. Now think what would happen if two or three got through to the Seoul/Incheon area.

Those weapons are similar in yield to the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Within three months the death toll there had reached 200,000, but those were in cities with population densities of around 1,000km². The Seoul/Incheon area has a population density of about 12,000km². If only a couple of pitiful weapons get through the death toll could be upwards of 2.5 million.

Unless the US and its allies can 100% guarantee the NK will never, ever, be able to deliver a weapon then it is probably not a good idea for them to be getting their willies out and shaking them about. Being strong and determined is one thing, being deliberately provocative to an unstable regime is probably not the best way forward.

[Suff]

They do have to assume that, unstable or not, the leaders are not exactly suicidal.

In that case they can't let the tantrums continue without response. The response, "have a tantrum if you want but if you don't stop it we're going to end you", should give NK pause for thought.

Also NK should be aware, by now, that prior US Presidents were more concerned about their public image than in whether NK was stopped or not. In this case they need to know that the US president is more concerned with stopping them than how it looks.

This is a significant change of tack and they should know it.

[Workingman]

This is a significant change of tack and they should know it.

It certainly is... let's hope it works.