Kim Jong-un has stated North Korea has powerful hydrogen bombs, the first time it has been suggested North Korea has such a device. First tested in 1952, hydrogen bombs are more dangerous—and complicated—than atomic bombs. Experts are skeptical of the North Korean claim.
According to the North Korean state news agency KNCA, Kim made the comments at the Phyongchon Revolutionary Site, a former munitions factory. Kim stated that North Korea was, "a powerful nuclear weapons state ready to detonate self-reliant A-bomb and H-bomb to reliably defend its sovereignty and the dignity of the nation."
No further details on the North Korean H-bomb were provided. North Korea is known to have a nuclear arsenal, and is believed to have tested nuclear devices three times in the past.
In 2010, North Korea's Rodong Simmun newspaper declared that the country had succeeded in nuclear fusion reaction—commonly interpreted to mean hydrogen bombs. Hydrogen bombs are atomic fission bombs boosted to higher explosive yields by inducing a fusion chain reaction.
H-bombs are much more powerful—while nuclear bombs are often in the kilotons (one kiloton equals 1,000 tons of TNT) hydrogen bombs are usually in the megatons (one megaton equals 1,000,000 tons of TNT). The first H-bomb test was the Ivy Mike shot, which had a yield of 10.2 megatons.
Nuclear expert Jeffrey Lewis, a longtime follower of North Korea's nuclear program, is skeptical but wouldn't necessarily rule out some experimentation with fusion. "A staged thermonuclear weapon would seem to be stretch for North Korea," Lewis told Popular Mechanics, "but after three tests I wouldn't be surprised to see them experiment with fusion fuels like deuterium or lithium to boost the yield of their bombs."
South Korean intelligence, which closely monitors the North, reportedly does not believe that North Korea has the H-bomb.
So why would North Korea—having been virtually silent on the issue of fusion bombs for five years—suddenly mention them?
One theory is that the H-bomb announcement is a distraction designed to throw the world off the fact that North Korean Navy recently tested a submarine-launched nuclear missile—and it didn't go well. The Sinpo-class missile submarine, a North Korean design based on older Soviet submarines, test fired one of the missiles in late November.
The missile, known to North Koreans as the Bukgeukseong-1 and the Pentagon as the KN-11, failed to clear the its launch tube, damaging the submarine's sail. The extent of the damage—and the setback to North Korea's nuclear program—is unknown but believed to be considerable, with parts of the submarine and the missile blown into the Sea of Japan.
Could the North Korean H-bomb be a red herring, or could the secretive dictatorship—as Lewis stated—be at least partially telling the truth? Time will tell.
The only thing we know for sure: Pyongyang has a submarine to fix.