INTL Report: North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Could Grow Tenfold by 2020

[Housecarl]

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http://thediplomat.com/2015/02/repo...weapons-stockpile-could-grow-tenfold-by-2020/

Report: North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Could Grow Tenfold by 2020

Research from the US-Korea Institute and NDU warns North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs are developing rapidly.

By Shannon Tiezzi
February 25, 2015

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A new research project warns that North Korea’s nuclear stockpile could grow from roughly 10-16 nuclear weapons at the end of 2014 to 100 by the year 2020. The North Korea Nuclear Futures Project, a joint collaboration between the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and National Defense University, aims to predict possible futures for North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs over the next five years. The major findings were announced to the press by Joel Wit of the U.S.-Korea Institute and David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security on Tuesday.

The project provided three scenarios for the growth of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs over the next five years. Under the “minimal growth, minimal modernization” scenario – a best care scenario for concerned observers – North Korea conducts no further nuclear or missile tests and its technology progresses slowly. Even under this scenario, North Korea is expected to roughly double its stockpile of available nuclear weapons, from 10 to 20.

In the moderate scenario, which postulates North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs continue to develop at the same pace as they have so far, Pyongyang will have 50 nuclear weapons by 2020 and will be able to mount them on both mobile intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMS) and possibly even intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The worst-case scenario, assuming an increased commitment to the nuclear and missile programs, would involve rapid growth, including successful efforts to gain foreign technologies and information). Wit described this as a “pretty scary scenario” of “dramatic expansion” that would see North Korea armed with 100 nuclear weapons by 2020 to go along with 20-30 ICBMs.

The report also warns that North Korea already has the capability to mount miniaturized warheads on both its short-range Nodong missile (which can cover most of the Northeast Asian theater) and its Taepodong-2 missile, which has the potential to be used as an ICBM. Wit notes that, given current capabilities, North Korea could amass a nuclear arsenal of around 100 weapons and mount them on Nodong missiles able to reach South Korea and Japan by 2020 even without ever conducting another nuclear or missile test.

The analysis of both the current situation and possible future developments make it clear that the current approach to North Korea’s nuclear program has failed. Both Wit and Albright noted that North Korea can routinely access the Western technologies it needs via Chinese companies willing to smuggle them over the border. The assumption that sanctions are affecting North Korea’s ability to get nuclear technology is wrong, Wit said. Albright added that a crackdown on smuggling along the Chinese-North Korea border “could make life much harder for North Korea,” but noted that currently China simply doesn’t have mechanisms in place to enforce relevant laws.

From a geopolitical perspective, perhaps the most interesting takeaway is Wit’s point that the United States is failing in its attempt to force North Korea to choose between nuclear weapons and economic prosperity. “They’re not having to choose… they’re doing both,” Wit said. And economic sacrifices are even less of a factor now that North Korea has built up the necessary infrastructure for its nuclear and missile programs. It’s “not that expensive” for North Korea to continue along its current trajectory, Albright said.

Meanwhile, North Korea is winning the battle for acceptance as a nuclear state, as a number of regional countries (Russia, China, and the ASEAN states) seem content to conduct normal political and economic relations with North Korea despite pro forma protests over its nuclear ambitions. North Korea’s recent “charm offensive” resulted in warmer ties (to varying degrees) with Russia, ASEAN, and even Japan. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has even been invited to join Russian President Vladimir Putin and other world leaders in Moscow for ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. With the Kim regime strengthening ties with at least some neighbors, it will only become more difficult for the U.S. and its allies to find a way to stem the growth of Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal.

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TDog • 4 hours ago

What is interesting is that while states like Japan and Russia seem fine with this - or at least accepting - China and the US find themselves in the same boat in regards to their distaste for Pyongyang's ambitions and actions. And therein lies the problem: by allowing a myriad of other frankly more trivial issues sideline the debate over North Korea's nuclear arsenal, both China and the US have allowed a bad situation to get worse. The time to act was when North Korea first tested a device, but mutual distrust if not sheer malice prevented any meaningful action from taking place.

A nuclear-armed North Korea satisfies no one's strategic or geopolitical goals but for perhaps North Korea's. Even then one could argue that North Korea's arsenal is of limited political and economic utility as it represents more of a terrorist shakedown than a mature policy maneuver. And the problem is that the Kim dynasty is so supremely spoiled and detached from reality that so long as they have enough food to cram into their chubby faces and enough female companionship to satisfy them at night, a nuclear arsenal is an ego project and satisfying their ego, it would seem, is more of a priority than actually making sure their nation is able to feed and power itself.

Furthermore, North Korea knows it has everyone by the neck. China's seeming unwillingness to rein them in stems not from a stalwart adherence to a friendship so much as keeping a lid on a noxious band of criminals. If North Korea falls, North Koreans flood into China. The capacity for instability there is beyond their willingness or perhaps even ability to contain and Beijing above all values stability.

The tragedy is that it could have been handled years ago, but as I noted, belligerence, shortsightedness, mutual distrust, and sheer malice on the part of both the US and China prevented anything from happening. And so Kim gets to hold the entire region hostage for not other reason than he has delusions of grandeur and a propensity for acting like a spoiled, heavily-armed child.
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jetcal1 TDog • an hour ago

If I remember correctly, the Clinton administration claimed a promise had been made by the DPRK not to develop nukes. As you know, he has been out of office for a few election cycles now.
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TheSaucyMugwump • 7 hours ago

"The assumption that sanctions are affecting North Korea's ability to get nuclear technology is wrong"

Absolutely true, yet there are a few right-wingers, e.g. Joshua Stanton, who claim that sanctions will bring the DPRK to its knees. As long as China refuses to cooperate, sanctions on North Korea will have limited effect. The only way to enforce sanctions on the DPRK would be to enforce them against China at the same time, but the world's capitalists would quickly slap their bought-and-paid-for politicians into submission.

"the United States is failing in its attempt to force North Korea to choose between nuclear weapons and economic prosperity"

The Kim-groupies in Pyongyang are living very well, but people outside the capital are living in poverty. Not to mention the people in the labor camps being used as slaves in mines and other ventures.

I can only see three choices for the West, given China's refusal to rein in the DPRK:
1) acceptance of the DPRK as a nuclear power, working with them to add inspectors to prevent WWIII,
2) installation of a ring of missile defense around the DPRK, but it had better be invulnerable, and a ring is impossible by definition given that the DPRK borders both China and Russia, or
3) a massive air strike against the DPRK which would have immense implications around the world, as well as enormous casualties in the ROK, Japan, and perhaps other places.

Given that #2 is technically impossible today and #3 is unthinkable, the world may have no choice but to invite Kim Jong-un to some NBA games.
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pug_ster TheSaucyMugwump • 6 hours ago

Or 4) Not try to overthrow the country, establish a peace treaty with North Korea and try to normalize relations like what they did to Cuba.
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MingDynasty TheSaucyMugwump • 4 hours ago

I believe Mr. Putin's invite to the redoubtable Un was intended to be a diplomatic hand gesture to the Leader of the Free World if not to Messieurs Rogen and Franco. As dour as he may appear, I believe that Vladimir the Terrible has a somewhat dry sense of humor.
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Elvis • 7 hours ago

Interesting, so assuming the North Koreans have successfully miniaturized their nukes then its too late. Time to end the sanctions & accept them into the ranks of the nuclear powers. If we want to maintain the fig leaf of doing something, keep the American sanctions but let the rest of the world carry on. What I want to know is if the North Koreans have shared the tech to miniaturize nukes with the Iranians as they have been partners for a while in regards to R&D in missiles & nukes.
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[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...h-Korea-may-have-100-atomic-arms-by-2020.html

North Korea may have 100 atomic arms by 2020
US researchers say country could increase its nuclear arsenal from at least 10 weapons today to between 20 and 100 weapons in five years.

By Julian Ryall, Tokyo
12:01AM GMT 25 Feb 2015
Comments

Pyongyang's scientists have succeeded in miniaturising nuclear warheads to enable them to be fitted to ballistic missiles and the regime is likely to have a stockpile of 100 atomic weapons by 2020, according to the top North Korea analyst at Johns Hopkins University.

Joel Wit, who runs the respected 38 North web site, told a seminar in Washington on Tuesday that Pyongyang is believed to already have an arsenal of between 10 and 16 nuclear weapons and that its technological prowess has advanced to the stage at which it no longer needs to carry out tell-tale nuclear tests.

"Our fixation with when these tests happen really is not the right way to view this issue", Yonhap News quoted Mr Wit as saying. "Tests could happen. They may never happen again. If they never happen again, it does not mean that North Korea isn't a threat or isn't a problem".

To date, North Korea has carried out three underground nuclear tests, the most recent in February 2013 and each of increasing power. It has also stepped up development of its medium-range Nodong ballistic missiles, which are able to strike targets in South Korea and Japan, while the Taepodong-2 missile is assumed to have a range of more than 3,700 miles.

At a minimum, Mr Wit said, North Korea will be able to deploy 20 nuclear weapons by 2020, but a far more likely scenario puts that stockpile at 50 weapons by the end of the decade.

A "worst-case scenario", in which North Korea makes dramatic technological advances in both its nuclear programme and delivery systems, would permit Pyongyang to have 100 atomic weapons available.

Analysts believe these weapons would have a yield of as much as 50 kilotons. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 had a yield of 18 kilotons.

Mr Wit also warned that as the North's nuclear knowledge and weapons stockpile grow, there is an increased likelihood of nuclear exports to states that similarly wish to possess atomic weapons.

He called on the US, South Korea and Japan to "wake up" to the threat that Pyongyang poses to peace and stability in the region and to devise ways in which to deal with the growing problem of an unstable and belligerent nuclear-armed regime in North Korea.

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[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/25/us-usa-northkorea-nuclear-idUSKBN0LT09D20150225

U.S. 'deeply concerned' by North Korean nuclear advances

By David Brunnstrom
WASHINGTON Tue Feb 24, 2015 11:07pm EST

(Reuters) - The United States is "deeply concerned" about North Korea's nuclear advances, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday after a U.S. research institute predicted Pyongyang could possess as many as 100 nuclear weapons within five years.

Sung Kim, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy, told a Washington seminar he could not comment on findings presented earlier by experts at the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, because he had not seen the report and U.S. government assessments were classified.

"(But) obviously we are deeply concerned about the fact that the North Koreans are continuing to advance their nuclear capabilities; we know that they are continuing to work on their nuclear program," Kim said when asked about the report.

Experts at the U.S.-Korea Institute presented three scenarios for North Korea’s future nuclear stockpile, which they estimated currently amount to 10-16 weapons.

In the first, assuming minimal technological improvements, the stockpile was expected to grow to 20 weapons by 2020. In the second, it could grow to 50 and advances in miniaturization would allow North Korea to mount warheads on a new generation of intermediate- and shorter-range ballistic missiles.

The report's co-author, Joel Wit, described a "worst-case scenario", which would see an increase to 100 devices and significant technological advances allowing North Korea to deploy battlefield and tactical weapons if it chose to.

"This is a pretty scary scenario," Wit said, adding that the more nuclear weapons North Korea had, the more difficult it would be to try to coerce it to rolling back its nuclear program.

"To me it's a risky business trying to punish a country with so many nuclear weapons.”

The report said North Korea's existing missile systems were able to reach most of Northeast Asia, particularly its foes South Korea and Japan, and Pyongyang may also in the future be able to deploy a limited number of Taepodong missiles - a militarized version of a space-launch vehicle - that could reach the United States.

Kim said concern over North Korean advances was driving international diplomatic efforts "to find a credible path to negotiation so that we can stop North Korea’s development of their nuclear capabilities."

He said Washington was "under no illusions" about North Korea's willingness to denuclearize voluntarily and would "continue to apply pressure both multilaterally and unilaterally" though sanctions to increase the cost of failing to do so.

(Reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Ken Wills)

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
https://www.arirang.co.kr/News/News_View.asp?nseq=176358

N. Korea could have 100 nuclear weapons by 2020: U.S. expert
Updated: 2015-02-25 12:10:00 KST

North Korea could potentially expand its nuclear stockpile to one-hundred weapons over the next five years.

This, according to Joel Wit -- senior fellow at the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University -- who says Pyongyang is currently believed to possess between 10 to 16 nuclear weapons.

He gives three possible scenarios for the North's nuclear expansion, with Pyongyang forecast to double its stockpile at minimal growth, up to 50 at moderate growth -- which presumes the nation's nuclear and missile programs continue to develop at the current pace, and in the worst case a ten-fold increase from now.

The expert also called on the South Korean government to give up its unrealistic fantasy of unification, and see reality, stressing that North Korea is a country that will soon have between 50 to 100 nuclear weapons.

And such developments pose a serious threat not only to the Korean peninsula, but also to the United States.

U.S.-based think tank, The Heritage Foundation, says the North likely possesses the ability to place nuclear weapons on its medium-range missiles, as well as the technology to miniaturize warheads.

Saying that Pyongyang has an extensive ballistic missile force, the think tank added the country has deployed about 800 Scud short-range missiles, 300 Nodong medium-range missiles and 50 Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

It goes on to say that the North continues to develop ICBMs, some capable of hitting the United States.

The think tank also noted that North Korea has deployed 70 percent of its ground forces within 140 kilometers of the demilitarized zone,.. making it possible to attack South Korea with little or no warning.

Kim Min-ji, Arirang News.
Reporter :

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20150225000797

N. Korea's possible nuke test forecast to be more powerful: Seoul

Published : 2015-02-25 14:25
Updated : 2015-02-25 14:25

North Korea has continued high-explosive detonation tests and its possible nuclear test is forecast to be much more powerful both in scale and yield than previous ones, Seoul's intelligence authorities said Wednesday.

"North Korea has been carrying out high-explosive tests at a test site in Pyongyang to secure technology for weapons miniaturization and stronger explosive power," an official said, requesting anonymity.

"Should the North conduct a fourth round of nuclear test, its explosion would have a yield of at least 10 to 15 kilotons with a larger scale compared to the previous ones," he added.

The North's initial underground test in 2006 was measured at 3.9 on the Richter scale with a wield of less than 1 kiloton. In May 2009, Pyongyang carried out the second test that created a 4.5-magnitude tremor with a yield of 3 to 4 kilotons.

During the third and the latest test in February 2013, the figures jumped to 4.9 on scale and 6-7 kilotons, according to South Korean and the U.S. authorities.

"No unusual signs have been detected in and around its nuclear test site of Punggye-ri in North Hamkyong Province. But Pyongyang has been ready to carry out a fresh test round whenever it wants," the official noted.

The communist country has repeatedly vowed to develop its economy and nuclear arsenal in tandem under the notion that the destructive weapons programs are a deterrent against what it claims is the U.S.' hostile policy against it. Last year, it threatened to conduct a "new form" of nuclear test.

The provocative regime was also estimated to have increased its nuclear stockpile.

"North Korea has revved up efforts to secure more weapons-grade plutonium and to have the highly enriched uranium program, though the exact amounts are not known," another Seoul official said on condition of anonymity.

In its 2014 white paper, Seoul said the North is presumed to have secured some 40 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium, "but the figure is literally nothing but a presumption," he said.

On Tuesday, Joel Wit, the chief analyst running the website 38 North at Johns Hopkins University, said Pyongyang is currently believed to have 10-16 nuclear weapons -- six to eight of them based on plutonium and four to eight based on weapons-grade uranium -- and its nuclear stockpile could expand to as many as 100 weapons by 2020. (Yonhap)

 

[IronMan 2]

So in five or six years Chairman Kim will have 10 bombs which do not work. I'm still not shaking in my RM Williams boots yet.

 

[Housecarl]

So in five or six years Chairman Kim will have 10 bombs which do not work. I'm still not shaking in my RM Williams boots yet.

Sweet looking "kicks" there IronMan 2.

ETA: As to what the DPRK can make and when this article which I posted in the WoW thread a couple of weeks ago I think covers the thinking/guestimates on things......

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://38north.org/2015/02/jlewis02...020515&utm_campaign=38+North&utm_medium=email

North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons: The Great Miniaturization Debate
By Jeffrey Lewis
05 February 2015

The great debate over North Korea's miniaturization capabilities continues. On December 20, 2014, the South Korean Ministry of National Defense (MND) released a white paper that contained a surprising statement about North Korea’s nuclear program.[1] “North Korea seems to have made significant progress in miniaturizing its nuclear weapons.”

The MND Minister had made a similar statement in October, but for some reason, this time his statement sparked a flurry of stories in South Korean press, such as the Chosun Ilbo and JoongAng Ilbo, as well as in US publications like the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

This chatter forced the South Korean government to clarify the statement. “Seoul and Washington have reached consensus that the North already reached a significant level of technology to miniaturize nuclear weapons through three nuclear tests,” an MND official told the Chosun Ilbo. “But there is no intelligence report that the North has already succeeded in miniaturizing nuclear weapons.”

Well that clears it up.

This is now the third time something like this has happened in the past few years—a statement that North Korea has developed a nuclear weapon small enough to arm a ballistic missile of one sort or another, followed by oddly parsed statements suggesting that maybe they haven’t.

In Spring 2013, for example, a US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) threat assessment was mistakenly marked unclassified stating that North Korea might be able to arm ballistic missiles with nuclear weapons, prompting the Department of Defense and Director of National Intelligence to release clarifications of their own. And, in October of that year, the Commander of US Forces Korea stated his personal opinion that North Korea probably could do so, prompting a statement by the ROK Minister of National Defense.

At some level, this debate strikes me as a bit bizarre. The North Koreans have conducted three nuclear weapons tests since 2006, including one they openly declared to have been of a “miniaturized” device; they have also created a Strategic Rocket Force and published a picture of a map showing their nuclear targeting plan against the United States. I realize that North Korean propaganda is often balderdash, but the idea that North Korea might be developing nuclear-armed ballistic missiles isn’t really in the same category as claims that Kim Jong Un doesn’t poop.

Whether North Korea can arm a ballistic missile with a nuclear warhead, particularly a ballistic missile that can reach the United States, depends on the answer to three questions:

Can North Korea make a nuclear weapon small enough?
Can North Korea’s compact nuclear weapon survive the shock, vibration and temperature change associated with ballistic missile flight?
Can North Korea construct a “reentry vehicle” that can survive the extreme heat of reentry, a problem that gets worse with range?

I think the answer to each of these questions is, “yeah, probably.” While I understand the caution in crediting the North Koreans for capabilities that are only under development, there is ample open source information to support such a judgment. Reasonable people may still disagree, but no one should be surprised by the prospect of nuclear-armed North Korean missiles.

Can North Korea Make a Nuclear Weapon Small Enough?

The simplest question is whether North Korea can build a nuclear weapon small enough—both in terms of mass and compactness—to fit atop a ballistic missile. The United States intelligence community has a term of art—simple fission device—to describe first generation nuclear weapons, like the aptly named “Fat Man,” that are much too large to place on a ballistic missile.

As a general technical matter, however, the US intelligence community has always stated that a country could skip right toward building much smaller devices on the order of 1,000 kg—although such weapons would be unreliable without nuclear testing. This device would look something like the US Mark 7, which weighed about 750 kg. Some of my colleagues have pointed out that North Korea could probably do much better, trying out something like the Mark 12 which weighted on 450 kg. (See chart.)

Select Early US Nuclear Warhead Designs for Comparison
Mass (kg) Diameter (cm) Yield (kt) Deployed
Mark III (“Fat Man”) 4,700 150 20 1945, 1947-1950
Mark 5 1400 110 120 1952-1963
Mark 7 800 80 70 1952-1967
Mark 12 500 60 20 1954-1962
Source: Chuck Hansen, Swords of Armageddon, electronic edition.

Not surprisingly, as early as 1999, DIA was arguing that North Korea might try to build a 650-750 kg device, even if others in the US intelligence community were skeptical. DIA just assumed that North Korea would go straight to a Mark 7-like design.

There is plenty of reason to think that North Korea tried to do precisely that. During the 2000s, there were many reports of North Korean conducting extensive testing of high explosives. A nuclear weapon is mostly a conventional explosive. Making the bomb more compact largely involves design innovations that require fewer explosives to achieve a given level of compression (such as levitated pits and better electronics). One explanation for all the testing of conventional explosives is that North Korea was trying to develop a device small enough to be delivered by missile. In 2005, a North Korean defector stated that North Korea had done precisely that, build a 1,000 kilogram device that was—just as the US intelligence community would have predicted—not reliable. (The defector also said the next device would be smaller.)

When North Korea’s first test in 2006 produced a very disappointing yield, many of us took the small yield to be confirmation of this general hypothesis—North Korea had tried to skip directly to a compact device and it did not work. At one point, a reporter told me this was also the working hypothesis within the US intelligence community. Since then, North Korea has conducted two more nuclear tests that produced far higher yields—a few kilotons in 2009, followed by several kilotons in 2013. Following that lest test, the North Koreans announced they had “miniaturized” their nuclear devices.

It seems very plausible to me that, after three tests, the North Koreans have a nuclear weapons design somewhere in the Mark 12 to March 7 range—450-750 kg in mass with a diameter between 60-90 cm. Lots of states have moved quickly to develop relatively smaller devices. (See chart.) The Chinese provided a uranium-based design to Pakistan that was 500 kg and 90 cm in diameter, which the Pakistanis miniaturized and passed on to Libya and lord knows who else.

Other Early Generation Compact Nuclear Devices
Mass (kg) Diameter (cm) Yield (kt) Vintage
CHIC-4 (China/Pakistan/Libya) 500-1200 90 10 1960s, 1980s
Iraq (Al Qa’qaa molds) 900 80 20 1980s
Pakistan Miniaturized 200 60 10 1980s
R265/R288 58
Sweden* 400-500 35 20 1950s
*The Swedish design made use of oblate high explosives configuration.
Source: Author estimates.

Such a warhead is certainly small enough to arm a Nodong and might just fit on a notional DPRK inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM). The problem here is how to estimate the capabilities of a DPRK ICBM that does not exist–based on Unha technology or the KN-08 mockups? If North Korea can’t make a warhead compact enough for its ICBMs, it is more likely to be because the ICBM doesn’t have enough payload space.

Can North Korea’s Compact Nuclear Weapon Survive the Shock, Vibration and Temperature Change Associated with Ballistic Missile Flight?

This is a more interesting problem. It’s all well and good to design a much smaller nuclear weapon using fancy electronics and so on, but the design must be rugged enough to survive the shock, vibration and temperature extremes of taking a ride on a ballistic missile. “The difference has to do with the confidence level in the actual ability of the North Koreans to make a weapon that will work in a missile,” James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence, explained in 2013, “And neither we nor the North Koreans know whether that’ll actually—whether they have that—such capability, if they have it, will actually work.”

This was a real problem for the Chinese in the 1960s, too. The Chinese developed a missile-delivered warhead for their DF-2 ballistic missile—the same design that China provided to Pakistan—and originally planned to simulate the abuse suffered during a real launch, followed by an underground test of the roughed-up bomb.

The Chinese, however, decided that it was too hard to simulate the extreme conditions of flight. After a fair amount of back-and-forth between the weaponeers and the central leadership, Zhou Enlai authorized a very unusual live test of a real nuclear weapon on a real ballistic missile. China fired a nuclear-armed DF-2 in October 1966. It worked. The Chinese weren’t alone. We had the same debate in the United States a few years before. Like China, we also settled for a one-off demonstration called Operation Frigate Bird, in which a US submarine fired a nuclear-armed Polaris missile at a nuclear test site in the South Pacific. It worked too, although it later turned out that the warhead in question was judged unreliable.

We might lack confidence in North Korea’s ability to manufacture a reliable miniaturized nuclear weapon. I wonder, though, how much that matters. Do the North Koreans lack confidence in their warheads? What if we underestimate them? What if they are drunk off Juche? What if, like Operation Frigate Bird, the unreliable weapon just happens to work when it’s fired? There is an interesting discussion to be had about reliability, confidence and deterrence, but I wonder whether it adds much to our assessment of North Korea.

Can North Korea Construct a “Reentry Vehicle” that Can Survive the Extreme Heat of Reentry?

Finally, no matter how rugged one makes a nuclear warhead, it has to be packaged in a reentry vehicle that can survive the heat created as it reenters the earth’s atmosphere. The North Koreans could certainly package a warhead in a blunt reentry body that would be inaccurate, very heavy and potentially vulnerable to theater missile defense systems—but it would still survive reentry.

The North Koreans, however, have paraded missiles with so-called “triconic” reentry vehicles that are sort of a compromise between blunt reentry bodies and the slender cones that arm missiles in the US and other advanced nuclear powers. A triconic reentry body must deal with heat through ablation—in other words, the reentry body must be made of material that burns off, taking the heat with it.

This can be a significant challenge for an ICBM, where reentry speeds can reach 7 km/s. China, for example, struggled in the 1970s with developing a reentry vehicle for the DF-5 ICBM that could handle such temperatures. China Today, a series of publications on the technical history of China’s defense industries, describes the problem as “a technical difficulty” which is about as colorful as China Today gets. Ultimately, though, the Chinese solved that problem. In fact, I can’t think of a single state that has been able to build an ICBM, but not able to put a passable reentry vehicle on top of it.

It is common to say North Korea would require a program of testing to overcome these problems. That’s understandable. In the 1960s, reentry vehicle designers probably struggled to model reentry environments and had a limited choice in materials. But today? After more than fifty years of space flight? With a large body of open source information, better computer simulation capabilities and fancy new materials? Maybe a little help from their friends? And maybe a little overconfidence?

And, let’s be clear about the problem here. The warhead probably won’t burn up. Even the North Koreans don’t suck that badly. When designers talk about how hard it is to design an ablative reentry vehicle, what they really mean is designing one where the ablation occurs evenly around a spinning reentry vehicle. The Chinese were as worried about “the stability of the warhead in flight” as they were about protecting the bomb package inside. An unstable reentry body might fail completely, but it is more likely to just wildly miss the intended target—say landing in San Jose when it was aimed at San Francisco. That’s a problem, of course, but Kim Jong Un might be content with such an outcome.

Conclusion

It is not surprising that some people in the US or ROK government think that, yes, North Korea might be able to do these things. Nor is it surprising that others would counsel caution, suggesting that North Korea hasn’t put all together in a single test. North Korea’s missile and nuclear “developments have been accompanied with extremely belligerent, aggressive public rhetoric toward the United States and South Korea,” Clapper testified in 2013. “North Korea has not, however, fully developed, tested or demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear- armed missile.” In other words, prove it.

But is that really what we want? Looking at the Chinese example, do we really want to insist that North Korea arm a missile with a live warhead and conduct a demonstration? A much better solution is trying to negotiate limits on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. Such limits would not eliminate the threat these programs pose, but they might keep them unreliable. That would be an achievement.

I’ll be the first person to say that we should not exaggerate the capabilities of North Korea’s nuclear forces, but underestimating them is every bit as bad. The North Koreans are developing military capabilities that we will, sooner or later, have to deal with. I just happen to think that negotiations, as frustrating as they may be, are the best of a series of unappealing options.

Moreover, underestimating the North Koreans often means that, when they surprise us, our political system over-compensates, passing from denial straight into panic. Consider the case of the August 1998 Taepodong launch. The US intelligence community had assessed, in 1995, that “No country, other than the major declared nuclear powers, will develop or otherwise acquire a ballistic missile in the next 15 years that could threaten the contiguous 48 states and Canada.” As it turns out, more than fifteen years later, they were right. (And the fine print on North Korea and the Taepodong program was pretty decent, as well.) So, when North Korea launched a Taepodong in 1998 with an unexpected third stage that failed, the intelligence community got a great big “congratulations” for a job well done. Oh, wait, no it didn’t. The intel was right, but that didn’t matter in part because the technical assessment didn’t convey North Korea’s ambitions to develop a capability that outstripped its abilities.

Just imagine if North Korea were to conduct a live demonstration of a nuclear weapon on a Nodong out to sea. Even if it didn’t work, Washington, Seoul and Tokyo would go bonkers. That’s worth keeping in mind. Yes, the North Koreans probably stink at making compact warheads and accurate reentry vehicles. But that’s not quite the same thing as saying they aren’t trying, that they don’t have some confidence in these capabilities or that we shouldn’t keep trying to find ways to discourage them from testing these systems.

Jeffrey Lewis is Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), Monterey Institute of International Studies, and a frequent contributor to 38 North.

————————————-

[1]The statement, in Korean, is “북한의 핵무기 소형화 능력도 상당한 수준에 이른 것으로 보인다.”
Found in section: WMD

Tags: ballistic missile, jeffrey lewis, miniaturization, nuclear, nuclear test, nuclear weapons, plutonium, reentry vehicle, unha, uranium, WMD
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4 Responses to “North Korea’s Nuclear Weapons: The Great Miniaturization Debate”

peter huessy, president of geostrategic analysis says:
February 9, 2015 at 10:13 am

Jeffrey Lewis brings to our attention his skepticism of whether or not North Korea can deliver a nuclear weapon with an armed ballistic missile of sufficient distance to reach the United States. His history of such doubts is wrapped up in a number of other issues including the need for a US ballistic missile defense program; what threat the DPRK does in fact pose to the US and its neighbors; and whether or not the US negotiations and various agreements with the DPRK since 1974 have been successful. Surprisingly, Mr.Lewis lays out the obstacles the DPRK faces in delivering a nuclear warhead atop a ballistic missile–complications and hurdles that do not seem to come into play re: the DPRK’s ability to develop and deploy counter measures to the current and projected ballistic missile defenses of the United States, which Mr. Lewis and many of his arms control colleagues have assured us the DPRK can field if they only have the ability to build a long range ballistic missile as well. I would suggest the serial murders and terrorist attacks the DPRK has carried out against the United States and its allies in the region are too numerous to list here; suffice to say they might indeed be a clue as to what the DPRK might in fact be seeking to do with the nuclear weapons it has, irrespective of the exact delivery vehicle technologies it has in hand or can purchase from its allies in Iran, Pakistan, Russia or China.
Kim Myong Chol says:
February 6, 2015 at 10:22 am

The North Koreans have not acquired to win American recognition as a nuclear power.

The American debate sounds like, “Denial is just a river in Egypt.”

Ambassador Foley and Assistant Secretary of State Kurt M. Campbell informed Premier Hashimoto and Defense agency officials that two North Korean long-range missiles flew over Japan at least, one splashing down off Hawaii and the other off Alaska.

Australian Foreign Minister said that North Korea is capable of torching Australia with nuclear-tipped missiles.

Premier Cameron remarked that North Korea is capable of striking London with a nuclear missile.

If the Americans should insist on seeing compelling evidence, the North Koreans would be ready to conduct a nuclear detonation test in the open seas of the Pacific Ocean or far above New York for all the Americans to see with their own eyes.

The Americans were aware that the North Koreans carried out more than secret underground five nuclear tests.
Liars N. Fools says:
February 6, 2015 at 8:46 am

The challenge of dealing with the DPRK nuclear and missile delivery programs is one of evaluating whether the North has developed stuff that is “just good enough.” This vague standard is not only whether a device and its delivery system actually works but also whether we are made to believe that they might just work. Since we have a very limited ability to see and analyze (we find out about DPRK tests mostly after the North tells us), we are stuck in this debate — do we try to negotiate to try to at least stop the development or do we try to ramp up the pressure (particularly by China and maybe by the South and the Americans) to “deter” the North?

Jeffrey Lewis is to be commended for his posting. It presents much to consider and much to be concerned and anxious about, especially if one lives in the neighborhood.
Keith Jacobs says:
February 5, 2015 at 7:08 pm

“……. do we really want to insist that North Korea arm a missile with a live warhead and conduct a demonstration? A much better solution is trying to negotiate limits on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. Such limits would not eliminate the threat these programs pose, but they might keep them unreliable. That would be an achievement.”

This statement also have direct relevance to the ongoing Iran situation….relevant particularly for those conservative U.S. Republican and Israel conservative (Netanyahu included) politicians who advocate “other than negotiating” with Iran over its own nuclear program.
Their advocacy of abandoning the program and adding more economic sanctions to the Iranian economy is just asking the Iranian’s to do exactly the above.

Image the reaction to a Iranian long-range test of both missile and nuclear warhead detonated at sea some where in the southern portion of the Arabian Sea (aft due notice to Mariner’s, of course).

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2015/02/116_174157.html

Posted : 2015-02-25 17:17
Updated : 2015-02-25 18:10

Plan B needed for N. Korean regime change
음성듣기
NK feared to have 100 nukes by 2020

By Kang Seung-woo

Steps should be taken to deal with a power vacuum in North Korea considering the growing uncertainty about its future, an analyst at a state research center said Wednesday.

His call takes an even more ominous tone when combined with the latest prediction by a U.S. think tank that the reclusive country may have as many as 100 nuclear weapons by 2020.

"North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has led the impoverished nation on the rationing of privileges among the elite since he came to power in December 2011," Kim Jin-ha, director of the Center for International and Strategic Studies at the Korea Institute for National Unification, said at a forum in Seoul.

He pointed out the rationing of privileges has been made harder by the North's isolation from the international community due to its development of nuclear weapons.

"The North has little ability to deal with an emergency or crisis situation if its leader loses his control," Kim said. "Extreme confrontation between the elite and the alienated and destitute public could result in anarchy."

He stressed the need for the South Korean government to seek an effective contingency plan in the event of the collapse of the North Korean regime.

"The existence of those who pursue democracy and market reform is a precondition for the North's full-scale yet stable transition," he said.

The government downplayed the likelihood of such a scenario.

"A state of anarchy will naturally follow the collapse of the leadership, but there could also be an interim military government," said a defense ministry official. "However, the worst case scenario is a possible intervention of China in the North, as this would turn upside down the post-war order of Northeast Asia."

Meanwhile, Joel Wit, the chief analyst of 38 North that specializes in analysis of North Korea, said Tuesday that the North may have 100 atomic bombs by 2020.

The U.S. expert put forward three scenarios of the North's nuclear arsenal expansion, with the minimal growth scenario forecasting the stockpile to grow to 20 weapons and the moderate growth scenario predicting an arsenal of 50 weapons by 2020.

Should the North remain on its current trajectory, the moderate growth scenario would be the case, he said.

Wit added that the worst case scenario of 100 weapons could happen when significant advances are made in weapons designs allowing the North to deploy battlefield and tactical weapons if it chooses to do so.

Separately, a U.S. think tank said Tuesday that the South Korean military is significantly smaller than that of North Korea.

In addition, it said the reclusive country will neither give up its nuclear weapons nor return to the six-party talks for denuclearization.

The Heritage Foundation released its annual "Index of U.S. Military Strength" Tuesday and compared the military strength of the two Koreas.

According to the report, South Korean military manpower was 639,000, with 3.2 million reserve troops, but the North has 1.19 million people in its military, along with 7.7 million in reserve.

As for tanks, the South was outnumbered by the North 4,200-2,400, and the North has 4,800 rocket launchers compared to the South's 200.

In 13 comparison categories, the South edged the North in terms of only armored vehicles and helicopters.

"South Korea has about half as many active-duty troops as North Korea, and the size disadvantage carries over to many categories of military equipment and vehicles," the report said.

Citing the North's long-range missile launch in December 2012 and third nuclear test in February 2013, it said, "These events clearly signaled that new leader Kim Jong-un had no intention either of resuming North Korea's six-party talks pledge to denuclearize or of abiding by U.N. resolutions that require a cessation of Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs."

The report also said that the North had mastered the miniaturization and warhead design that may enable the North to attack the U.S. mainland.

"The recovered North Korean missile (from the December 2012 launch) provided tangible proof that North Korea was building the missile's cone at dimensions for a nuclear warhead, durable enough to be placed on a long-range missile," it said.

The report also said that Pyongyang has deployed approximately 800 Scud short-range tactical ballistic missiles, 300 Rodong medium-range missiles, and 50 Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missiles.

ksw@ktimes.co.kr,

 

[Housecarl]

A point that needs to be made with regards to the 38 North article.

All of the weapons listed in that article are "implosion type" weapons, which is the only method that can be used in a Plutonium fueled weapon. A Uranium fueled weapon can use both implosion (which is both more efficient and complicated) and the cruder "gun type" weapon.

The gun type besides being simpler, is also more robust, hence the first nuclear artillery shells (in 1953 they live fire tested the 280 mm W9 850 lbs 15 kt shell at Frenchman's Flat, Nevada) and earth penetrating bunker busters, the Mark 8 (1952) and Mark 11 (1956) 25 to 30 kt yield, were of this type.

That the North Koreans' last test was suspected to be a uranium fueled weapon, and Iran's program is uranium focused, such a device should not be discounted as being fielded by either power as a stopgap to achieve a missile deliverable weapon capability. (Something I've been harping upon for quite a while.)

ETA: Add that to the reports of North Korea working on a submarine launched missile system and a new diesel electric submarine to go with it and the security issues in the Pacific Rim get all that more complicated.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/...-exploratory-talks-with-north-korea-on-nukes/

10:34 pm KST
Feb 25, 2015

North Korea
South Korea Touts ‘Exploratory Talks’ With North Korea on Nukes

Article
Comments
By Alastair Gale


Is there finally some progress on getting North Korea back to dialogue about ending its nuclear weapons program?

South Korea’s envoy to the process known as six-party talks on the North Korean nuclear issue gave a tantalizing suggestion of movement on Tuesday. Speaking in Moscow after meeting with his Russian counterpart, Hwang Joon-kook said that the five countries that have engaged with North Korea collectively in the past on its nuclear weapons program had agreed to pursue “exploratory talks” with Pyongyang.

“The exploratory discussions are meant to notify North Korea about the five parties’ consensus for restarting the six-party talks and to gauge North Korea’s seriousness about engaging in a sincere dialogue on denuclearization,” a South Korean Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Wednesday.
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The implied significance is that the five nations—China, Russia, Japan, South Korea and the U.S.—are better aligned and working in consort to try to bring North Korea back to the negotiating table. A unified voice—particularly one shared by the U.S. and China—could perhaps be more persuasive in getting Pyongyang to engage in denuclearization talks.

That may yet be true—if Washington and Beijing are indeed aligned— but there are ample reasons to be cautious about a breakthrough.

Firstly, there is no indication that a critical difference in the approach to negotiations by the five countries has changed. While China and Russia have called for full-fledged nuclear talks with North Korea to resume as soon as possible, the U.S., Japan and South Korea have sought a suspension of North Korea’s nuclear program before dialogue can start.

Secondly, there have already been recent attempts by the U.S. to engage North Korea in preliminary discussions about nuclear talks, according to a person familiar with the situation. Pyongyang has shown no interest, the person said. On a visit to Beijing late last month, Sung Kim, U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, said the North Koreans weren’t ready to have serious discussions.

Perhaps most significantly, at least in the short term, relations between North Korea, the U.S. and South Korea are about to get more strained when joint military exercises between Washington and Seoul begin early next month and run through late April. North Korea routinely lashes out with threatening rhetoric during those drills, making any chance of dialogue seem remote.

Such is North Korea’s loathing of the exercises—despite it holding its own drills at the same time—that it made a rare mention of its nuclear program as a bargaining chip recently by offering to suspend nuclear weapons tests if the exercises in South Korea were called off.

It is a bargaining chip North Korea remains unlikely to give away easily.

—Jeyup S. Kwaak contributed to this article.

For the latest news and analysis, follow @WSJAsia

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.irishexaminer.com/world/us-deeply-concernedover-nukes-in-n-korea-314820.html

US ‘deeply concerned’ over nukes in N Korea

Thursday, February 26, 2015

The United States is “deeply concerned” about North Korea’s nuclear advances, a senior US official said after a US research institute predicted Pyongyang could possess as many as 100 nuclear weapons within five years.

Sung Kim, US Special Representative for North Korea Policy, told a Washington seminar he could not comment on findings presented earlier by experts at the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, because he had not seen the report and US government assessments were classified.

“(But) obviously we are deeply concerned about the fact that the North Koreans are continuing to advance their nuclear capabilities; we know that they are continuing to work on their nuclear programme,” Kim said when asked about the report.

Experts at the US-Korea Institute presented three scenarios for North Korea’s future nuclear stockpile, which they estimate amount to 10-16 weapons.

In the first, assuming minimal technological improvements, the stockpile was expected to grow to 20 weapons by 2020. In the second, it could grow to 50 and advances in miniaturisation would allow North Korea to mount warheads on intermediate- and shorter-range ballistic missiles.

The report’s co-author, Joel Wit, described a “worst-case scenario”, which would see an increase to 100 devices and technological advances allowing North Korea to deploy battlefield and tactical weapons if it chose to.

“This is a pretty scary scenario,” Wit said, adding that the more nuclear weapons North Korea had, the more difficult it would be to try to coerce it to rolling back its nuclear programme.

The report said North Korea’s existing missile systems were able to reach most of Northeast Asia, particularly its foes South Korea and Japan, and Pyongyang may also in the future be able to deploy a limited number of Taepodong missiles — a militarised version of a space-launch vehicle — that could reach the United States.

Kim said concern over North Korean advances was driving international diplomatic efforts “to find a credible path to negotiation so that we can stop North Korea’s development of their nuclear capabilities.”

He said Washington was “under no illusions” about North Korea’s willingness to denuclearise voluntarily and would “continue to apply pressure both multilaterally and unilaterally” through sanctions to increase the cost of failing to do so.

KEYWORDS: North Korea, nuclear weapons

© Irish Examiner Ltd. All rights reserved

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2015022642138

How Seoul will countervail Pyongyang`s nuclear ambition?

FEBRUARY 26, 2015 07:11. . North Korea may have 100 nuclear bombs at maximum in five years, a U.S. researcher said. Former State Department official Joel Wit estimated the communist regime has a stockpile of some 10 to 16 nuclear weapons currently and made a projection that the isolated country may get 20 to 100 atomic arms by 2020. If the worst scenario of North Korea having "100 nuclear arms" becomes reality, the North would be able to deploy the strategic nuclear arms in any places that are deemed necessary. In the “2015 Index of U.S. Military Strength,” American research think tank Heritage Foundation said that the Kim Jong Un regime is not interested in relinquishing its nuclear ambitions or returning to the six-party talks. The North will continue developing nuclear weapons, the foundation forecasted.

However, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff has overlooked the projection, saying, “It would be hard for North Korea to make such achievement. ” Downplaying the North’s nuclear ambition does not resolve all the nuclear threats. In the U.S. -China summit held in November last year, U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping shared the view that “North Korea’s nuclear program development is not likely to succeed,” but no solution has been in sight yet. Rather, North Korean nuclear issue seems to be put on the back burner in the priority list of President Obama, who is busy handling other international issues, such as the terrorist attacks by IS or Ukraine crisis.

If the North Korean nuclear issue is left unchecked, the international community will be put under serious threat. South African confidential document revealed that the British Secret Intelligence Service known as MI6 launched a secret operation to win over a North Korean official who knew the top secret information about the nuclear program in North Korea. What would be the reason for secret intelligence agencies of two nations, which are not direct stakeholders of the North’s nuclear program, to be engaged in secret intelligence operation like 007 films? The six party talks have been put to a hold for six years after the chief delegate meeting in December 2008. The South Korean government says it is having discussions with other participants on the so-called "Korean Formula," which contains conditions for resumption of the talks, in an effort to search for a solution different from previous ones. However, as the "Korean Formula" has never been made public, it still remains questionable whether it is a truly new solution.

No matter how hard it is to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue, the South Korean government must exert every possible effort including the resumption of the six party talks. South Korea must be on alert not to waste time and end up with a disaster where North Korea builds up its nuclear stockpile. The former U.S. official Wit said, “Why does anyone think that a North Korea with 50 to 100 nuclear weapons is going to be interested in reunification with South Korea on any terms but its own? So we need to purge our policies of fantasies and focus on reality. " The South Korean government must ruminate over this view.

North Korea may have 100 nuclear bombs at maximum in five years, a U.S. researcher said. Former State Department official Joel Wit estimated the communist regime has a stockpile of some 10 to 16 nuclear weapons currently and made a projection that the isolated country may get 20 to 100 atomic arms by 2020. If the worst scenario of North Korea having "100 nuclear arms" becomes reality, the North would be able to deploy the strategic nuclear arms in any places that are deemed necessary. In the “2015 Index of U.S. Military Strength,” American research think tank Heritage Foundation said that the Kim Jong Un regime is not interested in relinquishing its nuclear ambitions or returning to the six-party talks. The North will continue developing nuclear weapons, the foundation forecasted.

However, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff has overlooked the projection, saying, “It would be hard for North Korea to make such achievement.” Downplaying the North’s nuclear ambition does not resolve all the nuclear threats. In the U.S.-China summit held in November last year, U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping shared the view that “North Korea’s nuclear program development is not likely to succeed,” but no solution has been in sight yet. Rather, North Korean nuclear issue seems to be put on the back burner in the priority list of President Obama, who is busy handling other international issues, such as the terrorist attacks by IS or Ukraine crisis.

If the North Korean nuclear issue is left unchecked, the international community will be put under serious threat. South African confidential document revealed that the British Secret Intelligence Service known as MI6 launched a secret operation to win over a North Korean official who knew the top secret information about the nuclear program in North Korea. What would be the reason for secret intelligence agencies of two nations, which are not direct stakeholders of the North’s nuclear program, to be engaged in secret intelligence operation like 007 films? The six party talks have been put to a hold for six years after the chief delegate meeting in December 2008. The South Korean government says it is having discussions with other participants on the so-called "Korean Formula," which contains conditions for resumption of the talks, in an effort to search for a solution different from previous ones. However, as the "Korean Formula" has never been made public, it still remains questionable whether it is a truly new solution.

No matter how hard it is to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue, the South Korean government must exert every possible effort including the resumption of the six party talks. South Korea must be on alert not to waste time and end up with a disaster where North Korea builds up its nuclear stockpile. The former U.S. official Wit said, “Why does anyone think that a North Korea with 50 to 100 nuclear weapons is going to be interested in reunification with South Korea on any terms but its own? So we need to purge our policies of fantasies and focus on reality." The South Korean government must ruminate over this view.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://thediplomat.com/2015/02/whats-the-status-of-north-koreas-icbm/

What’s the Status of North Korea’s ICBM?

The truth is we know very little, but North Korea’s ICBM is still not operational.

By Franz-Stefan Gady
February 26, 2015

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5 Comments

Back in April 2012, North Korea paraded six KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missiles on top of a 16-wheeled transporter-erector-launcher (TEL). Some analysts immediately questioned whether the six Hwasong-13 (the North Korea name for the missile) were mockups (which turned out to be true). Various experts have also questioned whether the road-mobile KN-08 should in fact be classified as an ICBM at all, considering that there is no evidence that it is capable of breaching the 5,500-km threshold necessary to be labelled as such.

So what do we know about North Korea’s alleged new ICBM? The truth is very little except the following: The KN-08 is not an operational weapon, but a missile under development. Also, as the IHS Jane’s Intelligence Review underlines: “The existence of the KN-08 should not be conflated with a nuclear strike capability.”

According to satellite imagery, North Koreans tested the missile’s first stage engine in August 2014 at the Sohae launch site in North Korea’s northwestern Tongchang-ri region. This was preceded by a number of engine tests in 2013 and early 2014. Engine tests are stepping stones toward full-scale tests, but there is little hard intelligence on how well these tests went.

The next step is experimental flights tests, of which none so far seem to have occurred. An analyst written for IHS Jane’s Intelligence Review notes that, “it remains unlikely that it [North Korea] has successfully developed the three components required for a strike capability. These are a reliable long-range missile, a nuclear weapon small enough to be mounted on the missile, and a workable exoatmospheric re-entry vehicle.”

Back in October 2014, the Commanding General of U.S. Forces in South Korea, General Curtis Scaparrotti, emphasized that North Korea has not yet combined these three elements into a weapon system, which would pose a threat to the North American continent. Yet, he also noted: “They claim they have an intercontinental ballistic missile that’s capable [to do that]. I believe have the capability to have miniaturized a device at this point. I don’t believe that they have [done it so far]. They have the technology to potentially actually deliver what they say they have.”

According to GlobalSecurity.org, the KN-8 incorporates technology from various other missiles such as the Soviet SS-N-6, the DPRK’s No-dong-B, and the Soviet RSM-40 tankage and structures SLBM modified design, the RSM-50 and RSM-54 SLBM’s engines. A RAND Corporation report on North Korea’s missile program notes: “From an engineer’s perspective, the presented design is puzzling (H5). A KN-08 with SS-N-6 technology could off er intercontinental range, while the use of Nodong technology limits range to around 5,000 km.”

An additional factor for the KN-8’s final operational readiness will be, “Pyongyang’s ability to couple nuclear-tipped intermediate- or long-range missiles with road-mobile transporter-erector-launchers (TEL),” according to a previous analysis in The Diplomat. When deployed these TEL vehicles exit concealed bunkers to a cleared area, launch the missile, and then quickly retreat again to a secure location.

“We’re constantly aware of the threat’s evolution, including the KN-O8. And we constantly monitor other technologies that may feed the KN-O8 … And suffice it to say that we have effort underway to pace and stay ahead of the threat,” the director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency Vice Adm. James Syring said at the beginning of this month.

____

Then there's the Unha series (Unha 2, 3 and 9)....
http://www.b14643.de/Spacerockets_1/Rest_World/Unha-2/Description/Frame.htm
http://www.b14643.de/Spacerockets_1/Rest_World/Unha-3/Description/Frame.htm
http://www.b14643.de/Spacerockets_1/Rest_World/Unha-3/Description/Frame.htm

and the Unha-X
http://www.b14643.de/Spacerockets_1/Rest_World/Unha-X/Description/Frame.htm

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://english.donga.com/srv/service.php3?biid=2015022642138

How Seoul will countervail Pyongyang`s nuclear ambition?
FEBRUARY 26, 2015 07:11

North Korea may have 100 nuclear bombs at maximum in five years, a U.S. researcher said. Former State Department official Joel Wit estimated the communist regime has a stockpile of some 10 to 16 nuclear weapons currently and made a projection that the isolated country may get 20 to 100 atomic arms by 2020. If the worst scenario of North Korea having "100 nuclear arms" becomes reality, the North would be able to deploy the strategic nuclear arms in any places that are deemed necessary. In the “2015 Index of U.S. Military Strength,” American research think tank Heritage Foundation said that the Kim Jong Un regime is not interested in relinquishing its nuclear ambitions or returning to the six-party talks. The North will continue developing nuclear weapons, the foundation forecasted.

However, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff has overlooked the projection, saying, “It would be hard for North Korea to make such achievement.” Downplaying the North’s nuclear ambition does not resolve all the nuclear threats. In the U.S.-China summit held in November last year, U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping shared the view that “North Korea’s nuclear program development is not likely to succeed,” but no solution has been in sight yet. Rather, North Korean nuclear issue seems to be put on the back burner in the priority list of President Obama, who is busy handling other international issues, such as the terrorist attacks by IS or Ukraine crisis.

If the North Korean nuclear issue is left unchecked, the international community will be put under serious threat. South African confidential document revealed that the British Secret Intelligence Service known as MI6 launched a secret operation to win over a North Korean official who knew the top secret information about the nuclear program in North Korea. What would be the reason for secret intelligence agencies of two nations, which are not direct stakeholders of the North’s nuclear program, to be engaged in secret intelligence operation like 007 films? The six party talks have been put to a hold for six years after the chief delegate meeting in December 2008. The South Korean government says it is having discussions with other participants on the so-called "Korean Formula," which contains conditions for resumption of the talks, in an effort to search for a solution different from previous ones. However, as the "Korean Formula" has never been made public, it still remains questionable whether it is a truly new solution.

No matter how hard it is to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue, the South Korean government must exert every possible effort including the resumption of the six party talks. South Korea must be on alert not to waste time and end up with a disaster where North Korea builds up its nuclear stockpile. The former U.S. official Wit said, “Why does anyone think that a North Korea with 50 to 100 nuclear weapons is going to be interested in reunification with South Korea on any terms but its own? So we need to purge our policies of fantasies and focus on reality." The South Korean government must ruminate over this view.


NOTE: This is an edited version of the article I posted at #12.

 

[NBCsurvivor]

For the effort they would be better off just barraging south K with artillery.

They cannot deploy these weapons.

And even IF (and that's a BIG IF), they couldn't do anything with them that would be worthwhile that they are designed for.

Who's the accountant in charge of military spending in NK?

 

[Donald Shimoda]

 

[Housecarl]

For the effort they would be better off just barraging south K with artillery.

They cannot deploy these weapons.

And even IF (and that's a BIG IF), they couldn't do anything with them that would be worthwhile that they are designed for.

Who's the accountant in charge of military spending in NK?

Considering the degree of separation from reality the DPRK's propaganda is based upon most "normal" measures don't really work when trying to figure out things with the Kim dictatorship.

The utility of these weapons as a guarantor of regime survival has "merit" though it is also akin to the crazy neighbor brandishing a hand grenade. Proliferation for profit can't be discounted either considering Pakistan's Khan "network", especially when you remember the amount of trade they did with Khan.

As I've pointed out before, a uranium gun type weapon that would fit on top of their existing missiles is well within their demonstrated capabilities and would have the robustness to handle all of the stresses of launching via missile, heck the first US nuclear artillery shells and earth penetrating bunker busters were "gun type" for that very reason. That their test series have reportedly yielded what they've been estimated at can have as much to do with them "pushing" their capabilities to the "bleeding edge" as any measure of declaring them "failures".

For that matter, intentional lower than capable yields could be the case due to the limitations of their testing facility or test data gathering capabilities as well as a desire to minimize any possibility of leakage of material from the test to the atmosphere where the US could collect it and make inferences as to the state of DPRK capabilities or something as simple as using a minimum of weapons grade fuel to proof their designs.

 

[Housecarl]

For links see article source.....
Posted for fair use.....
http://www.businessinsider.com/north-koreas-nuclear-weapons-program-is-booming-2015-2

North Korea's nuclear weapons program is booming

Armin Rosen
15 minutes ago

A US-led group of countries is reportedly close to reaching an agreement with Iran to regulate its uranium and plutonium stockpiles.

Iran has rightly dominated global nonproliferation efforts in recent years. But at the same time, North Korea vastly expanded its own nuclear program, improving its plutonium reactors and building up its uranium enrichment infrastructure.

A new report from the Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University and the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) analyzes how the recent growth of North Korea's nuclear program could impact the country's future stockpiles.

The conclusion is sobering. One of the world's poorest and most isolated countries is in a position to double the size of its nuclear arsenal over the next five years and has expanded its program despite its intense diplomatic and economic isolation.

North Korea has conducted three fairly low-yield tests since 2006 and expert estimates put its stockpile size at 10-15 warheads. (Low-yield is relative here: the fireball form North Korea's last test in 2013 was the width of five Manhattan blocks.) Those bombs are widely considered too large to be practically deliverable using the North's currently available technology.

But the ISIS report determined that based on projected North Korean uranium and plutonium production, Pyongyang will have a minimum of 29 bomb's worth of weapons-grade materials and 20 actual nuclear weapons by 2020. ISIS's medium projection is 69 weapons' worth of material and 50 actual weapons. (For various reasons, a country always wants to have a certain amount of weapons-grade materials on hand that hasn't been used for nuclear weapons construction.)

screen%20shot%202015-02-26%20at%204.05.13%20pm.png

As the headings of each chart demonstrate, the end-of-decade projections represent somewhere between a 82% and 194% increase in the amount of weapons and weapons-grade materials compared to 2014. And North Korea has only built about 11 or fewer bombs since declaring a weapons capability in 2006, nearly a decade ago, according to ISIS's low-end scenario.

So why the leap in production capacity? The study notes a "dramatic build-up in North Korea's nuclear weapons capability" in recent years. Since the six-party talks on North Korea's nuclear program collapsed in 2009, Pyongyang has restarted and renovated a five-megawatt nuclear reactor, built an additional experimental light-water reactor for plutonium production, doubled the size of a known uranium enrichment centrifuge plant, and possibly constructed a second enrichment plant. It has also definitely constructed several additional buildings at the Yongbyon nuclear facility.

North Korea now has two viable paths to additional nuclear weapons.

Even if Pyongyang doesn't weaponize its experimental light water reactor, it's still got a nuclear reactor that can produce a minimum of two bomb's worth of plutonium a year — and centrifuges to produce material for a uranium-based bomb. It can produce no plutonium and still amass substantial weapons-grade material, and visa versa.

The medium-end threat scenario was based on evidence that North Korea in fact has two uranium enrichment facilities, a possibility backed by some US intelligence assessments. In the low-end estimate, North Korea doesn't weaponize its experimental light water reactor and only has one enrichment facility; in a third and less likely high-end estimate, North Korea has two enrichment facilities and two plutonium-producing reactors that could leave the country with material equivalent to 125 bombs by the end of the decade.

As study author David Albright, an accomplished nuclear physicist and founder of ISIS explained to Business Insider, North Korea has built enough physical infrastructure to greatly ramp up its bomb materials production.

"There's been a lot of construction of buildings, renovations, and some new structures at the [Yongbyon] site itself," Albright told Business Insider. "Certainly the light water reactor has materialized since the six party talks broke down. What we have trouble with is figuring out what's going on inside those buildings."

Researchers think North Korea has upgraded facilities to produce nuclear reactor fuel, but Albright says that it isn't known where the fabrication plant for the light-water reactor is located. And it isn't known how North Korea's uranium centrifuges are configured or how efficiently they're operating.

It also isn't known if North Korea has succeeded in miniaturizing a nuclear weapon to the point where it would be practically deliverable. Still, Albright thinks this last scenario is likely and that miniaturization is "not that big of a step to accomplish that when you've got two decades and three tests."

This report a reminder of the high stakes of preventing countries form going nuclear. North Korea proves that governments that are committed enough can build a substantial nuclear weapons program against seemingly impossible odds. And with only a single exception, once a country goes nuclear, it doesn't go back.

 

[Housecarl]

32 pages and a very fast read......Housecarl

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http://38north.org/2015/02/nukefuture022615/

North Korea’s Nuclear Futures Project: Technology and Strategy

By 38 North
26 February 2015

Since the end of the Korean War, the United States has grappled with the security challenge posed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. An increasingly important component of that challenge has been North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Pyongyang’s quest has stretched out over decades, representing an enormous investment of manpower, resources and money totaling billions of dollars.

While the international community is generally aware of Pyongyang’s programs, largely through the North’s sporadic conduct of nuclear weapons and long-range rocket tests, little recent attention has been focused on the very significant dangers posed by this effort. The international community and media are focused on heading off Iran’s small nuclear weapons program rather than on the disturbing developments on the Korean peninsula. Another reason for the lack of serious attention is the still prevailing view of North Korea as a starving, backwards and isolated country led by a young inexperienced and somewhat comical dictator. That perception was, to some degree, offset by the recent North Korean cyber-attack on Sony Pictures.

The North Korea Nuclear Futures Project,[1] conducted by the US-Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in cooperation with the Center for the Study of WMD at the National Defense University, was established in mid-2014 to examine Pyongyang’s emergence as a small nuclear power. The project, through a series of three workshops in 2014-2015, will analyze how North Korea’s nuclear deterrent and strategy may develop over the next five years, the implications for the United States, the region and the international community and possible policy responses.

The first of three workshops, held in October 2014 was attended by a distinguished group of American experts on weapons technology, North Korea, US nuclear weapons and strategy as well as on the experiences of other small nuclear powers such as Israel, Pakistan, India and China. The meeting analyzed North Korea’s WMD technology and its emerging nuclear strategy looking at where it might be headed by 2020. Given the uncertainties involved in forecasting the future, the workshop developed a range of possible scenarios over the next five years.

This first report of the North Korea’s Nuclear Futures Project provides a summary of findings from the first meeting.[2] It lays out the baseline knowledge of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and provides low-end, medium and high-end projections for the DPRK’s nuclear arsenal and missile capabilities by 2020 and begins to explore the political and security challenges these capabilities could pose both to the region and to the United States.

Download the report “North Korea’s Nuclear Futures Project: Technology and Strategy,” by Joel S. Wit and Sun Young Ahn.
http://38north.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/NKNF-NK-Nuclear-Futures-Wit-0215.pdf

Find other papers in the North Korea’s Nuclear Futures Series.

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[1] This publication results from research supported by the Naval Postgraduate School’s Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (PASCC) via Assistance Grant/Agreement No. N00244-14-1-0024 awarded by the NAVSUP Fleet Logistics Center San Diego (NAVSUP FLC San Diego). The views expressed in written materials or publications, and/or made by speakers, moderators, and presenters, do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Naval Postgraduate School nor does mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organizations imply endorsement by the US Government. This North Korea’s Nuclear Futures Series was also made possible by support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

[2] This summary is based on workshop papers authored by David Albright, John Schilling, Joseph Bermudez and Shane Smith that formed the basis for discussion and comment by other experts at the meeting. The project would also like to thank Olli Heinonen, Michael Elleman and Robert Carlin for their contributions to its work.


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One Response to “North Korea’s Nuclear Futures Project: Technology and Strategy”


1. Mark says:

February 26, 2015 at 9:57 pm

The report will be compelling. It’s true Iran’s nuclear program has taken front seat with the ongoing negotiations. The failure of the Agreed Framework negotiated in 1994 between former President Jimmy Carter and North Korea’s founder Kim Il Song can be attributed to several factors. The untimely death of Kim Il Song of that year prevented proper implementation of the mechanisms required to avert development of a nuclear weapons program. His death and political circumstances in the US did not allow for the construction of a soft water nuclear power plant promised under the terms of the deal. The axis of evil policy embraced under the Bush Administration may have pushed Kim Jong Il to go forward with a weaponization program. It may have happened anyway we may never know. The current situation necessitates a test moratorium or outright ban, but the terms set out by N Korea make this unacceptable at this time. Engagement is possible but will require patience and cooperation among both Koreas and the immediate neighbors, as well as the US and our trading partners in the Pacific. The stakes are high but the benefits of engagement and increased economic and political contacts make the effort worthwhile.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://www.businessinsider.com.au/n...reball-the-width-of-4-manhattan-blocks-2015-2

Briefing

North Korea's last nuclear test had a fireball the width of 4 Manhattan blocks

Armin Rosen Tomorrow at 7:44 AM ƒ| Bookmark ƒå …x

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang December 8, 2014.

North Korea¡¦s nuclear weapons program is flourishing.

The Kim regime has built a host of new facilities in the recent years and a new report from the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) and Johns Hopkins University¡¦s School for Advanced International Studies found that North Korea will have enough weapons-grade nuclear material for dozens or even scores of nuclear warheads by the end of this decade.

Just what this means for international security largely depends on two factors that aren¡¦t necessarily connected to the quantity of bombs Pyongyang has on hand: miniaturization and explosive yield. North Korea needs bombs small enough to attach to long-range projectiles, and they need to pack a large explosive punch.

North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests, in 2006, 2009, and 2013. As David Albright, a nuclear physicist and founder of ISIS told Business Insider, the fact that the tests were of relatively small yield suggests that North Korea has developed its nuclear weapons with miniaturization in mind.

¡§The first test was a dud but it was only intended to be a low-yield test,¡¨ Albright told Business Insider. ¡§The second test wasn¡¦t that high, which is another indicator that they¡¦re working with miniaturized designs.¡¨

But the explosions were still plenty big.

Alex Wellerstein, a historian of nuclear technology at the Stevens Institute of Technology, created the Nuke Map to visualise the size of various nuclear detonations through history. It gives users the option of detonating a bomb with the yield of any of the three North Korean nuclear tests over any spot on earth using either an airburst or surface detonation. It even calculates injuries and fatalities.

The Nuke Map shows that the effects of North Korea¡¦s ¡§small¡¨ nuclear detonation would be horrifying to behold.

For reference¡¦s sake we used Business Insider¡¦s offices at 20th st and 5th Ave in Manhattan as nuclear ground zero for nuclear detonations with the same explosive yeild as North Korea¡¦s three tests. The gaudy casualty numbers owe partly to the fact that Manhattan is one of the most densely populated places in the world ¡X although Seoul, the South Korean capital and a prime North Korean nuclear strike candidate, is even denser than New York City.

Here¡¦s the Nuke Map for North Korea¡¦s 2006 test, which had a yield equal to 500 tons of TNT ¡X roughly 1/30th the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima:

North Korea nukes BI

The fireball of North Korea¡¦s first nuclear test was the width of a single Manhattan block while the area in which there was a 100% probability of third-degree burns (the second yellow circle) would stretch from the middle of Union Square to the mid-20s. The blast would create enough air pressure to collapse ¡§most residential buildings¡¨ over an even larger radius than that (the blue circle).

If detonated over BI¡¦s offices North Korea¡¦s ¡§dud¡¨ nuke would kill an estimated 56,860 people, according to the Nuke Map.

The next test in 2009 had a yield equivalent to 6,000 tons of TNT, meaning it was 30 times more powerful than the device Pyongyang detonated just three years earlier:

North Korea nukes BI

The fireball was 240 meters in width, or just a shade under 3 Manhattan blocks. If detonated over our offices there¡¦d be deadly radiation all the way from Penn Station to the edge of Washington Square. An estimated 219,530 people would die.

The weapon North Korea detonated in 2013 had a 10 kiloton yield, a 4,000-tons-of-TNT improvement over the test 4 years earlier:

North Korea nukes BI

The entire width of Manhattan would be subject to deadly radiation with buildings collapsed from the mid-30s to the East Village.

Screen Shot 2015 02 27 at 11.46.42 AM

The fireball alone would have the width of nearly four Manhattan blocks (see left) and 244,990 people would die in the blast.

North Korea isn¡¦t about to nuke New York, or anywhere else for that matter. There¡¦s no smoking gun proving nuclear miniaturization. North Korea¡¦s intercontinental missile test in 2009 was a failure, and there¡¦s no evidence that Pyongyang has managed to attach anything resembling a nuclear warhead to its more reliable No Dong (basically scud-type) missiles.

And while North Korea hardly behaves like a constructive member of the international community it¡¦s a huge leap to think that it would consider tossing around nuclear missiles even if it did definitely have them.

But Pyongyang possess nuclear weapons nevertheless. And as these maps show, the fact that North Korea¡¦s nukes are small or cut-rate compared to the rest of the nuclear nations¡¦ arsenals is beside the point.

Even a tiny nuke emits a blast that the mind can¡¦t grasp even with the aid of a Nuke Map-style graphic abstraction. And even a very poor, isolated, and widely scorned country like North Korea can build a lot of them if it¡¦s dedicated enough ¡X and if the rest of the world isn¡¦t vigilant enough in stopping it.

 

[Housecarl]

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http://nationalinterest.org/feature/north-koreas-surprisingly-deadly-navy-12335

North Korea's Surprisingly Deadly Navy

The Korean People's Navy can cause a lot of trouble for the South.

Koh Swee Lean Collin
February 27, 2015

There has been much buzz in recent months about a new spate of Korean People’s Navy (KPN, North Korea’s navy) activities. For a navy that was thought to have atrophied since the end of the Cold War for lack of funding, a fleet revitalization program was believed to be unthinkable. Or so it would seem.

It is true that North Korea could not afford a major naval modernization program, despite signs of its economy picking up. Nonetheless, one ought not to overlook incremental upgrades undertaken to date. Pyongyang remains fundamentally interested in sustaining regime security. This is especially the case because North Korea’s persistent economic gap with its southern rival mitigates the likelihood of a second Korean War ignited by a North Korean southward offensive. The regime appears more interested (at least for the time being, while it continues with economic recovery) in consolidating its domestic political stability following the leadership change after Kim Jong-il’s death in late 2011. At the same time, Pyongyang is also focused on deflecting foreign criticisms, especially from Seoul and Washington, about its alleged human-rights violations.

A survey of the North Korean policy discourse highlights a consistent theme: that of a country struggling to maintain its preferred pathway of sociopolitical and economic development premised on the “Juche” self-reliance concept and the “Military-First Policy” against external pressures. Much rhetoric has been focused on the nuke and ballistic-missile programs. The consistent theme surrounding their potential use calls for deterring an American–South Korean northward invasion. Failing which, Pyongyang would unleash an all-out offensive down south. The additional threat issued by Pyongyang is to widen the war beyond the Korean Peninsula in the event of such a contingency by targeting U.S. bases in Japan with missile retaliatory strikes to forestall any reinforcements being dispatched across the Sea of Japan. In times of peace, the role of North Korean nukes and ballistic missiles remains that of deterrence. Under this protective umbrella, however, that is where North Korea’s naval modernization becomes interesting to watch.

Barring a full-scale, renewed war on the Korean Peninsula, the strategic deterrent capabilities possessed by Pyongyang provide a “safety net” that allow the North Korean leadership to engage in the threatened or limited use of force to further its political objectives. In other words, North Korea could still resort to conventional military means to express its displeasure with any American, Japanese or South Korean moves perceived to be detrimental to its national interests. For example, the Yeonpyeong Island artillery shelling episode on November 23, 2010 came after repeated North Korean warnings against South Korea’s live-firing exercises near the contested Northern Limit Line (NLL) in the Yellow Sea. Seoul’s response was limited at best, and it was unclear whether the subsequent silence of North Korean guns on that fateful day was attributed to effective South Korean counterbattery fire.

One cannot lightly dismiss the Yeonpyeong shelling or alleged North Korean sinking of the Republic of Korea Navy (ROKN) corvette Cheonan in March of that same year. These provocations were in no small part emboldened by Pyongyang’s possession of what amounts to a rudimentary nuclear deterrent complemented by its reported significant arsenal of chemical and biological weapons. It is difficult to imagine the peacetime use of North Korean nukes. In times of war, it is also questionable whether this capability would be more decisive than, say, the numerous artillery and multiple-launch rocket pieces forward-deployed in camouflaged, hardened shelters near the Demilitarized Zone. These conventional weapons could rain a hellish barrage on Seoul in the opening hours of hostilities, and cause significant destruction before they are put out of action. Therefore, be it those artillery arrayed against Seoul or nukes or both, under present circumstances, Pyongyang enjoys a rather wide berth to pursue a range of policy options— including limited conventional military provocations— without having to fear significant South Korean and American retaliation.

Amongst various options for low-intensity military provocations, gunboat diplomacy in the Yellow Sea appears to be a North Korean favorite. At the least extreme end of this spectrum, massive wargames are conducted simulating repelling an Incheon 1950s-style amphibious invasion, or more ominously, simulating the capture of South Korean islands along the NLL. At the other end of the spectrum are armed seaborne infiltrations similar to the Gangneung submarine incident in September 1996, which involved direct clashes with South Korean security forces within southern territory. On numerous other occasions, especially close to U.S.-ROK military exercises, KPN patrol forces have crossed the NLL. At times these incidents turn fatal, such as back in June 1999, June 2002 and November 2009, when the KPN and ROKN clashed in the Yellow Sea.

The first two clashes warrant closer examination. During these incidents, guns were not the only weapons employed. North Korean anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) were reportedly activated during these two clashes. ROKN combat units involved in the firefights with KPN gunboats detected fire-control radar emissions associated with the Soviet-era P-15 Termit (NATO codenamed SS-N-2 Styx) ASCM mounted on KPN’s fast attack craft, as well as shore-based Silkworm ASCM deployed near the scenes of action. Such escalatory moves compelled the South Koreans to break off from their pursuit of retreating KPN warships and undertake evasive actions against impending ASCM attacks that fortuitously did not come. Worth noting is that the Styx and Silkworm are old designs that are outdated by today’s standards. They can be countered with relative ease by modern “soft” and “hard” kill systems in ROKN service. Yet the South Koreans clearly had no stomach for an escalated naval clash involving heavier armaments, which could potentially spiral out of control.

Therefore, seen in this light, North Korea’s recent naval modernization is a matter of concern. The recent demonstration of its new ASCM, which appears to be a reverse-engineered or original copy of the Russian Kh-35, from a new stealthy-looking Nongo-class fast attack craft portends an incremental revitalization of the KPN’s offensive power. Assuming similar technical specifications as the Kh-35, the new North Korean ASCM at a range of 130 kilometers represents a quantum leap over the Styx’s 80 kilometers. This means that the North Koreans could threaten ROKN warships, especially the smaller craft commonly deployed in the Yellow Sea, from a longer standoff distance located further north and therefore less vulnerable to South Korean retaliatory strikes. While both are subsonic, the new missile is certainly more sophisticated in terms of its electronic counter-countermeasures and flies at a much lower altitude above sea level compared to the Styx, which renders it more difficult to counter. Finally, the Kh-35 has an estimated cost of $500,000 apiece, compared to approximately $1.2 million for the Harpoon Block II and about $2.25 million for the indigenously developed SSM-700K Haeseong—both employed by the ROKN. It can therefore be produced in quantity for equipping the KPN’s new-built vessels and retrofits onto existing ones, as well as major revamping of shore-based coastal batteries. Taken altogether, even considering only surface launch options, the new ASCM poses a greater challenge to the South Koreans. This results in greater escalatory potential for Pyongyang, which would correspondingly compel the ROKN to reconsider its tactical options in future skirmishes.

Under the overarching nuke and ballistic-missile umbrella, followed by an inner layer of more capable ASCMs that can serve in both offensive and defensive roles, North Korea’s success in staging other forms of seaborne provocations correspondingly increase as a result. The assault hovercraft of the Kong Bang class, for instance, are built in significant numbers and designed to traverse those tidal mudflats and shallow waters that characterize the Yellow Sea littorals. Like the new-generation Nongo-class fast attack craft, the Kong Bangs are also characterized by low physical profiles and high speed, which helps reduce the chances of enemy detection and targeting. More are certainly in the pipeline, especially as Pyongyang forward-deployed a sizeable fleet of these craft near the NLL, poised to launch a swift, surprise commando attack on the South Korean frontline islands. When viewed together with the burgeoning KPN fleet of new-built coastal and midget submarines, these hovercraft enhance Pyongyang’s chances of a surprise attack.

Final mention ought to be given to the alleged North Korean sea-based strategic missile deterrent, especially following a reported shore test of an ejection launcher, believed to be designed for submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM), sometime in late January this year. It would be far-fetched to think of a KPN oceangoing SLBM capability, considering the paucity of long-range surface and aerial support for such endeavors. This is the case, even if the North Koreans are to complete their new class of helicopter-capable light frigates, which may be optimized for anti-submarine warfare. A plausible scenario may follow this way: the prospective missile submarine would be hidden in one of the numerous submarine caves dotting the rugged eastern North Korean coast in times of peace. During war, the boat would quietly be put to sea upon activation by the North Korean regime, position itself in one of those pre-designated locations close to home shores well within land-based air defense cover, launch its payload and scoot for shelter. This thus provides another second-strike option alongside mobile land-based systems, which are altogether more secure than the land-based silos. Besides air cover, the KPN would play a pivotal role in securing this undersea deterrent capability. A stronger conventional offensive strike capability mustered by the KPN, in the form of its new fast attack craft and submarines, not only helps enhance North Korea’s asymmetric sea denial capability against a stronger invading naval force and facilitates seaborne provocations against South Korea, but also fortifies the coastal cordon around its prospective sea-based nuclear deterrent.

Certainly, Pyongyang’s nukes and ballistic missiles are a serious matter of concern. If they do exist, as American and South Korean intelligence communities believe, whether the SLBM program comes to fruition or not, the KPN’s modernization efforts also constitute a source of concern. In its current or future form, North Korea’s strategic deterrent remains just a tool of deterrence. Its peacetime utility is to raise the threshold for Pyongyang to undertake low-intensity, conventional military provocations. At the same time, it constrains Seoul’s military options; any retaliatory strike against North Korean provocations might invite a disproportionate counter-response by Pyongyang that may involve weapons of mass destruction.

As such, the silent, creeping KPN modernization drive poses a more immediate threat to Korean Peninsula security in view of Pyongyang’s history of belligerent behavior at sea. The new offensive strike capabilities would potentially enhance KPN’s tactical options when it comes to executing fresh provocations against South Korea. The underlying operational ramifications, in view of the escalatory potential of KPN’s new conventional armaments, cannot simply be dismissed.

Koh Swee Lean Collin is an associate research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies based in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.