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Comment by imaginenore | Hacker News Reader

"It constitutes yet another breach of the universally accepted norm against nuclear testing"

The norm is toothless though. If a country wants nukes, they just have to suffer through the economic sanctions by a few countries.

NK government has every incentive to continue with the research and development. They don't give a damn about their starving population, and they get the ultimate terror card that they can milk for decades.

We really need to develop anti-ICBM tech to save the humanity.

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"We really need to develop anti-ICBM tech to save the humanity."

Maybe, but this is a very strange assessment of the NK situation.

The obvious explanation is that the, in my opinion disgusting, NK regime is a rational actor that try to perpetuate itself in time. The only way to ensure that it's to avoid external interference. The only way to avoid external interference (Iraq style) is to have nuclear weapons.

From this follow that they are not more eager to start a war that other nations. Probably less.

They have two goals, not one. The first is obviously self perpetuation, but the second is to flourish. The nukes give them the ability to blackmail their neighbours for everything they want and need, like food, money, weapons etc. I imagine Kim Jong Un will get a real kick out of getting South Korea and Japan to pay for all of his bills, even the concentration camps.

I doubt very much this is the case.

Suppose they ask for something to South Korea and they say "no way". What happens then? A war is suicide and they know it.

I suppose you could extract a few sweets from things like "I will stop creating nuclear weapons" or something like this, but not serious blackmail is possible.

It's just the old MAD (1) doctrine. We (the world) have a lot experience with that. As an European I'm used to the idea that my life is in the hands of some crazy guy in the Kremlin or the White House.

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction

MAD long term requires a world without accidents. I don't think the past 70 years and the number of near misses we've had should give anyone confidence that it will work long term.

Actually, if, as it's the case, there is any chance of something going wrong, maths tell us that it will not work long term.

That's my conclusion, and I really hope that if and when something does go wrong it will not lead to a chain reaction before the accident is recognized as such.

Didn't they(NK) already play that "we will stop our nuke program" card with the US and gotten some figure between 1 and 2 billion?

Doesn't advancing nuclear programme mean even more sanctions = less money?

Not really. Nukes prevent you from being invaded, they won't magically make everyone give you everything.

They may still have the ultimate goal of reuniting the Korean Peninsula under their rule. It sounds crazy to us, but I'm not sure they've gotten the memo about war for territory being obsolete. Put yourself in the Pyongyang frame of mind, and at least the dream of taking "back" the south almost has to be alive.

Edit: This dream of course might be second (or third) after regime survival.

The war for territory is not obsolete yet, Israel and Russia are annexing more land from their neighbors every day.

Russia is annexing land primarily to to counter outside influences.

People might not like it but Russia wasn't about to give up its only warm water port. Georgia wasn't a clear cut case either.

Israel hasn't annexed any land since 1967.

> Israel hasn't annexed any land since 1967.

Except for the settlements, which are annexations in all but name.

On land they de facto already control since 1967, they also haven't expanded settlements outside of Area C (they demolish "illegal" settlements in Area B all the time), which according to the Oslo accords is under Israeli control.

I have not doubt that the supreme leader of the DPKR would like to be the supreme leader of the planet Earth.

We all have dreams, but what counts is the hard reality.

I didn't get that memo neither, by the way ;-). I can't think a war that it's not, in its root causes, about territory.

The hard reality is what's changing. My problem with the "they just want deterrence for regime survival" story is that they already have fantastic deterrence, the ability to wipe out Seoul at will. Therefore, the nuclear program is harder to see as some purely defensive measure, especially considering its cost and various opportunity costs. What, they'll do all this for... some _extra_ deterrence?

Seems possible to me that they seek to neutralize the U.S. by holding it nuclear hostage. Then someday maybe take the South. They've even been talking about EMP blasts, a very useful offensive strategy for them.

> We really need to develop anti-ICBM tech to save the humanity

If I'm not mistaken, to some extend, both the Russian and the US already have this tech operational.

Though, this would not protect with the obvious "first blood" intent of NK, in which case, Kim better pray for cover (rightfully so).

Nah, we have anti-ICBM technology but it's hilariously inadequate, as in, rate of successful interception is very low. And when you have nukes attached to the ICBMs, your can't tolerate even a single one going through.

And then US and Russia both have MIRV systems which carry 15-20 warheads on one rocket, so if you don't intercept it in the first stage of flight it's game over anyway. And Russia recently finished developing the System-6 nuclear torpedo which can destroy possibly more land than large megaton warheads anyway, since it creates a 500m tsunami wave which travels hundreds of miles in-land destroying everything in its path. And if it's salted with cobalt then that land becomes unusable for decades.

It's Status-6, and it's not necessarily real.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanyon

You say we can't tolerate even a single one getting through, but… what would a war look like between Russia and the USA if there were no nukes?

Sure, a conventional war would never be as bad as 7,000 nukes, but one? Seven? Seven hundred? I expect conventional munitions would likely be better targeted, simply out of necessity, so the difference would be smaller than the ratio of TNT-equivalents.

None of the countries have a technology that can reliably stop a modern ICBM, let alone 7000 warheads simultaneously that Russia has.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-ballistic_missile#Current...

Why you assume such technology would be on display or general public knowledge?

I'm sure there is tons of technology we regular civilians have no idea of, and its actually a good strategy.

That's not a convincing argument. Whatever is shown to us doesn't work well.

From 2 months ago:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-missile-defense-test-fails-...

The fact that most military projects are secret/top secret is not convincing argument?

Everyone knows that what's "on display" is basically 10 years behind what military such as USA keeps in secret to use it as a last-resort type of response.

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