Kim lets anther one off.

[Workingman]

This time it really has got people to sit up and take notice.

It was launched from a previously unknown site and probably from a mobile launcher. It reached an altitude of 3,724km (2,300 miles) and flew for just over 47 minutes with a range of 998km (625 miles) and demonstrated successful stage separation and the reliability of the vehicle's control and guidance systems, which would allow a warhead to make an atmospheric re-entry to its target. Analysis says the figures give it a range of 10,400 km (6,500 miles) putting cities in an arc from Chicago - Denver - Los Angeles under threat.

But not to worry. Experts say it will be five to ten years before Kim has a deliverable weapon. I hope they are different from the bunch who once told us it would be five to ten years before Kim had a nuclear weapon just months before a test was carried out.

There is a trend here, and one seen throughout history in ever so many different areas:

Idea - drawing board - models and modelling - prototype. Test - fail - improve - test again - fail again - improve further. This keeps going on until *success* can be claimed and then it becomes a case of small tweaks for exponential improvements. NK now looks to be at that point. What is the betting on a new nuclear test before the end of the year?

[TheOstrich]

All very concerning. How long before a viable nuclear "capability" is exported by North Korea to other rogue groups or states? I would be more concerned about that than by the threat North Korea itself.
"Nothing to do with us, guv. We just flogged them the technology ...."

[AliasAggers]

It's nothing to worry about.

It's just another item to add to the list of unpleasant things that we can expect to occur
in the not-to-distant future. I'm not feeling particularly down at the moment, but one
must admit that there is much cause for apprehension nowadays.

[Suff]

Sadly, eventually, the world will realise that nuclear non proliferation is an abject failure.

Then another example will need to be made!

[cromwell]

The West has got too soft I'm afraid. If Kim Mah Jong or whatever he's called gets too stroppy he'll probably get away with it.

[Workingman]

Do you remember all those experts who kept telling us that NK was ten years away from having a nuclear bomb only a few years ago, and then only a few weeks ago were telling us it would be ten years before it had a missile capable of delivering one?

Well news is breaking, via the Washington Post, that US intelligence now believes that NK has more than one ready to go and that it has also miniaturised nuclear warheads capable of being carried by them.

Is this what caused the unanimous vote for new sanctions in the UN security council - including Russia and China? Will they be effective in brining Kim to his senses or are they likely to push him over the brink?

50:50

[Suff]

Kim thinks he's fireproof with a radioactive protection shield.

Sadly I believe millions of his people will find out, to their loss, that he has neither and they, also, are in the firing line.

When, not if, the lunatic finally drives everyone over the top, the lives lost will serve to remind us all, all over again, just exactly what the "Nuclear" age means.

Perhaps, next time, the message will stick. Or do we, the people, just like our politicians, have to learn the same lessons, over and over again, ad nauseam??

We have forgotten, wilfully, our idioms and why they are idioms. A nuke in time saves Nine.....

If Kim has achieved miniaturisation, then he has also made a fusion device and that means he can mount half megaton warheads. That, for those who don't know, is 33 1/3 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.

Worth taking a step back and thinking about what we might do to avoid the oncoming train..

[AliasAggers]

I am not very optimistic about the future, and the dreadful consequences of a possible third world war.

When one considers the fact that, WW1 and WW2 together resulted in the deaths of 98 million people,
it makes one wonder what the total world population count would now be, if these two wars had not
happened, and what that situation would have resulted in. If future wars can be avoided (which seems
most unlikely), then some form of population control will certainly be a top priority. Food for thought!.

[Suff]

I am not very optimistic about the future, and the dreadful consequences of a possible third world war.

When one considers the fact that, WW1 and WW2 together resulted in the deaths of 98 million people,
it makes one wonder what the total world population count would now be, if these two wars had not
happened, and what that situation would have resulted in. If future wars can be avoided (which seems
most unlikely), then some form of population control will certainly be a top priority. Food for thought!.

The problem with the Nuclear arms race is that you can take out 98 million with 5 or 6 warheads in the right places. Nuclear war, as population control, is akin to blowing up a whole bridge to repair a few surface cracks...

It has always been the case that Nuclear war was nothing more than a deterrent to imperialism, global domination and outright world war. As such something to be avoided.

Mind you, the conservative estimates are that the planet, at 5C warming due to global warming, would only support around 2bn people. Global warming is really just slower, but far more sure. Also it has the benefit that the surface of the planet is not polluted with radioactive isotopes..

Having said that, some think tanks have observed that Nuclear winter might be a viable alternative to global warming... I leave you to think whatever you want about that one..

[Workingman]

If future wars can be avoided (which seems most unlikely), then some form of population control will certainly be a top priority. Food for thought!.

It is way past the time for global population control to be a priority. It should have happened decades ago when it was noticed that populations were growing way past the point of a country's ability to support it.

We could not stop that, though, as it was seen as the 1st world beating down on the 3rd world. We had already had our cake, and eaten it, now it was their turn. That fluffy thinking was strongly supported, but very quietly, by global business and many Western governments. A halt to population expansion was a threat to economic growth. That was a threat to profits and that in turn was a threat to tax receipts.

Aggers, I know that you were not suggesting war as a means of population control, but I also recognise it as a side-effect, and I also think that another world war is coming. I also think that nuclear weapons will be used. We might play the game of nukes being a deterrent and cite mutually assured destruction (MAD) as the reason for them not to be used, but can we guarantee that everyone thinks that way? It will only take one country to use one on an enemy for that bubble to burst.

At the moment we are concerned by North Korea and I see that Iran's parliament has just voted to boost its missile programme by £260m - so that makes two. Who knows how many others there will be in the future?