The seismic record of today's nuclear test by North Korea reveals a very small impact, almost so small that nuclear experts wonder if it isn't a hoax by Kim Jong-Il. Russia, however, wants everyone to know that they're very impressed by the test:

Russia's defense minister said Monday that North Korea's nuclear test was equivalent to 5,000 tons to 15,000 tons of TNT. That would be far greater than the force given by South Korea's geological institute, which estimated it at just 550 tons of TNT.

By comparison the bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima during World War II was equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT.

The AP reports that Pyongyang alerted Russia to the test two hours before the test took place. Perhaps Russia is working from their pledged yield. In the meantime, one has to believe that South Korean seismologists would have a better position with which to measure the force expended by the test.

Why is this important? The yield of the device has to be significant enough to provide a military deterrent. A 550-ton-yield nuke is worse than useless. One can build conventional bombs with more impact than what Kim tested this morning, and with none of the diplomatic messiness that Kim has created over the last twelve years. A 550-ton-yield nuke doesn't even make a good tactical weapon, let alone a strategic deterrent. (See Update II below)

Even a 5000-ton-yield nuke would have a questionable deterrent level, considering the inventory in the arsenals of the world's declared nuclear powers. It might have some value as a terrorist weapon, but it would do no more damage than a Stealth bombing run can do, and the latter has a lot more accuracy than the former. No one would shrug at a bomb that has one-third of the power of the bomb that leveled Hiroshima, but we expected more than that -- and right now, it looks like Kim only has a bomb one-tenth of that size.

So why is Russia insisting on overstating Kim's success? Other than sheer bloody-mindedness, it's hard to say. If we take them at their word, then we'd have to insist that Russia join in sanctions immediately, which they have so far refused to do. They may want to make the argument that Kim has enough of a nuclear deterrent that we should leave him alone, but that won't fly either.

The Russians may simply want to continue its game-playing against the West, but as I wrote earlier, the stakes are going to get very high for Vladimir Putin as well as Kim Jong-Il. If they want to bet the house on a pair of deuces, they had better prepare to lose everything.

UPDATE: For those who wonder what a 4.2 Richter measurement really means, this site's deconstruction of an earthquake falsely assumed to have been a nuclear test seems particularly relevant:

Size of 1997 Event The Washington Post for August 29 gives the seismic magnitude of the event as 3.8. Quoting Pentagon officials, the Washington Times on the 28th states "initial data on the event produced 'high confidence' that the activity detected was a nuclear test equivalent to between 100 tons and 1,000 tons of TNT. The relatively small size would be consistent with tests used to determine the reliability of a nuclear weapon . . .such as a scaled-down test of a warhead primer." The Reviewed Event Bulletin of the IDC gives a seismic magnitude, mb, of 3.9, obtained by averaging readings from two stations. Magnitude is proportional to the log of the amplitude of seismic waves.

The Richter scale is an exponential/logarithmic scale (we native Californians know this from birth), so the difference between 3.9 and 4.2 would mean that the seismic strength was three times stronger than the 1997 event. That would mean the yield on North Korea's nuclear test would have been between 300 and 3,000 tons, not 5K - 15K as the Russians claim. It fits with the initial Western estimate of 550 tons, although that's on the low side of the scale. Unless the estimate of the seismic strength gets revised upwards, we're dealing with a very small yield -- which is why the North Koreans may be preparing a second test.

This chart seems even more clear (h/t QandO):

3.5 73 tons
4.0 1,000 tons Small Nuclear Weapon
4.5 5,100 tons Average Tornado (total energy)

A 4.2 seismic event would therefore put the energy towards 2.5 and 3 kt maximum -- much ado about almost nothing.

UPDATE II: Yeah, well, obviously the first cup of coffee hadn't kicked in while I wrote this. The biggest bomb in the arsenal is the MOAB, and it has a TNT yield of 12 tons, not 12 kt, which I mixed up this morning. A few CQ readers kindly asked me whether I had mixed up my tons and kilotons, which obviously I did.

Another point that some have made today is that some nuclear tests are deliberately set up to produce low yields; their point is to test designs, and when dealing with a limited amount of fissile material, this small test works best. However, I doubt that the North Koreans wanted to do that kind of design test. Their intent was to make a big splash and frighten people. While a 550 kt device would make a good terrorist weapon, it doesn't do much strategically.

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