The New York Times ran this photo under the dramatic headline “North Korea Says It Has Detonated Its First Hydrogen Bomb.” But is there any reason to believe that the North Korean claim might be true? (photo: Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)
The New York Times‘ David Sanger and Choe Sang-Hun (1/5/16) say that if North Korea’s claim to have successfully tested a hydrogen bomb is true, that would “dramatically escalate the nuclear challenge from one of the world’s most isolated and dangerous states.” But they don’t say why.
Fusion-based hydrogen bombs have more explosive power than nuclear fission bombs that rely on uranium or plutonium. “If the North Korean claim about a hydrogen bomb is true, this test was of a different, and significantly more threatening, nature,” the Times reports. It’s not made clear, though, what if anything North Korea could achieve by having a bomb that could destroy a city and its suburbs rather than just a city, or how the response by the US and its allies to such a threat would be in any way different.
Nor does the Times‘ front-page story point out how unlikely it is that North Korea has, in fact, detonated a hydrogen bomb. “Detection devices around the world had picked up a 5.1 seismic event along the country’s northeast coast,” the Sanger/Sang-Hun article reported—using a number that is unlikely to mean much to many readers. A Q&A on the Times‘ website (1/6/16) does more to put the story in context:
The United States Geological Survey reported that it detected a magnitude 5.1 seismic event in the northeastern part of North Korea, where the test is said to have occurred – roughly similar to what happened in 2013, when North Korea tested an atomic bomb. But a South Korean lawmaker, Lee Cheol-woo, said that his country’s intelligence service estimated the event triggered an explosive yield of six kilotons and a magnitude 4.8 event – smaller than the 7.9 kilotons and magnitude 4.9 reported after the 2013 test.
A successful hydrogen bomb test would typically have an explosive yield of hundreds of kilotons – or tens of kilotons, for a failed test – Mr. Lee said.
So whatever it was that North Korea exploded, the US and South Korea agree that it wasn’t much different in power than the bomb North Korea tested in 2013. It’s really difficult to say how this would “dramatically escalate the nuclear challenge” posed by North Korea. But it might sell some papers if you put it on the front page.
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org. Follow him on Twitter at @JNaureckas.
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This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News with permission from FAIR.