http://news.yahoo.com/fc/World/North_Korea

"North Korea said Monday it had performed its first-ever nuclear weapons test, setting off an underground blast in defiance of international warnings and intense diplomatic activity aimed at heading off such a move."

As usual threatening sanctions only made them more determined. Experts don't believe that N.Korea has small enough bombs to be fitted into a missile but the Japanese know it's only a matter of time before they do. The land of the rising sun will probably start its own program now in response to its neighbours new status.

Seismic detectors in the US and other locations around the Globe should soon confirm or deny this claim. South korea and Australia have already detected a large measurement coinciding with the time of the event as detailed by Pyongyang.

Realistically speaking....in purely earthly terms

there are 3 options.

1/ Nuke N.Korea no matter what the cost.
2/ Help Japan become Nuke-Ready.
3/ Invade N.Korea, kill its leadership and Army, and join it to South Korea.

If 4 ultimately means nuking them, so be it.

There is NOTHING in between.

In any case, it boils down to number 1, because now the moral equivalent of the 'Mafia' has Nukes.

If anyone thinks they will not now seek to miniaturize them, and transport them to 'other' places in readiness for future use, they are living in dream/fantasy land.

Pakistan is held in check by India
North Korea is probably there for the highest bidder.

Will China crunch them ? cutoff their energy ? If they don't they are complicit.

Armageddon draws closer..... and this time, it can actually happen.

I wonder how all this will turn out to be:

"Our fault"

Don't worry Bob Brown will tell us all shortly.

I can't wait to hear the Greens and Lefts

"Lets dialogue with them, and its our fault and we have to change so many things blah blah.. (WOOOOOOOOOOSHHHHHHHHHH/BOOOOMMMMMMMM)BLAH EH ! what was that incredible wind just now, why is the building shaking ? "

The best way to deal with North Korea David is to tell China to bring them to heal or the USA will give South Korea enough missiles to destroy both Kim Jung Ill and the whole of Communist China and Pakistan.Just watch China jump to attention then.Both China and Pakistan were complicit in arming North Korea.Let them suffer the consequences of their own stupidity.It all can be done very cleverly.

Not a bad point Arjay....

I honestly don't have a clue about how this will be resolved.

I cannot see North Korea just sitting around 'nuclear navel gazing' and not seeking to capitalize on this newfound emotional steroid.

It's like Al Capone having obtained weapons of mass destruction.

Your suggestion is a reasonable one. Either South Korea or Japan... the only parties geographically close enough to taken an 'independant'
line... but in the case of South Korea... I tend to feel ethnic bonds and plain economic greed/fear would prevent them. Japan is the one which historically has been an 'enemy' to both Korea and China.

If Japan became strong again, with a Nuclear capability, sheesh.. the militarists are just waiting in the wings to scream BANZAIIII...

The Americans are so pathetic at the moment. They are torn between the GREEEEED for cheap labor and the very real possibility of "Hispanicization" of large chunks of their territory. Not to mention the quagmire of Iraq, and Iran pulling strings... emerging soon as a Nuclear Capable enemy.....Time for some very tough decisions.

Did you see the news of the Minutemen seminar at Colombia University which was raided by Hispanics and leftists who held up banners saying 'No one is Illegal' ? Man.. where was security ?

Its a worry for sure.

This was inevitable. The non-proliferation treaty was never going to work. Nobody has kept to their side of the deal. Those with the bomb were supposed to disarm. That certainly hasn't happened and won't. It's an utterly ridiculous notion that some day the world will be free of nukes. Even if Aliens hijacked every nuclear device we have, it would only initiate a mad rush to build more. Nuclear weapons are currently the most powerful military and political weapon any country can own. It virtually ensures freedom from outside attack.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/nuclear-blackmarket-03a.html

Here's an article I wrote about the futility of trying to put the genie back into the bottle. Proliferation will continue. Either openly or disguised. Through computer simulations, under the pretense of fusion energy research or as a weapon against terrorists. America is currently researching miniature nukes for bunker busters. Why shouldn't N.Korea have nukes. They have withdrawn from the nuclear proliferation treaty. Legally they are quite within their rights. They have maybe 5-10 nukes now. The US has 5000. Israel has atleast 200 and nobody is bombing them.

The last time we took on N.Korea we had our butts kicked. America was repeatedly pushed back until the UN came to their aid. Then they made the mistake of advancing on the Yellow River and China pushed them out. Leading to a ceasefire which still stands today.

Nuke N.Korea and you will have fallout spreading across China. This will initiate WW3.

There are options to dealing with the inevitable threat of nuclear terrorism. One is to invest heavily in customs and security. Radioisotopes are heavy dense radioactive and metallic elements. Border and internal security measures combined with advanced satellite detection will make it difficult to move bombs around.

Another is to build a weapon more advanced than a nuclear bomb which would make such expensive and difficult to maintain arsenals less attractive and therefore essentially redundant.

We should also seriously consider withdrawing from this archaic treaty ourselves. Within our immediate region China, Russia, N.Korea, India, Pakistan and possibly Japan already have nuclear weapons.

Just the other day I saw the end of a documentary about the USSR expolding the largest nuclear device in our history.It was four times bigger than anything the Yanks had exploded.The pilots of the plane were told that the shock wave could knock them out of the sky even with a five minutes start.The mushroom cloud went 40,000 ft into the atmosphere and the shock wave travelled four times around the planet.

The bomb totally flattened everything within a 30 km radius.The USSR decided that was it since there were no limitations on the size of the bomb they could produce.In other words they could make a single bomb powerful enough to destroy the entire planet.

We have thousands of religious lunatics willing to blow themselves up and as more countries get access to nuclear power,it is only a matter of time before one deranged idiot pulls the pin on the big one.

There are no technical limits on the size of a bomb but the curvature of the earth sets a limitation on the area that can be devastated by a groundburst. Airbursts are far more damaging and if detonated say about a kilometre above the ground could flatten entire cities.

I don't think enough volatiles exist within reach to blow up the entire planet. At best you might cause shockwaves sufficient to create tectonic movement and trigger a supervolcano erruption. That would be enough to end human civilisation.

A more effective weapon would be a space based inertia weapon. The first country to achieve permanent foothold in deep space will own the entire solar system. You need only give a near earth asteroid a slight nudge in the right direction to take out an entire continent.