Early on Wednesday (1/6/16), North Korean officials announced a landmark accomplishment: the country’s first ever successful test of a hydrogen bomb.
During a special broadcast on the country’s state-owned TV network, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a document with the following words scrawled on it:
“Make the world … look up to our strong nuclear country and labor party by opening the year with exciting noise of the first hydrogen bomb!”
Courtesy of Reuters
The government’s official statement on the test made quite a few bold claims, including the following:
It was confirmed that the H-bomb test conducted in a safe and perfect manner had no adverse impact on the ecological environment. The test means a higher stage of the DPRK’s development of nuclear force.
By succeeding in the H-bomb test in the most perfect manner to be specially recorded in history the DPRK proudly joined the advanced ranks of nuclear weapons states possessed of even H-bomb and the Korean people came to demonstrate the spirit of the dignified nation equipped with the most powerful nuclear deterrent.
Of course, this isn’t North Korea’s first rodeo in terms of nuclear weapons testing. The country has detonated plutonium-based atomic bombs on a number of occasions over the years, most recently in 2013.
But hydrogen bombs are significantly more powerful than their plutonium-based cousins, and successfully testing one would represent a major advancement in North Korea’s military capabilities… if they were telling the truth, that is. And chances are they’re not.
The US Geological Survey registered the North Korean bomb test as a magnitude 5.1 seismic event centered in the northeast region of the country. This magnitude and is exactly the same as what was measured during North Korea’s 2013 test, suggesting that Wednesday’s test was probably just another plutonium-based bomb.
Comparing North Korea’s 2013 and 2016 bomb tests (Courtesy of US Geological Survey)
Early analyses of Wednesday’s test indicate that the bomb exploded with a force of less than than 10 kilotons — far smaller than what would be seen with an H-bomb. In an interview with the BBC, Rand Corporation analyst Bruce Bennet explained,
“The bang they should have gotten would have been 10 times greater than what they’re claiming. So Kim Jong-un is either lying, saying they did a hydrogen test when they didn’t, they just used a little bit more efficient fission weapon—or the hydrogen part of the test really didn’t work very well or the fission part didn’t work very well.”
So despite North Korea’s claims that the, “spectacular success made… in the H-bomb test this time is a great deed of history,” it is much more likely that the country simply lied about what type of bomb it blew up to get the world’s attention.
Apparently it worked. The test drew condemnation from around the world, with China, Russia and the NATO alliance all publicly denouncing the test. The U.N. Security Council also held an emergency meeting on Wednesday, reportedly at the request of the United States and Japan.
Read more from CNN and Quartz.