"While I strongly condemn Nuclear development, I think it has become necessary." "Inevitable" would have done justice to the argument than the word "necessary" in the above sentence. Believing something is necessary while condeming it at the same time is an oxymoron, I think. I could not agree more with the rest. Nice to see you back too, Isolated. Though lengthy, it's worth taking time to read some of your thoughts. My predictions: The key here will be the suspicion that NK's test was actually nuclear. Thre have already been questions raised about the test's nuclear validity, with some countries like France, saying it was just an extraordinary explosion, but doubting it was nuclear. Unless this can be verified, it will be hard to maintain the unity against NK. It is also believed that despite the tests being genuine, NK lacks the capacity to build larger nuclear misslies. Otherwise, even the perceived enemies would not hesitate to make friends in this case, particularly China vis-a-vis Japan and the US. Nonetheless, this new alliance, I believe will be able to do little, without promising prospects of a military intervention. Military intervention can be virtually ruled out simply because US cannot afford it at this time. And without such an intervention, sanctions will have little effect on the government of NK, despite them affecting the people on the grounds. NK's government has proven their capability to survive without international or domestic support -- such is the nature of totalitarian regimes. Sanctions which might have tremendous effect, such as oil embargo, would be opposed by China in particualr, because it wouldn't want to destablize NK either -- China is having to thread a precarious balance of containing nuclear NK and, at the same time, ensuring such efforts won't herald berserk outcomes. In short, the complexities of the situation/power relations, as I understand it, will prevent a full-fledged. strongly united response to NK's claimed nuclear test, even if it proven to be genuine. Nk would probably go on to aquire smaller Nuclear weapons (they lack the capacity to build larger ones), and the world would would have lived on. Even prospects of sanctions, so strongly advocated right now, would have faded in time.