PARIS – Was North Korea’s nuclear device a partial dud?
That is one of several theories that Western experts say might explain the apparent low explosive force of the communist nation’s first declared nuclear test.
Other suppositions are that North Korea deliberately chose a small device to save its limited stocks of bomb-making plutonium or that it somehow muffled the shockwaves from the underground blast to make it appear smaller than it was.
A North Korean diplomat said Tuesday the country’s nuclear test was smaller in blast force than expected, but he claimed Pyongyang had the ability to detonate a more powerful device, a South Korean newspaper reported.
Quoting an unidentified diplomat at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing, the Hankyoreh newspaper said he claimed the test was a success and “smaller in scale than expected.”
“But the success in a small-scale (test) means a large-scale (test) is also possible,” he said in comments posted on the Web site of the liberal newspaper that has good ties with the communist nation.
Even if North Korea got helpful pointers from nuclear-capable Pakistan, as many experts suspect, the technology of efficiently splitting atoms to make a controlled explosion is still tricky for novices to master. For North Korean scientists, working largely in isolation, that could be especially true.
“The devil is in the details,” said French nuclear proliferation expert Bruno Tertrais. “It’s like cooking. The fact that you have the recipe does not make you a chef.”
One explanation could be that the device – if nuclear – fizzled rather than truly banged, with the plutonium only partially detonating, he said. Or, the device’s timing may have been slightly off, creating a weaker chain reaction with less explosive force than planned.
But because of the intense secrecy that shrouds North Korea, it may never be known exactly how large an explosion it was hoping for and, therefore, whether the test was successful, as the country claimed.
“I think they got a partial result,” said Philip Coyle, a senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information, a think tank in Washington, D.C.
“For them it was enough … to say that it was a success. It helps them to claim that they are a nuclear power, and that the world should take them seriously, which is what they want. But I wouldn’t be surprised if after several months they don’t try again.”
He said North Korea may have muffled shockwaves from the device by detonating it in a very large underground cavity.
Scant knowledge about the test site’s geology – a factor that can affect the spread of shockwaves – also complicates the efforts of scientists overseas who are poring over seismic data and other readings to try to pinpoint the exact nature of the blast.
France, South Korea and others estimated North Korea’s device had an explosive force equivalent to 500 to 1,000 tons of TNT. Only Russia offered a far larger estimate for the explosive size of the device – 5,000 to 15,000 tons of TNT.
The French defense minister commented “that there could have been a failure.”
Anton Khlopkov of Moscow’s Center for Policy Studies said one reason for a smaller blast may be that the North wanted to avoid using too much of its plutonium.
A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Tuesday that Washington’s working assumption also continues to be that “more likely than not” Pyongyang conducted a nuclear test that was not particularly successful.
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