Another DPRK Nuclear Detonation?

Some Pentagon officials think that North Korea may be preparing to detonate another nuclear explosive device, ABC News reports. The U.S. IC, however, is far from a consensus on this assessment:

Two other senior defense officials confirmed that recent intelligence suggested that the North Koreans appear to be ready to test a nuclear weapon again, but the intelligence community divides over whether another test is likely.

"That would surprise me," a senior intelligence official said when asked if North Korea is likely to soon conduct another test.

Another official had a different view, predicting North Korea would conduct a test sometime over the next two or three months.

Read the whole thing.

Parenthetically, I must say that I really do wonder why the USG framed North Korea's test of a nuclear explosive device in October as a nuclear test, and not as a nuclear detonation or nuclear explosion. In July 2006, when the DPRK tested several Taepodong-2 long-range missiles, the USG publicly categorized these actions not as "missile tests," but as "missile launches"--the idea here being that the phrase, missile launch, amplified the seriousness of Pyongyang's intransigence much more clearly than the more neutral-sounding phrase, missile test. But in contrast, soon after North Korea detonated a nuclear explosive device in October 2006, the USG employed the semantically neutral-sounding phrase, "nuclear test." I know not why. (Surely it's not because Uncle Sam or any of his friends are contemplating their own tests sometime in the near future...)

While traveling abroad a few months ago, I asked a rather sharp-thinking U.S. diplomat about this. S/he saw the logic of using more emphatic-sounding phrases like "nuclear detonation" or "nuclear explosion "instead of "nuclear test," and could not explain why such phrases were not being used.

Posted by Robert at January 4, 2007 11:12 PM