Nuclear security

North Korean Bomb Tests Are Fake

A rogue nation, North Korea, conducts a test of a submarine-launched ballistic missile system (SLBM) in December; films the test itself; releases the video of the "successful" test through the state media it controls; declares that it now has the ability to wipe out the United States by delivering a hydrogen bomb with its missile system; and politicians in Washington rush to the media to denounce it.

At roughly the same time, North Korea also says it's mastered the hydrogen bomb, and that it had conducted an underground test of the weapon and would eventually place aboard its ballistic missile system.

Ignore for the moment that scientists quickly said that such a true H-bomb test was neither likely nor plausible, and what North Korea likely did was use a small amount of nuclear fusion to produce a visually stunning, but meaningless, pyrotechnic fireworks display. Another more likely possibility is that they simply lied about their ability to control the necessary chain reactions for a hydrogen bomb.