North Korea’s Move Tests International Will on Nuclear Issues

RAY SUAREZ:

For more on the response to the North Korean tests, we go to Douglas Paal, who served in the Reagan and Bush administrations. He's now vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

And Joel Wit was a career State Department official dealing with Northeast Asia and arms control. He's now a visiting fellow at the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

And, Joel Wit, given the admittedly paltry evidence that's coming out — I mean, not a lot to go on — but what does this latest test tell you about the state of the North Korean program?

JOEL WIT, Johns Hopkins University:

Well, I think the important point here is, as everyone knows, it's the second test, but it's the first successful test. Everyone had doubts about whether the first test worked or not. This is the first successful test.

And so what that means is, first of all, people are now starting to understand that North Korea may have a workable nuclear device. And secondly, even more important, North Korea's probably trying to perfect their design so they can put these warheads on top of missiles.

RAY SUAREZ:

From two different sources comes word that the increase in seismic activity as a result of the explosion was roughly half a point on the Richter Scale. And I guess if you don't know much about the Richter Scale, it doesn't sound like a lot, but is it a much more powerful explosion?

JOEL WIT:

Well, it's definitely a lot more powerful than the first one, which only amounted to a few kilotons of explosive power. This one, as the Russians said, is 10 to 20 kilotons, which was much larger.

But that's important. But the important thing here is that this test seems to have been successful. And that has broader ramifications for countries in the region, for the United States, and for the international nonproliferation regime.