The North Korean bomb, estimated at four kilotons, does not come anywhere near the magnitude of the atomic bombs of 15 21 kilotons that America dropped on Japan 64 years ago. Indeed, this vainglorious attempt by Kim Jong il reminds Koreans of the mother bullfrog in Aesop s Fables who puffed herself out to imitate an ox.

In 1982, in the middle of the Cold War in Soviet Siberia, a pipeline exploded with a burst of 3 kilotons, the equivalent of a fourth of the Hiroshima bomb.

This is Alexander Lebed, who was a general that worked with Yeltsin, who talked about, and presented to Congress, this idea that the Russians had developed these suitcase bombs. They were very low yield 0.1 to one kiloton, Hiroshima was around 13 kilotons but enough to do an unbelievable amount of damage.