North Korea: Threat or Blackmailer?

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

I don't think it's as simple as them having some barometer showing "This is X's enriched uranium", but I positive they would be able to break down the composition and tell which reactor (and make) it came from, thereby narrowing down the possibilities.

Nuclear bomb debris holds clues to who planted it - science-in-society - 08 November 2010 - New Scientist


As far as NK goes, I wouldn't put it past China to invade NK before we could just so that scenario you mention didn't happen.

Sounds more like you would have to make an educated guess at best. We could let Collen Powell present the evidence to the UN. I hear he is pretty good at that. You say don't fear it getting into the wrong hands but that's our goverments biggest fear and why we care who has the capability.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Sounds more like you would have to make an educated guess at best. We could let Collen Powell present the evidence to the UN. I hear he is pretty good at that. You say don't fear it getting into the wrong hands but that's our goverments biggest fear and why we care who has the capability.

To go with NC_Skins on this, the government has a vested interest in keeping people afraid of terrorists. It allows them to act in ways that a non-fearful population would never allow. Between that fact, the media playing up singular fear inducing events, and Hollywood creating impossible situations to make an exciting plotline, I doubt the US population at large has any clue of what is and isn't possible. A terrorist cell doesn't get to test out their stuff, they aren't doing underground testing. They need something quick and dirty, and hope that no intelligence agency gets a whiff of it.


A side note: Do you know why the USSR and USA built enough weapons to destroy the world multiple of multiple times over? (anecdotal answer, not something stated as fact, but someone I know who would have reason to know at the time implied it - (this is my best a friend of a friend who knows a friend who worked in a lab answer):

The simple answer is because we didn't know with confidence that the actual weapons would work. We knew that all the moving parts worked per se, but the actual weapons, not as confident. The reason reduction treaties started being agreed to is that our confidence in the capability was maturing.