Breaking: North Korea goes 1-for-2 in Nuke tests

So you might have woken up this morning to the surprising news that North Korea conducted its second nuclear test overnight. And unlike their first nuclear test back in 2006, this second one seems not to have been a dud - last night's blast was in the range of 10 to 20 kilotons, roughly the size of the bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima - small by modern standards, but still big enough. The North Korean media said that this new test was at “a new higher level in terms of its explosive power and technology of its control,” their way I suppose of saying it didn't fizzle like the first NK nuke.

Of course their test has been widely condemned by the international community, with a call for a special meeting of the UN Security Council this afternoon, but I am a little surprised at how there is markedly less hysteria over this nuclear test than there have been over previous North Korean weapons tests. Even the folks over at Fox News weren't terribly panicked over the actions of the North Koreans (though they raised the idea a couple of times that North Korea might sell a nuke to al-Qaeda). The Associated Press published a good quote from Russian translator Alexei Sergeyev, based in Vladivostok (just 85 miles from the North Korean border), who summed up the North Korean weapons program nicely: “their nuclear program does not have military aims — their only aim is to frighten the U.S. and receive more humanitarian aid as a result.”

The main reaction to the North Korean test is that this is simply another weapons-based temper tantrum thrown by Kim Jong-Il in an attempt to get the global community to once again come back to the negotiating table and give his country desperately needed aid. A few analysts I heard have though raised a more interesting possibility, that the nuke test was really part of an internal power-struggle in North Korea.

For a good part of last year there was a lot of speculation that Kim was in fact dead. He's not, but it is clearly apparent that he suffered some sort of serious health problem (likely a stroke) - the once plump Kim now looks gaunt and frail. The belief is that his poor health has sparked a struggle among the North Korean elites over who will follow Kim once he does finally pass away. Kim's oldest son, Kim Jong-nam, should be his successor, but he fell out of favor after trying to sneak into Japan to go to Disneyland Asia (really); Dear Leader Kim is now said to favor his third son Kim Jong-un to follow in his footsteps, but this would mean a radical break from tradition in tradition-bound North Korea, and there are questions as to whether the younger Kim has a real base of power among chiefs in the military and Communist Party.

So some think last night's test may have really been an exercise of political power within the bizarre world of the North Korean leadership. Whatever the reason, the test is sure to provoke another round of diplomatic hand wringing and wild speculation about what the world's most secretive state will try next.