North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, ramped up the rhetoric that has increasingly soured relations between South Korea, promising it would use “all the offensive forces it has possessed, including nuclear weapons”. South Korea responded that its US-backed response would be “overwhelming” and result in the “end of the North Korean regime.”
Didn’t they successfully detonate a small nuke a few years back? Their nukes are likely crude as hell, compared to most modern bombs, but that doesn’t stop them working.
Getting a nuke, of that size, anywhere useful is the real challenge. Your not going to get it into a small ICBM. You also REALLY don’t want a misfire. Old style nukes would spread a lot of fallout, even if they didn’t properly go bang.
Seoul is very close to the border with NK. They don’t need to be very accurate or go very far to cause catastrophic damage.
Agreed. Though the challenge is more getting it airborne at all.
NK likely has shotgun nukes. These rely on spontaneous detonation, when above a critical point. The are big, heavy and awkward. The 2 big innovations with nuclear weapons were compression nukes, and hydrogen bombs. These both require far more engineering than a shotgun nuke. However it also allows them to be far smaller.
NK has nukes. It also has MRBMs. What it doesn’t likely have is an MRBM or SRBM capable of lifting their nukes remotely reliably. If NK was to deploy a nuke, it would more likely be via a container on a flatbed lorry than a missile.
Right, I forgot how devastating even a misfire was!! As you said, even a crudely made nuclear weapon is still effective at causing unnecessary levels of destruction. I think I wanted to downplay this “threat” since both Korea’s are connected, the fallout would affect themselves? Unless they have suicidal tendencies (a characteristic not found in dictators) they won’t be going the nuclear option with their neighbour literally looking distance. Then again we have Israel going at it and they have a nuclear arsenal…