An atmospheric test is a very real likelyhood, if done on an offshore island.
It would be very, very noticable if successful, possibly lighting the night sky as far North as Japan, & obviously as far South as Seoul.
If the fallout reaches South Korea or Japan, & starts a panic, all the better, from Krazy Kim’s viewpoint.
Doubtful, placing another country in the path of fallout would be an act of war. The likely location for the underground test has been known for some time, check out this link.
Are you sure about that? I recall a Chinese test in 1980 and seeing a track of the fallout over the USA.
Tracking relatively minute increases in background radiation attributable to testing halfway across the world is one thing. If North Korea deliberately conducts an atmospheric test and does so in such a way as to maximize the amount and deadliness of the fallout to cross border populations, I would think that would be a clear act of war. It would be using a radiological weapon under the thin guise of a nuclear test. I don’t think an underground test would be considered even remotely as provocative, nor necessarily an atmospheric test provided the principle fallout was contained within North Korean borders, anything else though is on very shakey ground.
I don’t know anybody who would step up to that thar “line in the sand” , if’n they did, buckaroo.
Nope, this is totally wrong. What the little tinpot WANTs is to extort money from the US, Japan, South Korea. If we all ignore him, he will be overthrown. :mad:
Or he’ll invade South Korea, which has the largest and busiest shipyards in the world (not to mention oodles of electronics factories).
He can no more effectively invade South Korea than we can invade North Korea. He has the power to destroy South Korea’s economy via conventional artillery attack and guerrilla hit and run tactics, but in no way shape or form does he have the equipment, logistics or support from allies to successfully invade and hold any portion of South Korea and come out ahead. South Korea has a large, advanced and capable military of it’s own in addition to allied support from the US. They also have little things like more than a couple weeks supply of fuel and food on hand and the capability to buy more as needed in a wartime economy. In an unprovoked attack by North Korea using conventional military forces, South Korea would win and there would be a unified Korean penninsula, albeit at great cost.
All absolutely correct, but Kim crossing the DMZ (no doubt thinking that his forces will be greeted as liberators) will send the global economy in the toilet. Damage to the shipyards will harm it even more.
Interesting timing, given that the US armed forces are currently spread thin and also require major capital improvements (the actions of the past 5 years have depreciated certain equipment beyond their reasonable life expectancy as well as exhausted reserve supplies of certain other items needed for ground combat).
Of course this is all ‘tin foil hat’ nonsense in any event. No sane person would ever willingly engage their country in a land war in asia, as victory is not possible.
Yep, and how will this help him? What will he gain? What is the likelyhood his orders would actually be followed by his military commanders if it came down to something so drastic? I mean… he COULD decide tomorrow to abdicate, cede the nation to South Korea and go live the sweet life as dictator in exile in perpetuity in beautiful Cuba enjoying his stashed millions… but the likelyhood is very small. 
Right now, Kim may be under pressure by those very same military commanders to solve his problems by invasion.
All or nothing, one roll of the dice.
His country is falling apart…in a few years, he loses anyway, after agricultural & economic collapse.
And you know the old saying: When the only tool you have is a Hammer, everything looks like a nail.