Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-7pwfn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T05:51:42.711Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Did North Korea Successfully Conduct a Nuclear Test? A Technical Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2025

Peter Hayes and
Jungmin Kang
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

Jungmin Kang, Science Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, and Peter Hayes, Nautilus Institute Executive Director, write, “Having tested and failed, the DPRK can no longer rely on opacity as the basis for having a credible nuclear force, at least sufficiently credible to threaten its adversaries with a nuclear explosion. The DPRK might believe that a half kilotonne “mininuke” still provides it with a measure of nuclear deterrence and compellence; but it could not rely on other nuclear weapons states to perceive it to have anything more than an unusable, unreliable and relatively small nuclear explosive device.”

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Asia-Pacific Journal , Volume 4 , Issue 10 , October 2006, e18
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BYCreative Common License - NCCreative Common License - ND
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2006

References

Notes

(1) B. Bolt, Nuclear Explosions and Earthquakes, The Parted Veil, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1976.

(2) A kilotonne or kt is a 1000 metric tones. The nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 was roughly 15 kt.

(3) Lynn R. Syres and Goran Ekstrom, “Comparison of seismic and hydrodynamic yield determination for the Soviet joint verification experiment of 1988,” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 86, pp. 3456-3460, May 1989.

(4) see also “NORK DATA: It was a DUD”.

(5) As given by D. McKinzie “NRDC RELEASES NEW SATELLITE PHOTO OF NORTH KOREAN NUCLEAR TEST SITE,” October 13, 2006.

(6) ODNI News Release No. 19-06, “Statement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on the North Korea Nuclear Test,” October 16, 2006.

(7) Officials associated with that office reportedly did confirm that the weapon was plutonium-based, however. See T. Shanker and D. Sanger, “North Korean Fuel Identified as Plutonium,” New York Times, October 17, 2006.

(8) A Bq is the unit of radioactivity being the activity of a quantity of radioactive material in which one nucleus decays per second. 1mBq = 0.001 Bq.

(9) Private communication with Martin B. Kalinowski on October 13, 2006. Air concentration of Kr-85 in northern hemisphere is about 1.3Bq/m3 air.

(10) Martin B. Kalinowski, Lawrence H. Erickson and Gregory J. Gugle, “Preparation of a Global Radioxenon Emission Inventory: Understanding Sources of Radioactive Xenon Routinely Found in the Atmosphere by the International Monitoring System for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty,” Presented at Understanding Complex Systems 2006, Urbana, Illinois, USA.

(11) ORIGEN2.1: Isotope Generation and Depletion Code Matrix Exponential Method, CCC-371 ORIGEN 2.1 (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Radiation Safety Information Computational Center, August 1996). The AMOPUUUC.LIB fast reactor cross-section files were used to calculate the production rates of actinides and fission products.

(12) Some journalists reported that the United States has collected plutonium, but this seems more likely a journalistic assumption than the result of informed investigative journalism. See, for example, P. Grier, “Pyongyang's nukes: How dangerous are they? North Korea's recent blast was tiny, but its commitment to nuclear weapons is long,” The Christian Science Monitor, October 19, 2006.

(13) See R. Garwin, F. von Hippel, “A Technical Analysis of North Korea's Oct. 9 Nuclear Test,” Arms Control Today, November 2006, and J. Holdren, M. Bunn, “Tutorial on Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear-Explosive Materials: Nuclear Basics.”

(14) If statements attributed to Kim Jong Il that he promises to not test again are accurately reported, then we appraise such assurances to be strictly tactical: Yonhap (Seoul), “N. Korean Leader Said To Have Promised No More Nuclear Test,” October 20, 2006.