KOREA (North)Abstract:The small yields of Pyongyang's 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests have left analysts wondering how the North designed its devices. One preeminent Chinese expert has a worrisome

theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Report on North Korean Nuclear Program by Siegfried S. Hecker, November 15, 2006 Richard L. Garwin and Frank N. von Hippel, "A Technical Analysis of North Korea’s Oct. 9 Nuclear Test," Arms Control Today, November 2006. North Korea’s Bomb: A technical assessment, FAS Strategic Security blog, October 16, 2006 Statement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on the North Korea Nuclear Test, ODNI news release, October 16, 2006 Korea and US Nuclear Weapons, FAS Nuclear Information Project, September 28, 2005 North Korea's Nuclear Program, 2005, Nuclear Notebook, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 2005. Visit to the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Center in North Korea, Testimony of Siegfried S. Hecker, Los Alamos National Laboratory, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, January 21, 2004

The Nuclear Threat Initative's North Korea nuclear profile Report of U.S. Congressional Delegation Visit to North and South Korea, May 30 - June 2, 2003 led by Rep. Curt Weldon North Korea's Nuclear Program, 2003, Nuclear Notebook, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 2003 North Korean Nuclear Weapons, CIA Estimate for Congress, November 19, 2002 North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program, Congressional Research Service North Korean Nuclear Program, U.S. State Department release, October 16, 2002 Text of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Text of the Agreed Framework

North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Program Larry A. Niksch, Foreign Affairs and Trade Division, Congressional Research Service, October 9, 2002 STRATEGIC IMPLICATIONS OF THE U.S.-DPRK FRAMEWORK AGREEMENT Thomas L. Wilborn, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College -- April 3, 1995 [40 pages, 125 kb PDF] Assessing the U.S.-North Korea Agreement Masao Okonogi Joint Forces Quarterly Spring 1995 [215 kb PDF] The North Korean leadership is attempting to sell its outmoded baggage of the Cold War. Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) The Nuclear Potential of Individual Countries Treaty on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons Problems of Extension Appendix 2 Russian Federation Foreign Intelligence Service 6 April 1995 Nuclear Nonproliferation: Implications of the U.S./North Korean Agreement on Nuclear Issues (Letter Report, 10/01/96, GAO/RCED/NSIAD-97-8). N Korean Nuclear Arsenal By Lee Wha Rang, April 27, 1996 Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr., "Exposing North Korea's Nuclear Infrastructure--Part One," Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 February 1999, p. 38 Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr., "Exposing North Korea's Secret Nuclear Infrastructure, Part II," Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 August 1999 Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr., "North Korea's Nuclear Infrastructure" Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 February 1994, 74-79

Mr. Obama argued for a slower course, saying, “We are going to want to make sure that we can continue to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons,” and, he added, to “make sure that our conventional weapons capability is an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances.”

“I’m not going to parse that right now,” he said, sitting in his office as children played on the South Lawn of the White House at a daylong Easter egg roll. But he cited the example of North Korea, whose nuclear capabilities were unclear until it conducted a test in 2006, which it followed with a second shortly after Mr. Obama took office.

“I think it’s safe to say that there was a time when North Korea was said to be simply a nuclear-capable state until it kicked out the I.A.E.A. and become a self-professed nuclear state,” he said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency. “And so rather than splitting hairs on this, I think that the international community has a strong sense of what it means to pursue civilian nuclear energy for peaceful purposes versus a weaponizing capability.”

g similar noises since the Eisenhower administration, and halting the spread of nukes (if not elimin

The argument that nuclear weapons can be agents of peace as well as destruction rests on two deceptively simple observations.