DEFENSETECH SAYS IT’S A DUD: “No one has ever dudded their first test of a simple fission device. North Korean nuclear scientists are now officially the worst ever. . . . I’d say someone with no workable nuclear weapons (Kim Jong Il, I am looking at you) should be crapping his pants right now. First the missile, then the bomb. Got anything else you wanna try out there, chief?”

UPDATE: Donald Sensing says not so fast with the jeering:

I don’t mean to belabor the point I have made before, but I was trained in the Army as a nuclear-target analyst. A yield of 550-800 tons (.55-.8 KT) is not too small by any means as an achievable yield. It does not require a lot of fissionable material, either, which is one factor mitigating against the “hoax” conclusion. If the test was a “proof of concept” test rather than one intended to validate an actual warhead, then it makes sense for the DPRK to use as little nuclear material as possible. They don’t get the stuff very easily.

Well, in the abstract this makes sense. But it doesn’t seem to fit the North Koreans’ style very well. I’d like it if they were this short of fissionable material, though.