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Will the US really nuke North Korea?
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Lara Williams is a writer based in Manchester, UK
others. Salmon cope well in packed pens whereas cod are much less resilient to problems of captivity such as sea lice. Warm waters are also the most productive, with tropical regions dominating the areas the team identified. Herring need not apply. Knowing that we have space to grow aquaculture beyond current needs offers some comfort, but there are many caveats. And if we keep on feasting on wild-caught fish, we may soon have to accept that our diet will change in ways we hadn’t anticipated. n Olive Heffernan is an environment writer
INSIGHT North Korea
KYODO NEWS VIA GETTY IMAGES
assume and the clothes we wear. Boys’ clothes tend to veer towards more mobile and utilitarian styles, while for girls they remain restrictive, embellished and decorative. Caroline Bettis, head of childrenswear at John Lewis, cited “not wanting to reinforce stereotypes” as the reason behind the labelling decision. Those stereotypes can take hold very young. It is thought children begin recognising gender from the age of 1, even associating certain objects with a particular gender. From here it isn’t a huge leap to the gender misconceptions that harm society, such as girls believing brilliance is a male trait. The backdrop is one of neuroscientists increasingly dismissing the idea that there are fundamental differences between male and female brains. Gender identity doesn’t always fit the binary model – it is thought that as many as 2 per cent of live births are of babies who are intersex. Gender is more complex than external anatomy. Gender doesn’t necessarily match the sex you are born into. If sex and gender aren’t a perfect dichotomy – why should clothing be? n
–Testing times–
Will the US really nuke North Korea? Debora MacKenzie
attempt to make the US back down would not be irrational,” he says. But even if the US got lucky and took out North Korea’s nukes in a first strike, Kim could still fight back. North Korea is thought to have 10,000 to 15,000 artillery guns and over 1000 short-range ballistic missiles, mostly trained on the South Korean capital Seoul, says Paul Ingram of the British American Security Information Council, a London think tank. It is unclear how many of Seoul’s 25 million people this arsenal could kill, but strategists say that return fire from South Korea and the US would
NORTH KOREA’s nuclear tests continue to provoke its enemies. Some people are suggesting that a pre-emptive strike would end the uncertainty and liberate its long-suffering people. Last week, US defence secretary James Mattis promised that “any threat to US territories (or) our allies will be met with a massive military response”. That sounds pre-emptive. “We are not looking to the total annihilation of… North Korea, but we have many options to do so,” he added. That sounds nuclear. But on close inspection, it doesn’t sound sensible. The country’s leader, “If this results in mushroom clouds, then the barrier Kim Jong-un, has developed nuclear against nuclear weapons weapons for the sole purpose of use will be lowered” deterring such an attack. If the US didn’t take out all of North Korea’s nukes in a first strike, its fear of nuclear take out the batteries in a day or two, leaving North Korea open for a ground attack could become self-fulfilling. invasion. So why have them? The The US would be more likely to use guns, like the nukes, are deterrents: conventional weapons, says James don’t attack and it won’t use them. Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for All this suggests a pre-emptive International Peace in Washington DC, strike on North Korea would unleash though that could also spark a nuclear its threat, rather than resolving it. But response. “If Kim believed his regime the real risk is the precedent a nuclear were in danger, such a desperate
attack by either side would set. “The primary bulwark against nuclear anarchy is the norm of nonuse on battlefields,” says Michael Krepon at the Stimson Center, a security think tank in Washington DC. “If the crisis with North Korea results in mushroom clouds, then the barrier against nuclear weapons use will be lowered for other states,” he says. Rather than all-out nuclear war, Krepon fears a global resumption of nuclear testing, resulting in smaller battlefield weapons that are more likely to be used than the large Cold War missiles. “We [would] be opening the gates of hell,” he says. Still, people are thinking about actually using nuclear weapons for the first time since 1945. The South Korean defence minister this week suggested reviewing the US decision to remove its small “tactical” nuclear missiles from South Korea in 1991. US analysts have calculated that a recently improved US warhead might destroy North Korea’s nuclear arsenal without killing many people, by detonating at high altitude. Such a situation, however, would almost certainly escalate, says Krepon. Other paranoid mass murderers like Stalin and Mao were kept in line by deterrence, he says, so surely, the US, with 1240 nuclear warheads ready for launch, can deter a tiny country with at most a handful of them. It may be unsettling to do nothing – but it may be the only way. n 16 September 2017 | NewScientist | 23
Lara Williams is a writer based in Manchester, UK
others. Salmon cope well in packed pens whereas cod are much less resilient to problems of captivity such as sea lice. Warm waters are also the most productive, with tropical regions dominating the areas the team identified. Herring need not apply. Knowing that we have space to grow aquaculture beyond current needs offers some comfort, but there are many caveats. And if we keep on feasting on wild-caught fish, we may soon have to accept that our diet will change in ways we hadn’t anticipated. n Olive Heffernan is an environment writer
INSIGHT North Korea
KYODO NEWS VIA GETTY IMAGES
assume and the clothes we wear. Boys’ clothes tend to veer towards more mobile and utilitarian styles, while for girls they remain restrictive, embellished and decorative. Caroline Bettis, head of childrenswear at John Lewis, cited “not wanting to reinforce stereotypes” as the reason behind the labelling decision. Those stereotypes can take hold very young. It is thought children begin recognising gender from the age of 1, even associating certain objects with a particular gender. From here it isn’t a huge leap to the gender misconceptions that harm society, such as girls believing brilliance is a male trait. The backdrop is one of neuroscientists increasingly dismissing the idea that there are fundamental differences between male and female brains. Gender identity doesn’t always fit the binary model – it is thought that as many as 2 per cent of live births are of babies who are intersex. Gender is more complex than external anatomy. Gender doesn’t necessarily match the sex you are born into. If sex and gender aren’t a perfect dichotomy – why should clothing be? n
–Testing times–
Will the US really nuke North Korea? Debora MacKenzie
attempt to make the US back down would not be irrational,” he says. But even if the US got lucky and took out North Korea’s nukes in a first strike, Kim could still fight back. North Korea is thought to have 10,000 to 15,000 artillery guns and over 1000 short-range ballistic missiles, mostly trained on the South Korean capital Seoul, says Paul Ingram of the British American Security Information Council, a London think tank. It is unclear how many of Seoul’s 25 million people this arsenal could kill, but strategists say that return fire from South Korea and the US would
NORTH KOREA’s nuclear tests continue to provoke its enemies. Some people are suggesting that a pre-emptive strike would end the uncertainty and liberate its long-suffering people. Last week, US defence secretary James Mattis promised that “any threat to US territories (or) our allies will be met with a massive military response”. That sounds pre-emptive. “We are not looking to the total annihilation of… North Korea, but we have many options to do so,” he added. That sounds nuclear. But on close inspection, it doesn’t sound sensible. The country’s leader, “If this results in mushroom clouds, then the barrier Kim Jong-un, has developed nuclear against nuclear weapons weapons for the sole purpose of use will be lowered” deterring such an attack. If the US didn’t take out all of North Korea’s nukes in a first strike, its fear of nuclear take out the batteries in a day or two, leaving North Korea open for a ground attack could become self-fulfilling. invasion. So why have them? The The US would be more likely to use guns, like the nukes, are deterrents: conventional weapons, says James don’t attack and it won’t use them. Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for All this suggests a pre-emptive International Peace in Washington DC, strike on North Korea would unleash though that could also spark a nuclear its threat, rather than resolving it. But response. “If Kim believed his regime the real risk is the precedent a nuclear were in danger, such a desperate
attack by either side would set. “The primary bulwark against nuclear anarchy is the norm of nonuse on battlefields,” says Michael Krepon at the Stimson Center, a security think tank in Washington DC. “If the crisis with North Korea results in mushroom clouds, then the barrier against nuclear weapons use will be lowered for other states,” he says. Rather than all-out nuclear war, Krepon fears a global resumption of nuclear testing, resulting in smaller battlefield weapons that are more likely to be used than the large Cold War missiles. “We [would] be opening the gates of hell,” he says. Still, people are thinking about actually using nuclear weapons for the first time since 1945. The South Korean defence minister this week suggested reviewing the US decision to remove its small “tactical” nuclear missiles from South Korea in 1991. US analysts have calculated that a recently improved US warhead might destroy North Korea’s nuclear arsenal without killing many people, by detonating at high altitude. Such a situation, however, would almost certainly escalate, says Krepon. Other paranoid mass murderers like Stalin and Mao were kept in line by deterrence, he says, so surely, the US, with 1240 nuclear warheads ready for launch, can deter a tiny country with at most a handful of them. It may be unsettling to do nothing – but it may be the only way. n 16 September 2017 | NewScientist | 23