North Korea tried a low-yield nuclear device with 4% of the bomb's destructive power, which the United States at the end of the Second World War.
Some people think the device was much larger, but it was not technically possible.
We do not know the truth because the United States has not devoted its resources to the knowledge of what is actually going on. If you're surprised, do not be. The intelligence collection is a tricky business. When Richard Nixon was president, we could remember that one of their ships, the USS Pueblo, in 1968, on North Korea's coast, was heavily attacked and overwhelmed in international waters. The 82-member crew was captured and tortured during an 11-month period before they were released.
There is institutional memory. The leading members of the army remember the Pueblo event and still influence our behavior towards North Korea. Having forgotten that President Nixon had given orders to attack North Korea for the Pueblo event. At a time when the president thought he was demonstrating violence, it was absolutely necessary to hold back Koreans from further provocative acts. Nixon's defense minister did not implement the presidential directive at that time. By the end of his life, Nixon felt his administration's biggest foreign policy mistake was to launch a retaliatory attack on North Korea for Pueblo's admission. The Pueblo incident has since amplified the North Koreans. Both the Clinton and the Bush administration were aware of the Pueblo incident and its consequences when trying to establish a new US policy towards North Korea's nuclear program. There are currently 37,000 US soldiers stationed in South Korea, which protects our alliance and interests with South Korea. In the South Korean Peninsula, the troops are gradually withdrawing. You need to think about why they are willing to withdraw troops from South Korea at a time when we want to pursue a nuclear development process. The answer is that this area of the world is filled with dynamite, and if you blow up, you do not want to have 37,000 US troops in the middle. North Korea is one of the largest artillery weapons in any of the world's armies. They are able to hit Seoul, the South Korean capital from the border.
It was recently reported that Prince Bandar, US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, had a private conversation with President Bush. In the conversation, the prince told the president that the United States should withdraw US troops from South Korea. Bandar felt it was too dangerous for our soldiers to stay in the middle of a possible clash where OPTIONS would be limited. As Bandar said that there are no troops on the border, if there is a problem then this is a REGIONAL PROBLEM. With teams, you can risk thousands of Americans, and that will be a big war.
So what about the North Koreans announcing the actual testing of nuclear weapons? We must admit that words have power. We must be careful what we say. President Bush announced the "evil axis" speech a few years ago. He called North Korea and Iraq two of the three countries. It seems that the campaign against terrorism has been launched towards the wrong end of the world.
There was no WMD in Iraq, while North Korea lived with them. Now we're tied. Our defense policy has changed, with which we can only fight a war in one country while we are fighting in another country. Before we were under the power of the Bush Power Plant, we fought against two contradictory warfares on two fronts. Bad guys know the new politics and will take advantage of us to put our strength in Iraq. Since we are afraid of losing pilots or even better after a pilot has fired, we do not do any exploratory flights that we usually do in Korea.
The best thing is that if North Korea is a problem for the United States, it is a bigger problem for Japan, China, the Philippines and South Korea. This is a regional problem despite our alliances and contractual commitments. One thing is the construction and blasting of a nuclear weapon, another thing is a long-range missile defense system. North Korea was quite easy to develop a delivery system that was able to reach the near future.
Another 9,000 mile distance to the United States collision with another story is not really easy. As North Korean countries are lost most, they have to bear the responsibility for multilateral negotiations.
The real thing is that North Korea is a dictatorship routinely starving its own people for the benefit of small leadership, which essentially enslaved the country. This leadership wants to play cards like that. Currently nuclear weapon. They will use this card to maximize concessions from the United States and neighboring neighbors.
Will we be caving and giving concessions to the North Koreans? Of course we are because it is the superpower. It's not about calm, it's about business, and good business intelligence. Churchill said that "people have friends, the interests of nations".
It is our interest not to move with the question of extracting ourselves from an Iraqi twisting situation. It counts for us treasures and we begin to eat the social fabric that has brought our country to Vietnam a generation ago. We must find a good face in Iraq and get out. The president may not know about it, but he is on a short leash in Iraq. The American people are very intolerant in the wars without goals that are too long and exactly where George Bush finds himself. It is very questionable that his party will remain intact in the mid-term elections. The country is transforming CHANGE, even a democrat party that does not have ideas.
Goodbye and Good Luck
Richard Stoyeck