DPRK Strategic Capabilities and Security on the Korean Peninsula: Looking Ahead A joint study by the Center for Energy and Security Studies (CENESS) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) The International Institute for Strategic Studies Contents Acronyms 3 Executive summary 5 Introduction 11 Part One: DPRK Nuclear-Programme Development and Current Capabilities 15 History of nuclear-programme development 15 Current nuclear infrastructure 23 Fissile material and tritium stockpiles 30 Weaponisation and miniaturisation 34 Warheads stockpile 34 Nuclear mission accomplished? 35 Notes 37 Part Two: Ballistic-Missile Development and Current Capabilities 43 History of ballistic-missile development 43 Current missile capabilities 46 North Korea’s ballistic missiles: Key data 62 Notes 63 Part Three: Potential Steps for Tension Reduction, Confidence-Building and Denuclearisation 69 Past diplomatic efforts 69 The 2018–2019 summitry 70 Potential steps 73 Notes 75 Annex One: Russian Working Group 77 Annex Two: US Working Group 79 2 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Acronyms 6PT Six-Party Talks ATacMS Army Tactical Missile System CENESS Center for Energy and Security Studies CEP circular error probable CNC computer numerical controlled CTBTO Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization DPRK Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) ER extended range GPS global positioning satellite HE high explosive HEU highly enriched uranium IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile (>5,500 km) IISS International Institute for Strategic Studies IMS International Monitoring System (CTBTO) INF Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty JCPOA Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (aka Iran nuclear deal) JNFL Japan Nuclear Fuel Limited KEDO Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization kt kilotonne LWR LEU MaRV MRBM MWe/t New START NPP NPT ROK SLBM SLV SRBM SVR SWU TBP TEL UF6 UF4 UNSC VVER light-water reactor low enriched uranium manoeuvrable re-entry vehicle medium-range ballistic missile (1,000–5,500 km) megawatt electric/thermal Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms nuclear power plant Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Republic of Korea (South Korea) submarine-launched ballistic missile satellite-launch vehicle short-range ballistic missile (<500 km) Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation separative work units tributyl phosphate transporter-erector launcher uranium hexafluoride uranium tetrafluoride UN Security Council water-water power reactor (Russian), i.e., water-cooled water-moderated power reactor Acronyms 3 4 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Executive summary Believing that Russian–US cooperation could play an important role in developing and implementing proposals for denuclearisation and creating lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula, the Moscow-based Center for Energy and Security Studies (CENESS) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) undertook a joint assessment of North Korea’s progress in developing nuclear and missile capabilities and an examination of possible international steps towards a solution. Nuclear programme Four factors have motivated Pyongyang’s interest in nuclear weapons. The first is rooted in the division of the Korean Peninsula in 1945 and the ensuing North–South antagonism, highlighted by the devastating Korean War, as well as US statements during that war about the potential use of nuclear weapons and the perception of a US nuclear threat reinforced by tactical nuclearweapons deployment in South Korea. Secondly, being in confrontation with the United States and its allies, the DPRK wanted an ‘insurance policy’ in the event of a major deterioration in relations with Moscow and/or Beijing. Thirdly, in the 1970s, Pyongyang became aware of Seoul’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Fourthly, some experts reckon that North Korea may also see nuclear weapons as contributing to its stated goal of unifying the peninsula, assuming that they would deter the US from coming to South Korea’s assistance in the event of resumed hostilities. Today, however, there is one main priority for Pyongyang: strengthening its deterrence capability against the US. The DPRK’s nuclear efforts over the years can be grouped into four phases. What began as a civilian programme to develop research capability and expertise in the 1950s acquired a distinct military component two decades later. In the second phase, in the late 1970s, the DPRK launched a major effort to build industrial-scale facilities to support its nuclear-energy programme and create the technological capability to produce weaponsgrade plutonium. In the third phase beginning in the early 1990s, the DPRK engaged in diplomatic manoeuvring. Under the 1994 Agreed Framework with the US, the DPRK accepted restrictions on its plutonium programme while switching its focus to uranium enrichment, utilising gas-centrifuge technology. In the fourth phase, with the Agreed Framework having come undone in late 2002, the state declared a weaponisation intent. Diplomacy under the Six-Party Talks broke down and from 2006 to 2017, the DPRK conducted six nuclear tests, the last of which had a thermonuclear yield. Positive dynamics in 2018–2019, in the shape of a series of US–DPRK and ROK–DPRK summits, had fizzled out by the end of 2019. Development of the DPRK’s nuclear infrastructure was predicated on three key components: highly skilled and motivated scientists and engineers; extensive use of open-source information; and concerted efforts to procure technology, equipment and materials using diversified channels. The key North Korean nuclear facilities used for the production of weapons-grade materials – plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) – were built indigenously, using technologies of mostly West European origin. Today, North Korea’s nuclearweapons programme is largely self-sufficient. Harsh sanctions have probably delayed programme progress and increased programme costs, but have nevertheless failed to prevent the DPRK acquiring a nuclearweapons capability. Executive summary 5 Over the past six decades, the DPRK has built a nuclear programme that includes uranium mining and enrichment; metallic-uranium and uranium-hexafluoride production, reprocessing and plutonium separation; and special materials, such as extra-pure graphite, lithium-6 and lithium deuteride. The Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Centre has played a central role in the programme. It hosts the reactor that makes weapons-grade plutonium and probably tritium. It also includes the nuclear fuel-fabrication facility. This is where the North Koreans have constructed a reprocessing facility that extracts plutonium from irradiated nuclear fuel, and the location of a uraniumenrichment facility. In recent years, however, the DPRK is likely to have built several important new facilities, including a uranium-enrichment site (or sites), outside Yongbyon. DPRK specialists have proved themselves to be very competent, professional and highly motivated. Estimates of Pyongyang’s current stocks of fissile material vary widely, especially concerning HEU. Plutonium production is easier to calculate based on the heat-energy output of the reactor during observed periods of operation and of reprocessing campaigns. Factoring in estimated production losses of 10% during plutonium purification and metal fabrication, the total amount of the plutonium metal produced is estimated to be between 38 and 50 kilograms. If the six nuclear tests consumed a total of 20 kg of plutonium, then the DPRK plutonium stockpile as of September 2020 is between 18 and 30 kg. There is no reliable information as to when industrialscale uranium enrichment began, how many enrichment facilities the DPRK has or what level of enrichment has been achieved. Thus, it is not possible to estimate North Korean HEU stockpiles with any degree of accuracy or confidence. It is probable that North Korea has at least one undisclosed enrichment facility; without at least a pilot plant, it could not have assembled (and in a space of just 18 months) the 2,000-machine facility at Yongbyon that was shown to a delegation from Stanford University in 2010. Total DPRK production of HEU by September 2020 can be estimated at between 230 and 860 kg. Since up to 50 kg of that HEU may have been used up in the nuclear tests conducted in 2013–2017, the remaining HEU stockpiles could range from 180 to 810 kg. It must be stressed that these estimates are based on assumptions for which there is little hard evidence, including operational efficiency and the number and size of undisclosed facilities. The estimates do not represent a consensus among the experts who participated in the discussions of this study. There are no confirmed reports on tritium production and separation in North Korea. Based on the experience of the early stages of the major nuclear countries’ programmes, we estimate that North Korea has an estimated tritium stockpile of about 7–8 grams as of September 2020. Given its half-life of 12.3 years, stopping tritium production in the DPRK would effectively freeze its ability to produce thermonuclear weapons. The first three North Korean tests were probably aimed at optimising the mass of the plutonium and the energy yield of the device. Assuming that the average amount of plutonium used is about 4 kg, a stockpile of 18–30 kg of plutonium is enough to build between four and seven nuclear warheads. Estimating the number of HEU warheads is more difficult. We conservatively assume 20 kg of HEU per device. If North Korea has 180–810 kg of HEU, it would be sufficient for about 9–40 warheads. In view of the numerous unknown variables, we can only make a very rough estimate that as of September 2020, the DPRK could be in possession of enough nuclear material to make 13–47 nuclear warheads. Since Pyongyang possesses an estimated capacity to make up to 6 kg of plutonium and up to 100 kg of HEU every year before production losses, we can speculate that the DPRK may be able to produce enough nuclear material annually for five nuclear warheads. Most of this capacity resides at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Centre. We therefore assess that dismantling all Yongbyon facilities, as discussed at the Hanoi summit in February 2019, would significantly reduce Pyongyang’s capability to make weapons-usable fissile materials. If only one other enrichment plant is operational, then eliminating the Yongbyon facilities would reduce North Korea’s weapons-production capacity by up to 80%. Missile programme Despite the overwhelming pressure of international sanctions, North Korea has also made impressive 6 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies progress in the missile field and is improving its ballistic-missile technology at a fairly rapid pace. In 2016, it conducted launches of 26 ballistic missiles or other systems using ballistic-missile technology, with a success rate over 45%. In 2017, the DPRK conducted 20 launches of eight or nine types of ballistic missiles, at a success rate of over 75%. North Korea’s quest to acquire an indigenous ballisticmissile-production capability began in the mid-1970s, in response to the ROK’s attempt to create a short-range missile. Since then, Pyongyang has developed an extensive array of missile systems with an increasingly long range. Like the nuclear programme, the original motivation was to be able both to deter and to coerce. The main objectives today most likely include a credible capacity to engage targets on the US mainland; greater survivability, precision and lethality of short- and medium-range mobile ballistic missiles; development of a sea-based component; and increasing the ability to penetrate US missile defences. The DPRK missile programme was based on the same three pillars as the nuclear programme: highly skilled and motivated scientists and engineers; extensive use of open-source information; and concerted efforts to procure technology, equipment and materials using diversified channels. Probably the most significant difference from the nuclear programme was the DPRK’s intergovernmental cooperation with other countries interested in developing missile technology, primarily Iran, Pakistan and Libya. The core of the North Korean missile arsenal consists of ground-based mobile short-range (<500 kilometres), shorter-range (500–1,000 km) and medium-range (1,000–5,500 km) ballistic missiles. Energetic efforts are under way to complete development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which could enter into service as operationally viable weapons during the next few years, if subjected to additional flight tests. In 2017, the DPRK test-launched a new single-stage MRBM, the Hwasong-12 (KN-17), a mobile-launched 3,700-km-range missile that can reach not only anywhere in South Korea and Japan, but also US bases on Guam. The missile used a new engine that appears to be derived from the Soviet-era RD-250 and produced by the DPRK indigenously using technical documentation acquired from Ukraine. The system probably served as a technology demonstrator for the first stage of the Hwasong-14 ICBM that was flight-tested on 4 and 29 July 2017. By some calculations, if the steeply curved trajectory of those tests had been altered to maximise range, the missile could have reached targets lying 6,000 to 8,000 km away. It means that the Hwasong-14 could be capable of striking Alaska and Hawaii, and probably Seattle. These ranges assume that the warhead would weigh no more than 300 kg, with re-entry-vehicle overall mass being about 500 kg. Such miniaturisation does not look very probable today. Carrying a bomb 100 kg heavier, the Hwasong-14’s maximum reach is just under 6,000 km. Given the limited performance of the Hwasong-14, it was not surprising to see the DPRK introduce a larger, longer-range missile, the Hwasong-15, launching it on 29 November 2017 on a highly lofted trajectory. If a standard trajectory were used, the Hwasong-15 would be able to travel, according to some estimates, about 12,000 km. Some experts concluded that it can deliver a 1,000 kg payload to any point on the US mainland. However, DPRK claims that it has a usable arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles appear to be premature. The Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15 launches conducted to date were tests involving prototype missiles travelling on inefficient flight paths that do not reflect the operational conditions expected when employed as a weapon system. As of September 2020, neither missile has been tested to its maximum range on a standard trajectory. Based on the North Korean missile industry’s previous record, it will take a few years and a handful of additional flight tests under various operational conditions to eliminate these missiles’ teething problems and enter them into service with an expectation that they will perform as designed more often than fail if fired during a crisis. The DPRK has also shown progress in solid-fuel missiles. Shortly after North Korea began launching Hwasong-11 (Toksa) missiles in large numbers in 2013, a new, much larger solid-fuel missile was introduced and tested: the medium-range, submarine-launched Pukguksong-1, with an estimated range of 1,200–1,250 km. These missiles are probably intended to provide Pyongyang a future capability to deliver a retaliatory strike. On 2 October 2019, North Korea flight-tested a two-stage, solid-fuel Executive summary 7 Pukguksong-3 missile from an underwater launch system on a steep, upward trajectory. If the Pukguksong-3 had used a standard trajectory, according to some estimates, it would have overflown Japan and travelled up to 2,000 km. To become operational, the Pukguksong-3 will require additional flight-testing of the missile itself, as well as the construction of at least three submarines which would need to undergo sea trials and crew training that may require an additional five to ten years’ effort. Meanwhile, the Pukguksong-1 design is being used to develop the land-based Pukguksong-2 medium-range ballistic missile, which is launched from a canister carried on a tracked chassis for enhanced mobility. Deployment of these missiles, which may be imminent if not already in place, will be a major milestone, allowing the Korean People’s Army Strategic Rocket Force to fire on a target 1,200–1,300 km away within 10–15 minutes of receiving an order. In addition to other advantages that make the new missile easier to operate and to conceal, its tracked chassis provides greater freedom of manoeuvre off-road. In other progress, North Korea in August 2016 introduced a new missile that appears to be a Hwasong-5 fitted with a manoeuvrable re-entry vehicle (MaRV). Active guidance of the warhead during the terminal phase of flight would be the most promising means for transforming a Scud-type missile into precision-guided munition capable of destroying specific, stationary targets. However, mastering the technologies and developing the subsystems needed to reliably manoeuvre the re-entry vehicle to a fixed target will require dozens of flight tests. In 2019, North Korea flight-tested three new solid-fuel, short-range missiles, speculatively designated KN-23, KN-24 and KN-25 by the US, reaching distances of 690 km, 400 km and 380 km respectively. The emergence of these missiles, in combination with the emergence of the Scud-derived missiles equipped with MaRVs, provides compelling evidence that Pyongyang continues to seek enhanced military and strategic capabilities. Critical questions about Pyongyang’s missile arsenal remain unresolved. Given the limited number of flight tests, the operational reliability of North Korea’s newer missiles is unknown. Also unknown is whether North Korea can protect a nuclear warhead from the rigours of re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere at ICBM velocities. Questions also remain about whether North Korea can miniaturise a nuclear warhead sufficiently to place on top of its advanced missiles. No one outside of North Korea knows the precise status of its nuclearbomb-making capabilities. For example, to reach the US mainland beyond Alaska, a lighter-weight bomb may be required for the Hwasong-14. Additional testing could help the DPRK fix any problems over time, enabling the full capacity of its many deployed ballistic missiles, from short to intercontinental ranges. Conversely, testing restrictions as a result of negotiations or self-imposed could limit the development of the DPRK nuclear-missile capability. Potential steps for tension reduction, confidence-building and denuclearisation Although the nuclear diplomacy that began in 2018 did not reach fruition, it generated tangible results, reduced tensions and addressed security problems in the region. The unilateral moratorium on nuclear tests and longrange missile launches that Pyongyang continues to observe as of September 2020 limits Pyongyang’s ability to develop more advanced warheads and missiles, but measures taken by the DPRK unilaterally do not include any limitations on fissile-material or missile production. If North Korea were to completely and permanently dismantle its nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, as discussed at the Hanoi summit, Pyongyang would significantly reduce its capability to make weaponsusable fissile materials, perhaps by up to 80%, essentially freezing its thermonuclear programme. A rapid denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula is not a realistic possibility. Nevertheless, developments in 2018–2019 demonstrated that progress towards denuclearisation is possible. The parties should adopt a step-by-step and reciprocal approach, especially in the early phase of dialogue as an element of confidencebuilding. Measures that would offer proportionate benefits to North Korea in exchange for progress towards denuclearisation should be stepped up. The lack of such measures was one of the major bottlenecks in the dialogue process that took place in 2018–2019. A multinational approach that combines bilateral and multilateral tracks, as was the case during the Iran nuclear negotiations that produced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in July 2015, looks 8 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies the most promising and sustainable. Distrustful of Washington, Pyongyang appears once again to be leaning towards multinational formats. Any future Korean talks in such a format should also borrow from the Iran negotiations such principles as mutual respect, reciprocity, and recognition of state sovereignty and security interests of all parties. Similarly, the DPRK’s negotiating partners should not put forward impossible conditions, demanding concessions that no sovereign state would ever accept, barring a complete military defeat. The long-term goals of this process should be a complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and the development of a comprehensive peace and security system in Northeast Asia. An immediate goal should be to produce an agreed definition of what ‘denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula’ actually means. Finally, it would be useful to recall lessons from the Six-Party Talks, including the working group that was established to examine possible peace and security mechanisms in Northeast Asia. Common sense suggests that the evolving security environment in the region would benefit from a multilateral understanding and agreement regarding, for example, mutual security guarantees to the DPRK and other regional countries, and increased transparency of certain military activities in the region. This study was supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation. Executive summary 9 10 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Introduction The spectre of nuclear war has haunted the Korean Peninsula for nearly seven decades. In November 1950, United States president Harry Truman publicly raised the option of using nuclear weapons in the Korean War.1 For about 40 years after the war, the US deployed several types of tactical nuclear weapons in the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea). The ROK and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK, or North Korea) also launched their own nuclear-weapons programmes. While Seoul abandoned its dedicated weapons effort soon after ROK president Park Chunghee was assassinated in October 1979, Pyongyang persisted, announcing its withdrawal from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 2003 and subsequently making rapid progress in building up nuclear and missile capabilities, while enshrining a nucleararmed status in the country’s constitution. In September 2017, North Korea’s sixth nuclear test achieved a thermonuclear yield. Two months later, the DPRK launched a Hwasong-15 ballistic missile, which Pyongyang says is an intercontinental weapon system that can reach the entire US mainland.2 At that point, North Korea announced that its mission to build its nuclear forces was accomplished. The year 2017 saw military escalation on the Korean Peninsula reach an unprecedented level in the postKorean War period. Many analysts believed that the situation had become the most volatile since the 1968 USS Pueblo crisis, or even since the end of Korean War hostilities in 1953.3 Some experts drew parallels with the Cuban Missile Crisis.4 Given Russia’s historical relationship with North Korea and the US alliance with South Korea, Moscow and Washington have special roles to play in promoting stability on the Korean Peninsula. As permanent members of the UN Security Council and depository states of the NPT, Russia and the US also bear special responsibility for upholding peace and international security. Their joint efforts, along with other major powers, were instrumental, for example, in resolving the crisis over the Iranian nuclear programme through the adoption of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in July 2015. Despite US president Donald Trump’s decision in May 2018 to take the US out of the JCPOA, the deal remains a model of what can be achieved through multilateral diplomacy, especially when US–Russian cooperation is harnessed to promote nuclear non-proliferation. Similarly, should the key players demonstrate the political will to seek a sustainable solution to the security problems on the Korean Peninsula, Russian–US cooperation in a multilateral framework could play an important role in developing and implementing proposals. The opportunities are clear. For example, more than 67 years since the shooting stopped, the Korean War still remains officially unresolved. The Armistice Agreement of 1953 has yet to be replaced by a proper peace treaty or a more comprehensive accord. In these circumstances, the Moscow-based Center for Energy and Security Studies (CENESS) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) agreed in 2017 to conduct a joint assessment of North Korea’s progress in developing nuclear and missile capabilities. They also undertook to develop proposals on possible international steps to facilitate the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and create lasting peace and security mechanisms. The two parties began their work in January 2018 and completed it in about 33 months. They received Introduction 11 valuable assistance from a Russian working group led by CENESS and a US working group led by the IISS. The two working groups included former military officials, diplomats, nuclear specialists and scholars specialising in Korean studies. The two groups worked independently, then compared and consolidated their drafts. The results are summarised in this joint report prepared by the project co-chairs. All the contributing experts, listed in annexes one and two, participated in a personal capacity. The report does not necessarily reflect the views of all the experts involved in the study, or of the organisations they represent. CENESS and IISS hope that the report will serve as a catalyst for further discussions between researchers and officials on possible measures to reduce tensions and nuclear-related risks and build confidence in the region. We also hope that the report will help to facilitate discussions on how to promote pragmatic and effective Russian–US cooperation, an aim which has also been emphasised by the leadership of the two countries. 12 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Notes 1 In April 1951, US President Harry Truman also ordered nine nuclear bombs to be issued to the US Air Force and transported to Okinawa. See Carl A. Posey, ‘How the Korean War Almost Went Nuclear’, Air and Space Magazine, July 2015, https://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/ how-korean-war-almost-went-nuclear-180955324/. 2 ‘DPRK Government Statement on Successful Test-fire of New-Type ICBM’, Rodong Sinmun, 29 November 2017, https://kcnawatch.org/newstream/1511929851-215959348/ dprk-govt-statement-on-successful-test-fire-of-new-type-icbm/. 3 Alexander Vorontsov, ‘Eskalacija naprjazhennosti na Korejskom poluostrove — Vremja sdelat’ shag nazad’ [‘Escalation on the Korean Peninsula: Time to Take a Step Back from the Brink’], Yaderny Klub, nos. 1–2, 2017, p. 17; Georgy Toloraya, U Vostochnogo poroga Rossii [The Eastern Threshold of Russia] (Moscow: Dashkov and Co., 2019), pp. 162–74. 4 See, for example, Daryl Kimball, ‘The North Korea Standoff Is Now as Bad as the Cuban Missile Crisis’, Fortune, 25 September 2017, http://fortune.com/2017/09/25/ north-korea-news-war-trump. Introduction 13 14 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Part One: DPRK NuclearProgramme Development and Current Capabilities History of nuclear-programme development Motivations Pyongyang’s pursuit of the ‘ultimate weapon’ has been motivated by several factors over the years. The first is rooted in the division of the Korean Peninsula in 1945 and the ensuing North–South antagonism, which peaked during the devastating Korean War.1 Statements by Truman and General Douglas MacArthur, the commander-in-chief of the UN Command, about the potential use of nuclear weapons during the war remain etched in North Korean memories. The perception of a US nuclear threat was reinforced in 1958 when tactical nuclear weapons began to be deployed to South Korea. This deployment peaked in 1967, with as many as 950 nuclear warheads for eight different types of US tactical nuclear weapons, from atomic demolition munitions (known as nuclear landmines) and 8 inch (203 mm) projectiles for M151 howitzers to Matador cruise missiles and gravity bombs.2 Despite secrecy measures undertaken by the US armed forces, Pyongyang had a fairly clear idea of the scale and scope of the nuclear weapons stationed in the South, which in 1991 were declared withdrawn. Technically, the DPRK is still at war with US-led UN forces more than 67 years after the 1953 ceasefire, as the war ended with an armistice, rather than a peace treaty. North Korea sees nuclear weapons as an asymmetric military equaliser against the qualitatively superior conventional forces of the US–ROK alliance and a necessary means of preserving its sovereignty and independence. Secondly, being in confrontation with the US and its allies, the DPRK wanted an ‘insurance policy’ in the event of a major deterioration in relations with Moscow and/or Beijing, including a possible loss of their military support. For a few decades, North Korea’s security was assured by the ‘red lines’ drawn as a result of confrontation between the communist and the capitalist blocs. Under the terms of the alliance treaties North Korea struck in 1961 with the Soviet Union and China, the parties agreed to come to each other’s aid in the event of an attack by a third country.3 These treaties and the 1954 ROK–US Mutual Security Agreement had effectively maintained an indirect nuclear balance on the Korean Peninsula.4 Due to the prolonged crisis in Soviet–Chinese relations and other political developments in the communist camp, as well as Figure 1. A poster devoted to nuclear weapons types and categories and the NPT, exhibited in the Pyongyang Sci-Tech Complex Source: Private collection Part One: DPRK Nuclear-Programme Development and Current Capabilities 15 the USSR–US detente and US–China rapprochement that began in 1971, Pyongyang no longer had full confidence that Beijing and Moscow would unreservedly support it in the event of another military crisis. Thirdly, in the 1970s Pyongyang became aware of Seoul’s pursuit of nuclear-weapons development. President Park Chung-hee launched a secret plutoniumbased nuclear-weapons programme codenamed Project 890 in 1970. The goal was to have a working nuclear explosive device by the end of that decade.5 There is strong evidence that Pyongyang learned of Seoul’s intentions; in August 1976, the DPRK even appealed to other communist-bloc members to help it prevent the delivery of a reprocessing plant to South Korea.10 Apart from material preparations in the South, North Korea must have also been aware of a strong body of opinion among political and security elites in Seoul in favour of obtaining an indigenous nuclear deterrent out of fear of US abandonment. Fourthly, some experts reckon that North Korea may also see nuclear weapons as contributing to its stated goal of unifying the peninsula, assuming that they would deter the US from coming to South Korea’s assistance in the event of resumed hostilities.11 The DPRK Constitution declares that reunification of the country is the nation’s supreme task. At times when tensions with Seoul are high, Pyongyang sometimes refers to South Korea as the ‘temporarily occupied southern half of the republic’ – the ‘republic’ being the DPRK itself. The ROK Constitution also claims that its territory consists of the entire Korean Peninsula, and the South Korean National Security Act describes the DPRK as an ‘antigovernment organization’.12 Thus, continued mutual antagonism between two Koreas poses additional nuclear-related risks on the peninsula. On the other hand, inter-Korean dialogue and continued interaction, particularly related to easing military tensions, would lessen such risks and might reduce the relative importance of this motivation for Pyongyang. It may not be easy to say which motivation was more important than the others over the years; all have played a role. But one can safely speculate that today there is one main priority for Pyongyang: strengthening its deterrence capability against the US by putting an end to perceived US invulnerability vis-à-vis the DPRK. The US-led military interventions in Iraq and Libya (in March 2003 and March 2011, respectively) were undoubtedly important factors in Pyongyang’s decision to manufacture its first nuclear device and accelerate its entire nuclear-weapons programme. North Korean officials saw that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had no nuclear weapons to deter an invasion and his toppling, and that Libya’s Muammar Gadhafi lost his life after he gave up his nuclear-weapons programme. The fact that Pyongyang and Washington were key protagonists suggests the central role they will have to play in any potential multilateral diplomacy to achieve a denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. Figure 2. Signing the Korean War Armistice Agreement, Panmunjom, July 1953 Source: Getty 16 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Figure 3. The South Korean TRIGA Mark-II nuclear research reactor, 1961 Source: Getty Four phases The DPRK’s nuclear efforts over the years can be grouped into four phases. What began as a civilian programme in the 1950s acquired a distinct military component in the 1970s due to unresolved tensions on the Korean Peninsula, South Korea’s own nuclear pursuit and concerns over the regime’s future. From then on, the weapons programme has progressed at different speeds for various economic, technical and diplomatic reasons – sometimes slowing to an almost complete halt. Largely using its own resources, Pyongyang had managed to build the requisite research and experimental infrastructure, train a large pool of specialists, put in place the industrial production capacity to make weapons-grade materials, build a nuclear testing range and conduct six nuclear tests, the latest of which in September 2017 had a thermonuclear yield. Phase 1: Developing the research capability and expertise The DPRK’s nuclear efforts began in the 1950s under the nation’s founder, Kim II Sung. The programme focused on developing the research capability, exploring the available resources of raw materials, training a pool of specialists and building nuclear-research centres. In the late 1950s, North Korea became keen to build a research reactor, influenced by Seoul’s decision in 1958 to introduce a US-designed TRIGA Mark-II reactor (designated the KRR-1). During the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the US supplied their allies and client states with basic civil nuclear technology and training, calling the programmes ‘Atoms for Peace’. At some point during that phase, the DPRK seems to have decided that plutonium would be the most expeditious path towards acquiring a nuclear-weapons capability; uranium enrichment was deemed too difficult at that point. Probably at about the same time, Pyongyang also decided to refrain from joining the NPT, which was opened for signature in 1968. This signalled the beginning of the next phase, which included the creation of industrial nuclear infrastructure. That infrastructure would make it possible not only to generate power but also to produce plutonium, a key component of nuclear weapons. Phase 2: Building industrial nuclear infrastructure In the late 1970s, the DPRK launched a major effort to build a series of industrial-scale nuclear facilities that were intended to support its nuclear-energy programme and create the technological capability for making weapons-grade plutonium. Pyongyang completed a 5 megawatt electrical (MWe) Magnox reactor that became operational in 1986. (The name Magnox comes from the fuel cladding, which is a non-oxidising alloy of magnesium.) Several related facilities, including Part I: DPRK Nuclear Programme Development and Current Capabilities 17 an ore-processing plant and a fuel-rod-fabrication plant, were also built. In 1985 North Korea began to build a radiochemical laboratory, capable of reprocessing irradiated fuel to extract plutonium. These facilities formed the original core of the DPRK’s nuclear infrastructure suitable for both generating electricity and producing plutonium. In the 1980s, Pyongyang also began to build two more powerful Magnox reactors, with power ratings of 50 MWe and 200 MWe respectively, for electricity generation but, more importantly, to expand its plutoniumproduction capability. During the late 1980s, North Korea achieved its first success in the separation of plutonium. Phase 3: Diplomatic manoeuvring and applying restrictions on nuclear activity Although the DPRK acceded to the NPT in December 1985 under Soviet urging,9 it did not conclude a comprehensive safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) until 1992. The entry into force of North Korea’s safeguards agreement in April 1992 gave the IAEA access to more facilities at the large Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Centre 90 kilometres north of Pyongyang. Agency inspections in 1992 revealed discrepancies in the DPRK’s initial safeguards declaration. Pyongyang’s subsequent refusal of an IAEA ‘special inspection’ to investigate plutonium production prior to 1992 led to a crisis. Realising that the US was weighing a military strike on its nuclear complex, the North Korean leadership decided on a diplomatic manoeuvre. During the last few months of his life, Kim II Sung, who died in July 1994, probably concluded that since his nuclear-weapons programme was not completed, and without the backing of the former Soviet Union, his best chance was to try for a normalisation with the US by offering a suspension of the plutonium programme in exchange for US concessions. As part of the 1994 US–North Korea Agreed Framework, his son and successor Kim Jong II agreed to freeze the operation of the existing nuclear facilities and stop construction of the two larger reactors. With the plutonium route blocked by the Agreed Framework, Pyongyang switched its focus to uranium enrichment utilising gas-centrifuge technology obtained via the black market. This effort began in the late 1990s with the help of Pakistani metallurgist and black-marketer Abdul Qadeer Khan, who supplied uranium-enrichment technology (originally developed in West Europe and later localised by Pakistan) and related equipment.10 Phase 4: Weaponisation and declaration of nuclear status With the Agreed Framework having come undone in late 2002 due to Pyongyang’s uranium-enrichment efforts and the Bush administration’s opposition to the deal, the DPRK resumed its production of plutonium. In January 2003, it announced that it would withdraw from the NPT with immediate effect. The Six-Party Talks (6PT) comprising China, the DPRK, Japan, the ROK, Russia and the US that began in August 2003 achieved fleeting success in a Joint Statement of 19 September 2005, in which North Korea again agreed to suspend the plutonium programme, including fuel fabrication and reprocessing, in return for a US affirmation that it had no intention to attack the DPRK and was ready to take steps to normalise relations with Pyongyang. The other five parties also agreed to discuss ‘at an appropriate time’ the ‘provision of a light-water reactor’ to the DPRK.11 Diplomacy soon broke down, however. In October 2006, Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test. Following the death in late 2011 of Kim Jong II and the ascendency of his son Kim Jong Un, the nuclear programme focused on achieving a breakthrough in the military nuclear programme in terms of both weapons design and delivery systems. In the spring of 2012, the DPRK Constitution was amended and named North Korea a nuclear state.12 Based on the experience of other nuclear-armed states, we can assume that North Korea is currently working to improve its deterrence capability, including by increasing the survivability of its nuclear arsenal and extending the range of its missiles in order to reach the US mainland. Most probably, Pyongyang is also currently focusing on increasing its weapons-usable nuclear-material stockpiles, as in all likelihood it has many more nuclearcapable delivery systems than nuclear warheads. Many of these objectives were formulated at a March 2013 plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea.13 As of September 2020, the outlook for the situation in the region remains uncertain. Positive dynamics that 18 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies began in the run-up to the February 2018 XXIII Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang and continued with a series of US–DPRK and ROK–DPRK summits in 2018–2019 fizzled out after the failed Hanoi summit between president Trump and Chairman Kim on 27–28 February 2019. It is hard to predict how those dynamics will affect the long-term prospects of the DPRK nuclear programme. The moratorium on nuclear testing, which the DPRK has continued to observe as of September 2020, limits Pyongyang’s ability to develop more advanced warheads. But the measures taken by the DPRK unilaterally in 2018–2019 did not include any limitations on fissile-material production. If the DPRK were to completely and permanently dismantle all its facilities at Yongbyon, particularly the 5 MWe Magnox reactor and the radiochemical laboratory (as discussed at the Hanoi summit), the DPRK would have no immediate means of producing weapons-grade plutonium. It would also essentially freeze the North Korean thermonuclear programme, because the Magnox reactor is believed to be the only DPRK facility that currently produces tritium – and tritium has a fairly short halflife of 12.3 years. Also, it would substantially curtail Pyongyang’s highly enriched uranium (HEU) production capability. Figure 4. A North Korean schoolgirl writes ‘The Great Nuclear Power‘ Source: Private collection Development of nuclear infrastructure and knowledge Amid severe economic and other constraints, the development of the DPRK’s nuclear infrastructure was predicated on three key components: • highly skilled and motivated scientists and engineers; • extensive use of open-source information; and • concerted efforts to procure technology, equipment and materials using diversified channels. During the early stages of developing its nuclear infrastructure, Pyongyang used the expertise that Korean nationals had acquired through education at imperial Japanese universities and participation in Japanese nuclear-related activity. Before liberation, for example, the North Korean city of Hungnam was the site of a heavy-water-related project. In the late 1950s and 1960s, the Department of Nuclear Physics at the Kim II Sung University was led by academician To Sang Rok, a physicist who had graduated from the Tokyo Imperial University, who oversaw the establishment of North Korea’s first nuclear-physics research and education group.14 In the 1950s, the DPRK approached the Soviet Union and other members of the Soviet bloc for assistance in developing its nuclear infrastructure and in training nuclear specialists. During his visit to the Soviet Union in 1956, Kim II Sung was given a tour of the world’s first nuclear power plant in Obninsk, which had been launched two years previously. The same year, the DPRK became one of the 11 co-founders of the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, an international science and research centre for socialist countries established in Dubna (Moscow region). In 1959, the Soviet Union and North Korea signed an agreement for the provision of technical assistance in peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Moscow also agreed to provide assistance in nuclear-related scientific research and development projects. The central element of both agreements was a Soviet promise to provide technical assistance to North Korea in building a research reactor and related research facilities, as well as to train nuclear specialists for Pyongyang. Under the 1959 agreement and subsequent arrangements, the Soviet Union trained Part I: DPRK Nuclear Programme Development and Current Capabilities 19 engineers and physicists at Soviet institutes. The North Koreans had a reputation for being remarkably hard-working. The head of the Soviet research reactor facility near Tbilisi, Georgia, once told a story about two North Korean interns who asked him for a copy of a non-classified textbook on nuclear-reactor physics: when told that no spare copy was available for them to keep, they made their own complete hand-written copy in just a few days.15 Later generations of North Korean scientists were trained mostly in North Korea itself, although they too had enriched their knowledge through international contacts. Under the juche ideology proclaimed by Kim II Sung in 1955, North Korea was intent on developing indigenous solutions. To train a large pool of nuclear specialists, the DPRK set up several specialised research centres, including the one at Yongbyon, as well as the Department of Nuclear Physics at Kim II Sung University and the Nuclear Technology Department at Kim Chaek Polytechnic Institute (subsequently renamed the Kim Chaek University of Technology) in Pyongyang.16 The latter two are now reportedly the main institutions supporting the country’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programmes.17 Pyongyang took its first steps towards building a nuclear knowledge base even before the cessation of hostilities in the Korean War, when it began to create the Atomic Energy Research Institute under the Academy of Sciences in 1952. In 1959, the DPRK began to build a nuclear-research centre at Yongbyon (also known as the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Centre), which became the centrepiece of its nuclear activity. The Soviet Union supplied an IRT-2000 research reactor (launched in 1965), an isotope-production laboratory and a critical assembly.18 According to Soviet archives, the construction of North Korea’s first research reactor (the IRT-2000) involved young Korean engineers trained in the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, China, East Germany and the DPRK itself.19 The high competence and professionalism of North Korean scientists and engineers was noted by renowned nuclear-weapons and missile experts such as Siegfried Hecker, former head of the Los Alamos National Laboratory; Uzi Rubin, former head of Israel’s Missile Defense Organization; and by the IAEA specialists who participated in training workshops and other events that involved North Korean specialists.20 Soviet engineers were impressed when they were given a demonstration of the IRT reactor after North Korea converted it to boost the output from 2 to 6–8 megawatts Figure 5. A general view of Kim Il Sung University Source: Getty 20 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies thermal (MWt).21 DPRK scientists are also extremely motivated and well supported. To illustrate, in 1963 a North Korean geologist told Soviet specialists that if the DPRK leadership were to set the objective of building a nuclear weapon, the entire nation would be willing to forgo their wages for several years in order to achieve that objective.22 North Korea has also developed a special social-benefits programme for scientists, engineers and other specialists working for the defence industry. For example, fully furnished apartments in specially built high-rise apartment blocks have been provided free of charge in recent years to many scientists in Pyongyang, including those working at the Kim II Sung University and the Kim Chaek University of Technology. Starting in the 1970s, Pyongyang invested significant resources in acquiring and developing the key stages of the nuclear-fuel cycle. According to former IAEA deputy director-general Olli Heinonen, who was in charge of the agency’s safeguards department, the DPRK’s nuclear programme has profited greatly from access to declassified data.23 For example, plutonium – a key nuclear-weapons component – was produced using the 5 MWe Magnox reactor modelled after the British Calder Hall reactors,24 the design information for which was declassified in the late 1950s.25 The reactors at Calder Hall, inaugurated in October 1956, were designed as dual-purpose plants to produce plutonium for military purposes as well as electric power, and were operated by the UK Atomic Energy Authority. When materials and equipment for the nuclear programme proved unavailable or difficult to produce domestically, Pyongyang turned to foreign markets. The DPRK procurement network does not discriminate between friendly and hostile countries as far as the sources of the necessary materials, equipment and technologies are concerned; it sources its components from wherever they happen to be available.26 In the early stages of the 5 MWe reactor project, the DPRK considered various options for fuel cladding, including a magnesium-aluminium (Mg-Al) alloy previously used in the UK, and a magnesium-zirconium alloy used in similar French reactors. It bought US-made zirconium from Germany’s Degussa A.G.,27 but in the end it settled on Mg-Al alloys. The radiochemical laboratory at Yongbyon was based on technology developed for the Eurochemic largescale experimental reprocessing plant, built by a consortium of 13 European states led by Belgium, France and Germany and situated near Mol, Belgium. As early Figure 6. Mirae (Future) Scientists street developed to house scientists and engineers and formally opened in November 2015 Source: Private collection Part I: DPRK Nuclear Programme Development and Current Capabilities 21 Figure 7. The 5 MWe Magnox reactor at the Yongbyon Source: Alamy Nuclear Scientific Research Centre before its cooling tower (R) was demolished in June 2008 Figure 8. Road direction sign to Yongbyon Source: Private collection (10 km) as 1970, Eurochemic released blueprints for its plant construction in open IAEA publications and in ‘external technical reports’. It also published flow charts for process engineering and operational results.28 According to media reports, Pyongyang has managed to procure high-quality steel from Japan and tributyl phosphate (TBP) from China at various stages of the project.29 The construction of the 5 MWe Magnox reactor and the radiochemical lab opened up the plutonium path to acquiring nuclear weapons. Supplementing this, in the late 1990s, North Korea received uranium-enrichment technology assistance from A.Q. Khan. According to former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf, Khan transferred nearly two dozen P-1 and P-2 centrifuges to North Korea along with ‘a flow meter, some special oils for centrifuges, and coaching on centrifuge technology, including visits to top-secret centrifuge plants’.30 This centrifuge ‘starter kit’, combined with the drawings provided by Khan, was likely used as a template upon which North Korean scientists and engineers based their own centrifuge-production plans. Khan reportedly also provided a ‘shopping list’ to North Korea, which would have enabled Pyongyang to purchase additional components directly from other foreign suppliers. The chief engineer of the Yongbyon enrichment workshop stated that components of the facility were modelled after the centrifuges at the Urenco plant in Almelo (Netherlands) and JNFL plant in Rokkasho-mura (Japan).31 The DPRK reportedly acquired uranium hexafluoride (UF6) storage equipment from Switzerland.32 Reverse engineering has played a significant role in the DPRK uraniumenrichment programme. To summarise, the key North Korean nuclear facilities used for the production of weapons-grade materials (plutonium and HEU) were built indigenously mostly using technologies of European origin. The lack of certain parts and components was compensated for by the availability of highly skilled personnel and an extensive procurement network. Despite the sanctions imposed on North Korea, that procurement network enabled Pyongyang to acquire the materials, equipment and technologies necessary for the production of weapons-grade materials. Today, North Korea’s nuclear-weapons programme is largely self-sufficient, although it may face bottlenecks as it tries to increase the capacity of the existing nuclear facilities and/or build new ones. According to some US specialists, the uranium-enrichment part of the DPRK programme may be experiencing difficulties producing pivot bearings, high-strength aluminium and high-grade maraging steel.33 North Korea’s economy appears to be sufficiently healthy to be able to provide the nuclear programme with the funding required to further strengthen its capabilities. Harsh sanctions imposed on Pyongyang have probably delayed progress, but have failed to reverse the North Korean nuclear programme or prevent the DPRK from building plutonium and HEU facilities – or indeed from acquiring a nuclear capability. 22 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Figure 9. A scheme of the nuclear-fuel cycle, exhibited in the Sci-Tech Complex, opened in Pyongyang in January 2016 Source: Private collection Current nuclear infrastructure Fuel-cycle components Uranium-ore mining North Korea’s explored uranium-ore reserves are estimated at 20–26 million tonnes, with an average uranium content of 0.086%, although a significant part of those reserves (about 4m tonnes) has a much higher uranium content (0.26%) and is suitable for industrial-scale production. Overall, this translates to about 30,000 tonnes of natural uranium.34 Other sources estimate DPRK uranium reserves to be 300,000 tonnes.35 The DPRK told the IAEA in 1992 that it had industrial mining operations ongoing at two mines in Wolbisan and Pyongsan at the time.36 According to some sources, however, North Korea also mines uranium ore at Hamhung, Kusong and Sunchon37 and probably other places too. Uranium conversion It is not known exactly where North Korea converts yellowcake to UF6. North Korea’s ability to convert uranium came to light in 2001, when it was determined with ‘near certainty’ by US national laboratories that the cylinders of UF6 which Libya had obtained from the A.Q. Khan network were of DPRK origin.39 In 2010, North Korea indicated to a visiting Stanford University delegation led by Siegfried Hecker that its UF6 facility was located at Yongbyon.40 One part of the conversion process – the production of uranium tetrafluoride (UF4) – is known to have been upgraded after the previous hardware was damaged by corrosion while it was sitting idle after work was suspended in 1994 under the Agreed Framework. In July 2007, the IAEA observed a small-scale research and development UF4 conversion apparatus using a dry process.41 Uranium-concentrate production Uranium concentrate (yellowcake, U3O8) is made by chemically extracting uranium from milled ore. The main part of the production process is in Pyongsan, which has reportedly undergone a major upgrade since 2013, with a commensurate increase in output.38 Another pilot plant is located at Pakchon. Uranium enrichment On 12 November 2010, North Korean authorities briefly showed Siegfried Hecker and other scholars from Stanford University a modern uranium-enrichment facility with about 2,000 centrifuges that he judged to be Pakistan’s second-generation P-2 model. It was in a building previously used for metal-fuel-element Part I: DPRK Nuclear Programme Development and Current Capabilities 23 Yongbyon Nuclear Scienti c Research Centre: 5 MWe Magnox reactor, nuclear research reactor (IRT-2000), isotope (tritium) production facility, radiochemical laboratory (reprocessing plant), uranium conversion. Not in operation: light-water reactor (experimental). Chongsu: Graphite production for 5 MWe Magnox reactor NORTH KOREA Hamhung: Lithium-6 production facility Pakchon: Uranium-concentrate production (pilot plant) Pyongyang Wolbisan: Industrial uranium-ore mining Chollima: Possible uranium-enrichment facility Note: Map locations are approximations for illustrative purposes only Figure 10. Map of North Korea’s nuclear infrastructure SOUTH KOREA Pyongsan: Industrial uranium-ore mining, uranium-concentrate production © IISS Source: IISS fabrication, last visited by IAEA inspectors in April 2009. Construction of the centrifuge workshop was said to have been finished a few days before the visit, and thus took no more than about 1.5 years.42 The average enrichment was said to be 3.5%, with actual production from 2.2% to 4%, to make fuel for the 100 MWt experimental light-water reactor then under construction. The workshop process engineer claimed the enrichment capacity to be 8,000 separative work units (SWU) per year, or 4 SWU per machine.43 While this has not been verified, this SWU capacity would be sufficient to produce about 2.5 tonnes of low enriched uranium (LEU) in the form of UF6 every year. Three years later, overhead imagery showed the roof size of the facility in question to have doubled, which many experts believe could mean that the plant capacity had also doubled. This assumption remains to be confirmed. The DPRK very likely has at least one other undisclosed enrichment facility; without a pilot plant, it could not have assembled the 2,000-machine facility. Some US experts estimate that such a facility may have been built around 2002, when robust procurement of items relating to uranium enrichment was detected. In summer 2018, US researchers pointed to evidence that such a covert enrichment plant may be located in the city of Chollima, a short distance southeast of Pyongyang. Judging from the lack of wintertime snow cover, it may have been operating since 2003.44 It is not certain, however, that the facility in question is an enrichment plant; the assumed undisclosed facility may be located elsewhere. US 24 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies intelligence agencies have also reportedly detected the existence of another possible covert enrichment site.45 Fuel fabrication The fuel-elements-fabrication facility was initially geared to make metallic-uranium-based fuel. Based on the amount of fuel in the core of the 5 MWe Magnox reactor, the minimum annual production capacity of the fuel-fabrication facility should be at least 2,500–3,000 fuel elements. But when the DPRK began to build two larger Magnox reactors and to produce fuel elements for the first of them, the actual production capacity of the fuel-fabrication facility must have been much higher. Graphite production The graphite used in the 5 MWe Magnox reactor core as the moderator must be extra pure so as not to absorb any neutrons produced by uranium fission. The facility for graphite production was built at Chongsu. Research reactor The DPRK has one reactor purely for research purposes. The small IRT-2000 is a pool-type reactor that was designed to conduct basic research and to produce small quantities of medical and industrial isotopes. Initially using fuel assemblies made of uranium enriched to 10%, the reactor achieved a 2 MWt output, but this was later increased to 6–8 MWt, using uranium fuel enriched to 36%.46 Fuel supplies by the Soviet Union were terminated at the end of the 1980s. Without replenishment, the use of the reactor has been severely limited for the past 30 years. Magnox reactor The Magnox reactor that North Korea completed in 1986 was designed to have a power rating of 20–25 MWt, which North Korea expressed in terms of its nominal 5 MWe output. Pyongyang chose this type of reactor for two reasons. Firstly, the country has large reserves of uranium and graphite. Magnox reactors use carbon dioxide as coolant, graphite as moderator and natural uranium-based fuel, eliminating the need to enrich uranium.47 The irradiated fuel elements, which are made of metallic uranium and covered by magnesium-alloy cladding, are prone to swelling and corrosion. As a result, the fuel cannot be put into long-term storage and should be reprocessed fairly quickly. This requirement provided a justification for building a spent-fuel reprocessing facility to extract uranium and plutonium. Most importantly, using Magnox reactors provided an ideal cover for pursuing a nuclear-weapons programme under the guise of peaceful nuclear-energy research. In theory, the 5 MWe reactor can produce up to 6 kilograms Figure 11. A model of the 100 MWt LWR, exhibited in the Pyongyang Sci-Tech Complex Source: Private collection Part I: DPRK Nuclear Programme Development and Current Capabilities 25 Figure 12. The Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Centre Source: Satellite image ©2021 Maxar Technologies 26 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies of weapons-grade plutonium a year. Actual operation has been sporadic, possibly due to technical troubles with the cooling system. Light-water reactor A new experimental 100 MWt light-water reactor at Yongbyon that (as of 2020) appeared to be close to coming on line was primarily designed as a prototype for an electricity-producing light-water reactor, although it could also be used to produce tritium.48 This reactor has not been visited by the IAEA, so assessments of it are based on overhead imagery and on what a Stanford University delegation observed when it visited the facility during the early stages of its construction in 2010. The DPRK has made multiple attempts since the 1960s to acquire light-water reactors. Kim II Sung asked the Soviet Union for help in building a nuclear power plant (NPP) during a visit to Moscow in 1967. Pyongyang also raised the NPP issue in 1976 during meetings of bilateral intergovernmental commissions. An agreement to build an NPP in North Korea was reached in 1984. The following year, the Soviet and DPRK governments signed an agreement on economic and technical cooperation in NPP construction. The Soviet Union made its assistance conditional on Pyongyang acceding to the NPT – which it did two weeks ahead of signing the NPP cooperation agreement. Engineers then chose the site of the future NPP and began exploration works; Moscow and Pyongyang also planned to begin consultations on the return of spent fuel to the Soviet Union.49 The idea was to complete the first NPP consisting of four VVER-440 reactors,50 and then to make a start on another four-reactor plant using the more advanced and powerful VVER-1000 design. But the whole programme ground to a halt after the collapse of the Soviet Union; amid the economic downturn in the 1990s, neither Moscow nor Pyongyang were in a position to finance expensive NPP projects. Under the 1994 Agreed Framework, the US undertook to build two 1,000 MWe power reactors in the DPRK. An international consortium called the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) was established in March 1995 to implement the project. The reactors were to be built on the site previously chosen by Soviet specialists with the first reactor to be operational by 2003. When the project was interrupted in late 2002, it was about a third of the way through. But the DPRK never gave up hopes for a light-water power reactor. Radiochemical laboratory (reprocessing plant) To separate plutonium from irradiated fuel, the DPRK uses a radiochemical laboratory in Yongbyon, the construction of which began in 1985. In 1989, the DPRK removed failed fuel rods from the 5 MWe Magnox reactor and subsequently reprocessed them. In 1992, IAEA inspectors discovered that one reprocessing line had been completed at the plant and that another was under construction. The first reprocessing line at this industrial-sized facility has a capacity to annually process 110 tonnes of Magnox spent fuel. Significant alterations would be needed to reprocess oxide fuel from the experimental light-water reactor. To summarise: over the past six decades, the DPRK has built a nuclear programme that includes uranium mining and enrichment, metallic-uranium and UF6 production, reprocessing and plutonium separation, and special materials such as extra-pure graphite, lithium-6 and lithium deuteride. The Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Centre has played a central role in the programme. It hosts the reactor that makes weapons-grade plutonium and probably tritium, as well as the nuclear fuel-fabrication facility. This is also where the North Koreans have built a reprocessing facility that extracts plutonium from irradiated nuclear fuel, and a uranium-enrichment facility. In recent years, however, the DPRK is likely to have built several important new facilities, including a uranium-enrichment site or sites, outside Yongbyon. DPRK specialists have proved themselves to be very competent, professional and highly motivated. Isotope production The thermonuclear bombs that North Korea claimed to have produced and tested require hydrogen isotopes: deuterium, tritium or lithium deuteride. Tritium is made from lithium-6 by irradiating targets in a reactor and then extracting tritium from those targets. According to some US sources, a lithium-6 production facility is located at the chemical complex near Hamhung.51 The Part I: DPRK Nuclear Programme Development and Current Capabilities 27 lithium-6 targets irradiated in the 5 MWe Magnox reactor are then delivered to the isotope-production facility, which extracts the tritium they contain. The isotopeproduction facility is likely located at the Yongbyon centre.52 It cannot be ruled out that the same facility also makes lithium deuteride. The reactor design and mode of operation of the IRT-2000 reactor are not suitable for tritium production, which requires continued irradiation for several months. Nuclear tests DPRK representatives first asserted that their country possessed assembled nuclear devices in 1976. That assertion was made in a conversation in Pyongyang with Hungarian diplomats concerning the regional situation, and was not taken seriously in view of the underdeveloped state of the North Korean nuclear industry at the time.53 In fact, Pyongyang’s deliberate policy of occasional exaggeration of its nuclear achievements (to which it resorted for various security and domestic considerations) is one of the reasons why many experts have tended to be cautious in their assessments of how Table 1. Nuclear milestones reached Date Nuclear milestones 1952 1965 Atomic Energy Research Institute under the Academy of Sciences founded IRT-2000 research reactor operational 25 December 1985 USSR–DPRK agreement on economic and technical cooperation in the construction of an NPP in North Korea signed 1986 5 MWe Magnox reactor operational 1989 Radiochemical laboratory partially operational, reprocessing plutonium from the 5 MWe Magnox reactor spent fuel 9 March 1995 c. 1998 KEDO founded to construct two light-water reactors A.Q. Khan supplies centrifuge ‘starter kit’ 10 February 2005 Manufacture of nuclear weapon announced 9 October 2006 First nuclear test 12 November Enrichment facility and experimental light-water 2010 reactor revealed to visiting US scholars 3 September Sixth nuclear test produces a thermonuclear yield 2017 advanced Pyongyang’s nuclear programme really was at different stages of its development. It cannot be ruled out that practical efforts at weapon-isation and assembly of first explosive-nucleardevice prototypes began in the late 1980s to early 1990s. A Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) report in 1993 claimed that specialists of the Korean People’s Army were involved in the country’s nuclearresearch programme.54 A.Q. Khan reportedly told Pakistani authorities investigating his nuclear-smuggling network that during a visit to the DPRK ‘around 1999’, he was shown three ‘plutonium devices’.55 When Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Pyongyang in July 2000, Kim Jong II told him that the DPRK had a nuclear bomb.56 In February 2005, the DPRK made its first public announcement that it had manufactured a nuclear weapon. In October 2006, the DPRK conducted its first nuclear test. According to a North Korean official, that first test – which had a yield of less than one kilotonne (kt) – was of a plutonium-based device.57 Five more tests followed, through to September 2017. All six devices were detonated at the testing range in Punggye-ri, in the northeast of the country. For four of the tests, North Korea was able to prevent egress of noble gases, which otherwise might have allowed foreign monitors to determine whether the devices were based on plutonium or HEU.58 Seismograms recorded by the seismic stations of the Comprehensive NuclearTest-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) International Monitoring System (IMS) and the national stations operated by individual states provide estimates of the magnitude of the six tests. The fourth nuclear test, conducted on 6 January 2016, was described by North Korea as its first successful detonation of a thermonuclear device. But after comparing the seismogram of that test with the previous three tests, specialists voiced doubts that the explosion was indeed thermonuclear. It is not excluded that the device was boosted by hydrogen isotopes. There is also an opinion that it consisted of two stages, with the energy yield of the second stage deliberately reduced in order to test the viability of the basic design. If that opinion is correct, then the sixth test was based on the lessons learnt during the fourth test. 28 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Figure 13. Comparison of seismic signals (to scale) of all six declared DPRK nuclear tests63 Source: CTBTO The fifth test, conducted on 9 September 2016, was described by Pyongyang as a test of an operational nuclear warhead. The yield of the detonation was 15–25 kt. The seismogram of the sixth test, conducted on 3 September 2017, is shown in Figure 13, along with that of the other tests. North Korea said that the two-stage device was thermonuclear. Some experts estimate the yield at between 140 and 250 kt,59 which falls in the thermo-nuclear range. In principle, however, such a level of yield could be achieved by using an implosive fissiontype design without employing thermonuclear reactions. For example, in 1952, the US tested a fission test device (the Ivy King event) that had a yield of about 500 kt.60 The DPRK has been methodical and deliberate about nuclear testing. Conducting six tests over an 11-year period gave its nuclear scientists time to draw lessons between tests. Hecker posits that another reason for the deliberate pace, at least until recently, was scarcity of fissile material.61 In April 2018, the DPRK announced a moratorium on nuclear tests. During a summit with ROK President Moon Jae-in the same month, Kim Jong II also announced plans to close the nuclear test site at Punggye-ri. The following month, the tunnel entrances were collapsed in the presence of foreign journalists (but no international inspectors), and the site was declared to have been dismantled. Figure 14. International media at Punggye-ri nuclear test site before its demolition in May 2018 Figure 15. Punggye-ri nuclear test site being destroyed in May 2018 Source: Getty Source: Getty Part I: DPRK Nuclear Programme Development and Current Capabilities 29 Table 2. DPRK’s declared and detected nuclear tests Nuclear tests (declared and detected) Estimated Assessment yield68 9 October 2006 0.5–1 kt69 Plutonium. Two weeks after the announced test, an atmospheric radionuclide monitoring station in Yellowknife (Canada) detected elevated amounts of the noble gas xenon.70 The low yield indicates it was likely a partial failure.71 25 May 2009 2–7 kt72 No emissions detected. 12 February 2013 7–14 kt The DPRK said it used a miniaturised nuclear device. Isotopes, including xenon, detected by Takasaki (Japan) and Ussuriysk (Russia)73 radionuclide stations 55 days after the detonation point to a controlled release of nuclear-test products as a result of a deliberate unsealing of the test tunnel.74 By that point, the xenon had deteriorated too much to determine whether the device was based on plutonium or HEU. 6 January 2016 7–14 kt The yield was inconsistent with the DPRK’s claim of a hydrogen bomb, but the device was probably boosted by hydrogen isotopes. It is also possible that the device consisted of two stages, with the energy yield of the second stage deliberately reduced in order to test the viability of the basic design. If so, then the sixth test was based on the lessons learnt during the fourth test. 9 September 2016 15–25 kt The DPRK said it incorporated a weapons design standardised for ballistic-missile use. The test probably demonstrated progress in miniaturisation. 3 September 2017 140–250 kt The DPRK claims that it has detonated a two-stage thermonuclear (hydrogen) bomb.75 Judging from the large yield and by a photo of Kim Jong Un with a mock-up of a two-stage weapon, as well as other indicators, this claim may well be true, although it is also possible to reach such a yield with an implosive fission-type design without a thermonuclear reaction. Fissile material and tritium stockpiles The fissile material for nuclear weapons must be either weapons-grade plutonium or HEU. Like all other nucleararmed states, North Korea has pursued both technologies, but it prioritised the plutonium path in the early stages because uranium enrichment was deemed more difficult at that point. The DPRK began operation of a plutoniumproducing 5 MWe Magnox reactor in 1986, and reprocessed its first quantity of plutonium from spent fuel in 1989. It is not clear when exactly it acquired the capability to enrich uranium to the HEU level, but based on the available information, North Korean specialists likely mastered the enrichment technology sometime between 2002 and 2008.62 Estimates of Pyongyang’s current stocks of fissile material vary widely, particularly in regard to HEU production, because there is no reliably confirmed information about the number and capacity of North Korean enrichment facilities. For example, some US sources believe that the DPRK has as many as three uraniumenrichment facilities. Plutonium production is easier to calculate based on the knowledge of the heat-energy output of the reactor during certain operating times and reprocessing campaigns, although some variables can only be estimated. The figures below are only estimates that contain a fairly high degree of uncertainty; they do not represent a consensus among the experts who participated in the discussions of this report. Plutonium stockpile The most suitable means of making weapons-grade plutonium is by irradiating natural uranium or, less suitably, LEU in a nuclear reactor. Plutonium is generated by means of a process whereby a U-238 nucleus captures a neutron, resulting in short-lived U-239 and Np-239 isotopes that decay to the Pu-239 isotope. The plutonium slowly accumulates in the irradiated nuclear fuel, after which it must be separated from the spent fuel through reprocessing. North Korea currently has one potential source of plutonium: the 5 MWe Magnox reactor. Although the IRT-2000 research reactor may have produced up to a few hundred grams of plutonium in the period between 1965 and 1973,63 it could not have produced significant quantities of high-quality plutonium since then because it is fuelled with HEU (for which North Korea has had no reliable source for many years).64 When operational, the experimental light-water reactor could also produce weapons-usable plutonium, although if optimised for electricity production, the plutonium will only be reactor-grade and therefore not suitable for making nuclear weapons. 30 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies The 5 MWe Magnox reactor has been operated intermittently for almost three and a half decades, with stoppages for both technical and diplomatic reasons. Operational periods were generally observable via overhead imagery. IAEA inspectors also had intermittent access up until 2009. North Korea would usually make an announcement when it reprocessed the plutonium; at other times the reprocessing periods could be surmised. These five periods are as follows. First campaign In 1992, North Korea declared a separation of 62 g during a test run of the radiochemical laboratory in 1990. IAEA analysis, however, indicated three separate reprocessing campaigns in 1989, 1990 and 1991. The fuel irradiated between early 1986 and mid-1989 can be estimated to have had a total energy yield of 11,300 MWt per day.65 Reprocessing this fuel would have produced a maximum of 8.3–8.6 kg of weapons-grade plutonium.66 Based on Hecker’s discussions during the visit to Yongbyon in 2004, it is likely that not more than half of that amount was successfully separated during the first campaign, and the rest during the second one. Since some of that material must have been used up for mastering the technology for processing metal plutonium, we estimate that the DPRK was left with a stockpile of 0.5–4 kg of plutonium separated after the first campaign.67 Second campaign In June 1994, at the height of a crisis that had been building over the IAEA’s attempts to verify earlier DPRK declarations, North Korea defuelled the reactor, removing the 8,000 spent fuel rods from the core. Under the terms of the Agreed Framework, the plutonium programme was suspended and the fuel rods were to be expatriated after sufficient cooling. The agreement broke down eight years later, however. In December 2002, the DPRK expelled the inspectors, and the following January it announced that it would withdraw from the NPT, effective the following day. By mid-2003, the spent fuel rods, with an estimated total energy yield of 23,950 MWt per day,68 as well as the irradiated fuel left after the first campaign, were reprocessed, extracting an estimated 22 to 26 kg of plutonium that was converted to metallic form.69 Third campaign The 5 MWe Magnox reactor was relaunched in early 2003 and remained operational until April 2005. Over the 760 days the reactor remained operational, its total energy yield can be estimated at 12,350 MWt per day. The newly produced spent fuel was reprocessed in the second half of 2005, yielding an estimated 9–11 kg of extracted plutonium.70 Fourth campaign The reactor was relaunched with fresh fuel in June 2005 and operated until February 2007. That month, the 6PT produced an agreement to again suspend the plutonium programme, including fuel fabrication and reprocessing. In June 2008, the cooling tower of the reactor was collapsed as a demonstration of North Korea’s stated commitment to dismantling the programme. Again, fuel unloaded from the reactor was supposed to be shipped out of the country. By autumn, however, talks had broken down because of a disagreement over verification measures. In April 2009, the radiochemical laboratory (reprocessing plant) at Yongbyon was restarted. By November it had produced an estimated 7–8 kg of separated plutonium.71 Fifth campaign In August 2013, North Korea resumed operation of the reactor, which had remained shut down for five years. Signs that it was not operational between midOctober and early December 2015 indicate that during Figure 16. Siegfried Hecker meets with members of DPRK nuclear scientific community during a 2004 visit to Yongbyon Source: Courtesy of Siegfried Hecker Part I: DPRK Nuclear Programme Development and Current Capabilities 31 that period, the North Koreans unloaded spent fuel and loaded a fresh batch. Due to the reactor’s intermittent operation, probably no more than 6 kg of plutonium was produced, which is less than half the amount that could have been produced under ideal conditions.72 Overhead imagery revealed signs that this fuel was reprocessed in the first half of 2016.73 There are also indicators, however, that during this period the reactor was possibly used to produce tritium, and to that end, some of its channels were loaded with lithium-6.73 It is hard to make an accurate estimate of how much plutonium the reactor would have generated in such a case, but based on major nuclear countries’ experience, plutonium production would be expected to fall by almost half, due to the reduced number of uranium-loaded channels, as well as the need to use enriched-uranium fuel to maintain criticality. If the Yongbyon reactor behaves the same way as similar reactors did in the major nuclear powers, then switching it to the tritium-generation mode would yield a plutonium output of only 3.5 kg during the same period. According to various indicators, the reactor then remained in operation from December 2015 to February 2018, albeit not continuously, and not at full power. Using the same assumptions that we made for the previous operational period, it generated approximately 3.5 kg of plutonium. There were no signs of activity at the radiochemical lab during the period to September 2020, so this additional material has yet to be extracted from spent fuel. Taking into account these five campaigns, and factoring in the production losses of 10% during plutonium purification and metal fabrication, the total amount of the plutonium metal produced is between 38 and 50 kg. If the six nuclear tests collectively consumed 20 kg of plutonium,74 then the DPRK plutonium stockpile as of September 2020 is between 18 and 30 kg. HEU stockpile There is no reliable information as to when industrialscale enrichment began, how many enrichment facilities the DPRK has or what level of enrichment has been achieved. Thus, it is not possible to make estimates of the North Korean HEU stockpiles with any degree of accuracy. Estimates of the HEU stockpile are enormously uncertain compared to plutonium estimates. Table 3. Estimated plutonium production at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Centre Reactor Reactor campaigns operation Reprocessing Separated campaigns weapons-grade plutonium First 1986–1989 Three separate 0.5–4 kg reprocessing campaigns in 1989, 1990 and 1991 Second 1989–1994 2003 22–26 kg Third 2003–2005 2005 9–11 kg Fourth 2005–2007 2009 7–8 kg Fifth 2013–2015 2016 3.5–6 kg Sixth 2016–to date No signs of reprocessing Total ~42–55 kg Total minus 10% (production losses) ~38–50 kg All that is known is what the Stanford University delegation learned when it briefly visited a hitherto unknown uranium-enrichment workshop in November 2010. The chief process engineer told the US experts that the facility contained 2,000 centrifuges and had an enrichment capacity of 8,000 SWU/year, and that the average enrichment level was 3.5%. However, the delegation was not able to verify that the facility was actually operating at the time of the visit.75 If the centrifuges were to be reconfigured, Hecker judged that they could produce 30–40 kg of HEU annually.76 One kilo of HEU enriched to ~90% requires 200 SWU, although some losses are likely. Operating at full capacity, that first stage of the Yongbyon plant could have produced a total of 290–390 kg of HEU by the end of September 2020. If the plant capacity was doubled in 2014, as some experts suggest based on the doubling of the facility’s roof size, and if the facility has functioned well since the end of that year, then the annual SWU output at the Yongbyon plant would be 16,000, bringing the total potential HEU output by the end of September 2020 to 460–620 kg. Given that it has been shown to foreigners, however, it is unlikely that the Yongbyon enrichment workshop has been used to produce HEU. The more likely scenarios are that LEU produced there would be stockpiled for LEU fuel production, as claimed, or that some portion of it would have been sent to a still-secret location for further enrichment. 32 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies It is possible that HEU is produced at a facility in Chollima that some US experts have identified as an undisclosed enrichment facility. Satellite imagery in the public domain reveals that the main hall of the presumed enrichment plant is about the same size as the Yongbyon enrichment workshop and that it may have been operating since 2003. We can speculate that the facility at Chollima is a prototype of the enrichment plant at Yongbyon, and that it was used to prove, test and improve the technologies involved. The Chollima plant can therefore be regarded as a reference facility that guided the construction of the enrichment combine at Yongbyon. If so, the Chollima facility’s maximum enrichment capacity should be similar to the capacity of the first stage of the Yongbyon enrichment workshop, that is, 8,000 SWU/year. The combined enrichment capacity the DPRK has already installed could therefore be as high as 24,000 SWU/year, although this figure is based on unconfirmed assumptions and the likelihood of an error in these calculations is very high. In September 2009, the DPRK envoy to the UN said ‘the experimental uranium enrichment has successfully been conducted to enter into completion phase’.77 Assuming that the centrifuges did not function perfectly at the beginning, that it took some time to get the process up to speed and that the facility continues to be partially used for research-and-development work, we can speculate that the actual HEU output has been about 50% of the theoretical maximum (equal to the output of the plant at Yongbyon) for the period of its operation since 2003. This means that the Chollima enrichment facility may have produced about 255–340 kg of HEU up to September 2020. This estimate does not take into account that some of the HEU may have been used to make fuel for the IRT-2000 reactor. We cannot rule out, however, that the facility at Yongbyon was not actually involved in the HEU production process because the DPRK has previously announced plans to use the facility for making LEU (for use as fuel for the experimental light-water reactor currently being built). Taking this into account, and factoring in 10% production losses during HEU conversion to metallic form and the subsequent fabrication, the total DPRK production of HEU by September 2020 can be estimated at 230 kg at the lower end (assuming only production at Chollima) and up to 860 kg at the upper end (assuming both Chollima and Yongbyon were devoted to HEU). Since up to 50 kg of that HEU may have been used up in the nuclear tests conducted between 2013 and 2017, the remaining HEU stockpiles could range from 180 to 810 kg. We again emphasise that these estimates are based on assumptions for which there is little hard evidence, including operational efficiency and the number and size of undisclosed facilities. Tritium stockpile There are no confirmed reports on tritium production and separation in North Korea, so we have to rely instead on known information about tritium production at the early stages of the major nuclear countries’ programmes. Based on this experience, we estimate that the 5 MWe Magnox reactor could potentially generate about 10 g of tritium every year; the entire 2013–2015 campaign thus would have yielded about 20 g. Out of that quantity, about 10 g may have been used up for the fourth and sixth nuclear tests. If so, and taking into account production losses, this would leave North Korea with an estimated tritium stockpile of about 7–8 g as of September 2020. Given its half-life Table 4. Possible HEU production92 Facility HEU/year Years operated Original Yongbyon Expanded Yongbyon Yongbyon subtotal Chollima Total both facilities 30–40 kg 30–40 kg 15–20 kg 75–100 kg 9 years 9 months (2011–2020) 5 years 9 months (2015–2020) 17 (2003–2020) Stockpile 290–390 kg 170–230 kg 460–620 kg 255–340 kg 715–960 kg Minus 10% (production losses) Minus 50 kg (used in the nuclear tests) 410–560 kg 230–310 kg 640–860 kg 410–560 kg 180–260 kg 590–810 kg Part I: DPRK Nuclear Programme Development and Current Capabilities 33 of 12.3 years, tritium has to be produced periodically to be used in the DPRK nuclear-weapons programme. Weaponisation and miniaturisation Although it is not known if the six nuclear devices that North Korea has tested to date were functioning nuclear weapons, there is no reason to doubt the country’s ability to manufacture such weapons. The DPRK likely has been developing nuclear weapons since the late 1980s to early 1990s, when overhead imagery first detected highexplosives experiments near Yongbyon and at Yongdok. The sixth test in September 2017 had a yield in the thermonuclear range. Given the success that North Korea has demonstrated in other aspects of its nuclear and missile programmes, fashioning a deliverable nuclear weapon and making it small enough to fit into one of the existing aircraft or the nose cone of a North Korean ballistic missile is likely within Pyongyang’s technical capabilities. In March 2016, Kim Jong Un posed next to a bomb mock-up that he called a ‘Korean-style structure of mixed charge … adequate for prompt thermonuclear reaction’. This may have meant weapons with composite pits using both plutonium and HEU, and boosted with hydrogen isotopes.78 Making warheads sufficiently sturdy to survive the heat and buffeting of atmospheric re-entry is a more difficult challenge, but not beyond North Korea’s engineering prowess. It can likely build a warhead sufficiently rugged for delivery by aircraft or short- and medium-range missiles. But it would most likely need several years or so and a period of testing to have confidence that its warheads can meet the more stringent durability and total heat-absorption requirements of intercontinental travel and hypersonic speed.79 Warheads stockpile The two main factors that dictate the size of the nuclear-warheads stockpile are the availability of weapons-grade fissile material and improvements in the implosion-detonation system. The earliest tests of implosion-type nuclear devices in other nuclear-armed states used about 6 kg of plutonium, but that figure fell sharply with progress in bomb design. The first three North Korean tests were probably aimed at optimising the mass of the plutonium and the energy yield of the device. Assuming that the average amount of plutonium used is about 4 kg, a stockpile of 18–30 kg of plutonium is enough to build between four and seven nuclear warheads. Estimating the number of warheads made using HEU is a more difficult proposition. We conservatively assume 20 kg of HEU per device. If North Korea has 180–810 kg of HEU, that would be sufficient for about 9–40 warheads. Figures 17–18. Chairman Kim Jong Un visits nuclear weapons research and design facilities Source: Getty 34 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies In view of the numerous unknown variables and the likelihood of serious errors in our calculations, we can only make a very rough estimate that as of September 2020, the DPRK could be in possession of enough nuclear material (HEU and weapons-grade plutonium) to make between 13 and 47 nuclear warheads. To put this figure into perspective, Israel is estimated to have between 80 and 90 warheads, India 130–140 and Pakistan 150–160.80 Since Pyongyang possesses an estimated capacity to make up to 6 kg of plutonium and up to 100 kg of HEU every year, which production losses would then reduce by up to 10%, we can speculate that the DPRK may be able to produce enough nuclear material every year to make up to five nuclear warheads. Most of this capacity resides at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Centre. We can therefore assess that dismantling all Yongbyon facilities (which the DPRK and the US discussed at the Hanoi summit in February 2019) would significantly reduce Pyongyang’s capability to make weaponsusable fissile materials. If Chollima is the only other enrichment plant, then eliminating the Yongbyon facilities would reduce North Korea’s weapons-production capacity by about 80%. To date, North Korea may only have manufactured a single device of a thermonuclear yield (the one used in the sixth test). But many experts, both in Russia and in the US, doubt the DPRK’s current ability to build thermonuclear warheads suitable for mounting on its existing aircraft and missile-delivery systems. Nuclear mission accomplished? On 20 April 2018, Kim Jong Un announced at a meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea that further nuclear tests and test launches of intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles were unnecessary, ‘given that the work for mounting nuclear warheads on ballistic rockets is finished’. A resolution adopted at the meeting referred to having made ‘nuclear weapons smaller and lighter’ and stated that ‘the work for putting on a higher level the technology of mounting nuclear warheads on ballistic rockets has been reliably realised’.81 This decision came as a surprise to analysts who had assumed that North Korea would continue nuclear testing to perfect advanced compact weapons and to increase their reliability and survivability. The five NPT-recognised nuclear-weapons states all felt the need to conduct dozens, if not hundreds, of tests in order to validate and enhance their capabilities. Yet in both the missile and nuclear realms, North Korea has never followed the testing patterns of the more advanced states. It may instead be comparable to India and Pakistan, both of which stopped after a Figures 19–20. DPRK stamp album to commemorate 'accomplishment of the historic cause of perfecting the national nuclear forces' Source: Private collection Part I: DPRK Nuclear Programme Development and Current Capabilities 35 single testing series involving five or six tests (and in India’s case, an earlier one-off detonation). At the other extreme, Israel has conducted at the most only one test. Speaking in late December 2019 at the 5th Plenary Meeting of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Chairman Kim Jong Un announced that in the absence of reciprocal steps by the US, Pyongyang no longer considered itself bound by any unilateral moratoria.82 That statement, however, did not necessarily mean that a resumption of nuclear tests by the DPRK was imminent, and as of September 2020, nuclear testing has not resumed. There may thus be a window of opportunity for policymakers to engage with North Korea without the pressure of rising diplomatic tensions or nuclear sabre-rattling. 36 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Notes 1 Oleg Davydov, ‘Problemy Koreiskogo poluostrova i vozmojnyie puti ih resheniya’ [‘Problems of the Korean Peninsula and Their Prospective Solutions’], Rossiia i ATR [Russia and Asia Pacific Region], no. 3, 2018, pp. 69–70. 2 Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, ‘A History of US Nuclear Weapons in South Korea’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 73, no. 6, 2017, pp. 349–57, https://thebulletin. org/2017/11/a-history-of-us-nuclear-weapons-in-south-korea/. 3 ‘Dogovor o druzhbe, sotrudnichestve i vzaimnoj pomoshhi mezhdu SSSR i KNDR’ [‘The Soviet–DPRK Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance Treaty of 1961’], in Otnoshenija Sovetskogo Sojuza s narodnoj Koreej, 1945–1980: Dokumenty i materialy [Soviet Union’s Relations with the People’s Korea, 1945–80: Documents and Materials] (Moscow: Nauka, 1981), pp. 196–8; ‘Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance Between the People’s Republic of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’, 11 July 1961, Peking Review, vol. 4, no. 28, p. 5, available at https://www.marxists.org/subject/china/documents/china_dprk.htm. 4 Vladimir Shin, ‘Yadernaya problema KNDR: process uregulirovanija’ [‘DPRK Nuclear Problem: The Settlement Process’], in Yuri Vanin (ed.), Koreja na rubezhe vekov [Korea on the Threshold of Centuries] (Moscow: IVRAN, 2002), p. 201. 5 William Burr, ‘The United States and South Korea’s Nuclear Weapons Program, 1974–76’, Wilson Center, 14 March 2017, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/the-united-states-andsouth-koreas-nuclear-weapons-program-1974-1976. 6 ‘Memorandum, Hungarian National Commission of Atomic Energy to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry’, 31 August 1976, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Wilson Center, https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/111477. 7 See, for example, Bruce Klingner, ‘Why Does North Korea Want Nukes?’, Insider, 13 August 2018, https://www.heritage.org/ insider/summer-2018-insider/why-does-north-korea-wantnukes; Georgy Toloraya, ‘Can Diplomacy Work with North Korea?’, 38 North, 13 December 2017, https://www.38north. org/2017/12/gtoloraya121317/. 8 Alexander Zhebin, ‘Koreja na rasput’e’ [‘Korea at the Crossroads’], in Alexander Zhebin (ed.), KNDR i RK – 70 let [The DPRK and the ROK: The 70th Anniversary of Foundation] (Moscow: IDVRAN, 2018), p. 29. 9 Valery Sukhinin, ‘Vozmozhen li proryv v reshenii yadernoj problemy Korejskogo poluostrova?’ [‘Is a Breakthrough Possible in Solving the Korean Peninsula Nuclear Problem?]’, Doklad na 25-oj konferencii IDV RAN – Centr ATR Han’janskogo universiteta ‘Rossija – RK: na puti k vzaimovygodnomu partnerstvu v XXI veke‘ [Materials of the 25th International Research Conference by IDVRAN– Asia-Pacific Research Centre of the Hanyang University: ‘RussiaROK: On a Path To Mutually Beneficial Cooperation in the 21st Century’] (Moscow: IDVRAN, 2013), p. 99. 10 Uranium enrichment was in contravention of paragraph 3 of the 1992 North–South Joint Declaration on the Denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula (‘South and North Korea shall not possess … uranium enrichment facilities’), which the Agreed Framework required the DPRK to implement. 11 ‘Six-party Talks Issue Joint Statement’, Beijing, 19 September 2005, 2005, available, inter alia, at https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ ce/cgvienna/eng/xw/t212692.htm. 12 In 2012, the preamble to the DPRK Constitution was amended to include the following phrase: ‘In the face of the collapse of the world socialist system and the vicious offensive of the imperialist allied forces to stifle the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Comrade Kim Jong II […] developed the DPRK into […] a nuclear state.’ That phrase was not changed when new constitutional amendments were made after that. Nevertheless, the assertion of the DPRK nuclear-weapons status is not repeated in any of the 172 articles of the DPRK Constitution. ‘N.K. calls itself "nuclear-armed state" in revised constitution’, Korea Herald, 30 May 2012, http://www.koreaherald.com/ view.php?ud=20120530001382; See Socialist Constitution of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Pyongyang, Korea, Juche 106 (2017), p. 2. 13 ‘Report on Plenary Meeting of WPK Central Committee’, KCNA, 31 March 2013. 14 Ilya Dyachkov, Nemirnyj atom Severo-Vostochnoj Azii: korejskij uzel [Non-Peaceful Atom of Northeast Asia: the Korean Knot] (Moscow: MGIMO-University Publishing House, 2016), pp. 36–8. 15 Alexander Likholetov, ‘Severokorejskij nemirnyj atom. Uchastie SSSR v stanovlenii jadernoj programmy KNDR’ [‘DPRK Nonpeaceful Atom. Soviet Participation in the DPRK Nuclear Programme’], Agency for Federal Investigations, 10 December 2009, https://old.flb.ru/info/46723.html. 16 Open report of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), ‘Novyj vyzov posle “holodnoj vojny”: rasprostranenie oruzhija massovogo unichtozhenija’ [‘New Challenge After the Cold War: Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction’], 1993, p. 92, http://svr.gov.ru/material/2-13-10.htm. Part I: DPRK Nuclear Programme Development and Current Capabilities 37 17 ‘Report of the UN Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009)’, 27 February 2017, p. 49, https://undocs. org/S/2017/150. 18 Yuri Yudin, ‘Tehnicheskie aspekty jadernoj programmy KNDR’ [‘Technical Aspects of the DPRK Nuclear Programme’], Yaderny Kontrol, no. 1, 2006, p. 131. 19 Alexander Likholetov, ‘Uchastie SSSR v stanovlenii yadernoj programmy KNDR’ [‘On Soviet Role in the North Korean Nuclear Programme’], Yaderny Klub, no. 3, 2010, p. 37; Alexander Zhebin, ‘A Political History of Soviet–North Korean Nuclear Cooperation’, in James Clay Moltz and Alexandre Y. Mansourov (eds), The North Korean Nuclear Program: Security, Strategy, and New Perspectives from Russia (New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 31. 20 Elisabeth Eaves, ‘North Korean Nuclear Test Shows Steady Advance: Interview with Siegfried Hecker’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 7 September 2017, https://thebulletin. org/2017/09/north-korean-nuclear-test-shows-steady-advanceinterview-with-siegfried-hecker/; ‘North Korea’s Nuclear Ambitions and Abilities’, NPR, 11 March 2018, https:// www.npr.org/2018/03/11/592700149/north-koreas-nuclearambitions-and-abilities; Uzi Rubin, presentation at the CENESS Workshop, ‘Assessing North Korea’s Missile and Space Programs: Implications for Possible Talks’, Moscow, 20 April 2018, slides 34–39; Discussion with a former IAEA official, Vienna, Austria, October 2018. 21 Alexander Likholetov, ‘Severokorejskij nemirnyj atom. Uchastie SSSR v stanovlenii jadernoj programmy KNDR’ [‘DPRK Nonpeaceful Atom. Soviet Participation in the DPRK Nuclear Programme’], Agency for Federal Investigations, 10 December 2009, https://old.flb.ru/info/46723.html. 22 A conversation between Soviet Ambassador to the DPRK V.P. Moskovsky and Soviet specialists working in North Korea, 16 October 1963, APRF, f. 0102, record no. 10, p. 97, d. 5, l. 185. Cit. from: Dyachkov, Nemirnyj atom SeveroVostochnoj Azii: korejskij uzel, p. 54. 23 Olli Heinonen, ‘North Korea’s Nuclear Enrichment: Capabilities and Consequences’, 38 North, 22 June 2011, https://www.38north. org/2011/06/heinonen062211/. 24 ‘North Korea: Nuclear Program of Proliferation Concern’, CIA, 22 March 1989, p. 1, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/ NSAEBB87/nk13.pdf. 25 Harold A. Feiveson et al., Unmaking the Bomb: A Fissile Material Approach to Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2014), p. 64. 26 The same applies to items that have nothing to do with the defence industry. For example, despite growing tensions with Seoul, Tokyo and Washington, many SUVs made by US or Japanese car producers have been spotted in Pyongyang in recent years; various consumer-electronics items from South Korea have also become commonplace. 27 ‘German Company Fined over Nuclear Material’, United Press International, 28 March 1990, https://www.upi.com/ Archives/1990/03/28/German-company-fined-over-nuclearmaterial/7589638600400/. 28 ‘DPRK: Eurochemic and Calder Hall Clones’, Nuclear Monitor, no. 411, 6 May 1994, https://wiseinternational.org/ nuclear-monitor/411/dprk-eurochemic-and-calder-hall-clones. 29 R. Jeffrey Smith, ‘N. Korea Adds Arms Capacity’, Washington Post, 2 April 1994, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/ politics/1994/04/02/n-korea-adds-arms-capacity/b774cf94cb93-43c2-80ca-ee1592522eed/?utm_term=.d6d78f8779bf; Mansoor Ijaz and R. James Woolsey, ‘Cut Supply Lines That Fuel Pyongyang’s Nuclear Dreams’, Los Angeles Times, 12 January 2003, http://articles.latimes.com/2003/jan/12/opinion/ op-woolsey12. 30 Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (New York: Free Press, 2006), p. 294. 31 ‘Report of the Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009)’, May 2011, p. 18, http://www.nkeconwatch.com/nkuploads/UN-Panel-of-Experts-NORK-Report-May-2011.pdf. 32 Ibid., p. 19. 33 Chaim Braun et al., ‘North Korean Nuclear Facilities After the Agreed Framework’, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, 27 May 2016, p. 27, https://fsi-live.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/ khucisacfinalreport_compressed.pdf. 34 Open Report of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, ‘Novyj vyzov posle “holodnoj vojny”: rasprostranenie oruzhija massovogo unichtozhenija’ [New Challenges After the Cold War: Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction’], 1993, http:// svr.gov.ru/material/otkrytye-doklady-svr-rossii/novyy-vyzovposle-kholodnoy-voyny-rasprostranenie-oruzhiya-massovogounichtozheniya-otkrytyy-doklad-/prilozhenie/kndr.htm; Melissa Hanham and Grace Liu, et al, ‘Monitoring Uranium Mining and Milling in China and North Korea through Remote Sensing Imagery’, Center for Nonproliferation Studies Occasional Paper no. 40, 31 October 2018, https://nonproliferation.org/op40monitoring-uranium-mining-and-milling-in-china-and-northkorea-through-remote-sensing-imagery/, p. 8. 38 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies 35 Hui Zhang, ‘Assessing North Korea’s Uranium Enrichment Capabilities’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 18 June 2009, http:// thebulletin.org/assessing-north-koreas-uranium-enrichmentcapabilities/. 36 IAEA, ‘Application of Safeguards in the DPRK. Report by the Director-General’, GOV/2011/53-GC(55)/24, 2 September 2011, p. 7, para 28, https://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC55/ GC55Documents/Russian/gc55-24_rus.pdf. 37 Igor Beckman, ‘Nuclear Physics Lecture Course’, chapter 12 (Moscow: Moscow State University, 2010), http://profbeckman. narod.ru/Uran.files/Glava12_2.pdf. 38 Jeffrey Lewis, ‘Satellite Imagery: North Korea Expanding Uranium Production’, Diplomat, 14 August 2015, https:// thediplomat.com/2015/08/satellite-imagery-north-koreaexpanding-uranium-production/. 39 David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, ‘Tests Said to Tie Deal on Uranium to North Korea’, New York Times, 2 February 2005, https://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/02/washington/tests-said-totie-deal-on-uranium-to-north-korea.html. See also Ian Traynor, ‘North Korean Nuclear Trade Exposed’, Guardian, 24 May 2004, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/24/northkorea.libya. 40 Siegfried S. Hecker, ‘Redefining Denuclearization in North Korea’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 20 December 2010, https://thebulletin.org/2010/12/redefining-denuclearization-innorth-korea-2/. 41 IAEA, ‘Application of Safeguards in the DPRK. Report by the Director-General’, GOV/2011/53-GC(55)/24 2 September 2011, p. 7, para 29, https://www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC55/ GC55Documents/Russian/gc55-24_rus.pdf. 42 Braun et al., ‘North Korean Nuclear Facilities After the Agreed Framework’, p. 27. 43 Siegfried S. Hecker, ‘A Return Trip to North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex’, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, 20 November 2010, https:// cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/publications/north_koreas_yongbyon_ nuclear_complex_a_report_by_siegfried_s_hecker. 44 In some articles and research papers, the facility is called the Kangson Enrichment Site. Ankit Panda, ‘Exclusive: Revealing Kangson, North Korea’s First Covert Uranium Enrichment Site’, Diplomat, 13 July 2018, https://thediplomat.com/2018/07/ exclusive-revealing-kangson-north-koreas-first-coverturanium-enrichment-site/. 45 Ibid. 46 Anatoly Diakov, ‘Yaderno-oruzhejnyj kompleks i denuk- learizacija Severnoj Korei’ [‘The Nuclear-Weapons Complex and Denuclearization of North Korea’], Kontury global’nyh transformacij: politika, ekonomika, pravo [Outlines of Global Transformations: Politics, Economics, Law], no. 6, 2018, pp. 68–80, https://www.ogt-journal.com/jour/article/view/372/368. 47 ‘Dogovor o nerasprostranenii jadernogo oruzhija. Problemy prodlenija’ [‘Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Problems of its Extension’], Report of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), April 1995, p. 54, http://svr. gov.ru/material/4-korea.htm. 48 David Albright, Sarah Burkhard and Allison Lach, ‘On-going Monitoring of Activities at the Yongbyon Nuclear Site’, Institute for Science and International Security, 13 February 2018, http:// isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/on-going-monitoring-ofactivities-at-the-yongbyon-nuclear-site. The reactor could also be used to produce plutonium. However, it should be noted that if the light-water reactor is safeguarded, any attempt to produce plutonium would be detected, as would any effort to reprocess the plutonium. The DPRK would also have to construct a new reprocessing facility. 49 Zhebin, ‘A Political History of Soviet–North Korean Nuclear Cooperation’, p. 34. 50 The Russian abbreviation VVER stands for ‘water-water energy reactor’ (i.e., water-cooled water-moderated energy reactor). 51 David Albright, ‘Denuclearizing North Korea’, Institute for Science and International Security, 14 May 2018, http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/ Albright_North_Korea_slides_for_denuclearization_talk_ may_14%2C_2018_final.pdf. 52 Ibid. See also Braun et al., ‘North Korean Nuclear Facilities After the Agreed Framework’, p. 57. 53 ‘Memorandum, Hungarian Foreign Ministry’, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Wilson Center, 16 February 1976, https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/111471. 54 Open report of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), ‘Novyj vyzov posle “holodnoj vojny”: rasprostranenie oruzhija massovogo unichtozhenija’ p. 92. 55 David E. Sanger, ‘Pakistani Says He Saw North Korean Nuclear Devices’, New York Times, 13 April 2004, https://www.nytimes. com/2004/04/13/world/pakistani-says-he-saw-north-koreannuclear-devices.html. 56 ‘Putin Says Kim Jong II Told Him about North Korea’s Nukes Back in Early 2000s’, TASS, 4 October 2017, http://tass.com/ politics/968939. 57 Siegfried S. Hecker, ‘Report on North Korean Nuclear Program’, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Part I: DPRK Nuclear Programme Development and Current Capabilities 39 Stanford University, 15 November 2006, p. 2, https://fas.org/ nuke/guide/dprk/nuke/hecker1106.pdf. 58 Two months after the February 2013 test, International Monitoring System stations in Japan and Russia detected a large concentration of radioactive noble gases that may have been released by the nuclear explosion, but the detection came too late to determine whether the bomb used plutonium or HEU. See ‘CTBTO Detects Radioactivity Consistent with 12 February Announced North Korean Nuclear Test’, Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), Press Release, 23 April 2013, https://www.ctbto.org/press-centre/pressreleases/2013/ctbto-detects-radioactivity-consistent-with-12february-announced-north-korean-nuclear-test/. 59 ‘Technical Findings’, Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization, 7 September 2017, https://www.ctbto. org/the-treaty/developments-after-1996/2017-sept-dprk/ technical-findings/. 60 Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, ‘North Korean Nuclear Capabilities, 2018’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 74, no 1, 2018, https://thebulletin.org/2018/01/ north-korean-nuclear-capabilities-2018/. 61 Robert Kelly, ‘North Korea’s Sixth Nuclear Test: What Do We Know So Far?’, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 5 September 2017, https://www.sipri. org/commentary/expert-comment/2017/north-koreas-sixthnuclear-test-what-do-we-know-so-far. That device was employed in the Mk-18 bomb, which weighs ~3,800 kg and has a diameter of ~1.5 m. The ‘classical’ thermonuclear Mk-28 bomb, which had a yield about three times higher, was ~3.8 times lighter and ~3 times smaller in diameter. See ‘Complete List of All U.S. Nuclear Weapons’, Nuclear Weapons Archive, http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Weapons/Allbombs.html. 62 Eaves, ‘North Korean Nuclear Test Shows Steady Advance: Interview with Siegfried Hecker’. 63 Some US experts estimate that sometime around 2002, the DPRK probably launched a pilot uranium-enrichment facility in the city of Chollima. In 2009, the DPRK sent a letter to the President of the UN Security Council claiming that ‘experimental uranium enrichment has been successfully conducted to enter into completion phase’. See Panda, ‘Exclusive: Revealing Kangson, North Korea’s First Covert Uranium Enrichment Site’; and ‘DPRK Permanent Representative Sends Letter to President of UNSC’, KCNA, 4 September 2009, http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2009/200909/news04/2009090404ee.html. 64 These estimates have a wide margin of error because there is no data on the precise geological characteristics of the area near the Punggye-ri nuclear test site or the depth of nuclear-device detonation. These variables have a direct impact on the registered magnitude of the seismic events. 65 Richard L. Garwin and Frank N. von Hippel, ‘A Technical Analysis: Deconstructing North Korea’s October 9 Nuclear Test’, Arms Control Today, November 2006, https://www. armscontrol.org/act/2006-11/features/technical-analysisdeconstructing-north-korea%E2%80%99s-october-9nuclear-test. 66 ComprehensiveNuclear-Test-BanTreatyOrganization(CTBTO), ‘RN16, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada’, https:// www.ctbto.org/verification-regime/featured-stations/types/ radionuclide/rn16-yellowknifenorthwest-territories-canada/. 67 Samat Smagulov, ‘O Pervom Yadernom Ispytanii KNDR’ [‘North Korea’s First Nuclear Test’], Yaderny Klub, no. 3–4, 2012, p. 36. 68 James R. Clapper, ‘Statement for the Record on the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’, 16 February 2011, p. 5, http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20110216_testimony_sfr.pdf. 69 Monitoring stations in Takasaki (Japan), Ussuriysk (Russia) and Yellowknife (Canada) are part of the CTBTO International Monitoring System (IMS). 70 ‘CTBTO Detects Radioactivity Consistent with 12 February Announced North Korean Nuclear Test’, 23 April 2013. 71 KCNA statement available at Ted Kemp, ‘North Korea Hydrogen Bomb: Read the Full Announcement from Pyongyang’, CNBC News, 3 September 2017, https://www. cnbc.com/2017/09/03/north-korea-hydrogen-bomb-read-thefull-announcement-from-pyongyang.html. 72 The IRT-2000 reactor worked on 10%-enriched fuel between 1965 and 1973. It was then upgraded by North Korean specialists to use HEU-based fuel. In 1993, DPRK representatives told IAEA inspectors that about 300 mg of plutonium was extracted from the reactor’s spent fuel in 1975. See, for example, Anatoliy Diakov, ‘North Korea’s Special Path to Nuclear Weapons: Proceedings of the Conference of the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe, Montreux’, 2013, p. 53, http://www.luxembourgforum.org/media/documents/ Montreux_2013_eng.pdf. 73 According to the data available, the last shipment of the 36%-enriched fuel took place in 1990. See G. Kaurov, ‘A Technical History of Soviet–North Korean Nuclear Relations’, in James Clay Moltz and Alexandre Y. Mansourov (eds.) The North 40 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Korean Nuclear Program: Security, Strategy, and New Perspectives from Russia (New York : Routledge, 2000), p. 17. 74 Yudin, ‘Tehnicheskie aspekty jadernoj programmy KNDR’, p. 132. 75 Our estimates of DPRK plutonium production draw from the following sources: Diakov, ‘North Korea’s Special Path to Nuclear Weapons: Proceedings of the Conference of the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe’, pp. 53–60; Diakov, ‘Yaderno-oruzhejnyj kompleks i denuklearizacija Severnoj Korei’; Yudin, ‘Tehnicheskie aspekty jadernoj programmy KNDR’; David Albright and Paul Brannan, ‘The North Korean Plutonium Stock, February 2007’, Institute for Science and International Security, 20 February 2007, https://www.isis-online.org/publications/ dprk/DPRKplutoniumFEB.pdf; Siegfried Hecker, Chaim Braun and Chris Lawrence, ‘North Korea’s Stockpiles of Fissile Material’, Korea Observer, vol. 47, no. 4, 2016, pp. 721–49, http://www.iks.or.kr/rankup_module/rankup_board/ attach/vol47no4/14833231665766.pdf. 76 Discussion with Siegfried S. Hecker, February 2019; S.S. Hecker, R.L. Carlin, and E.A. Serbin, ‘A Technical and Political History of North Korea’s Nuclear Program over the Past 26 Years’, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, 24 May 2018, https://fsi-live.s3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com/s3fspublic/narrativescombinedfinv2.pdf. 77 Yudin, ‘Tehnicheskie aspekty jadernoj programmy KNDR’, p. 132. 78 Albright and Brannan, ‘The North Korean Plutonium Stock, February 2007’.3 Braun et al., ‘North Korean Nuclear Facilities After the Agreed Framework’ p. 6. 79 Ibid., p. 42. 80 Ibid., p. 11. 81 Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr. ‘More Evidence of Possible Reprocessing Campaign at Yongbyon; Progress at Experimental Light Water Reactor’, 38 North, 15 April 2016, https://www.38north. org/2016/04/yongbyon041516/. 82 Braun et al., ‘North Korean Nuclear Facilities After the Agreed Framework’, Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University, 27 May 2016, p. 56, https://fsi-live.s3.uswest-1.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/khucisacfinalreport_ compressed.pdf. 83 The amount used is unknown. Estimates of the DPRK plutonium stockpile in this report are based on the assumption that plutonium was used in five out of the six nuclear tests so far, and that an average of 4 kg was used in each test. The total amount spent is therefore 20 kg. In view of the DPRK’s limited plutonium stockpile, the state of the plutonium infrastructure and Pyongyang’s presumed focus on HEU production in recent years, we assess that at least one of the six tests exclusively used HEU, with no plutonium. South Korea assumes that the six weapons tests used up 6 kg of plutonium each. North Korea claims that the first test used only 2 kg. 84 Siegfried S. Hecker, ‘A Return Trip to North Korea’s Yongbyon Nuclear Complex’. 85 Hecker, ‘What I Found in North Korea’, Foreign Affairs, 9 December 2010, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ northeast-asia/2010-12-09/what-i-found-north-korea. For an alternative calculation of 26 kg of HEU annual production capacity, see David Albright and Paul Brannan, ‘Satellite Image Shows Building Containing Centrifuges in North Korea’, Institute for Science and International Security, 21 November 2010, https://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/satellite-imageshows-building-containing-centrifuges-in-north-korea/10. 86 ‘DPRK Permanent Representative Sends Letter to President of UNSC’, KCNA, 4 September 2009, http://www.kcna.co.jp/ item/2009/200909/news04/20090904-04ee.html. 87 Due to rounding errors, the last two columns do not total precisely. 88 Jeffrey Lewis, ‘North Korea’s Nuke Program Is Way More Sophisticated Than You Think’, Foreign Policy, 9 September 2016, https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/09/09/northkoreas-nuclear-program-is-way-more-sophisticated-anddangerous-than-you-think/. 89 Eaves, ‘Talk To North Korea To Avert a Nuclear Disaster: An Interview with Siegfried Hecker’. 90 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, [‘Modernization Of W orld Nuclear Weapons Continues Despite Overall Decrease In Number Of Warheads: New SIPRI Yearbook Out Now’], 17 June 2019, https://www. sipri.org/media/press-release/2019/modernization-worldnuclear-forces-continues-despite-overall-decrease-numberwarheads-new-sipri. It is worth emphasising, however, that unlike the DPRK, none of those three countries have ever acceded to the NPT. 91 ‘DPRK Report on the Third Plenary Meeting of the Seventh Central Committee’, The National Committee on North Korea, 21 April 2018, https://www.ncnk.org/resources/publications/dprk_report_ third_plenary_meeting_of_seventh_central_committee_of_wpk.pdf. 92 ‘Report on 5th Plenary Meeting of 7th C.C., WPK’, DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1 January 2020, http://www.mfa. gov.kp/en/report-on-5th-plenary-meeting-of-7th-c-c-wpk/. Part I: DPRK Nuclear Programme Development and Current Capabilities 41 42 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies PartTwo: Ballistic-Missile Development and Current Capabilities History of ballistic-missile development The first step towards a DPRK missile capability was acquisition of artillery rocket systems in the late 1960s. The quest to acquire an indigenous ballistic-missile production capability and the formation of the missile forces began in the mid-1970s, in response to the ROK’s attempt to create a short-range missile. In 1974, South Korean president Park Chung-hee ordered the launch of a secret missile programme called Baekgom, or White Bear, which was part of the larger nuclear-weapons efforts codenamed Project 890.1 As part of the missile programme, the South Koreans aimed (with assistance from French specialists) to reverse-engineer the US-made surface-to-air Nike Hercules2 missile in order to give it a surface-to-surface capability, increase its range to 350 km and begin its domestic production.3 Meanwhile, since the mid-1970s the ballistic-missile programme has been one of the national priorities in the DPRK and has received high-level human, financial and material resources. Pyongyang has developed an extensive array of missile systems with an increasingly long range. Like the nuclear programme, the original motivation was to have the ability both to deter and to coerce, in line with the state’s top priority of possessing robust military forces vis-à-vis South Korea and the US forces in the region. The main objectives the DPRK missile industry is currently trying to achieve most likely include the ability to engage targets on the US mainland; a greater survivability of the nuclear-armed Figure 21. A stand-in board in Pyongyang Source: Private collection Part Two: Ballistic-Missile Development and Current Capabilities 43 Figures 22–23. SLV mock-ups in a North Korean children’s art centre and Sci-Tech Complex Source: Getty short- and medium-range mobile ballistic missiles; development of a sea-based component of the nuclear triad; and increasing the ability of North Korean missile systems to penetrate US missile defences. In the late 1980s to early 1990s, the DPRK missile industry became an active exporter. This was mainly to earn cash for further development of the missile programme, including for the procurement of components and related equipment from abroad.4 According to some estimates, exports from the DPRK accounted for more than 40% of worldwide global theatre ballistic-missile exports in the 1987–2009 period.5 It is believed that Pyongyang’s annual exports of missile weaponry reached US$200m–US$400m6 in some years.7 Missiles and satellite-launch vehicles (SLVs) are a matter of national pride for the DPRK. They are widely exhibited during military parades, and their mock-ups and images are on proud display at festivals, museums, exhibitions, hotels, children’s facilities and other public places. Every successful SLV launch, as well as test launches of the most advanced missiles, is commemorated on postage stamps or entire collector sets of them. Figure 24–26. SLVs mockups and images displayed in Pyongyang in hotel, flower festival, and airport Source: Private collection 44 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Development of missile technology and knowledge One thing that should be clarified early on is that even experts specialising in the North Korean missile programme sometimes get confused about the names of the DPRK missiles currently undergoing trials or already in service. That is because the names used in the foreign literature and online resources – including the Nodong and the Musudan – were coined by out-ofKorea observers and do not match the designations used in the DPRK itself. Foreign articles and research papers often name missiles after the locations where they were observed or tested. For example, the name of the Nodong family of medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) derives from the old name of the Nodongni site in South Hamgyong Province, where the first test launch took place.8 In the DPRK itself, these missiles are called Hwasong (화성), which means ‘Mars’ in Korean. The first member of the Hwasong family is designated the Hwasong-1, the third the Hwasong-3, and so on. In some cases, there are different Russian, US and NATO designations for the same North Korean missile. For example, the missile called the Hwasong-3 in the DPRK is referred to as the Luna-M in Russia and the FROG-7 (FROG: Free Rocket Over Ground) in the NATO sources, whereas the Hwasong-9 is called the KN-04 (KN: Korea, North) in the US and the Scud-ER (extended range) in the NATO sources. In this report, we use North Korean names for consistency, adding the most commonly used foreign name in parenthesis at first mention.9 The DPRK missile programme was based on the same three pillars as the nuclear programme: highly skilled and motivated scientists and engineers; extensive use of open-source information; and concerted efforts to procure technology, equipment and materials using diversified channels. Probably the most significant difference from the nuclear programme was the DPRK’s intergovernmental cooperation with other countries interested in developing missile technology or acquiring a missile arsenal – primarily Iran, Pakistan and Libya – at some stages of Pyongyang’s missile programme. North Korean engineers’ technological solutions are inspired by the world’s leading schools of rocket engineering, including the Soviet, Chinese and US schools. For example, some missile-technology specialists believe that the Hwasong-10 (Musudan) has similarities with the Soviet submarine-launched R-27. The two missiles have a similar engine layout and configuration, and they both use the same fuel/oxidiser combination.10 Some experts conclude that the geometry of the Hwasong-5’s (KN-18) manoeuvrable re-entry vehicle (MaRV) is similar to that of the US mobile intermediate-range ballistic missile Pershing II.11 Some specialists note that the launcher paraded by North Koreans in October 2017 and the transportererector-launcher (TEL) used for the Chinese long-range road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Dongfeng-31A have very similar missile canisters.12 Also, several analysts indicate that the Hwasong-15 and the US-made Titan II SLV/ICBM show close similarities in terms of their first-stage engine layout, which includes two powerful main thruster chambers that also double as steering engines.13 Some other analysts believe that Hwasong-15’s TEL is based on the Chinese eight-axle heavy truck, the WS51200.14 In a February 2018 military parade, North Korea displayed a new short-range ballistic missile (SRBM), which is believed to share many features of the Ukrainian Grom (or Hrim), South Korea’s Hyunmoo-2B missile and the Russian-produced Iskander.15 A new North Korean solid-fuel, short-range missile – twice tested in August 2019 and designated by the US as KN-24 – resembles the US MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System (ATacMS). This list of ‘similarities’ is by no means complete, but copying the geometry of someone else’s successful design or borrowing layout solutions is a common practice in missile engineering. As was the case with some nuclear technologies (uranium centrifuges, for example), the DPRK sought to acquire samples of missile hardware and related equipment for detailed study and reverse engineering. That is how the DPRK acquired the engine for its short- and medium-range liquid-fuel missiles (from the Hwasong-5 to the Hwasong-9) and the short-range solid-fuel systems (the Hwasong-11). The former was based on the Soviet Scud-B missiles, and the latter on the Tochka missiles, acquired from Egypt and Syria, respectively. Part Two: Ballistic-Missile Development and Current Capabilities 45 North Korea also tried to gain access to technical documentation and recruit specialists with experience in the design and manufacture of missiles. Representatives of the Ukrainian Yuzhmash missileproduction plant have confirmed that some of the company’s specialists left for the DPRK when the company was idling its capacity and running up wage arrears.16 That is probably how Pyongyang obtained the RD-250 engine technology using Ukrainian documentation, and that technology was used for the next generation of missiles, some of which analysts estimate may be capable of an intercontinental range (Hwasong-14, Hwasong-15).17 Some senior representatives of the Ukrainian missile industry speculate that Pyongyang may have obtained the RD-250 technical documentation from the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau in Dnipro, Ukraine, via China, because Yuzhnoye has been working with the Chinese for more than two decades.18 There are, however, no reliable sources to corroborate that claim. Current missile capabilities The core of the North Korean missile arsenal is currently believed to consist of ground-based mobile SRBMs (<500 km); shorter-range (500–1,000 km) ballistic missiles; and MRBMs (1,000–5,500 km). Energetic efforts are under way to complete development of ICBMs (>5,500 km), Figure 27. Circular error probable (metres) 1,000 m 700 m 450 m 150 m Hwasong-7 (Nodong-1)* Hwasong-3 (Luna-M, FROG-7) Hwasong-6 (Scud-C) Hwasong-5 (Scud-B) Hwasong-11 (Toksa, KN-02) *minimum. Hwasong-7’s CEP is 1,000 –1,500 m Source: IISS ©IISS which could enter into service as operationally viable weapons during the next few years, if subjected to additional flight tests. The missile systems currently in service with the DPRK Strategic Missile Troops include:19 SRBM: Hwasong-3 (Luna-M, FROG-7), Hwasong-5 (Scud-B) and Hwasong-11 (KN-02). Shorter-range ballistic missiles: Hwasong-6 (Scud-C). MRBM: Hwasong-7 (Nodong-1), Hwasong-9 (Scud-ER, KN-04), Hwasong-10 (Musudan) and Hwasong-12 (KN-17). First indigenously produced missiles Hwasong-3 (Luna-M, FROG-7) The history of the DPRK missile programme is on display at the Museum of the Korean People’s Army Weapons and Hardware in Pyongyang. Those lucky few foreign specialists and journalists who have been to that museum note that the Hwasong-3 is the first exhibit visitors see when they enter the strategic-missiles exposition. The DPRK received 15 TELs of the 2K6 Luna artillery rocket systems armed with solid-fuel, unguided, spin-stabilised rockets and various auxiliary equipment from the Soviet Union in 1965–1967.20 In 1970, the Soviet Union supplied the DPRK with nine 9K52 Luna-M artillery rocket systems, which had an improved range of 70 km instead of 45 km.21 The Luna-M TEL was equipped with its own hydraulic crane capable of lifting 3 tonnes, which eliminated the need for a semi-trailer transporter and a separate self-propelled crane, which were used in the case of the Luna system. It took only ten minutes to prepare the system for launch. The Luna-M’s main shortcoming was its poor accuracy, with the circular error probable (CEP) indicator of 700 metres. CEP is defined as the radius of a circle within which half of the weapons aimed at the circle’s centre are expected to land. It is believed that after taking delivery of several Luna and Luna-M systems, Pyongyang decided to develop its own clone of those weapons and named them the Hwasong-1 and the Hwasong-3. Production of the Hwasong-1 was later discontinued because its performance had proved inferior to that of the Hwasong-3. Production of the Hwasong-3 began sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s. The Hwasong-3 is a single-stage, solid-fuel, long-range artillery rocket. It carries a 450 kg 46 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies non-separating high explosive (HE) fragmentation or cluster warhead and has a maximum range of 65 km. The launcher is a mobile four-axle chassis. The Hwasong-3 programme gave North Korean engineers and specialists their first experience with a solid-fuel engine design. Scud family of missiles The limited range and poor accuracy of the Hwasong-3 soon forced North Korea to seek more advanced missile technologies.22 Lacking the technological capacity on its own, the DPRK undertook efforts to acquire samples of foreign-made missiles. Pyongyang identified the Soviet Union’s short-range, single-stage Scud-B ballistic missile (8K14 or R-17, under the Soviet classification), which was developed in the late 1950s,23 as the most promising opportunity (its export version was designated as R-17E). However, its attempts to buy that missile directly from Moscow proved unsuccessful. The Soviet government avoided supplying advanced military hardware and sensitive technologies to Pyongyang to prevent contributing to an escalation of the inter-Korean conflict. The Soviet Union argued that there was no need to supply the DPRK with advanced missile systems because North Korea was adequately protected by the 1961 Soviet– DPRK Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance Treaty. Article 1 of the treaty states that ‘In the event of one of the … Parties coming under an armed attack by another state or a coalition of states... the other Party shall immediately render military and other assistance using all the means at its disposal.’24 But whereas Moscow said no, Egypt – a long-term DPRK ally25 – proved willing, and delivered three Scud-B missiles, equipment and TELs to North Korea in 1980.26 The Scud-B technology became the foundation of an entire family of ballistic missiles developed in the DPRK from the 1980s to the 2010s, from the short-range Hwasong-5 (300 km) to the medium-range Hwasong-9 (1,000 km). Having successfully reverse-engineered key technologies from the Scud missiles,27 the DPRK went on to build an extensive and complex component-procurement network spanning the entire globe. According to a report by the UN Panel of Experts established pursuant to UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1874 (2009), the debris of the Unha-3 carrier, based on Scud technology28 and salvaged by South Korea in December 2012, contained components manufactured in China, the ROK, the Soviet Union, Switzerland, the UK and the US.29 According to some sources, identified components were made in 13 different countries.30 The DPRK procurement programme also prioritised computer numerical controlled (CNC) machine tools that have various missile applications, such as shaping solidfuel engine nozzles or re-entry-vehicle nose cones. Some reports claim that Pyongyang was successful in its attempts to acquire CNC machine tools from Japan and the US.31 Fragments of the Unha-family carrier (launched on 7 February 2016 to place the Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite into orbit) salvaged by the South Korean Navy in the Yellow Sea also contained imported components, including parts similar to those found among the debris of the Unha-3 carrier in 2012.32 This also demonstrates the ability of the DPRK to assemble complex systems from globally sourced components. It is worth noting that, according to the UN Panel of Experts, in some cases the DPRK used different sourcing routes and companies to procure the same components.33 As part of the efforts to improve the performance of reverse-engineered Scud technologies, in October 1992 the DPRK also tried to recruit a group of Russian experts, including those working for the Makeyev Design Bureau (the developer of the R-17/Scud-B missile), but the attempt was foiled by the Russian Ministry of Security.34 According to recent interviews with knowledgeable sources, the North Koreans were primarily interested in improving the Scud-family missiles’ range and accuracy, and reducing the launch time.35 But while that attempt by Pyongyang failed, according to some sources it cannot be ruled out that some of the targeted individuals did eventually visit North Korea.36 Interestingly, several years later, South Korean operatives working in Russian territory also tried to make use of the transitional period in the management of Russian strategic industries and of the difficult economic situation in the former Soviet republics to gain access to Soviet ICBM technologies (including components for connecting engines and nozzles).37 Part Two: Ballistic-Missile Development and Current Capabilities 47 Table 5. Foreign-sourced components found in the debris of Unha-3, based on Scud technology38 Items Radial ball bearings Temperature transmitters Pressure transmitters Pressure switches Electric cable Resistor DC to DC converters Electromagnetic interference filters Operational amplifiers Field-programmable gate array Synchronous dynamic random-access memory CCD camera Video decoder Interstage connector Quantity 4 2 5 4 N/A 1 4 Country of manufacture Former USSR United Kingdom United Kingdom Former USSR China United Kingdom Switzerland Comment(s) Might have been produced in the 1980s Sold by manufacturer in 2011 Sold by manufacturer in November 2006 and April 2010 Cannibalised Scud part Could not be tracked due to insufficient identifiers 4 China About 30 United States 1 United States 2 United States and Republic of Korea 1 China 1 United States 1 Former USSR Items manufactured by companies in the Republic of Korea were produced between 2003 and 2010. Could not be tracked due to insufficient identifiers Produced in 2008 Cannibalised Scud part Hwasong-5 and -6 (Scud-B, Scud-C) After North Korea reverse-engineered the Scud missiles acquired from Egypt, in April 1984 it test-launched a Scud-B, rebranded as the Hwasong-5.39 After this initial flight test, North Korea launched up to five additional Hwasong-5 missiles, three of which were successful. Indigenous production of missiles is believed to have begun in 1985, followed by full-scale production some time in 1986.40 The Hwasong-5 single-stage, liquid-fuel theatre ballistic missile41 entered into service in 1987.42 It has a maximum range of 300 km, and carries a 1,000 kg non-separating HE fragmentation or cluster warhead. Its launcher uses a mobile four-axle chassis. Hwasong-5 was the first liquid fueled ballistic missile in the DPRK arsenal. In the late 1980s, the DPRK began to develop a modified Hwasong-5 missile, the Hwasong-6 (Scud-C), with Figure 28. Hwasong-5 Source: Getty increased range. North Korea first tested it in June 1990 and started full-scope production soon thereafter. The Hwasong-6 entered into service in 1992. It uses the same engine, guidance and control systems, as well as the same fuel-oxidiser combination as the Hwasong-5. The two versions are identical in length and diameter, but the warhead mass of the Hwasong-6 is approximately 270 kg less than that of the Hwasong-5. Furthermore, the Hwasong-6 uses a common bulkhead to separate the fuel and oxidiser, and to fit additional propellant into the airframe. Its launcher is a four-axle wheeled chassis. Thanks to its longer fuel tanks and a lighter warhead, the missile has a greater range of up to 550 km. Deployment of Hwasong-6 – a short-range missile – provided North Korea a capability to strike any target in South Korea. Hwasong-7 (Nodong-1) North Korea then leveraged the know-how and infrastructure used to reverse-engineer the Scud-B to design and produce indigenously a ‘scaled up’ Scud-B, known as the Hwasong-7 (Nodong-1). Experts make conflicting assessments of the nature of the propulsion system used, though all seem to agree that the Hwasong-7 was not an entirely new design. According to the first of the two most likely versions, the missile’s propulsion unit consists of an assembly of four Hwasong-5/ Hwasong-6 single-chamber engines mated to the missile airframe.43 It also has an upgraded guidance system. The second version suggests a single-chamber engine based on a scaled-up Hwasong-6 design.44 The differing 48 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies assessments may be the result of North Korea flighttesting both versions of the Hwasong-7 in the early 1990s, although publicly available reporting does not support this hypothesis. The Hwasong-7 (Nodong-1) missile was successfully flight-tested on 29 May 1993. According to some sources, the launch was conducted in the presence of officials from Pakistan and Iran.45 The missile flew about 500 km, landing in the Sea of Japan. There are unconfirmed reports that two other flight tests were attempted before the successful 1993 flight, one in May 1990 and the other in June 1992. Both are assumed to have failed. North Korea did not flight-test the missile again until July 2006, though the first stage of the Paektusan (Taepodong-1) rocket launched in August 1998 consisted of a Hwasong-7 missile, minus the guidance section and warhead. On 4 July 2006, North Korea fired three or four Hwasong-7 and a few other Scudtype missiles, along with an Unha (Taepodong-2) satellite launcher, which failed 44 seconds into its flight. On 5 September 2016, North Korea test-fired three Hwasong-7 missiles, which flew about 1,000 km and landed in the Sea of Japan. Since all of them landed at almost the same spot and nearly simultaneously, it can be assumed that the missile performs well. Despite the small number of Hwasong-7 tests conducted by North Korea, the missile has been deployed to the military for more than two decades (it is believed to have entered into service around 2001). The Hwasong-7 is a single-stage, liquid-fuel, medium-range ballistic missile. It has a separating 1,000 kg HE fragmentation and cluster warhead, a range of 1,000 km, but could also carry a nuclear warhead. The missile launcher is a mobile fiveaxle wheeled chassis. It is believed that Iran and Pakistan purchased and received Hwasong-7 (Nodong-1) missiles from North Korea in the mid-1990s, despite the paucity of test data on the missile. Both countries initiated preliminary flight trials of the missile in 1998. After a handful of their flight tests ended in failure, Iran and Pakistan incorporated design changes to their respective Shahab-3 and Ghauri missiles to increase reliability and performance.46 Pakistan’s Ghauri is armed with a nuclear weapon. During a military parade on 11 October 2010, Pyongyang unveiled a new version of the Hwasong-7 (designated Nodong-2 by US intelligence, and Nodong-2010 by some other sources) with a triconic, baby-bottle-shaped nose cone. It was tested in August 2016 for a 1,000 km range.47 Some experts believe that the lighter warhead associated with the triconic nose cone enables the Hwasong-7 to reach beyond 1,000 km. Reducing the weight of the warhead from 1,000 to 700 kg would yield a longer range, estimated by experts at up to 1,300 km.48 According to the information available, the increased range afforded by a lighter warhead has not yet been verified in actual tests. In addition to the Korean Peninsula itself, the Hwasong-7 is capable of striking targets almost anywhere in Japan, including US military bases on Okinawa, but excluding the northern part of Hokkaido. Hwasong-9 (Scud-ER, KN-04) The DPRK has developed a longer-range version of the Hwasong-6 missile. It was publicly revealed in September 2016, when North Korea test-launched three missiles that landed nearly 1,000 km away. Various North Korean sources – including signs at the Museum of the Korean People’s Army Weapons and Hardware in Pyongyang – refer to that missile as the Hwasong-9, while Western analysts call it the Scud-ER (extended range). The mass of the warhead is estimated at 500 kg. The launcher is a four-axle wheeled chassis. Some experts believe that the Hwasong-9 entered into service back in 1994, before the Hwasong-7, and that it represents an improvement of the older Hwasong-6 design.49 The Hwasong-9 allows the North Korean military to strike targets anywhere on the Korean Peninsula and in parts of Japan. A problem child Hwasong-10 (Musudan) Through 2011, North Korean missile testing was limited to systems and carrier rockets that relied on Scudtype and Luna-M technologies. The Hwasong-6 missile could reach targets throughout the peninsula, and the Hwasong-7 could strike large sections of Japan. However, North Korea lacked the ability to target US military bases in Guam and Hawaii – bases that would play a key supporting role in any US-led operations against North Korea – as well as any ability to strike Part Two: Ballistic-Missile Development and Current Capabilities 49 the US mainland. With ambitions to hold such targets at risk, Pyongyang needed to acquire longer-range missile capability. The DPRK took the Scud liquidfuel engine technology as far as it could possibly go to build its missile arsenal and faced the need to acquire a next generation of missile engines. In 2016, the DPRK test-fired eight Hwasong-10 (Musudan) missiles. How and when North Korea acquired or developed the underlying technology remains a mystery. The missiles were also displayed at a military parade in Pyongyang on 10 October 2010 and on several other occasions since then. The total number of the Hwasong-10 launches attempted so far is uncertain. According to some sources, two launch attempts – both of them apparently unsuccessful – took place in 2015.50 Seven of the eight launches conducted in 2016 failed,51 many of them catastrophically, shortly after ignition. The reasons for these failures are unknown, though they are likely related to the missile’s engine or its integration with the missile’s airframe. Some experts believe that several of the Hwasong-10 missiles blew up during tests under the influence of some kind of non-kinetic weapons allegedly used by the US to hold back North Korea’s missile progress.52 One unsuccessful launch also likely took place in 2017.53 A DPRK news release following the only known partially successful Hwasong-10 flight in October 2016 stated that the missile flew to a range of 400 km and Figure 29. Hwasong-10 reached an apogee of 1,413.6 km,54 meaning that the missile was launched on a steep trajectory. The Hwasong-10 is a single-stage, liquid-fuel, medium-range missile. According to experts’ calculations, it can be equipped with a 650 kg HE fragmentation, cluster or nuclear warhead, and its maximum range is estimated at more than 3,000 km.55 Its launcher uses a six-axle wheeled chassis. Nevertheless, as far as information is available, the missile has never been tested to its maximum range. Out of its 11 possible test launches conducted in 2015–2017, ten ended in failure, and only one was a partial success. The Hwasong-10, as currently configured, has more than twice the reach of the Scud-family missiles, but it cannot fly as far as the US military facilities in Guam. As a result, it does not give North Korea the kind of radically increased missile range Pyongyang is trying to acquire through new technological solutions. Its improved range remains insufficient, and only offers the new capability to strike targets in South Korea and Japan using lofted trajectories.56 Experts disagree as to whether the Hwasong-10 has already entered service and been deployed. Some believe that the missile was deployed to the military in the mid-2000s, a decade before flight-testing began.57 Other analysts insist, however, that the Hwasong-10 entered into service in 2016 (the year when multiple missile tests took place).58 Some other assessments say that the missile has not yet been deployed, but it could happen soon.59 Some experts question the utility of deploying the Hwasong-10 now that the DPRK has the Hwasong-12, which has a similar range. Milestones reached Source: Getty Hwasong-12 (KN-17) North Korea’s inability to master Hwasong-10 technology seemingly marked a setback for Pyongyang’s longrange-missile ambitions. With its advanced MRBM programme stymied by technical difficulties, North Korean engineers did not have a sound basis upon which to build and test an ICBM, unless an alternative engine was available. In September 2016, after a series of Hwasong-10 flight-test failures, the DPRK surprised many outside observers by ground-testing a previously unseen liquid-propellant engine. The engine was 50 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Figure 30. South Korean television reporting the September 2017 launch of the Hwasong-12 Source: Getty ground-tested again in March 2017, although for this test the main engine was accompanied by four small steering engines. Images from the ground tests, and of a new MRBM that was first test-launched that April and May, along with acceleration data at lift-off, suggest that the new engine is a derivative of the Sovietera RD-250.60 In view of the data available, experts tend to conclude that it was produced by the DPRK almost entirely indigenously using technical documentation received from Ukraine in the late 2000s or early 2010s, including information about the materials and alloys used in its manufacture.61 By 2016–2017, the DPRK had demonstrated a family of one- (Hwasong-12) and two-stage missiles (from the Hwasong-14 to the Hwasong-15). The new missile was called Hwasong-12. It was the first of a new family of long-range systems based on the RD-250 engine to replace the failed and underperforming Hwasong-10. The Hwasong-12 was tested at least five times, the first two of which, in April 2017, apparently failed.62 The first successful launch (in May) reached an altitude of 2,111.5 km and landed 787 km downrange,63 using an inefficient lofted trajectory which North Korea frequently employs to avoid overflying Japan. According to some expert estimates, a missile capable of the demonstrated performance on a lofted trajectory could reach a distance of about 4,500 km when using a more efficient long-range trajectory and carrying a payload of the same mass.64 The fourth and fifth known tests overflew Japan, with the August flight travelling 2,700 km downrange and reaching a peak altitude of 550 km; the September flight travelled roughly 3,700 km downrange, with an apogee of 770 km. Both flights Figure 31. Hwasong-12 Source: Getty Part Two: Ballistic-Missile Development and Current Capabilities 51 employed trajectories that maximise range for a given engine cut-off velocity, marking a significant milestone for long-range-missile development by North Korea. A reconstruction of the Hwasong-12 suggests that in the fourth and fifth tests, the missile was fitted with a warhead weighing 500–650 kg. To summarise: the Hwasong-12 is a single-stage, liquid-fuel, medium-range missile that is believed to have entered service in 2017. It can have a 650 kg HE fragmentation, cluster or nuclear warhead and a maximum range of more than 3,700 km. Its mobile launcher uses a six-axle wheeled chassis. The Hwasong-12 medium-range missile can reach not only anywhere in Japan, but also the US bases on Guam. It also probably served as a technology demonstrator for the first stage of the Hwasong-14 ICBM that was flight-tested twice, on 5 and 28 July 2017, though the Hwasong-12’s external dimension differed slightly from the Hwasong-14’s first stage. The DPRK Strategic Missile Troops are estimated by some experts to consist of: up to 24 Hwasong-3 TELs and 60–80 missiles; up to 200 Hwasong-5 TELs and 300–400 missiles; up to 32 Hwasong-11 TELs and up to 100 missiles; up to 100 Hwasong-6 TELs with 300–400 missiles; up to 48 Hwasong-7 TELs with 200–300 missiles; up to 24 Hwasong-9 TELs with up to 80 missiles; up to 32 Hwasong-10 TELs with 60–80 missiles; and up to 12 Hwasong-12 TELs with up to 20 missiles.65 It should be noted that some analysts believe that Hwasong-10 has not been deployed, and there are other assessments of the size of the DPRK missile arsenal.66 Prospective missiles According to the information available, the DPRK Strategic Missile Troops do not currently have any other types of ballistic missiles in service. Meanwhile, North Korean engineers are engaged in large and ambitious R&D programmes to design, test, produce and deploy new MRBMs and ICBMs. Hwasong-13 (KN-08) In 2012 and 2015 the DPRK unveiled the Hwasong-13 (KN-08) ballistic missile at the annual military parade in Pyongyang. It is believed to be three-stage, liquidfuel missile whose launchers use eight-axle wheeled chassis. No flight tests of the Hwasong-13 have been detected as of September 2020, so it is not clear how well the design works. Its estimated range may be over 5,000 km. Some experts claim that North Korea twice paraded mock-ups of a road-mobile missile and called it Hwasong-13.67 Hwasong-14 (KN-20) On 4 July 2017, the DPRK launched the Hwasong-14 (KN-20), a two-stage missile with a first stage that uses the same engine and structural technology as the Hwasong-12. It is not an entirely new design, though Figure 32. Hwasong-13 Figure 33. Hwasong-14 Source: Getty Source: Alamy Source: Getty 52 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Figure 34. Stamps to commemorate the Hwasong-14 Source: Getty in addition to a new propulsion scheme, the missile is equipped with a modified warhead section. The triconic nose cone seen on the Hwasong-12 is replaced by a payload shroud that could cover a blunt-body re-entry vehicle. A blunt-body geometry reduces the mechanical and thermal stresses of re-entry, making it easier to design and build with a confident expectation it will survive the flight. However, a blunt body degrades accuracy and is heavier than more modern re-entryvehicle designs. Using a lofted trajectory to avoid overflying Japan, the 4 July launch reached an apogee of 2,802 km and its debris impacted in the Sea of Japan roughly 930 km from the launch site. The second test, on 28 July, was almost vertical, reaching an apogee of 3,725 km and traversing a ground distance of approximately 1,000 km. However, the 28 July test may not have been completely successful. Imagery seems to show the re-entry vehicle breaking up in the missile’s flight, within sight of the Japanese island of Hokkaido.68 Some suspect that to exaggerate the apparent capability of the missile, the second launch may have used a lighter payload in order to increase the apogee of the test.69 Other specialists say that problems with the payload section during the test launch demonstrate that the section needs more work and is not yet ready for launches to the missile’s maximum range.70 Calculations by some experts suggest that if the steeply curved trajectory were to be altered so as to maximise the range, the missile could reach targets lying 6,000–8,000 km away.71 This means that the Hwasong-14 would be capable of striking Alaska and Hawaii, and probably Seattle (but not the rest of the US mainland), assuming the DPRK can build a nuclear device weighing 300 kg, giving the weapon-loaded re-entry vehicle an overall mass of about 500 kg (which does not appear very likely as of September 2020). But, if the bomb is 100 kg heavier, at 400 kg, the overall re-entry vehicle would likely have a mass of 600–650 kg.72 In this case, the Hwasong-14’s maximum reach would be just under 6,000 km, which is enough to reach some parts of Alaska. This situation should incentivise the DPRK to press ahead with its efforts at nuclear-warhead miniaturisation. At some stage, those efforts would require nuclear tests to validate the design. This means that the moratorium on nuclear tests and testing missiles capable of an intercontinental range (declared by the DPRK in 2018 and observed as of September 2020) represents a practical restriction on further improvement of the Hwasong-14. Some experts estimate the maximum range of the Hwasong-14 at up to 9,000–10,000 km, or even more. However, those estimates assume the tested missiles were equipped with a mock payload having the same mass as a nuclear-armed re-entry vehicle.73 These assessments are based on many assumptions and may well prove inaccurate. On the whole, however, they help to understand the DPRK’s likely priorities as it presses ahead with its advanced missile programme. Part Two: Ballistic-Missile Development and Current Capabilities 53 Hwasong-15 (KN-22) Given the limited performance of the Hwasong-14, it was not surprising to see the DPRK introduce a larger, longer-range missile. The Hwasong-15 (KN22) has been flight-tested once, apparently successfully, on 29 November 2017. Flying on a highly lofted trajectory, the missile reached a peak altitude of 4,475 km before striking the Sea of Japan 950 km downrange. The total flight time was 53 minutes and 49 seconds. If a standard trajectory had been used, and assuming no change in the re-entry vehicle’s mass, the Hwasong-15 would have travelled to about 12,000 km. Some experts concluded that it could deliver a 1,000 kg payload to any point on the US mainland.74 Photographs of the two-stage, liquid-fuel Hwasong-15 reveal that its first stage is powered by a pair of engines that share the same external features found on the singlechamber engine used by the Hwasong-14. The configuration of the second stage is not known, though its overall size suggests that it contains twice as much propellant as the Hwasong-14’s second stage. The missile also features a new steering mechanism that is more efficient than the methods used on other DPRK missiles. The older, Scudbased missiles employed jet vanes for steering during the boost phase. The Hwasong-10, -12 and -14 used small engines mounted in parallel to the main thrust chamber for direction control during first-stage operations. On the Hwasong-15, North Korea’s engineers mounted each of the missile’s main engines on a gimbal that allows them to be reoriented to vector the thrust to provide steering and roll control. The Hwasong-15 was first displayed at a military parade in Pyongyang on 8 February 2018. It was carried on a nine-axle wheeled launcher. During the April 2017 parade in Pyongyang, North Korea displayed two types of ICBM-sized launch canisters, one perched atop the WS51200 TEL and the other on a flatbed lorry.75 It is unclear if the canisters contained missiles.76 Their presence in the parade suggests that North Korea may intend to deploy its Hwasong-14 and -15 ICBMs in canisters, or that other long-range-missile designs are being contemplated for future development. Nevertheless, claims by the DPRK, echoed by some of the media and experts in their publications, that Pyongyang already has a usable arsenal of ICBMs appear premature. The Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15 launches conducted to date were tests involving prototype missiles travelling on inefficient flight paths that do not reflect Figure 35. Estimated range of North Korean ballistic missiles Hwasong-7 (Nodong-1) 1,000 kg; Hwasong-9 (Scud-ER, KN-04) 1,000 km Hwasong-7 (Nodong-1) 700 kg; Pukguksong-2 (KN-15) 1,200–1,300 km Hwasong-12 (KN-17) 3,700+ km Guam 3,000+ km Hwasong-10 (Musudan) 6,000–8,000 km Hwasong-14 (KN-20) 12,000 km Hwasong-15 (KN-22) Source: IISS Source: IISS 54 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies © IISS the operational conditions expected when employed as a weapon system. As of September 2020, both missiles have yet to be tested to their maximum range, using a standard trajectory. Based on the North Korean missile industry’s previous record, it will take a few years and a handful of flight tests under various conditions to eliminate these missiles’ teething problems and enter them into service. Solid-propellant ballistic missiles Hwasong-11 (Toksa) The DPRK has also shown progress in solid-propellant missiles. Based on Soviet-designed short-range 9K79 Tochka missiles which have been obtained from Syria,77 North Korea in the early 2000s produced a Hwasong-11 (aka Toksa or KN-02). The missile’s reach is up to 140 km. It has been flight-tested 20 times since 2013, and probably several times earlier, with no known failures.78 The emergence of this solid-propellant system was important for two reasons. Firstly, if it is as accurate as the 9K79 Tochka, the Hwasong-11 would be North Korea’s first missile to have military significance when armed with a conventional warhead. However, it is far from certain that the DPRK could successfully clone the Tochka’s navigation, guidance and terminal controls. Secondly, the Hwasong-11 is the first DPRK missile (excluding artillery rocket system Hwasong-3) to be powered by a solid-propellant motor.79 Pukguksong-1 (KN-11) Shortly after North Korea began launching Toksa missiles in large numbers, a new, much larger solid-fuel missile was introduced and tested: the mediumrange, submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) Pukguksong-1 (KN-11). The 3,000 tonne diesel submarine, designated the Sinpo in the international media, has already been built and is now undergoing sea trials. It is 67 m long, 6.7 m wide and has two SLBM launch silos at the central part of the bridge. The Sinpo submarine will be armed with the two-stage, solid-fuel Pukguksong-1, which is currently in development. The missile will be housed and launched from a missile silo contained within the submarine. Its estimated range is 1,200–1,250 km.80 These missiles are probably intended to provide Pyongyang at some point in the future with a guaranteed capability to deliver a retaliatory strike.81 Ejection tests at sea began in December 2014, just eight months after a first possible ejection test from the landbased launch tube. Flight tests of the Pukguksong-1 began in May 2015 using a submerged barge as a launch platform. The first successful launch of a prototype was conducted in August 2016; the missile flew on a very steep trajectory about 500 km in the direction of Japan.82 That test was followed by at least four test launches in 2017. Since no information about those tests was published, we can only assume that they did not demonstrate much progress of the project. That lack of coverage in the DPRK media is indirect evidence of the problems that have yet to be resolved with the North Korean SLBM. Pukguksong-2 (KN-15) The Pukguksong-1 design is already being used to develop the land-based Pukguksong-2 (KN-15) MRBM.83 Two successful test launches of that missile were held in the first half of 2017, whereupon Kim Jong Un gave an order ‘to begin mass production and deliveries to the armed forces as soon as possible’.84 It is believed that task could be achieved by early 2020. If this is the case, it will be a major milestone for the DPRK Strategic Missile Troops because they will now have a missile capable of engaging a target 1,200–1,300 km away within 10–15 minutes of receiving the order. The existing North Korean liquid-fuel MRBMs lack that capability because they require 90 to 120 minutes to prepare for launch. Since the new missile uses a solid-fuel design, it also offers an improved survivability of the launch systems because they do not need to remain at their launch positions for quite as long, either before or after launch. Other important advantages include a shorter post-storage preparation period and the absence of liquid components (the fuel and the oxidiser), which are combustible, volatile and toxic. Finally, unlike the liquid-fuel technology, solid-fuel missiles do not require a large amount of auxiliary hardware and equipment, making the new missile easier to operate and to conceal. The missile complex also uses a tracked chassis, giving it a greater freedom of manoeuvre in terms of the off-road areas where it can be deployed. This is an important development in enhancing pre-launch Part Two: Ballistic-Missile Development and Current Capabilities 55 Figure 36. DPRK television reporting the Pukguksong-2 launch Source: Getty survival, as the extent of North Korea’s paved roads upon which wheeled TELs can travel is limited. The missile itself is housed in a transporter-launcher container, meaning that it can be transported safely and securely across difficult terrain. Additionally, it has a cold-launch system: the missile is expelled vertically from the launch container and only then ignites its own engine, which radically reduces the requirements for the launch site.85 It cannot be discounted that the Pukguksong-2 is intended to replace in the future the Hwasong-7 and Hwasong-9 missiles as the core of North Korea’s regional strategic deterrent force, though it is unclear how long it will take for the transformation to be realised. Pukguksong-3 (KN-26) On 2 October 2019, North Korea flight-tested the twostage, solid-fuel Pukguksong-3 (KN-26) missile from an underwater launch system. The missile flew on a steep, upward trajectory, reaching a peak altitude of 950 km and landing about 450 km from the launch point. If the Pukguksong-3 used a standard trajectory, according to some estimates, it could overfly Japan and cover 1,900 to 2,000 km, making it the longest-range solid-fuel missile North Korea has tested to date.86 Photographs of the launch released by North Korea show a missile breaching the sea’s surface after being ejected from an underwater launch tube, and then igniting its first-stage motor. The missile was likely launched from a submersible barge rather than a submarine, as evidenced by the nearby surface ship that presumably towed the barge to a safe offshore location. The use of submersible barges during initial flight trials of a new missile design is standard practice, as it eliminates the risk of damaging an expensive and crewed submarine if something goes awry during the launch process. It is unclear whether the Pukguksong-3 is larger than the Pukguksong-1 previously test-launched from a submersible barge. The flight profile and the estimated range suggest that it has a diameter between 1.4 and 1.5 m, and a length of about 8 m, making it roughly the same size and having similar capabilities to the Chinese JL-1, the US Polaris and early French submarine-launched missiles. Further, unlike the Pukguksong-1 and -2 systems, the Pukguksong-3 is equipped with a flattened, truncated warhead section, like SLBM designs found elsewhere. The use of highly rounded nose cones minimises missile length, allowing the missile to fit into the confined space within submarines. The Puksguksong-3 tests occurred a little less than three months after release 56 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies of images of Chairman Kim Jong Un inspecting the construction of a large submarine.87 Like its predecessor the Pukguksong-1, the Pukguksong-3 will not soon become an operational missile deployed on North Korean submarines. Rather, it will require additional flight-testing of the missile itself, as well as the construction of at least three submarines, and possibly four. The submarines will need to undergo sea trials after being initially placed in the water; crew training and concepts of operation will also be necessary. This may require an additional five to ten years’ effort.88 Manoeuvring re-entry vehicles The military utility of Scud-family (Hwasong-5, -6, -9) and Hwasong-7 missiles armed with conventional warheads is poor. The missiles lack the accuracy needed to reliably strike and destroy a fixed-point target. In principle, North Korea could improve missile accuracy by complementing existing navigation and guidance units with satellite-guidance receivers to provide real-time updates and corrections. However, adding a global positioning satellite (GPS) receiver would enhance accuracy by only a modest 20–25%. For the missiles that are not equipped with post-boost controls, the primary contributors to inaccuracy – residual thrust at engine cut-off and thrusttermination timing errors – cannot be corrected by employing higher-precision navigation systems. It was not surprising, therefore, to see North Korea in August 2016 introduce a new missile that appears to be a Hwasong-5 fitted with a MaRV. The new re-entry vehicle has small fins near the base, suggesting that it can manoeuvre as it descends through the atmosphere, before impacting the ground. This new design is almost certainly intended for active guidance of the warhead during the terminal phase of flight. This would be the most promising means for transforming a Scud-type missile into precision-guided munition, one capable of destroying specific, stationary targets. However, mastering the technologies and developing the subsystems needed to reliably manoeuvre the re-entry vehicle to a fixed target will require dozens of flight tests. New, short-range missiles During a February 2018 military parade, North Korea displayed a new SRBM. The new missiles are carried in pairs atop four-axle TELs.89 The new system is larger than North Korea’s Toksa, so it likely has a greater range. In May 2019, North Korea launched – on two separate occasions – ballistic missiles that closely resemble those featured in the February 2018 military parade. The same missile was launched twice again on both 25 July and 6 August. The origins of the missile tested by North Korea are unknown. US sources refer to the missile as the KN-23; North Korea has not assigned a name to the system.90 Photographs reveal a missile that appears similar to the Ukrainian Grom (or Hrim), which is reportedly under development with financial support from Saudi Arabia, the South Korean Hyunmoo-2B, and the Russian-produced Iskander short-range system. All four missiles appear to share the same external dimensions and features, with only minor differences in the shape of the nose cones, and the length of the instrumentation cables running along the missile’s exterior. The aft end of the North Korean KN-23 lacks access ports and other auxiliary features, suggesting a simpler design. How the simpler design impacts the KN-23’s performance characteristics is unknown. While details about the tested missile remain uncertain, media sources reported that all but one test flight reached apogees of less than 50 km, while covering a ground distance of 220 to 250 km during initial testing, and 420 to 450 km during subsequent flights.91 One of the tested KN-23 missiles apparently travelled about 690 km in range.92 North Korea also introduced and flight-tested two additional solid-fuel, short-range missiles, speculatively designated KN-24 and KN-25 by the US. The KN-24 resembles the MGM-140 ATacMS, a short-range missile designed and manufactured by the US defence firm Lockheed Martin. The missile was tested on 10 and 16 August 2019, and reached a maximum distance of about 400 km, while peaking at 48 km altitude. The KN-25 is a 450-mm-diameter, multiple-launch missile conveyed on a tracked TEL equipped with four launch tubes. Flight-tested twice on 24 August, and three times on 10 September 2019, the KN-25 reached a maximum distance of 380 km, with a reported apogee of about 50 km.93 This reported data, if accurate, indicates that with possibly one or two exceptions the KN-23, -24 and -25 missiles intentionally used flattened rather than optimal-range Part Two: Ballistic-Missile Development and Current Capabilities 57 trajectories to remain at altitudes where the atmosphere is dense enough to facilitate aerodynamic control throughout the flight. Aerodynamic control enables the missile to manoeuvre at any point along its trajectory and dive to the specified target with precision if equipped with sophisticated inertial-navigation units. The US ATacMS, the South Korean Hyunmoo-2B and the Russian Iskander employ this technique, and when aided by satellite-navigation receivers or terminal-homing sensors linked to sophisticated guidance computers, they can achieve CEP values of less than 100 m, and as low as 10 to 20 m. While the North Korean systems used flattened flight paths during the May through September 2019 flight tests, there is no publicly available information to suggest any of the missiles impacted within metres of their designated target. Nor is there any indication that these missiles were equipped with sophisticated navigation and guidance. Nevertheless, North Korea’s newest SRBMs, in combination with the emergence of the Scud-family missiles equipped with MaRVs, provide compelling evidence that Pyongyang continues to seek enhanced military and strategic capabilities. A precision-guided ballistic missile has great military utility, even when armed with a conventional warhead, as the probability of target destruction by a single missile can exceed 50% if the CEP is smaller or equal to the destructive radius of a conventional warhead. A 400 kg HE warhead has a destructive radius of between 25 and 70 m, depending on the target’s vulnerability to shock waves or high-velocity fragments. For a summary of the specifications of North Korean ballistic missiles, see page 56. Figure 37. North Korean missile test launches, 2019–20: Short-and medium-range ballistic missiles Maximum altitude (km) 1,000 900 50 40 30 2 Oct 2019* Missiles: 1 9 May 2019 Missiles: 2 Distance: ≤ 420 km 25 Jul 2019 Missiles: 2 21 Mar 2020 Missiles: 2 10 Aug 2019 Missiles: 2 6 Aug 2019 Missiles: 2 16 Aug 2019 Missiles: 2 20 4 May 2019 Missiles: 2 10 Altitude: n.k. Distance: ≤ 240 km 0 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 Distance own (km) Type: Pukguksong-3 / Classi cation: SLBM (medium-range ballistic missile) Type: KN-24 / Classi cation: SRBM Type: KN-23 / Classi cation: SRBM *Lofted-trajectory test, which permits the DPRK to test potential longer-range missiles without running the risk of over ying another country Source: IISS ©IISS 58 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Space-launch vehicles DPRK engineers exploited Scud and Hwasong-7 (Nodong-1) hardware to construct two carrier rockets – Paektusan-1 (also called Taepodong-1) and Unha (Taepodong-2) – designed to lift small satellites into lowEarth orbit. Development work likely began in the early 1990s. US satellites first saw the two rockets in 1994 at a facility associated with missile projects. Four years later, in August 1998, the smaller of the two rockets, the Paektusan-1, failed in its first and only test launch. Beginning eight years later, North Korea attempted to orbit a satellite using the Unha rocket on five occasions over a ten-year period. The fourth and fifth missions (December 2012 and February 2016) were successful. The Paektusan-1 and Unha are both three-stage rockets. They are optimised for space launches, not as ballistic missiles. Both carrier rockets employ low-thrust, long-action-time upper stages, which are ideal for accelerating a payload (i.e, satellite) along a path that parallels the Earth’s surface, and perpendicular to gravity’s pull. The maximum height the carrier rocket must achieve is the orbital altitude of the satellite, which for North Korea’s Kwangmyongsong satellites is roughly 500 km. ICBMs, on the other hand, must reach altitudes in excess of 1,000 km to maximise range. This requires high-thrust upper stages that operate for as little time as possible to avoid gravity losses that rob the missile of peak velocity, and thus range potential. Moreover, the Unha rocket is too large and cumbersome for use as a ballistic missile. It would necessarily have to be prepared for launch at a fixed location, leaving it highly vulnerable to pre-launch attack during a crisis. To summarise: based on this assessment of North Korea’s missile capability, it is safe to assert that the country has made impressive progress over the past years, despite the overwhelming pressure of sanctions. Pyongyang is improving its ballistic-missile technology at a fairly rapid pace. It conducted launches of 26 ballistic missiles or other systems using ballistic-missile technology in 2016 (over 45% success rate), and 20 launches of eight or nine types of ballistic missiles in 2017 (over 75% success rate). Table 6. Ballistic-missile milestones reached Date Late 1970s or early 1980s 1986 1992 29 May 1993 31 August 1998 May 2005 5 April 2009 11 October 2010 12 December 2012 December 2014 7 February 2016 24 August 2016 August 2016 September 2016 September 2016 15 October 2016 12 February 2017 14 May 2017 4 July 2017 28 July 2017 29 August 2017 15 September 2017 29 November 2017 Ballistic-missile milestones Hwasong-3 (Luna-M, FROG-7) production started Hwasong-5 (Scud-B) full-scope production started Hwasong-6 (Scud-C) entered into service Successful Hwasong-7 (Nodong-1) test launch Paektusan-1 (Taepodong-1) SLV claimed to put small satellite Kwangmyongsong-1 into orbit (disputed) Possible successful test of Hwasong-11 (Toksa) Unha-2 SLV claimed to put satellite Kwangmyongsong-2 into orbit (disputed) Hwasong-7 with triconic nose cone paraded (tested August 2016) 3-stage Unha-3 SLV lifts Kwangmyongsong -3-2 satellite into orbit Ejection tests at sea of Pukguksong-1 (KN-11) Unha-family SLV puts Kwangmyongsong-4 satellite into orbit Test launch of Pukguksong-1 prototype flies 500 km Apparent Hwasong-5 fitted with a MaRV Ground test of new liquid-fuel engine (localised RD-250) Three Hwasong-9 (Scud-ER) missiles reach nearly 1,000 km Partially successful test launch of Hwasong-10 (Musudan) reaches apogee of 1,413.6 km and distance of 400 km Land-based Pukguksong-2 (KN-15) flies 500 km First successful launch of Hwasong-12 reaches apogee of 2,111.5 km and horizontal distance of 787 km Lofted launch of Hwasong-14 reaches apogee of 2,802 km and distance of more than 930 km Lofted launch of Hwasong-14 reaches apogee of 3,725 km and distance of 998 km Hwasong-12 test launch overflies Japan, travelling 2,700 km Hwasong-12 test launch overflies Japan, travelling 3,700 km Lofted launch of Hwasong-15 reaches apogee of 4,475 km and distance of 950 km Part Two: Ballistic-Missile Development and Current Capabilities 59 Table 7. DPRK launches of ballistic missiles or system using ballistic-missile technology in 201794 Date Type 12 February 6 March Pukguksong-2 Scud variant (extended range) Number 1 4 Reported launch location Kusong Sohae Reported distance travelled, km 500 1,000 Remarks 22 March 5 April 16 April 29 April 14 May 21 May 29 May 4 July 28 July 26 August 29 August 15 September 29 November Unconfirmed (possibly Hwasong-10) 1 Unconfirmed 1 Unconfirmed (possibly Hwasong-12) 1 Unconfirmed (possibly Hwasong-12) 1 Hwasong-12 1 Pukguksong-2 1 Scud variant (manoeuvring warhead) 1 Hwasong-14 1 Hwasong-14 1 Scud or Scud variant 3 Hwasong-12 1 Hwasong-12 1 Hwasong-15 1 Wonsan area Sinpo area Sinpo area Bukchang Kusong area Pukchang Wonsan area Panghyon area Mupyong-ni Kittaeryong Sunan Sunan Pyongsong 60 790 500 450 930 1,000 250 2,700 3,700 950 Failure Failure Failure One or two reported failures Over Japan Over Japan 4,475 km apogee According to analysts’ estimates, the existing North Korean short- and shorter-range ballistic missiles (the Hwasong-3, Hwasong-5, Hwasong-6 and Hwasong-11) can engage targets in South Korea. The Hwasong-7, Hwasong-9 and Pukguksong-2 can reach targets anywhere in Japan, with the exception of northern Hokkaido. The Hwasong-12 medium-range missile can reach not only anywhere in Japan, but also the island of Guam, an unincorporated territory of the US. The Hwasong-14’s range is sufficient to reach Alaska. The Hwasong-15, when deployed, theoretically can reach any target in the US mainland. It is worth noting that the maximum ranges of the Pukguksong-2, Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15 are based on calculations only and have yet to be verified by actual test launches for estimated range. It should be noted that under the terms of the Soviet–US IntermediateRange Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, the official range of land-based ballistic missiles is the maximum range to which the missile has been tested,95 whereas under the terms of the START Treaty, the official range is ‘the maximum distance determined by projecting the flight trajectory onto the Earth’s sphere from the launch point of a missile … to the point of impact of a reentry vehicle’.96 If these definitions were to be applied to the DPRK missile arsenal, then the Hwasong-12 would be categorised as an intermediate-range missile, while Figures 38–39. Stamps to commemorate successful launches of DPRK satellites in December 2012 and February 2016 Source: Private collection 60 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies all the other North Korean missiles – including the Hwasong-14 and the Hwasong-15 – would fall in the ‘up to 1,000 km’ bracket, which corresponds to the shortand shorter-range class. Critical questions about Pyongyang’s missile arsenal remain unresolved. The operational reliability of several North Korean missiles is unknowable, to the Koreans and outside observers, as the number of flight tests remains limited. Another question is whether North Korea can protect a nuclear warhead from the rigours of re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere at ICBM velocities. North Korea’s engineers have yet to evaluate, let alone master, long-range-missile re-entry technologies. If Pyongyang demands greater confidence in the Hwasong-14 and -15’s reliability, it can continue testing the missile after it has been deployed. Further, questions remain about whether North Korea can miniaturise a nuclear warhead sufficiently to place on top of its advanced missiles. No one outside of North Korea knows the precise status of its nuclear-bomb-making capabilities. For example, to reach the US mainland beyond Alaska, a lighter-weight bomb may be required for the Hwasong-14. These problems could be fixed over time, enabling North Korea to exploit the full capacity of its many deployed ballistic missiles, from short to intercontinental ranges. At the same time, the restrictions imposed as a result of the negotiating process or unilaterally selfimposed by Pyongyang could limit the development of the DPRK nuclear-missile capability. Diplomatic efforts on the Korean Peninsula could therefore yield tangible results. Part Two: Ballistic-Missile Development and Current Capabilities 61 North Korea’s ballistic missiles: Key data North Korea’s ballistic missiles: Key data Missile Type Entry into service Take-off Warhead Maximum Accuracy, TEL weight, tonnes Type/capability Weight, kg range, km metres (estimate) Land-based Hwasong-3 Single-stage Late 1970s– 2.3 HE fragmentation or 450 65 700 Mobile, four-axle (Luna-M, FROG- solid fuel early 1980s cluster wheeled chassis 7) Hwasong-5 (Scud-B) Single-stage 1987 liquid fuel 6.4 HE fragmentation or 1,000 300 450 Mobile, four-axle cluster wheeled chassis Hwasong-6 (Scud-С) Single-stage 1992 liquid fuel 6.4 HE fragmentation or 730 cluster 550 700 Mobile, four-axle wheeled chassis Hwasong-7 (Nodong-1) Single-stage 2001 liquid fuel 16 HE fragmentation, 1,000 1,000 1,000– Mobile, five-axle cluster or nuclear 700 1,300 1,500 wheeled chassis Hwasong-9 Single-stage Data varies ~6.4 (Scud-ER, KN- liquid fuel 04) HE fragmentation or 500 cluster 1,000 • • Mobile, four-axle wheeled chassis Hwasong-10 Single-stage Data varies • • (Musudan) liquid fuel HE fragmentation, 650 cluster or nuclear >3,000 • • Mobile, six-axle wheeled chassis Hwasong-11 Single-stage 2007 (Toksa, KN-02) solid fuel 2 HE fragmentation or 480 cluster 140 ~150 Mobile, three-axle wheeled chassis Hwasong-12 (KN-17) Single-stage 2017 liquid fuel • • HE fragmentation, 650 cluster or nuclear >3,700 • • Mobile, six-axle wheeled chassis Hwasong-13 (KN-08) Three-stage No flight tests • • liquid fuel Nuclear • • >5,000 • • Mobile, eight-axle wheeled chassis Hwasong-14 (KN-20) Two-stage liquid fuel 2 flight tests • • Nuclear • • 6,000– • • Mobile, eight-axle 8,000 wheeled chassis Hwasong-15 Two-stage 1 flight test • • (KN-22) liquid fuel Nuclear • • ~12,000 • • Mobile, nine-axle wheeled chassis Pukguksong-2 Two-stage (KN-15) solid fuel 2 flight tests • • Nuclear • • 1,200– • • Mobile, tracked 1,300 chassis KN-23 Single-stage 2020 solid fuel 3.8 HE fragmentation or 400 cluster Up to 690 • • Mobile, three-axle wheeled chassis KN-24 Single-stage 2020 solid fuel 2.9 HE fragmentation or 400 cluster ~400 • • Mobile, tracked chassis Sea-based Pukguksong-1 Two-stage (KN-11) solid fuel One successful • • submerged launch Nuclear • • 1,200– • • Submarine launch 1,250 silo Pukguksong-3 Two-stage (KN-26) solid fuel Note: • • = no data or n/a One flight test • • Nuclear • • 1,900– • • Submarine launch 2,000 silo 62 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Notes 1 Joseph S. Bermudez, ‘A History of Ballistic Missile Development in the DPRK’, CNS Occasional Paper, no. 2, November 1999, p. 4, https://www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ op2.pdf. 2 The missile system was acquired from the US during the 1960s. See Peter Hayes and Chung-in Moon, ‘Park Chung Hee, the CIA, and the Bomb’, NAPSNet Special Reports, 23 September 2011, https://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-special-reports/ park-chung-hee-the-cia-and-the-bomb/. 3 ‘South Korea: Nuclear Development and Strategic Decisionmaking’, National Foreign Assessment Center, CIA, June 1978, p. 4, http://nautilus.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/ CIA_ROK_Nuclear_DecisionMaking.pdf. After coming under US pressure, Seoul agreed to an arrangement that allowed South Korea to modify the Nike Hercules missiles to create the shortrange two-stage solid-propellant missile in exchange for limiting its range to 180 km and the payload to 500 kg. Eventually, South Korean specialists managed to launch indigenous production of the NHK-1 (Nike Hercules Korea) and NHK-2 ballistic missiles, carried by a four-axle TEL vehicle. The two missiles became ready for deployment in 1978 and 1987, respectively. 4 See, for example, Pervez Musharraf, In the Line of Fire: A Memoir (New York: Free Press, 2006), p. 294; Victor Esin, ‘Jadernoe oruzhie KNDR: ugroza ili shantazh’ [‘DPRK Nuclear Weapons: Threat or Blackmail’], Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, 25 February 2005; Uzi Rubin, ‘What Parades in Pyongyang Ends Up in Tehran’, BESA Center Perspectives Paper, no. 598, 28 September 2017, https://besacenter.org/ perspectives-papers/parades-pyongyang-ends-up-tehran/; Mark Fitzpatrick, ‘The Worrisome State: Assessing North Korea’s Security Challenges’, CERI Strategy Papers, no. 14, 2012, p. 3, https://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/en/content/ worrisome-state-assessing-north-korea-s-security-challenges. 5 About 80% of those exports were shipped in 1987–1993. See Joshua Pollack, ‘Ballistic Trajectory: The Evolution of North Korea’s Ballistic Missile Market’, Nonproliferation Review, vol. 18, no. 2, July 2011, p. 412, https://nonproliferation.org/wp-content/ uploads/npr/npr_18-2_pollack_ballistic-trajectory.pdf. 6 Interview with a former US Department of State official, 19 March 2019; ‘North Korea’s Annual Missile Export Revenues Were as High as 400m Dollars’; unpublished interview with former Head of the Directorate for Disarmament and WMD Nonproliferation of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Lieutenant General (retd) Gennady Yevstafiev, Yaderny Klub, 3 June 2014. 7 Total North Korean exports of goods stood at only US$800m in 1995. See ‘What is the trade balance for North Korea? (1990– 2000)’, Observatory of the Economic Complexity, https://atlas. media.mit.edu/ru/visualize/line/sitc/show/prk/all/all/1990.2000/. 8 The US intelligence community named the two systems Taepodong-1 and -2 because they were first spotted by spy satel- lites near the town of Taepodong. 9 Scott LaFoy, ‘The Hwasong that Never Ends’, Arms Control Wonk, 28 August 2017, https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/ archive/1203797/the-hwasong-that-never-ends/; Vladimir Khrustalev, ‘Real Name!’, Northeast Asian Military Studies, 16 July 2017, http://www.neams.ru/real-name/. 10 Ralph Savelsberg and James Kiessling, ‘North Korea’s Musudan Missile: A Performance Assessment’, 38 North, 20 December 2016, https://www.38north.org/2016/12/ musudan122016/. 11 The dimensions are not the same, but the relations between the dimensions are very nearly the same. See Uzi Rubin, ‘Assessing North Korea’s Missile and Space Programs: Implications for Possible Talks’, presentation at the CENESS Workshop, Moscow, 20 April 2018, slides 34–39. 12 Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, ‘North Korean Nuclear Capabilities, 2018’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, vol. 74, no. 1, 2018, https://thebulletin.org/2018/01/ north-korean-nuclear-capabilities-2018/. 13 See, for example, Anna Fifield, ‘North Korea Has Shown Us Its New Missile, and It’s Scarier than We Thought’, Washington Post, 30 November 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/ news/worldviews/wp/2017/11/30/north-korea-has-shown-us- its-new-missile-and-its-scarier-than-we-thought/. 14 To carry the heavy Hwasong-15, North Korean engineers had to add an extra axle to the WS51200 truck, making a total of nine axles. See Vladimir Khrustalev, ‘Dlinnye ruki KNDR: chto iz sebja predstavljaet novaja raketa Kim Chen Yna’ [‘The DPRK’s Long Arm: Kim Jong Un’s New Missile’], Zvezda, 1 December 2017, https://tvzvezda.ru/news/vstrane_i_mire/content/201712011226- 4zid.htm; Michael Elleman, ‘North Korea’s Army Day Military Parade: One New Missile System Unveiled’, 38 North, 8 February 2018, https://www.38north.org/2018/02/melleman020818/. 15 Michael Elleman, ‘North Korea’s Newest Ballistic Missile: A Preliminary Assessment’, 38 North, 8 May 2019, ht t ps:/ / Part Two: Ballistic-Missile Development and Current Capabilities 63 www.38no rth. o r g/ 2 0 1 9 / 0 5 / m e l le m a n0 5 0 8 1 9 / ; Mikhail Zhirokhov, ‘Eksportnaya rabota. Kak Saudity pomogli Ukraine sohranit’ proekt rakety “Grom”’ [‘Export Job. How Saudis Helped Ukraine to Save Grom Missile Project’], DS News, 23 December 2019, https://www.dsnews.ua/ politics/eksportnaya-rabota-kak-saudity-pomogli-ukrainesohranit-23122019080000. 16 The Yuzhmash workforce shrank by a factor of six between 2014 and 2017. See Simon Shuster, ‘How North Korea Built a Nuclear Arsenal on the Ashes of the Soviet Union’, Time, 1 February 2018, http://time.com/5128398/the-missile-factory/. Ukraine confirmed to the UN Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009) that it was highly likely that the DPRK’s new engine contained separate components of the RD-250 engine and used the same propellant components. See ‘Report of the Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009)’, S/2018/171, 5 March 2018, p. 10, https://undocs.org/S/2018/171. 17 See, for example, Scott Sagan, ‘Armed and Dangerous. When Dictators Get the Bomb’, Foreign Affairs, November/ December 2018, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/northkorea/2018-10-15/armed-and-dangerous; William J. Broad and David E. Sanger, ‘North Korea’s Missile Success Is Linked to Ukrainian Plant, Investigators Say’, New York Times, 14 August 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/14/world/asia/northkorea-missiles-ukraine-factory.html; Viktor Baranets, ‘Viktor Esin, jeks-nachal’nik Glavnogo shtaba RVSN Rossii: Skoree vsego, Ukraina pomogla Severnoj Koree po “chernoj sheme”’ [‘Viktor Esin, former chief of the General Staff of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces: Ukraine is Likely to Have Helped North Korea Using “Black Market Channels”’] Komsomolskaya Pravda, 17 August 2017; Dmitriy Kiku, ‘A Ukraine Link to North Korea’s Nuclear and Missile Programs Development’, Russian International Affairs Council, 18 June 2020, https://russiancouncil. ru/en/analytics-and-comments/analytics/a-ukraine-link-tonorth-korea-s-nuclear-and-missile-programs-development/. 18 ‘Glava “Juzhmasha” rasskazal prankeram, kak dvigateli mogli popast’ v KNDR’ [‘Yuzhmash CEO Speaks of Engine Smuggling to DPRK’], RIA Novosti, 16 August 2017, https://ria. ru/20170816/1500462281.html. 19 The report uses the missile classification adopted in such Soviet/Russia-US treaties as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty, 1987) and the Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START, 2010). There are, however, other missile classifications as well. For example, the Japanese Ministry of Defense classifies missiles into four types: shortrange ballistic missiles (SRBMs) with a range of less than 1,000 km; medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) with a range of between 1,000 and 3,000 km; intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) with a range of between 3,000 and 5,500 km; and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) with a range of more than 5,500 km. The same classification is used in reports released by the UN Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009). 20 The 2K6 Luna artillery rocket system entered into service with the Soviet forces in 1960. The 9K52 Luna-M followed in 1964. 21 Evgeny Buzhinskiy, ‘(Ne)Realistichnye ugrozy? K voprosu o raketnyh programmah KNDR i Irana’ [‘(Un)Realistic Threats? DPRK’s and Iran’s Missile Programmes’], Russia Confidential, vol. 15, no. 3, 2016, http://pircenter.org/media/ content/files/13/14732635340.pdf; Andrey Kovsh, ‘Nachal’nyj jetap razvitija raketnoj programmy KNDR (1960-e–nachalo 1970-h gg.)’, [‘Initial Stage of the DPRK’s Missile Program Development (the 1960s – early 1970s)’], Obshhestvo: filosofija, istorija, kul’tura [Society: philosophy, history, culture], no. 6, 2017, http://dom-hors.ru/rus/files/arhiv_zhurnala/fik/2017/6/ history/kovsh.pdf. 22 Konstantin Chuprin, Poslednjaja krepost’ Stalina. Voennye sekrety Severnoj Korei [Stalin’s Last Fortress. North Korea’s Military Secrets] (Moscow: Tsentrpoligraf, 2012). 23 The R-17 missile was developed by the Soviet Union’s Special Design Bureau No. 385 (which has since been renamed the Makeyev State Missile Technology Center); the chief designer was Viktor Makeyev. 24 Dogovor o druzhbe, sotrudnichestve i vzaimnoj pomoshhi mezhdu SSSR i KNDR [The Soviet–DPRK Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance Treaty of 1961], Otnoshenija Sovetskogo Sojuza s narodnoj Koreej, 1945–1980: Dokumenty i materialy [Soviet Union’s Relations with a People’s Korea, 1945–1980: Documents and Materials] (Moscow: Nauka, 1981), pp. 196–8. 25 According to some reports, about 20 North Korean pilots fought on the side of Egypt in the Yom Kippur War of 1973. 26 Open Report of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, ‘Novyj vyzov posle “holodnoj vojny”: rasprostranenie oruzhija massovogo unichtozhenija’ [‘New Challenges After the Cold War: Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction’], 1993, http://svr.gov.ru/material/2-13-10.htm; Victor Esin, ‘Phen’janskaja bomba’ [‘The Pyongyang Bomb’], Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, 26 July 2013, http://nvo.ng.ru/ armament/2013-07-26/1_korea.html. 64 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies 27 North Korea’s success in ‘reverse-engineering’ the Scud-B (R-17E) missiles provided to it by Egypt is the most common explanation in the public domain for how Pyongyang acquired its Scud-type missiles. We have accepted this explanation as plausible, if not the most likely. However, we also recognise that alternative hypotheses exist in the public literature. For details, see Mark Fitzpatrick (ed.), North Korean Security Challenges: A Net Assessment, International Institute for Strategic Studies Strategic Dossier (London: IISS, 2011), Chapter 6; Michael Elleman (ed.), Iran’s Ballistic Missile Capabilities: A Net Assessment, International Institute for Strategic Studies Strategic Dossier (London: IISS, 2010), Chapter Three; and Robert H. Schmucker and Markus Schiller, Raketenbedrohung 2.0: Technische Und Politische Grundlagen [Missile Threat 2.0: Technical and Political Basics] (Hamburg: E.S. Mittler & Son, 2015), pp. 248–56. 28 The first-stage engine of the Unha-3 carrier is an assembly of four Hwasong-7 (Nodong) engines; the Unha-3 second stage is essentially the Hwasong-7 engine itself, and the Unha-3 third stage is a Hwasong-5 (Scud) engine. The Hwasong-7 engine itself is an assembly of four single-chamber Hwasong-5 engines functioning as a single four-chamber unit. As a result, the first Unha-3 stage is a 4x4 assembly (16 Hwasong-5/Scud engines in total), the second stage is a single assembly of four Scud engines, and the third stage a single Scud engine. See Aleksandr Likholetov, ‘Mistifikacii po obe storony Tihogo okeana’ [‘Mystification on Both Sides of the Pacific’], Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, 25 October 2013, http://nvo.ng.ru/armament/2013-10-25/1_kndr.html. 29 Report of the UN Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009), S/2014/147, 6 March 2014, pp. 22–3, https://www.undocs.org/S/2014/147. 30 ‘Swiss-made Component Found in North Korean Missile’, SWI swissinfo.ch, 11 February 2018, https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/ politics/swiss-made-component-allegedly-found-in-northkorean-missile/43892172. 31 ‘Taiwanese Father and Son Arrested for Allegedly Violating U.S. Laws to Prevent Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction’, FBI, 6 May 2013, https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/chicago/ press-releases/2013/taiwanese-father-and-son-arrested-forallegedly-violating-u.s.-laws-to-prevent-proliferation-of-weapons-of-mass-destruction; Jack Boureston and James A. Russell, ‘Illicit Nuclear Procurement Networks and Nuclear Proliferation: Challenges for Intelligence, Detection, and Interdiction’, St Antony’s International Review, vol. 4, no. 2, 2009, pp. 38, 40. 32 Dmitry Kiku, ‘Ocenka razvitija raketno/jadernoj programmy KNDR cherez prizmu sankcionnogo rezhima Soveta Bezopasnosti OON’ [‘Assessment of the Development of the DPRK Missile and Nuclear Programmes Through the Lens of the UN Security Council Sanctions Regime’], in Alexander Zhebin (ed.), Koreja pered novymi vyzovami [Korea Before New Challenges] (Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences, 2017), p. 103. 33 ‘Report of the UN Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009)’, S/2017/150, 27 February 2017, p. 27, https://www.undocs.org/S/2017/150. 34 The Russian Security Ministry later became the Federal Security Service, known as the FSB. 35 Interview with a former senior Russian missile industry manager, 7 May 2018 and 25 February 2019. 36 Aleksandr Likholetov, ‘Ugrozy iz proshlogo veka – real’nye i mnimye’ [‘Threats of the Past Century, Real and Imaginary’], Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, 8 June 2012, http://nvo. ng.ru/forces/2012-06-08/1_menaces.html. 37 ‘Kak rossijskie ballisticheskie rakety stali dostojaniem Juzhnoj Korei’ [‘How South Korea Gained Access to Russian Ballistic Missiles’], Voyennoye Obozreniye, 29 July 2011, https:// topwar.ru/5835-kak-rossiyskie-ballisticheskie-rakety-stalidostoyaniem-yuzhnoy-korei.html. 38 ‘Report of the UN Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009)’, S/2014/147, 6 March 2014, pp. 22–3, https://www.undocs.org/S/2014/147. 39 Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr, ‘Ballistic Ambitions Ascendant’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 10 April 1993, pp. 20–2. 40 Bermudez, ‘A History of Ballistic Missile Development in the DPRK’, p. 11. 41 Usually the theatre ballistic-missile category includes missiles with a range of more than 100 km and below 500 km. 42 Konstantin Chuprin, ‘Raketnye vojska «velikogo naslednika’ [‘The Great Successor’s Missile Troops’], Voyenno-promyshlennyj kur’er, 16 May 2012, https://vpk.name/news/69093_raketnyie_ voiska_velikogo_naslednika.html. 43 Victor Esin, ‘Jadernoe oruzhie KNDR: ugroza ili shantazh’ [‘DPRK Nuclear Weapons: Threat or Blackmail’], Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, 25 February 2005; Likholetov, ‘Mistifikacii po obe storony Tihogo okeana’. 44 Bermudez, ‘A History of Ballistic Missile Development in the DPRK’, p. 20. 45 Joseph Bermudez, ‘A Silent Partner’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 20 May 1998, pp. 16–17. 46 Elleman, Iran’s Ballistic Missile Capabilities: A Net Assessment, Chapter One. Part Two: Ballistic-Missile Development and Current Capabilities 65 47 Michael Elleman, ‘North Korea–Iran Missile Cooperation’, 38 North, 22 September 2016, https://www.38north.org/2016/09/ melleman092216/. 48 Victor Esin, ‘Perspektivy razvitija raketno-jadernogo potenciala KNDR’ [‘Outlook for the Development of North Korea’s Nuclear and Missile Capability’], in Alexei Arbatov, Vladimir Dvorkin and Sergey Oznobishchev (eds), Korejskij jadernyj krizis: perspektivy dejeskalacii [Korean Nuclear Crisis: Prospects of De-escalation] (Moscow: IMEMO RAN, 2013), p. 34. 49 Kyle Mizokami, ‘We Now Know Japan’s Masterplan to Stop a Chinese or North Korean Missile Strike’, National Interest, 9 June 2018, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/we-nowknow-japans-masterplan-stop-chinese-or-north-korean-2618. 50 Tatiana Anichkina and Viktor Esin, ‘Jadernye vozmozhnosti KNDR’ [‘North Korea’s Nuclear Potential’], Rossija i Amerika v XXI veke, no. 1, 2016. 51 ‘Report of the UN Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009’), S/2017/150, 27 February 2017, p. 16, https://undocs.org/S/2017/150. 52 Aleksandr Zhebin, ‘Raketnaja i kosmicheskie programmy KNDR: problemy mezhdunarodnogo priznanija [‘DPRK Missile and Space Programmes: Problems of International Recognition’], Nuclear Club Journal, nos. 3–4, 2017, p. 32. 53 ‘Report of the UN Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009)’, S/2017/742, 5 September 2017, p. 9, https://undocs.org/S/2017/742. 54 ‘Supreme Leader Inspects Test-Fire of New Strategic Ballistic Rocket’, Pyongyang Times, 24 June 2016, https://kcnawatch.co/ newstream/1466686000-51116090/supreme-leader-inspectstest-fire-of-new-strategic-ballistic-rocket/. 55 David Wright, ‘Range Estimates for the Musudan Missile’, Union of Concerned Scientists, 12 October 2010, https://allthingsnuclear. org/dwright/range-estimates-for-the-musudan-missile; David Wright, ‘More on Musudan Range Estimates’, Union of Concerned Scientists, 12 October 2010, https://allthingsnuclear. org/dwright/more-on-musudan-range-estimates. 56 Vladimir Khrustalev, ‘Sredstva dostavki jadernogo oruzhija KNDR: tekushhee sostojanie programm i popytki prognoza [‘Means of Delivery of Nuclear Weapons of North Korea: The Current Status of the Programmes and Attempts to Forecast’], in Alexander Zhebin (ed.), Koreja pered novymi vyzovami [Korea Before New Challenges] (Moscow: IDVRAN, 2017), p. 92; Savelsberg and Kiessling, ‘North Korea’s Musudan Missile: A Performance Assessment’. 57 Jungmin Kang (ed.), Assessment of the Nuclear Programs of Iran and North Korea (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013), p. 120. 58 Presentation of General Victor Esin, Leading Researcher, Institute for the US and Canadian Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, at the workshop ‘Assessment of the DPRK’s Missile Capability’, CENESS, Moscow, 7 May 2018; Defense Intelligence Ballistic Missile Analysis Committee, ‘Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat 2017’, p. 5, https://fas.org/irp/threat/missile/bm-2017.pdf. 59 ‘KNDR za dva goda budet gotova nanesti jadernyj udar v ATR, zajavil jekspert’ [‘DPRK to Acquire Capability to Deliver Nuclear Strike Against Targets in Asia Pacific – Expert’], RIA Novosti, 10 October 2017, https://ria.ru/20171010/1506549250.html. 60 The two-chamber RD-250 engine was developed for the R-36 ICBM (also known as the 8K67, or the SS-9 Scarp, according to the NATO classification). The missile went into production in 1966 at the Yuzhmash missile-production plant, which is based in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. The control systems for the missile were designed by NPO Elektronpribor (Kharkiv, Ukraine). The R-36 was decommissioned in 1979, but the modification of the RD-250 engine remained in production at Yuzhmash until 2001 for use in the Cyclone family of space launchers. See Yury Yashin (ed.), Oruzhie raketno-jadernogo udara [Nuclear Missile Strike Weapons] (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo MGTU im. Baumana, 2009), p. 24–5; Yuri Alekseyev (ed.), Makarov – patriarh raketostroenija [Makarov, a Missile Industry Patriarch] (Kiev: Space Inform, 2016), pp. 90–1; ‘Key Specifications of the R-36 Missile Complex’, Yuzhnoye, https://www.yuzhnoye.com/company/ history/r_36.html; Olga Fandorina, ‘Until 2001, Yuzhmash [Made Rocket Engines Only For Russia – Ukrainian Space Agency]’, News of Ukraine, 16 August 2017, https://ukranews. com/news/513893-yuzhmash-vypuskal-raketnye-dvygatelydo-2001-goda-tolko-dlya-rossyy-kosmycheskoe-agentstvoukrayny. 61 Broad and Sanger, ‘North Korea’s Missile Success Is Linked to Ukrainian Plant, Investigators Say’; Baranets, ‘Viktor Esin, jeks-nachal’nik Glavnogo shtaba RVSN Rossii: Skoree vsego, Ukraina pomogla Severnoj Koree po “chernoj sheme”’. 62 Ankit Panda, ‘We Need to Talk About North Korea’s Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles’, Diplomat, 14 May 2018, https://thediplomat.com/2018/05/we-need-to-talk-about-northkoreas-intermediate-range-ballistic-missiles/. 63 Choe Sang-Hun, ‘North Korea Says Missile It Tested Can Carry Nuclear Warhead’, New York Times, 14 May 2017, https://www. nytimes.com/2017/05/14/world/asia/north-korea-missilenuclear.html. 64 David Wright, ‘North Korea’s Missile in New Test Would Have 4,500 km Range’, Union of Concerned Scientists, 13 May 2017, 66 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies https://allthingsnuclear.org/dwright/north-koreas-missilein-new-test-would-have-4500-km-range. 65 Alexandr Khramchikhin, ‘Sila Chuchhe’ [‘The Power of the Juche’], Voyenno-promyshlennyj kur’er, 18 May 2016, https:// www.vpk-news.ru/articles/30660; ‘Raketnaya Programma KNDR: Dossie’ [‘The DPRK Missile Programme: A Dossier’], TASS, 29 November 2017, http://www.tass.ru/info/4385973; Presentation of General Victor Esin, Leading Researcher, Institute for the US and Canadian Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, at the workshop ‘Assessment of the DPRK’s Missile Capability’, CENESS, Moscow, 7 May 2018. 66 Defense Intelligence Ballistic Missile Analysis Committee, ‘Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat 2017’, June 2017, https://fas. org/irp/threat/missile/bm-2017.pdf. 67 Jeffrey Lewis and John Schilling, ‘Real Fake Missiles: North Korea’s ICBM Mockups Are Getting Scary Good’, 38 North, 4 November 2013, https://www.38north.org/2013/11/lewis-schilling110513/; ‘KN-08 / Hwasong 13’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/kn-08/. 68 Michael Elleman, ‘Video Casts Doubt on North Korea’s Ability to Field an ICBM Re-entry Vehicle’, 38 North, 31 July 2017, https://www.38north.org/2017/07/melleman073117/. The available information (i.e., altitude and timing of the failure) is consistent with the break-up of a very light re-entry vehicle, though one cannot dismiss the possibility the object seen in the video was instead the missile’s second stage. 69 Jeffrey Lewis, ‘DPRK RV Video Analysis’, Arms Control Wonk, 9 November 2018, https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/ archive/1206084/dprk-rv-video-analysis/. 70 Vladimir Evseev, ‘Ocenka voennogo potenciala KNDR’ [‘North Korean Nuclear Missile Potential: Speculations and Reality’], in Alexander Zhebin (ed.), KNDR i RK – 70 let [The DPRK and the ROK: The 70th Anniversary of Foundation] (Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences, 2018), p. 121. 71 Michael Elleman, ‘North Korea’s Hwasong-14 ICBM: New Data Indicates Shorter Range Than Many Thought’, 38 North, 29 November 2018, https://www.38north.org/2018/11/ melleman112918/. 72 Theodore Postol, Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker, ‘North Korea’s “Not Quite” ICBM Can’t Hit the Lower 48 States’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 11 August 2017, http://thebulletin.org/ north-korea’s-“not-quite”-icbm-can’t-hit-lower-48-states11012. 73 David Wright, ‘North Korean ICBM Appears Able to Reach Major US Cities’, Union of Concerned Scientists, 28 July 2017, https://allthingsnuclear.org/dwright/new-north-korean-icbm. 74 Michael Elleman, ‘The New Hwasong-15 ICBM: A Significant Improvement That May Be Ready as Early as 2018’, 38 North, 30 November 2017, https://www.38north.org/2017/11/ melleman113017/. 75 Khrustalev, ‘Dlinnye ruki KNDR: chto iz sebja predstavljaet novaja raketa Kim Chen Yna’. 76 Ankit Panda, ‘North Korea’s 2017 Military Parade Was a Big Deal. Here Are the Major Takeaways’, Diplomat, 15 April 2017, https://thediplomat.com/2017/04/ north-koreas-2017-military-parade-was-a-big-deal-here-arethe-major-takeaways/. 77 Joseph S. Bermudez, Jr, ‘The KN-02 SRBM’, KPA Journal, vol. 1, no. 2, February 2010, p. 7, http://www.kpajournal.com/storage/ KPAJ-1-02.pdf. 78 ‘KN-02 “Toksa”’, Missile Threat, Center for Strategic and International Studies, https://missilethreat.csis.org/missile/ kn-02/. 79 As previously noted, the Hwasong-3 employs double-base, solid propellants. The Toksa uses a higher-performance, compositetype solid propellant, whose production requires very different infrastructure. Toksa is the first known missile in North Korea to rely on composite-type solid propellant. 80 Vladimir Lodkin, ‘“Podvodnyj kulak” Phen’jana’ [‘Pyongyang’s Submarine Fist’], Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, 2 June 2017, http://nvo.ng.ru/armament/2017-06-02/1_950_kndr.html. 81 Evseev, ‘Ocenka voennogo potenciala KNDR’, p. 118. 82 ‘Eshhe odna raketa ot Kima’ [‘Another Missile from Kim]’, Gazeta.Ru, 1 August 2017, https://www.gazeta.ru/ politics/2017/08/01_a_10813345.shtml. 83 China employed a similar progression with the JL-1 SLBM and the land-based DF-21 MRBM. Both are two-stage, solid-fuel missiles. 84 Ksenia Naka, ‘Lider KNDR prikazal skoree osnastit’ armiju raketoj “Pukkykson-2” [‘DPRK Leader Orders Army to Be Equipped with the Pukguksong-2 Missile as Soon as Possible’], RIA Novosti, 22 May 2017, https://ria.ru/ world/20170522/1494764139.html. 85 Vladimir Khrustalev, ‘Sredstva dostavki jadernogo oruzhija KNDR: tekushhee sostojanie programm i popytki prognoza’ [‘Means of Delivery of Nuclear Weapons of North Korea: The Current Status of the Programs and Attempts to Forecast’], in Alexander Zhebin (ed.), ‘Koreja pered novymi vyzovami’, (Moscow: Russian Academy of Sciences, 2017), p. 98. 86 Michael Elleman, ‘North Korea’s New Pukguksong-3 Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile’, 38 North, 3 October 2019, https://www.38north.org/2019/10/melleman100319/. Part Two: Ballistic-Missile Development and Current Capabilities 67 87 H.I. Sutton, ‘North Korea Appears to Have Built Its First Real Ballistic Missile Submarine’, Forbes, 13 August 2019, https://www. forbes.com/sites/hisutton/2019/08/13/north-korea-appears-tohave-built-its-first-real-ballistic-missile-submarine/#71d4dcf814e2. 88 Vann H. Van Diepen, ‘Cutting Through the Hype About the North Korean Ballistic Missile Submarine Threat’, 38 North, 6 September 2019, https://www.38north.org/2019/09/vvandiepen090619/. 89 Ankit Panda, ‘North Korea’s Pre-Olympics Military Parade’, Diplomat, 9 February 2018, https://thediplomat.com/2018/02/ north-koreas-pre-olympics-military-parade/. 90 Ankit Panda, ‘North Korea Remains in Compliance With Military Agreement: South Korean Defense Minister’, Diplomat, 4 June 2019, https://thediplomat.com/2019/06/north-korearemains-in-compliance-with-military-agreement-southkorean-defense-minister/; ‘Report of the Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009)’, https://undocs. org/S/2020/151. 91 ‘Report of the UN Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009)’, https://undocs.org/S/2020/151. 92 Vann H. Van Diepen and Daniel R. Depetris, ‘Putting North Korea’s New Short-Range Missiles into Perspective’, 38 North, 5 September 2019, https://www.38north.org/2019/09/ vvandiependdepetris090519/. 93 Ibid. 94 ‘Report of the UN Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009)’, S/2017/742, 5 September 2017, p. 9, https://undocs.org/S/2017/742; ‘Report of the UN Panel of Experts established pursuant to Resolution 1874 (2009)’, S/2018/171, 5 March 2018, p. 7, https://undocs.org/S/2018/171. 95 Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics On The Elimination Of Their Intermediate-Range And Shorter-Range Missiles (INF Treaty), Article VII.4, https://www.state.gov/t/avc/trty/102360.htm#text. 96 Protocol to the Treaty between The United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (New START), Part I, Paragraph 59 (13), https://2009-2017.state.gov/ documents/organization/140047.pdf . 68 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Part Three: Potential Steps for Tension Reduction, ConfidenceBuilding and Denuclearisation Ever since its division in 1945, the Korean Peninsula has been one of the world’s most dangerous flashpoints. Following the inconclusive end of the Korean War of 1950–1953, the tense situation has not escalated to another military conflagration, as South and North Korea have been protected and constrained by their respective alliances with the US for the former and China and the Soviet Union for the latter. Yet the growing nuclear dimensions of confrontation on the Korean Peninsula magnify the danger. Despite past diplomatic efforts and the increasingly stringent sanctions imposed on the DPRK after its first nuclear test in 2006 by the UNSC, as well as the long-standing unilateral sanctions by the US and other countries, the DPRK has acquired a capability to produce and deliver nuclear weapons, as demonstrated in detail in the first two chapters of this report. As the DPRK continues to develop its nuclear strike capabilities, Northeast Asia faces a security uncertainty and the prospect of further nuclear proliferation. Past diplomatic efforts There have been many efforts over the past three decades to address the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, both bilaterally (including North and South Korea, and DPRK– US) and multilaterally.1 The most successful multilateral effort to date was the Six-Party Talks (6PT) featuring China, Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea and the US (2003– 2008) that produced the September 2005 Joint Statement. The key points of that agreement – as well as the experience of its implementation up to 2008 – remain relevant. Regretfully, the 6PT Joint Statement and other agreements were at best implemented only partially or not implemented at all, while other engagement efforts came to naught. The circumstances and reasons for their demise varied. Many in Japan, South Korea and the US lay the blame on Pyongyang for failing to meet commitments. Others point to policy change in Washington and Seoul (for example, US president George W. Bush’s rejection of his predecessor Bill Clinton’s approach and ROK president Lee Myung-bak’s abandonment of the ‘engagement policy’ of his two predecessors). The DPRK has a negotiating style of its own, and a set of unwavering conditions. Most importantly, the DPRK links the nuclear issue to its ‘supreme interests’ (i.e., survival of the country vis-à-vis the perceived threats to its security).2 The DPRK has been steadfast in insisting that the US should abandon what Pyongyang calls its ‘hostile policy’ against the North. While the US has regularly denied any hostile intent towards the DPRK and expressed its readiness to normalise relations if and when the latter abandons its nuclear programme, North Korea has often been called a ‘rogue state’ or a ‘pariah state’, with many officials and experts believing that ‘regime change’ in North Korea is the only way to achieve denuclearisation and a peaceful peninsula.3 Figure 40. 6PT lead negotiators, 19 September 2005 Source: Getty Part Three: Potential Steps for Tension Reduction, Confidence-Building and Denuclearisation 69 Figure 41. DPRK Chairman Kim Jong Un and ROK President Moon Jae-in shake hands at the Panmunjom summit, April 2018 Source: Getty Defying crippling economic sanctions and isolation, Pyongyang has proved its opponents wrong and acquired a nuclear deterrent, even though the country has paid a huge price for it in economic terms. Moreover, North Korea has used the West’s disengagement as an opportunity to step up its nuclear development. In 2015, former US defense secretary William Perry summed up the results of US policy towards North Korea since the Clinton administration as ‘perhaps the most unsuccessful exercise of diplomacy in our country’s history’.4 The 2018–2019 summitry At the end of 2018, it seemed that the Korean Peninsula might be at a positive turning point. The immediate fear of war had dissipated. Security issues remained unresolved, but the main concerns seemed to focus on whether engagement and dialogue were moving either too fast or too slow. The outcomes of the three interKorean summits in 2018, as well as the unprecedented DPRK–US summit in Singapore in June the same year, provided good reason for optimism. It was inter-Korean engagement that had triggered positive developments. It started in early 2018 through sports diplomacy at the Pyeongchang Olympics and the Panmunjom summit in April, followed by the summit in Pyongyang in September. In Pyongyang, ROK President Moon Jae-in and DPRK Chairman Kim Jong Un reached an agreement on concrete measures to ‘completely eliminate the fear of war and the risk of armed conflicts on the Korean Peninsula’. They also ‘firmly pledged to reconnect Korea’s arteries and to hasten a future of common prosperity and reunification’ on their own terms.5 President Moon and Chairman Kim seemed to realise the need to begin building trust. They also knew that this trust should be based on practical and visible actions by both sides. Learning from the past, the leaders of the two Koreas agreed on direct and regular interactions between civilian and military representatives at all levels, including the opening of a Joint Liaison Office in Kaesong and the establishment of a joint military committee in late 2018. Figure 42. Athletes from North Korea and South Korea walk together during the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics Source: Getty 70 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies The results of the September 2018 inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang went beyond the expectations of those who share the belief that Koreans should be in charge of their own destiny. The most important result was an agreement on military measures to reduce tensions. There was also hope that the two sides would flesh out their April 2018 agreement to create a special zone for peace and cooperation in the West Sea. The agreement on economic cooperation struck at the September 2018 summit was also an ambitious one. Given the sanctions and restrictions imposed by the UNSC, parts of that agreement were conditional on progress towards denuclearisation and improved relations between the DPRK and the US. At the April summit in Panmunjom, the two Koreas emphasised the need to build trust between the DPRK and the US; hence the priority they attached to declaring a formal end to the Korean War, replacing the Armistice that has been in place since 1953. Another new welcome feature of the inter-Korean engagement at that time was the DPRK’s willingness to discuss denuclearisation with the ROK. It was understood that the details of any denuclearisation deal would have to be developed as a result of a process led by the DPRK with the US, with other countries playing their own roles. The ROK, however, positioned itself to play the role of a bridging facilitator and an ‘interested contributor’. It is important to note that both in Panmunjom and in Pyongyang, the Korean leaders agreed that the Korean Peninsula should be a ‘nuclear-weapon-free zone’ (DPRK language) or ‘free from nuclear weapons’ (ROK language).6 In their Joint Statement at the historic DPRK–US summit on 12 June 2018 in Singapore, US president Donald Trump ‘committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to a complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula’.7 The two leaders agreed to establish new DPRK–US relations and build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. In April of the same year, the DPRK announced a moratorium on nuclear tests and long-range-missile launches. It also announced steps to shut down the Punggye-ri nuclear test site. In the Pyongyang summit declaration (18–20 September 2018), the DPRK agreed to permanently shut down the Tongchang-ri missile-engine test site and rocket launch pad under the observation of international experts, and expressed a willingness to dismantle permanently – on certain conditions – the nuclear facilities at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Centre. The two sides also agreed to cooperate closely in the process of pursuing a complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.8 The US and the ROK, for their part, indefinitely postponed large-scale joint military exercises. Figure 43. US President Donald Trump and DPRK Chairman Kim Jong Un meet at the Singapore Summit, June 2018 Source: Getty Part Three: Potential Steps for Tension Reduction, Confidence-Building and Denuclearisation 71 Table 8. Korean Peninsula political developments, 2018–2019 Date Event Results 1 January 2018 9 February 2018 25–28 March 2018 20 April 2018 20 April 2018 27 April 2018 9 May 2018 26 May 2018 12 June 2018 14 September 2018 18–20 September 2018 27–28 February 2019 12 April 2019 24–25 April 2019 20–21 June 2019 30 June 2019 4–5 October 2019 28–31 December 2019 Kim Jong Un New Year’s speech Pyeongchang Winter Olympics opening ceremony China–DPRK summit in Beijing DPRK–ROK hotline DPRK unilateral declaration DPRK–ROK Panmunjom summit DPRK unilateral gesture 2nd Kim–Moon meeting in Panmunjom DPRK–US Singapore summit DPRK–ROK joint liaison office opened in Kaesong DPRK–ROK Pyongyang summit DPRK–US Hanoi summit Kim speech to Supreme People’s Assembly DPRK–Russia Vladivostok summit China–DPRK Pyongyang summit DPRK–US Panmunjom meeting, with ROK joining briefly DPRK–US working level meeting in Stockholm 5th Plenary Meeting of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea Kim said nuclear forces are ‘completed’, underlined importance of improvement of inter-Korean relations and proposed talks over DPRK participation in ROK-hosted Winter Olympics. Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong shook hands with Moon Jae-in. ROK and DPRK athletes marched together during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Kim Jong Un’s first foreign visit as leader. Telephone hotline established between two leaders. Kim Jong Un declared a moratorium on nuclear tests and long-range missile launches and closure of Punggye-ri nuclear test site. Panmunjom Declaration pledged to convert Korean War Armistice into formal peace treaty and confirmed goal of nuclear-free Korean Peninsula. Released 3 US detainees. Agreed to accelerate the 27 April Panmunjom Declaration and to ensure holding of 12 June DPRK–US summit. First-ever meeting between DPRK and US leaders. Joint statement pledged to establish new relations, pursue lasting peace and complete denuclearisation of Korean Peninsula, and to recover US war remains. President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK. Established a new full-time person-to-person channel. Pyongyang Joint Declaration pledged denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, improvements in inter-Korean relations and measures to ease military tension. Kim Jong Un agreed to dismantle permanently the Dongchang-ri missile engine test site and launch platform and expressed his willingness to take additional measures, such as the permanent dismantlement of the nuclear facilities in Yongbyon, as the United States takes corresponding measures. Kim Jong Un offered to dismantle nuclear facilities at Yongbyon in exchange for relief from UN sanctions. Trump asked for more. They didn’t agree and ended the meeting early. Kim Jong Un expressed scepticism about US policy and set end-of-year deadline for US to ‘abandon its current calculation’. Situation on the Korean Peninsula and prospects for sustainable dialogue in the region were the key topics of the meeting. Agreed to forge closer ties. Xi Jinping praised DPRK efforts to promote denuclearisation. Agreed to strengthen cooperation on building peace and security on the Korean Peninsula. This meeting was the fifth between the two leaders since early 2018. Trump briefly stepped into North Korea. Agreed to restart working-level talks No agreement; ended early. Kim Jong Un announced DPRK would no longer be ‘unilaterally bound’ to the long-range missile and nuclear test moratorium. During the year 2019, however, engagement came to an almost complete halt. Following the rupture during the DPRK–US summit in Hanoi (27–28 February 2019) due to differences over the scope of the measures to be taken by both sides, the DPRK leadership became sceptical about its engagement with the US and the ROK. Chairman Kim said in his policy speech on 12 April 2019 that the talks in Hanoi ‘gave us a sense of caution about whether the United States is genuinely interested in improving the bilateral relations’, adding that ‘the United States still looks away from the withdrawal of its hostile policy, the basic way for establishing a new bilateral relationship; rather it mistakenly believes that if it pressures us to the maximum, it can subdue us’.9 Even the impromptu DPRK–US summit at Panmunjom on 30 June 2019 was not able to re-ignite the sustainable process of engagement, as Pyongyang was looking for a substantive change in the US stance. The long-anticipated working-level meeting in Stockholm on 5 October 2019 failed to narrow the gap between the two sides. By the end of the year, the DPRK had virtually shut down its communications with the US and the ROK, becoming 72 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Figure 44. Negotiations between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un hit a deadlock at the Hanoi summit, February 2019 Source: Getty unresponsive to their attempts to interact and having tested multiple projectiles and short-range missiles. At the plenary meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea in late December 2019, Chairman Kim stated that ‘if the US persists in its hostile policy towards the DPRK, there will never be the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, and the DPRK will steadily develop indispensable and prerequisite strategic weapons for national security until the US rolls back its hostile policy and a lasting and durable peace mechanism is in place’.10 While the outlook for the situation on the Korean Peninsula remains uncertain, it is safe to conclude that the engagement and nuclear diplomacy of 2018 and 2019 had generated tangible results and proved its value in terms of reducing tensions and addressing security problems in the region. The unilateral moratorium on nuclear tests and long-range-missile launches that Pyongyang continues to observe as of September 2020 limits Pyongyang’s ability to develop more advanced warheads and missiles, but measures taken by the DPRK unilaterally do not include any limitations on fissile-material or missile production. If the DPRK were to completely and permanently dismantle all its facilities at the Yongbyon Nuclear Scientific Research Centre (as discussed at the Hanoi summit), Pyongyang would have reduced its capability to make weapons-usable fissile materials, perhaps by about 80%, and would also essentially freeze its thermonuclear programme. Potential steps Both the ROK and the US continue to try to persuade Pyongyang of the need to interact. In January 2020, President Moon expressed his determination to expand inter-Korean economic cooperation as much as possible within the bounds of sanctions restrictions, including by allowing visits to North Korea by South Korean tourists. China and Russia, for their part, introduced in December 2019 a draft resolution on easing the UNSC sanctions that undermine the welfare of the North Korean people. The two countries also called for further confidencebuilding measures on the peninsula. China and Russia also strongly support inter-Korean engagement. In 2019 China and Russia shared a draft Action Plan for a comprehensive and simultaneous resolution of the problems facing the Korean Peninsula with fellow 6PT members the DPRK, Japan, the ROK and the US. It would appear that the main challenge at the moment is of a political nature. There is a need to help the key parties concerned make strategic policy decisions in order to break the vicious cycles of engagement/disengagement at increasingly dangerous levels of stand-off. This would require a fundamental review of the existing approaches in the capitals involved. A rapid denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula is not a realistic possibility. Nevertheless, developments in 2018–2019 demonstrated that progress towards Part Three: Potential Steps for Tension Reduction, Confidence-Building and Denuclearisation 73 denuclearisation is possible. The central principle of moving forward is that the parties must adopt a step-bystep and reciprocal approach. The step-by-step approach is especially important for the early phase of dialogue as an element of confidence-building. The Joint Statement made at the Singapore summit contains a very important concept: mutual confidence-building can promote a denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. It is also important to think about what the reciprocal measures might be, should the DPRK prove willing to move forward. Negotiations are a two-way street, and the reciprocal measures that would offer adequate incentives to North Korea should be stepped up. The lack of such measures was one of the major bottlenecks for the dialogue process that took place in 2018–2019. One of the practical challenges in this context would be to establish the actual ‘proportionate value’ of such steps and measures for the individual parties concerned. Speaking of the format of the dialogue on formulating the next steps to reduce tensions and achieve progress towards denuclearisation, the experience of the Iran nuclear talks, which produced the JCPOA in July 2015, could be put to good use. A multinational approach that combines bilateral and multilateral tracks, as was the case during the Iran negotiations, looks the most promising and sustainable. Despite the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the JCPOA, and Iran’s reciprocal steps since summer 2019 to reduce compliance with the enrichment limits, the Iran deal remains an exceptional example of the art of diplomacy. Distrustful of Washington, Pyongyang appears once again to be leaning towards multinational formats. In informal discussions, representatives of the DPRK Foreign Ministry have on several occasions made references to the experience of the Iran nuclear talks. The Panmunjom Declaration also emphasises the role of international support and cooperation for the cause of denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. As part of any future Korean talks in such a format, we could also borrow from the Iran negotiations such principles as mutual respect, reciprocity, and recognition of state sovereignty and security interests of all parties. Another important consideration is that the DPRK’s partners at the talks should not put forward impossible conditions. They should not demand things that no sovereign state would ever accept, barring a complete military defeat. The long-term goals of this process should be a complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and the development of a comprehensive peace and security system in Northeast Asia. One of the immediate goals of the talks should be to produce an agreed definition of what exactly a ‘denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula’ actually means. The term has often been used in joint documents, but the parties do not interpret the term in the same way. Finally, it would be useful to recall lessons from the 6PT, including the working group that was established to examine possible peace and security mechanisms in Northeast Asia. There are no public accounts of the work of this group, but the issue is drawing interest, given the intensifying rivalry between the great powers in the region. Obviously, it is a sensitive issue for the US and its allies, given their respective treaty obligations. Common sense, however, suggests that the evolving security environment in the region might benefit from a multilateral understanding and agreement regarding, for example, mutual security guarantees (assurances) to the DPRK and other regional countries, and increased transparency of certain military activities in the region. Figure 45. Russian President Vladimir Putin and DPRK Chairman Kim Jong Un meet in Vladivostok, April 2019 Figure 46. DPRK Chairman Kim Jong Un and Chinese President Xi Jinping meet with their spouses in Pyongyang, June 2019 Source: Official Website of the Russian President Vladimir Putin Source: Alamy 74 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Notes 1 For a detailed account, see Robert Carlin, ‘Details, Details: History Lessons from Negotiating with North Korea’, 38 North, 14 October 2016, https://www.38north.org/2016/10/ rcarlin101416/. 2 See, for example, ‘Statement of DPRK Government on its Withdrawal from NPT’, KCNA, 10 January 2003, http://www. kcna.co.jp/item/2003/200301/news01/11.htm. 3 See, for example, Sue Mi Terry, ‘Let North Korea Collapse’, New York Times, 16 June 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/ opinion/let-north-korea-collapse.html. 4 William J. Perry, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015), p. 171. 5 ‘Address by President Moon Jae-in at May Day Stadium in Pyeongyang’, President of the Republic of Korea Official Website, 20 September 2018, https://english1.president.go.kr/ briefingspeeches/speeches/70. 6 The DPRK and ROK official translations from Korean to English of the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula have some linguistic differences. 7 ‘Joint Statement of President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the Singapore Summit’, U.S. Embassy in Singapore, 12 June 2018, 'https://sg.usembassy. gov/joint-statement-of-president-donald-j-trump-of-theunited-states-of-america-and-chairman-kim-jong-un-of-thedemocratic-peoples-republic-of-korea/. 8 ‘Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and President Moon Jae In Sign September Pyongyang Joint Declaration’, DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 20 September 2018, http://www.mfa.gov.kp/ en/september-pyongyang-joint-declaration/. 9 The National Committee on North Korea, ‘On Socialist Construction and the Internal and External Policies of the Government of the Republic at the Present Stage’, 12 April 2019, https://www.ncnk.org/resources/publications/kju_april2019_ policy_speech.pdf/file_view. 10 ‘Report on 5th Plenary Meeting of 7th C.C., WPK’, DPRK Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1 January 2020, http://www.mfa. gov.kp/en/report-on-5th-plenary-meeting-of-7th-c-c-wpk/. Part Three: Potential Steps for Tension Reduction, Confidence-Building and Denuclearisation 75 76 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Annex One: Russian Working Group Chair: Anton KHLOPKOV, CENESS Director for Arms Control, Energy and Environmental Studies (1989–2011) Coordinator: Dmitry KONUKHOV, CENESS Senior Research Associate, with assistance from Vladislav CHERNAVSKIKH and Anastasia SHAVROVA, CENESS Research Associates Ilya DYACHKOV, PhD, Associate Professor, Dept. of Japanese, Korean, Indonesian and Mongolian, Dept. of Oriental Studies, Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO–University), Ministry of Foreign Affairs Members: Grigory BERDENNIKOV, Ambassador-in-Residence, Center for Energy and Security Studies (CENESS); former Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the International Organizations in Vienna (2001–2007) and to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva (1993–1998); former Deputy Foreign Minister (1992–1993; 1999–2001) Evgeny BUZHINSKIY, Lt.–Gen. (ret.), Chairman of the Executive Board, PIR Center; former Head of the International Treaty Directorate; Deputy Head of the Main Department of International Military Cooperation, Ministry of Defence (2002–2009) Victor ESIN, Col.–Gen. (ret.), Leading Research Associate, Institute for the U.S. and Canadian Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS); former Chief of Staff and Vice Commander–in–Chief, Russian Strategic Rocket Forces (RVSN, 1994–1996) Alexander ILITCHEV, Senior Advisor, Center for Energy and Security Studies (CENESS); former Principal Adviser to the Personal Envoy of the UN SecretaryGeneral for the Korean Peninsula Alexander LIKHOLETOV, Consultant, Center for Energy and Security Studies (CENESS) Oleg DAVYDOV, Senior Fellow, Center for AsiaPacific Studies, Primakov National Research Institute for World Economy and International Relations (IMEMO), Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS); former Ambassador-at-Large, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2016–2017) Anatoly DIAKOV, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of General Physics, National Research University – Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (NRU–MIPT); former Director, Center Mikhail LYSENKO, Ambassador, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of International Law, Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO– University), Ministry of Foreign Affairs; former Director of the Department for Security and Disarmament, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2001–2004); former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to New Zealand (2004–2008) Alexander MINAEV, Senior Lecturer, Diplomatic Academy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs; former Minister Annex One: Russian Working Group 77 Counsellor, Embassy of the Russian Federation to the DPRK (2015–2018) Center, Institute of Economics, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) Valery SUKHININ, Ambassador, Associate Professor, Moscow State Institute for International Relations (MGIMO–University), Ministry of Foreign Affairs; former Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to the DPRK (2006–2012) Georgy TOLORAYA, PhD, Chair, Regional Programs, 'Russkiy Mir' Foundation; Director, Asian Strategy Alexandr VORONTSOV, PhD, Advisor, Center for Energy and Security Studies (CENESS); Head, Department for Korean and Mongolian Studies, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) Alexandr ZHEBIN, PhD, Director, Center for Korean Studies (CKS), Institute of Far Eastern Studies (IFES), Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) 78 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies Annex Two: US Working Group Co-chairs: Mark FITZPATRICK, Associate Fellow and former Executive Director, IISS-Americas (2015–18) and Director of IISS Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Policy Programme (2005–18); former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Non-Proliferation (acting) (2003–05) Michael ELLEMAN, Director of IISS Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Policy Programme and former Senior Fellow for Missile Defense Members: Andrea BERGER, Associate Fellow, Royal United Services Institute; former Senior Research Associate, James Martin Center for Non-Proliferation Studies Kelsey DAVENPORT, Director for Nonproliferation Policy, Arms Control Association Robert EINHORN, Senior Fellow in the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative and the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Brookings Institution; former US State Department Special Advisor for Nonproliferation and Arms Control (2009–13) and Assistant Secretary of State for Non-Proliferation (1999–2001) Melissa HANHAM, former Deputy Director of Open Nuclear Network and Director of the Datayo Project at One Earth Future Foundation and former Senior Research Associate, East Asia Nonproliferation Program, James Martin Center for Non-Proliferation Studies Siegfried HECKER, Senior Fellow (emeritus), Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University; former Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory (1986–97) Susan KOCH, former Director for Proliferation Strategy, National Security Council Staff (2001-05) and Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for Arms Control (2005–07) Jeffrey LEWIS, Professor, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and Director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies Ankit PANDA, Stanton Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; former Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Federation of American Scientists; author of Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea (London: Hurst, 2020) Daniel PINKSTON, Lecturer in International Relations with Troy University; former Northeast Asia Deputy Project Director for the International Crisis Group in Seoul Greg THIELMAN, Board member, Arms Control Association; former acting director of the Strategic, Proliferation, and Military Affairs Office in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the US State Department Joel WIT, Senior Fellow with Stimson Center and Editor, 38 North; former US State Department official Annex Two: US Working Group 79 80 The International Institute for Strategic Studies and Center for Energy and Security Studies A JOINT STUDY BY THE CENTER FOR ENERGY AND SECURITY STUDIES (CENESS) AND THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC STUDIES (IISS) DPRK Strategic Capabilities and Security on the Korean Peninsula: Looking Ahead Dangerous tensions on the Korean Peninsula associated with North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons have been among the world’s most complex and contentious security issues since the end of the Cold War. Notwithstanding instances of effective diplomacy, overall, bilateral and multilateral efforts as well as sanctions and pressure campaigns have thus far failed both to prevent the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) from acquiring the fissile material for nuclear weapons and an extensive array of ballistic missiles capable of delivering them to an increasingly long range, and to solve the region’s security problems. DPRK Strategic Capabilities and Security on the Korean Peninsula: Looking Ahead is a joint endeavour by the Moscow-based Center for Energy and Security Studies (CENESS) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). This report charts the motivations, pillars and progress of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes over the years, and examines possible international steps towards developing and implementing proposals for denuclearisation and creating lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula. At a time of antagonistic superpower relations, the ability of the two think tanks, tapping experts in Russia and the United States, to reach shared conclusions about both the nature of the problem and potential solutions stands as an example of the power of fact-based analysis. The Center for Energy and Security Studies (CENESS) is an independent, nongovernmental think tank established in 2009 and headquartered in Moscow. The main goal of CENESS is to promote unbiased, systematic, and professional analyses related to nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear energy with a special emphasis on international cooperation of Russia in these areas. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), founded in 1958, is an independent centre for research, information and debate on the problems of conflict, however caused, that have, or potentially have, an important military content. The International Institute for Strategic Studies – UK Arundel House | 6 Temple Place | London | wc2r 2pg | UK t. +44 (0) 20 7379 7676 f. +44 (0) 20 7836 3108 e. iiss@iiss.org www.iiss.org The International Institute for Strategic Studies – Americas 2121 K Street, NW | Suite 600 | Washington, DC 20037 | USA t. +1 202 659 1490 f. +1 202 659 1499 e. iiss-americas@iiss.org The International Institute for Strategic Studies – Asia 9 Raffles Place | #49-01 Republic Plaza | Singapore 048619 t. +65 6499 0055 f. +65 6499 0059 e. iiss-asia@iiss.org The International Institute for Strategic Studies – Europe Pariser Platz 6A | 10117 Berlin | Germany t. +49 30 311 99 300 e. iiss-europe@iiss.org The International Institute for Strategic Studies – Middle East 14th floor, GBCORP Tower | Bahrain Financial Harbour | Manama | Kingdom of Bahrain t. +973 1718 1155 f. +973 1710 0155 e. iiss-middleeast@iiss.org
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