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I rather suspect that the depth of ill feeling over such a move (and the attendant pictures of Korean protesters jeering leaving American troops) will result in a “to hell with them” attitude on Washington’s part when Seoul comes begging for help against Chinese pressures. I don’t imagine the Japanese would be that much more sympathetic, either.

From an American point of view, the dissolution of the alliance would be a mixed bag. We’d lose an immense amount of “face,” a valued intelligence partner, and some forward bases on the Korean peninsula. We’d gain a good deal of freedom of action — we wouldn’t have to drag a recalcitrant ally along, and we would free up for further deployments all our troops on the peninsula. We could bomb Yongbyon without having to worry as much about Seoul and from a strict strategic point of view the Korean peninsula, which sits astride no major trade routes (and possesses few natural resources) is not so valuable anyways.

The spectre of a withdrawing America would probably encourage various other Asian countries to seek accomodations with China, but it would also decidedly cool some of the more irrational behavior we’ve seen on the part of Taiwan recently. It might also encourage more initiative and forward-lookingness on the part of various Asian powers as they struggle to keep the Americans in, the Japanese down, and the Chinese out.

A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said Bush calling Kim “mister” was a way “of politely addressing our headquarters of revolution,” the official KCNA news agency reported.

The praise for Bush comes a day after the North labeled Vice President Dick Cheney a “bloodthirsty beast” after he had said Kim Jong-il was irresponsible and runs a police state.

However, you can never tell with something that big. North Korea would be a tough, costly nut to crack even if all agreed to do it, and those costs make South Korea and China reluctant to even consider tougher measures.

But, seeing the reality of a nuclear test might swing the situation in a radical way….

An above ground test would certainly cause fallout to drift over a neighboring country, and I imagine they would want to avoid this. They might even try to deny the actual test by claiming it as an earthquake; is the Korean peninsula an active earthquake zone like Japan? If so it might be hard to tell unless we’ve got continuous satellite surveillance of the expected ground zero and can get photos of the surface moving upward and then sinking, above ground zero.

It would be interesting to see the extrapolations made by the seismic sensors around the world as to the projected “size” of the nuke. If they’ve figured out a way to make a “small” one that might be really alarming, in terms their ability to sell a a weapon to an outside group; of course I’m not a physicist, and I suppose a small yield doesn’t necessarily imply a small physical size to the weapon.

A good chance I supppose that their weapons are physically large (like the first US nukes) which means they can’t be easily smuggled, unless the Chinese have shared their stolen US technology for “miniaturization” with the North. I can’t see why the Chinese would do this deliberately, but anything is possible and there’s always corruption.

I imagine the Pakistani ones are large in size as well (I think the current Pak arsenal is estimated at around 60 weapons). Anyone know anything different? I haven’t tried to research this topic on the net yet.

A nuclear test does not merely make a statement as to NK’s capabilities (though it does elimitate the powerful human tendency towards denial), but more importantly, it makes a new statement as to NK’s willingness and intent. The photos of North Korean mushroom clouds splattered all over the global media will have a powerful effect–far more so than the endless bombastic North Korean words (”words, words, words,” to misquote Shakespeare) that we cannot underestimate.