[Jonnorth]

It is known that the Asia-Pacific region has always attracted the United States with its capabilities for the successful promotion of its own national interests in the region, as well as for getting various benefits from the destabilizing situation, especially on the Korean Peninsula. In other words, if North and South Korea continue to conflict with each other, the United States, which is an ally for both states, will have more chances to maintain military control in the region.

The United States, having long made Japan its puppet and deploying military bases on Japanese territory, continues to expand its military and political influence in the region, and also seeks to increase the size of its military contingent in South Korea, where the American missile defense system was recently deployed. Thus, in this regard, the number of American troops on the Korean Peninsula has increased several times.

Moreover, using its cooperation relations with the DPRK, Washington has plans to contain Russia and China, whose borders are so successfully located. That is why the normalization of inter-Korean relations and the reduction of tension in the region are not in line with American strategic interests.

However, the DPRK leader, understanding all the risks and providing for possible threats from the United States, which in 2018 withdrew from the INF Treaty and develop previously prohibited programs, now has a lot of reasons for the enhanced development of its nuclear missile program. It is important to note that this is a necessary measure only due to the growing potential of the US Armed Forces in the region.

At the moment, the DPRK is armed with ballistic missiles of all ranges from small (up to 1000 km) to intercontinental (from 5500 km), however, the North Korean strategy itself is focusing on improving of living standards of the population, which at the same time provides for the abandonment of nuclear and missile tests.

But, despite the increased tension, Pyongyang has suspended nuclear tests, is conducting a dialogue with neighboring countries and the international community in order to protect the peaceful situation on the Korean Peninsula and the planet as a whole.

Thus, the US desire for world domination and hegemony in all spheres of activity, especially in military-political leadership, makes the world community and the countries of the Asia-Pacific region think about their security and stability in a region that has already been destabilized by America for a long time.

[ThirdTerm]

Kim Jong Un stated that North Korea would "not use nuclear weapons first unless aggressive hostile forces use nuclear weapons to invade on our sovereignty" in 2016. Once North Korea senses that a nuclear missile is heading toward the country, it will launch a retaliatory strike. However, he had threatened a pre-emptive attack against the United States using nuclear weapons over their joint US-South Korean military exercises near the Korean peninsula. The possible Biden administration will not send a love letter to North Korea and Biden will deal with the North Korean nuclear threat forcefully.

World peace benefits from adherence to internationally negotiated nuclear test ban treaties whose signatories strive to promote the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. In 2003, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) became the first country to withdraw from the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. North Korea has been conducting underground nuclear weapon tests with increasing intensity since 2006. On 3 September 2017, two seismic events separated by ~8.5 min were detected at North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site. Soon thereafter, North Korea’s state media reported the successful firing of a two-stage thermonuclear bomb test. The U.S. Geological Survey and the China Earthquake Networks Center determined a body-wave magnitude (mb) of 6.3 for the first event (NKNT 6), much larger than any of the five nuclear tests since 2006 (NKNT 1–5). Shortly thereafter, the scientific community started to determine the location, focal mechanism, and yield of the explosion by means of seismic waveforms and satellite optical imagery (1). Preliminary analysis revealed a predominantly isotropic explosive source located beneath Mount Mantap (1–3), which also hosted NKNT 2–5 (Fig. 1).


Fig. 1 Three-dimensional displacement associated with the 3 September 2017 North Korea nuclear test (NKNT 6).
(A) 3D displacements derived from radar imagery. Arrows indicate horizontal displacement; color indicates vertical motions spanning the explosion and ~1 week of additional deformation. The uncertainties are shown in fig. S4 and provided in data S1 with the displacements. The black outline derived from ALOS-2 coherence loss indicates the substantial surface disturbance and large displacement gradients caused by the explosion over an area of ~9 km2 (figs. S1 and S2). Thin gray lines are topographic contours at 100-m intervals. The red square in the upper right inset shows the location of Mount Mantap (DPRK, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea; ROK, Republic of Korea). Red stars indicate the locations of NKNT 1–5 (1, 6, 9, 15, 37), among which NKNT 2–5 were all located within the NKNT 6 low-coherence region; NKNT 1 on 9 October 2006 was in a different location (5). Beach balls show locations and focal mechanisms of the Mw 5.24 and Mw 4.47 events on 3 September 2017. (B and C) 2D (horizontal along the profile and vertical) displacements along two profiles across the top of Mount Mantap from north to south and from west to east, respectively. No vertical exaggeration in (B) or (C).

The source properties of previous North Korean underground nuclear tests have been extensively studied using seismic waveforms (4–12), but surface displacements associated with these explosions are rarely reported. Remote sensing with synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is a powerful technique for monitoring deformation of Earth’s surface (13, 14) but its contribution to characterizing nuclear tests has been limited. NKNT 4, conducted on 6 January 2016, has been studied using SAR interferometry, but the interpretation of interferometric phase is difficult because of the single imaging geometry (15). Tracking the amplitude features of the SAR images (so-called pixel-offset tracking) is better suited when the interferometric phase is decorrelated (16). Moreover, pixel offsets can map displacement along the radar line-of-sight and satellite-flying (azimuth) directions. In contrast to offset tracking of optical images, the SAR range offset is sensitive to the vertical displacement because of the slant-range imaging geometry, allowing for derivation of three-dimensional (3D) displacements (17–20). Here, we rely on detailed 3D displacements derived from submeter-resolution SAR images together with seismic waveform data to reveal the complex processes that took place during and in the immediate aftermath of NKNT 6.

We measured the surface displacements caused by NKNT 6 by cross-correlating high-resolution spotlight radar images acquired by the German TerraSAR-X satellite, with an azimuth resolution of 1.1 m and a slant-range resolution as fine as 0.45 m (fig. S1 and table S1). The accuracy of the offset measurement is about one-tenth of the imaging resolution (21). We combined the azimuth and range offsets from two ascending and two descending tracks to calculate the total 3D surface displacements produced during and in the immediate aftermath of the explosion on a 300 m × 300 m grid (Fig. 1 and figs. S3 to S5) (22). The horizontal motions of up to 3.5 m show a divergent pattern at the top of Mount Mantap with a central zone of subsidence of ~0.5 m. We decomposed the 3D displacements into vertical and horizontal directions along two topographic profiles across the top of Mount Mantap (Fig. 1). The along-profile displacements show that the horizontal displacement is generally larger where the topography is steeper (the west and south flanks). However, the direction of motion does not follow the slope of the terrain but is nearly horizontal. This indicates that although there is strong topographic control on the surface displacement field caused by the buried explosion, it does not resemble the slope-parallel motions expected from triggered landslides. Although optical imagery suggests isolated landslide deposits at the 10- to 100-m scale (23), these appear to be debris flows localized in preexisting channels that could not produce the large-scale horizontal motions we observed.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6398/166

[Rancid]

I think it's pretty obvious.

You get nukes because you want your enemies to not try and attack you.

[Red Rackham]

I think it's pretty obvious.

You get nukes because you want your enemies to not try and attack you.

That is certainly the case with regards to the US and Russia. As for the rest, it's expensive macho bullshit. India and Pakistan spend $billions on a pathetic nuclear arsenal while millions of their own people live in abject poverty. As for the UK, there are two reasons why the UK retains a 'nuclear deterrent'...

a) It ensures the UK retains a permanent seat at the UN security council.

b) The US insist we retain a permanent 'at sea' nuclear deterrent.

[Patrickov]

That is certainly the case with regards to the US and Russia. As for the rest, it's expensive macho bullshit. India and Pakistan spend $billions on a pathetic nuclear arsenal while millions of their own people live in abject poverty. As for the UK, there are two reasons why the UK retains a 'nuclear deterrent'...

I think this Honourable Gentleman's contemporary meant "one gets nukes to deter his / her enemy from attacking him / her". This is slightly different from the people under his / her jurisdiction, which I believe is what this Honourable Gentleman is talking about.

For DPRK's case, I believe Kim's intention is also simply to deter his enemies from attacking him or, more broadly, whoever supporting his iron fist.

For the United Kingdom's case, if this Honourable Gentleman is right, then essentially the United Kingdom is maintaining something on behalf of the United States, and maybe the United States should pay the United Kingdom for the deterrent's custody and maintenance.

[Godstud]

Countries with nukes won't be invaded by USA, that's why.

[Patrickov]

Countries with nukes won't be invaded by USA, that's why.

Ironically, many of those countries often do things that justify U.S. invasion...

[Godstud]

No, @Patrickov, no one's done anything, since WW2, that has justified a US invasion.

[Patrickov]

No, @Patrickov, no one's done anything, since WW2, that has justified a US invasion.

Well, many of those nuclear countries abuse their people. To me, this is a rather good justification.

[Godstud]

Which nuclear countries abuse their people, and is that any justification for some other asshole to go in and make an even bigger mess of it? See Iraq, See Syria, etc.

[Patrickov]

Which nuclear countries abuse their people, and is that any justification for some other asshole to go in and make an even bigger mess of it? See Iraq, See Syria, etc.

What I am sure is that the West is definitely less as an asshole as countries like China or North Korea.

[Godstud]

Yeah, especially since China has brought a good portion of its population out of poverty in recent years and is not AT WAR, with anyone.

DPRK is terrible to their people, but they are not at war with anyone, either. You could argue that both China and DPRK are far better than USA, which is in at least 1 war all of the time.

[Patrickov]

Yeah, especially since China has brought a good portion of its population out of poverty in recent years and is not AT WAR, with anyone.

DPRK is terrible to their people, but they are not at war with anyone, either. You could argue that both China and DPRK are far better than USA, which is in at least 1 war all of the time.

I tend to see the "no war" thing as something more like "no one coming to punish them", while we have made all the "punishment" burden on the United States.

[Godstud]

What a rubbish answer @Patrickov. No one made USA judge, jury, and executioner, and it's more like the fox guarding the henhouse. US is not in a position of moral superiority. Not by a long shot.

[Atlantis]

Does the OP sound like something straight out of a Russian troll farm?

However that may be. We are living in interesting times. Trump is downplaying North Korean missiles tests while cancelling maneuvers with South Korea. Trump has also asked South Korea to pay 5 billion USD per year (instead of the current 750 million (?)) for stationing US troops in the country. The South Koreans have flatly refused and the talks have broken down. So what now, is Trump pulling troops from South Korea? What else can he do to make them pay? What signal does that send to North Korea?

Trump has also asked Japan to pay 8 billion/year for US troops. At this stage the US is simply a provider of mercenaries. I hope he will ask the Germans to pay at least 20 billion. With support for the US at an all-time low in Germany, that could actually be the trigger to get rid of the Americans.

[Patrickov]

Does the OP sound like something straight out of a Russian troll farm?

However that may be. We are living in interesting times. Trump is downplaying North Korean missiles tests while cancelling maneuvers with South Korea. Trump has also asked South Korea to pay 5 billion USD per year (instead of the current 750 million (?)) for stationing US troops in the country. The South Koreans have flatly refused and the talks have broken down. So what now, is Trump pulling troops from South Korea? What else can he do to make them pay? What signal does that send to North Korea?

Trump has also asked Japan to pay 8 billion/year for US troops. At this stage the US is simply a provider of mercenaries. I hope he will ask the Germans to pay at least 20 billion. With support for the US at an all-time low in Germany, that could actually be the trigger to get rid of the Americans.

As far as I heard, South Korea even considered making a military deal with China. If this actually happens, North Korea might be in more serious trouble than we all believe, because this would mean that China has got what it wanted in the peninsula, and would allow the South to take over the North.

Of course, being a Communist bootlicker like Moon Jae-In, he would probably make the offer overtly favourable to Kim Jong-un, whose grandmother happened to have exactly the same name with Moon's wife.

[Atlantis]

As far as I heard, South Korea even considered making a military deal with China. If this actually happens, North Korea might be in more serious trouble than we all believe, because this would mean that China has got what it wanted in the peninsula, and would allow the South to take over the North.

Of course, being a Communist bootlicker like Moon Jae-In, he would probably make the offer overtly favourable to Kim Jong-un, whose grandmother happened to have exactly the same name with Moon's wife.

South Korea announced a couple of deals for military cooperation with the PRC the day after talks with the US collapsed. It's probably just coincidence and it certainly doesn't signify a realignment of alliance. Korea has always been part of China's political and cultural sphere - for centuries. I remember visiting South Korea on business back in the 90s. Even then, our partners in South Korea were looking towards the PRC for cooperation in a number of fields. The US is an alien intruder in the region. Korea's natural partner is China.