In early January 2016, North Korea experienced an earthquake that reached 5.1 on the Richter
scale.
But this seismic event was not due to shifting fault lines; rather, an underground explosion.
North Korean officials claimed that they had successfully tested a hydrogen nuclear weapon.
However, the South Korean sources estimated a yield of about 6 to 9 kilotons, which is
considered too low for such a bomb.
Sources say it was either an unsuccessful test, or a less powerful fission based nuclear
weapon.
Nonetheless, North Korea’s attempts at nuclear proliferation have been steadily continuing
over the last few decades, despite international efforts to stop them.
So we wanted to know, how does North Korea have nuclear weapons?
Well, since 2006, North Korea has allegedly conducted four underground nuclear tests,
roughly one every three to four years.
The presence of radioactivity has suggested that these have, indeed, been nuclear weapons.
However, few sources outside of North Korea believe that they have moved beyond traditional
fission based bombs.
These are considerably more basic and less powerful than modern thermonuclear weapons,
or H-bombs.
Following World War II and the division of Korea between the US and Soviet Union, North
Korea received considerable support from the Soviets, including a nuclear research reactor
in the mid 1960s.
They allegedly refused to help North Korea with nuclear weapon development, focusing
on nuclear energy instead.
The eventual Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center was built in part with the assistance
of the Soviet Union.
The site is believed to have produced some of the materials necessary for North Korea’s
multiple nuclear weapons tests.
In the 1980s, North Korea signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which attempts to
get countries to disarm their nuclear weapons and focus on nuclear energy.
It is the largest arms treaty in the world, originally signed by 191 states.
Then, a few years later after the collapse of the Soviet Union, their primary benefactor,
North Korea agreed to disarm in exchange for light water energy reactors from the United
States.
However, this deal fell apart, and North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003.
By 2005, they announced that they were in possession of nuclear weapons.
Part of the reason for repeat agreements to disarm, followed by nuclear and missile testing,
is that North Korea allegedly continued to seek out nuclear weapons technology and information.
The founder of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, released documents
claiming that in the late 1990s North Korean officials bribed Pakistani military officials
in exchange for technical knowledge and equipment.
Pakistan vehemently denies this, and calls the documents fake, saying that Khan made
the deals alone.
In the end, North Korea’s nuclear power may be growing at a slow pace, despite sanctions
and embargoes designed to stop them.
But it has done so thanks to a clear level of dishonesty concerning their actual nuclear
capabilities.
Even if they don’t have a hydrogen bomb, as many sources now say, they still have the
capacity to cause serious and irreversible damage.
Hydrogen bombs are clearly serious business — and they’re much more powerful compared
to atomic bombs of the past.
Learn more about the science behind the H-bomb’s power in this video by DNews.
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