Russia, China, and the US discuss the Norks

Jeffrey Lewis 0:07

You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, the leading podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in the foggy bit of California.

Aaron Stein 0:24

And I'm Aaron Stein. I'm a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Rafiq Khoury Center for the Middle East, and I'm in Washington, D.C.,

Jeffrey 0:31

Not so foggy. Not foggy.

Aaron 0:32

It's really nice and warm today.

Jeffrey 0:35

We should do some housekeeping first. Karl has created a Patreon page. Am I saying that? Patreon? It's Patreon. Yep. So if you are a fan of the podcast, you can make a small monthly donation to help cover expenses related to editing and production. Karl does everything for free, which is awesome, but also unreasonable. There will be a link in the show notes.

Shouldn't we help out Karl?

Aaron 0:58

Absolutely. Karl's the podfather. I mean, he's really the brains behind this. Before he came on board, we sounded like we were in a submarine. It was awful.

Jeffrey 1:05

Yeah, although he was probably cranky because we haven't taken his microphone advice yet.

Aaron 1:10

They're on the way, Karl. Amazon's been a little bit slow, I promise. The next one will sound even better. Don't break my legs. Well, you know, you've been very busy. I've been noticing on Twitter that you and the Center for Nonproliferation Studies have hosted two high-level TRAC 1.5 dialogues this week.

Jeffrey 1:26

Yeah, one with the Russians and one with the Chinese. I think I'm all dialogued out.

Aaron 1:32

These things are always fun because you get to learn, but sometimes – you get to learn, but we'll have the other side thinks about it, and hence why everybody comes together. And you got to do it in sunny California.

Jeffrey 1:42

No, I got to do it in a dark conference room with sunny California outside. Right. Although, you know what, it actually, it wasn't sunny and we were kind of bummed because some of the participants are also our friends. And, you know, there was actually very little beach time. But I took two people to the beach one night and there were whales frolicking off the coast, you know, blowing water and like slapping their tails.

And so they think it's like that every day now.

Aaron 2:15

I have absolutely no sympathy for you. I'm in Washington, D.C. We have no whales out here.

Jeffrey 2:21

Oh, you have whales. They're just fat men in suits, and they spew nonsense rather than water.

Aaron 2:28

Well, let's start right there. Hopefully nothing was spewing nonsense, but it was two. It was broken down, I think, between the Russians first and then the Chinese second, and you had some pretty heavy hitters come.

Jeffrey 2:38

Yeah, they were two totally separate dialogues. It was really bizarre. It was truly a 1.5 because we had Roe, Scott Mueller, the undersecretary for arms control and international security on the U.S. side. But we also had Sergei Ryabkov, who's the deputy foreign minister. So there was a... It was – they sat across from one another. They looked at one another.

They made comments that could be construed as being directed at one another. So it was an interesting meeting. There were a lot of other people there. Jerry Brown came. My governor.

Aaron 3:16

I still have a California driver's license, I should say.

Jeffrey 3:19

Yeah. I couldn't help – like every time I looked at him, I thought about the Dead Kennedy song, California Uber Alice. Yeah. You know, there's that like mellow out or you will pay.

Other voice 3:31

I kept trying to figure out how I was going to work that into a discussion. Why was he there? Because what was what was the whole conference about for our listeners?

Jeffrey 3:51

Yeah, so I'll tell you what the conference was about, but that won't answer your question about why he was there. We can do that as a separate – that's a whole other conversation. So why – why – why? Relations between the United States and Russia are at the moment awful.

Aaron 4:13

Right.

Jeffrey 4:13

That's a good way to put it. Yeah. Cooperation on things like nonproliferation is virtually non-existent. And I think that even though relations are terrible, it is also true that no matter how much we don't like each other, and there aren't a lot of people who dislike Mr. Putin as much as I do, but despite that fact, we still do have a bunch of interests in common.

And so even if we don't like each other, That doesn't mean that we get to ignore the fact that sometimes we still have to cooperate. And so this was an effort at trying to find one of those areas. And the idea, which has been promoted by Lassina Zerbo, Dr. Lassina Zerbo, the executive director of the – He's the head of the CTBTO, the organization that is charged with implementing the test ban.

His big idea is that if there is ever an arms control negotiation or nonproliferation negotiation with the North Koreans, it's going to need to include at first a moratorium on nuclear testing. And then ultimately North Korea's accession to the CTBT, and then there's going to have to be a big disarmament process to render their test site unusable.

And so he has been promoting this idea with the Russians. And so the idea was that we could have a dialogue about how the United States and Russia shared an interest in cooperating and denuclearizing the DPRK, since that's like the one thing that we still agree on, although it's a pretty slender agreement.

Aaron 5:49

Yeah, as you can hear, maybe here at the Atlanta Council, I have a live audience for today's podcast. So, you know, it's all interns. They're having lunch. But nevertheless, they're hanging on every word that we're saying. But I'm curious to drill down a little bit further. A, you didn't answer my question. Why is Governor Brown there? But B, it's what are those fundamental interests about the DPRK?

I mean, I don't know how the Chatham House works, but, you know.

Jeffrey 6:13

Yeah, I mean, I won't, you know, I won't do things like tell you that, you know, General Yesen is crazy or that, you know, I mean, I'm not going to, I won't repeat individual people's briefings. But I would say, in general, there is a pretty big difference in the Russian and American attitude toward where the DPRK is.

So one of the talks that Well, Melissa Hanham and I gave a talk where we tried to create a picture of the DPRK's nuclear and missile programs based on open sources, which we're a big fan of. And we think that it paints a picture of the DPRK moving much faster than people generally realize. I wrote a column about this.

Sig Hecker came to our conference, and Sig has been making this argument a lot, where You know, he's been doing this for 10 years and every year a little bit happens. And it's almost like you're a frog in boiling water, right? As the water gets hotter and hotter, you don't quite notice how much it's changed until you step back and look at how much things have changed in the last decade.

That was the theme of our talk that the North Koreans have done quite a bit. The Russians, who, by the way, don't do open source, right? They just do like, well, we've been told or we've heard, which is, I think, from a scholarly perspective, right? Really unsatisfactory. the Russians have a much well, I would certainly say it's less accurate, but it's also a much more modest picture. So for example, four nuclear tests in, they're still not convinced that the DPRK can build nuclear weapons. So they agree with much of the commentary here in the media. I think that's what America-based media, that's what you're calling, yeah.

Yeah, I mean there was just a bunch of stuff they said where we kind of were scratching our heads. Well, one thing that keeps coming up – and I wouldn't call this a consensus Russian position, but it was a topic that came up that we had to deal with. And there are Americans who do it too. Like Joe Detrani keeps walking around talking about how the KNO-8 is solid-fueled, which is just incredibly frustrating because it doesn't look like a solid-fueled missile.

It's got – Ports on it to access it, to fuel it. That, that describe, you know, like, like, like, you know, the inlets which you wouldn't have in a solid fuel missile. We've now seen the back end of it, and it doesn't look like a solid fuel missile because it's a, it's a, it's a, a pair of engines. And then we've seen a static engine test of the engines, and they were clearly liquid fueled, and And you know, you could tell by the configuration of them and and the plume, like it's just, it is just not solid fueled.

And yet, you know, that's like a conversation we have to have every time. So on the one hand we thought the, the open source conversation was a really useful way getting information out without people just saying like, well, our secret intelligence reports say this which is I think not a very useful conversation.

Aaron 9:22

Right.

Jeffrey 9:23

But on the other hand, you know, people show up at meetings like this and just because you show them a picture, it doesn't mean that they immediately change their mind. So I hope that it is a constructive basis for like slight change in our opinions. But I don't know, you know.

Aaron 9:46

Well, I mean that's one thing. So as you come out of this meeting – No, I haven't told you why Jerry Brown was there. No, no, and I'm not going to let you off the hook about that. But now we're curious about the follow-on to this meeting. So you identify these divergences. So what would be the next steps to either close the gap on these things or to come up with common policy solutions for this?

Was there consensus about that?

Jeffrey 10:07

Well, you know, I don't know.

Aaron 10:09

There wasn't consensus about much of anything, I think.

Jeffrey 10:11

I think the real value of the meeting was to temporarily focus all of us, including me. I count myself. I am, you know... I am Mr. Really Angry at the Russians. And so at least from my perspective, the value for me was reminding myself that no matter how much I loathe that government in Moscow and no matter how much of a threat I think that government is to the security of Europe – That they exist and even if I don't like them, it doesn't mean that we don't share some interests and it doesn't mean that we can avoid finding ways to work with them because we have to if we want to have a kind of – if we want to have sensible foreign policies around the world.

Like we don't like them but we still have to cooperate, which is like the big – it's the big narrative of nuclear weapons, right? Nuclear weapons means having to cooperate with people you don't like. So it was good I think to refocus us on that issue. And I think the world of Lassina Zerbo and I think he's doing a really great effort in trying to use the Russians to push the DPRK into a test moratorium, which would be great.

That would be like super valuable. But I don't know. I don't think we came out with like a three-point plan to fix the world. Yeah.

Aaron 11:38

No, but sometimes that's not the point of these things. It's actually just to engage in dialogue. And so why was Jerry Brown there? I mean the governor of California doesn't really engage in nonproliferation issues.

Jeffrey 11:49

Yeah, so it turns out the governor of California does engage in nonproliferation issues, which is the craziest part of this whole conversation. He is – He is really, genuinely interested in this stuff. The first thing I should say is he is 78 years old, and you would not know it if you met him. He's got a ton of energy.

If you told me he was 62, I would believe it. I'd have no trouble believing it. And so the fact that he's 78, which is old, you just can't believe it. So I think that there is this kind of... There's this kind of gap, right? This is the second time he was governor of California. He's now done.

You know, he can't he's finally term limited out. He was he was grandfathered from the original term limits, I think. Because he was alive when they – he had been governor when they passed the term limits. But now I think he's done. He's also 78. So he's not going to run for anything else. And yet he has this incredible energy.

And I just think he thinks it's an important issue. You know, he went to Washington, D.C. during the Nuclear Security Summit and took a bunch of meetings.

Aaron 13:10

I did.

Jeffrey 13:10

Know that, you know, yeah, yeah. We, we, we, you know, we were, I'm sure lots of people participated in in, in, in talking to him before he went. we definitely, we definitely talked to his, to him and his staff. I, I'm lowly, I talked to his staff who actually, I really like And just to get him ready and get him briefed up.

So I think this is something he is just going to continue to be interested in even once his time as governor ends. So, you know, I don't know. I thought it was a little weird in the sense that, like, I'm sitting there, like, there are times in this thing where I'm, like, a little bit bored. Yeah.

Aaron 13:53

I can't even believe that. Absolutely never does someone get bored and track 1.5 dial-up.

Jeffrey 13:58

I might have been on my computer.

Aaron 14:00

Never does one check Twitter during these things.

Jeffrey 14:03

Right, and I would look over, and he's got the yellow legal pad out, and he is taking notes.

Aaron 14:11

So he's more engaged than you, allegedly.

Jeffrey 14:13

He totally paid attention. There were times when I was sitting there thinking like, Man, how can you be – like this is not a good part of this meeting. Like this is not like – no, I don't think so.

Aaron 14:27

Was he the one you took to the beach to watch the whales frolic?

Jeffrey 14:30

No. No, no. Although it's really nice. I have to say he spoke at a dinner, which I didn't go to because I have little kids and they get really cranky if I don't put them to bed. But he he spoke at a dinner we had. And the I think I should look. I think it's the California State Senate gave awards to Lassina Zerbo, but also to CNS.

Aaron 14:59

Was the award for Zerbo for his performance on our podcast? Yeah, that's exactly what it was.

Jeffrey 15:06

Actually, I should look it up. I wasn't there for the dinner. Bill Monning, who is an assemblyman who used to teach here at Middlebury.

Aaron 15:16

Yes.

Jeffrey 15:19

We did the presenting, so it was a really nice... It's really cool, I have to say, and people in D.C. will have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, but when you don't live in D.C., your state government actually matters.

Aaron 15:35

No, I know what you're talking about. I used to work for a city government. I know exactly what you mean.

Jeffrey 15:39

It really matters, and especially if you live in a place like California where our state government is, I would argue, pretty functional. You know, like, D.C. feels like a long way away. And so I think it is really odd because I think when you're in D.C., you look at governors and you're like, oh, you know, they're like, you know, like 50 of them.

Like, who cares, right? But when you live here... You know, and you meet the governor, you're like, oh, you know, you actually have like way more impact on my day to day life than like, say, the president does. And so, you know, an assemblyman and your governor actually actually matter, which I know is going to be weird for people in D.C., but like whatever, it's true.

They were significant.

Aaron 16:16

Oh, they were certificates of recognition.

Jeffrey 16:21

So I think it's just, you know, nuclear weapons are bad. You're doing something about it. Thank you for doing that.

Aaron 16:25

Well, you know, it's helpful. But, I mean, you guys really packed it in this week. So you dealt with the Russians and American Track 1.5 about the shared DPRK threat, even if there probably was no consensus, as you say. But then you brought in other people as well to have a – So we sent that whole crew packing, right?

Jeffrey 16:44

So we sent the Russians and Lucina and Jerry Brown and Bill Perry and Rose and everybody home. And Bob Einhorn and whoever the hell else was there. And then we brought in the Chinese at a slightly lower level, I have to say, because, you know, we used to have this dialogue with them every two years. And it was between the State Department and the Chinese foreign ministry.

And it was usually at the like undersecretary level. So just like our Russia meeting. The last meeting we had was before I was hired.

Aaron 17:26

Back when you actually used to write for the blog, not just speak?

Jeffrey 17:28

Oh, that hurts. I broke it. Thing for the blog on the static engine test by the DPRK that we could talk about.

Aaron 17:34

I know, I know. I'm just, I'm just reading it.

Jeffrey 17:36

No, I know. I know. Actually, I had a reporter on the phone the other day and was like, can I just tease you a little bit? And she was like, yeah, sure. And then I teased her and she was like, ouch.

Aaron 17:43

Okay.

Jeffrey 17:45

Yeah, I know. I'm, I'm an older brother. Sometimes it comes through. So, you know, the last time we had this meeting was, I think it was 2000, it was either 2008 or 2009. And so it was before I was – it must have been 2009 because it was during the first year of the Obama administration. And we had it in Beijing, and it was giant and was pretty high level.

We didn't have an undersecretary there. We had an assistant secretary. I think we had Van Van Diepen, who, by the way, totally sabotaged the meeting. Thanks. And after that, we were never able to schedule the meeting again. Right. I'm, I'm not saying that that was Van Van Diepen's fault, but just, you know, lots of other things intervened.

And so finally after repeatedly trying to schedule the relatively high level in DC or Beijing, we brought it down a level which actually I always think is good because as, as great as it is to have like, you know, like Bill Perry at your meeting. Sometimes I think it's a little more

Aaron 18:53

Like, with Bill Perry, you're going to get wisdom. 30,000 foot versus 5,000 feet.

Jeffrey 18:58

Yeah, and I mean, like, the wisdom thing is awesome, right? Like, when relations with Russia are in the toilet, having Bill Perry remind you that things have been bad before and that you can still cooperate, like, that is really valuable. So, like, I am... That is important. But sometimes it is also good to have a much more granular kind of take on things so you can try to imagine, like, why mechanically cooperation isn't working.

And so we brought the level of cooperation down. And, oh, I should say, by we, I mean Stephanie Ligi. She did everything. In fact, this meeting had been delayed so long. Bill Potter and I, neither of us believed it was possible. So Stephanie kept saying, like, I think I'm going to try to schedule a meeting. And we were like, yeah, good luck.

Like, we gave her zero help. I should feel a little guilty about this. But I think just to spite us, she single-handedly found the money, got the people there, and put on this beautiful conference. It was amazing. It was, without a doubt, the best event. Instance of single human being conference organizing I've ever seen. I probably shouldn't say that.

Somebody will try to hire her away. Stephanie's awesome, though. So we brought it down a level. And so we had some pretty decent U.S. representation. I mean, it was it was broad. We had NSC and state and defense. I mean, it was it was a it was a quality group, but it was a much more granular kind of discussion.

And interestingly, like the Russia meeting was explicitly about the DPRK and the China meeting totally ended up that way.

Aaron 20:33

Was it events intervened or is it just that that became the topic of conversation? Because this has been the year of DPRK, especially for the Arms Control Wong podcast.

Jeffrey 20:41

Yeah, I'm ready for it to be over and my kids are ready for it to be over. Yeah, I think it just – I don't know. It's like somebody once said about languages. In both the Russia meeting and the China meeting, we had interpreters.

Aaron 20:55

Okay, right, of course.

Jeffrey 20:56

So the Russians and the Chinese always had the option of speaking in Russian or Chinese. But most of them ended up speaking in English. And so the meeting just happened in English with the interpreters, you know, translating into the other language for like the few people who wanted to listen. And my friend Gregory Kulaki had a hypothesis about this in China where he said in any meeting or any conversation – You won't use both languages.

You will gravitate toward the language where you'll gravitate toward the, the, the, the, the, the strongest second language. Right. Like, like, like my English is great. My Chinese stinks. A Chinese person has, you know, flawless Chinese and pretty good English. We're going to end up in English because that Chinese person's English is better than my Chinese. And I, that totally happened in these meetings.

But I think also substantively that that happened where it's really hard to talk about the big stuff. Right. And, and, and like on the big stuff, Our perspectives are different, but when you get to that second layer, the DPRK is the thing that we can talk about. It's like the second language being strongest. It's the second tier of issues where you've got the most convergence.

We had a long series of discussions about the DPRK. In my efforts to hijack the meeting and talk about strategic stability and talk about the reorganization of the PLA, Totally pointless.

Aaron 22:38

Talk to us about the Norcs, just like we want more. But was there more consensus with the Chinese than there was with the Russians?

Jeffrey 22:45

No, I mean, the Chinese are... I'm getting so much trouble. I feel like the... Boy, I'm really pulling my punches here. I'm trying to avoid... I sometimes feel like some of the commentary about the DPRK, this is true of the United States as well as Russia, is a little racist. And that sometimes we don't really give the DPRK credit because we have some prejudices about...

That country, and those prejudices may blind us to reality. I think that's a, that those prejudices are a little stronger in Russia than they are in China. And so the Chinese weren't quite in the same level of denial about DPRK capabilities. But at the same time, you know, I guess I'm also more sympathetic to the Chinese view. You know, the thing we can like never talk about Is we in these meetings are like sanctions, sanctions, sanctions, pressure, pressure, pressure, right?

And while I understand why we pursue sanctions in the U.S., like I have a kind of cynical view, like the people who want to bomb the DPRK settle for sanctions because that's the best they can do. And the people who don't want to bomb the DPRK – Settle for sanctions because it is better than bombing the DPRK.

It's a satisficing that doesn't really satisfy anyone. And I think the Chinese, they're always too polite to say it, or they just don't like the direct conflict. But the Chinese, I think, while they're fine with sanctions, they're like, well, sanctions are something you do so that you get some leverage and then you trade it. And so I think the Chinese often sit here like you are all about sanctions as process, but you don't have the slightest idea how this ends or what you're going to trade these sanctions for.

And you may not actually even be able to trade these sanctions because you barely got the Iran deal. And so like I think the Chinese look at us – like we say like, oh, you're not enforcing sanctions. And I think the Chinese have this kind of opposite opinion like – Yeah, you idiots, like we're actually using sanctions correctly, which is we turn them up when we want the DPRK to do something and then we turn them back down again.

Because if you just leave them up on max volume at all times and you never turn them down, then the DPRK is like not going to listen. And I actually think the Chinese are closer to right than we are, even though, I mean, it excuses some bad behavior. So we never, you know, that conversation is you engage it a little bit But like the Chinese will just never come out and say like, I'm sorry, but your sanctions policy reflects your broken political process.

There's no reason that we have to replicate your stupidity. Like they just won't do that and then that would – that I think is what that conversation needs to be to happen.

Aaron 25:46

Do they come to the table with any clear policy solutions? Because we don't.

Jeffrey 25:50

No. You know, that's the thing that makes me crazy about these meetings. Like, there was one American participant who I thought was awesome who kind of was talking about transparency and, you know, like, not attribution, but, like, kind of gave the, like, like, gave the standard spiel about transparency, which I would always mock. But then, like, awesomely sort of said, and by the way, like, I'm not just saying that because I'm supposed to stand here and give you the standard spiel about transparency.

I think it's important because – and then did the thing I always complain that we never do, which is explain what information do we want and how it would actually contribute constructively. So I don't want to be negative about the meeting because there were a lot of people, and I think this was the benefit of the kind of working level, who – Individually had really great ideas.

But you know, I think whether those ideas are fruitful is going to depend on the conversations people had on the side or the conversations people have coming out of the meeting. It's just, it's not very realistic to expect that like in the meeting, you know, like the, the, the roof is going to open up and you know, sun is going to shine down and everybody's going to have like a, you know, Paul on the road to Damascus moment.

Aaron 27:06

Right. And was the meeting also time for Kim Il-sung's birthday?

Jeffrey 27:12

No, it just kind of happened that way.

Aaron 27:14

Was it actually going on on the day of his birthday?

Jeffrey 27:16

No, it wrapped up because it's today. Yeah, today's the 15th. His birthday's today. Oh, his birthday's today.

Aaron 27:22

Okay.

Jeffrey 27:23

Although now today is tomorrow in Korea, right? Right, right.

Aaron 27:27

So it was yesterday, our time in Korea.

Jeffrey 27:30

Yeah, yesterday evening was the morning of Kim Il-sung's birthday. Right. It's now the evening there. No, but what did happen, which was kind of amazing- Is North Korea – so we were having this discussion where we were doing the open source stuff and the Russians were sort of – we were trying to convince the Russians these weren't secret American intelligence reports that we were wondering.

Aaron 27:56

The Russians do not like open source.

Jeffrey 27:58

Let's just put it that way. Yeah, we didn't – we had like the nice Russians. Like Ryabkov is a really constructive diplomat. He was fine. I probably – I mean, we had the nice Russians. We had the Russians that you meet with and you talk to and you're like, oh, yeah, that's right. You're not all evil. Yes, yes, you guys are fine.

Aaron 28:22

We had the good Russians.

Jeffrey 28:25

You know, with the odd exception. That's fine. We brought a couple of ugly Americans, too. But... Generally speaking, we were having this kind of back and forth on open source. And then in the middle of it, right, the North Koreans did their static engine test for the KN-08.

Aaron 28:43

Your team over there had a meltdown on Twitter.

Jeffrey 28:47

It was really annoying because we're sitting in this damn meeting. And, you know, then this thing happens. And, you know, the backstory to that. Yeah. Maybe we should just talk about the DPRK now. Because, I mean, that's the subtext of what we talked about with the Russians and the Chinese, right? And it gets to this question of, like, are we underestimating or overestimating the DPRK?

You know, the problem is in these meetings, someone inevitably gets around and says, we should neither overestimate or underestimate them. And then everyone nods wisely, and that ends the discussion.

Aaron 29:18

It's time to break. Coffee break. 10.15, coffee break.

Jeffrey 29:21

Right. And it's like, yes, of course, that platitude is true. Yes, truisms are true, but that's no use to anybody. So the North Koreans had paraded the KN-08 and then this thing, which I guess we're now calling the KN-14, which looks like a modified KN-08. So it's clearly a road mobile ICBM, and there's this question of what the hell is it?

And we've got Joe Detrani, who should know better, running around. He has repeatedly said it's a solid-fueled missile, which it is not. The first thing that we did when we tried to figure out what's under the hood – because you've got to figure out what the configuration is underneath the skin so you can know how far it flies.

So Dave Schmerler and I – and by Dave Schmerler and I, I mean Dave with me harassing him – That's awesome. We mapped out all of the – and we published this with John Schilling. We mapped out all of the – I think I said this earlier in the podcast – the ports that you would access the missile from.

And on it, they've written things like exhaust port and fuel inlet and things like that in Korean. And so it's pretty clear that it's a liquid-fueled missile. It's got – just like your car has a gas tank where you've got – You know, you've got the, I don't know, what do you call that thing? Like you open your gas tank, like whatever that, that little thing on your car is.

Aaron 30:51

Yeah. The, the, the, the, the little, the, the, what the hell is that thing called? I don't know. The thing that you have to either, I get, everybody knows what you're talking about.

Jeffrey 31:00

Yeah. I guess we just say pop open the tank, but it's not, it's the inlet, right? Yeah. It's the inlet. Yeah. I'm actually trying to Google this thing now. I have a gas cap.

Aaron 31:19

No, the gas cap is this thing that you screw. Yeah, okay. Well, that's close enough, right. And then the little cubby that protects the outside.

Jeffrey 31:27

Yeah, well, whatever. Missiles have those too, right? It's a slightly different configuration, but they basically have those. And they have outflow spots too, right? So we mapped all those out. Right, to try to figure out how big the relative tanks are because then you can make guesses about, you know, propellants and things. And, you know, it was clearly a liquid-fueled missile, but it's a little strange, right?

And one of the big debates we had was just given the engines we knew the North Koreans had access to. So there's like the Scud engine that they turned into the Nodong, right, which is, you know, what's in the space launcher that they've been launching.

Other voice 32:07

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey 32:08

But then they also have the SS-N-6, this, you know, Soviet era submarine launch ballistic missile, which uses a better propellant and is a kind of fancier engine.

Aaron 32:17

And we talked about two or three podcasts ago.

Jeffrey 32:19

Right. So the question is, is this missile a cluster of Nodong engines, right? Or is it a cluster of fancier SS-N-6 engines? Because if it's a cluster of fancier SS-N-6 engines, it's going to fly farther. Right. And John Schilling and Dave and I and a couple of other people, George Herbert, hey guys, and Melissa Hanham and Catherine Dill had all been kind of going back and forth about what this could be.

And we were pretty sure it was two engines, but we couldn't decide if they were nodongs or SS-N-6. And I think John very wisely chose the more conservative option, right, and said, well, it's more likely to be a pair of nodong engines because that's kind of well within what we've seen them do. We've never seen them cluster something as complicated and just messy as an SS-N-6 engine.

Yeah. So then, you know, so John ran his estimates. And, you know, to his credit, he – because I love John. I think John's like the best. John did a version where he, you know, figured out what the range would be if they were SS-N-6 engines. So it's not like he ignored the possibility. But, you know, I sort of agreed with him.

It was safer to say it was a pair of no-dongs. So then finally – and when they paraded them, they had like a cover over the end where the engines were so you couldn't see them. But then when Kim Jong-un went to the big missile factory to pose with a mock-up of the nuclear weapon.

Aaron 33:49

Over his right shoulder.

Jeffrey 33:52

Yeah. It wasn't the whole end, but it was enough. And we started looking at it, and we were like, well, it's definitely two engines. I think it was Herbert. I can't remember who did what now because we saw email. George Herbert's like, that looks a little small being Nodong – It'd be a no-dong nozzle, doesn't it? And John was like, yep.

Yep, that looks a little small. We're all like, crap. Because the first hint is, well, it kind of looks like it would be an SS-N-6 engine, but that's still really complicated. That's outside of what we've seen them do.

Aaron 34:27

Oh, I know where you're taking this, by the way.

Jeffrey 34:28

Yeah, so then, so we're sitting in this meeting, and they release pictures of the static engine test.

Aaron 34:34

Right. Your team has a meltdown on Twitter.

Jeffrey 34:36

Yeah, well, because I'm looking at it and I'm like, I can't actually see the engines. The engines are submerged in a fuel tank, which is the configuration of the SS-N-6. And that's why it's so complicated, right? Like the big challenge with clustering them is the Russians to save space, the Soviets, I should say, the Soviets to save space had submerged the engine in the fuel tank, which is

Aaron 35:03

It's so quintessentially Soviet thinking. I love it.

Jeffrey 35:07

I mean, you know, like, whatever. They were good at it, so it worked for them. But, like, you know, everybody else looks at it and they're like, Jesus, I'd hate to have to deal with that thing, right? And so, you know, like, we're looking at it like, how does it look like submerged engines? Don't they? Well, that's not good.

And it looks like it's a pair of submerged engines. And it looks like they're Vernier engines.

Aaron 35:29

Thrusters around it, though. Well, that's, wow, huh? So I, you know, I am not an engine designer, and I, like, I, I, I sort of observed that that's what it appeared to my very ignorant eye to be. That's why we have friends to sort of whack around things on email, yeah. So I sent it to George and John, and George and John happened to be at a conference of of, of space enthusiasts. You know, it was like, this is fantastic

Jeffrey 35:55

Yeah. So and one of the things we observed and there were like a lot of pictures and some of the pictures clearly were altered in terms of their color. But many of the pictures, the coloration looked like it was the flame looked like it was a more advanced fuel. Right. Which which would finally confirm that it was an SSN six engine.

Right. So they nerd sourced it. They literally took the pictures to everybody they could find at the conference who had ever worked with that particular fuel type.

Aaron 36:26

Right? Oh, this is so exciting.

Jeffrey 36:28

Showed it to like engine designer after engine designer. And overwhelmingly, the consensus was if you look at the pictures as a whole, some of the coloration is clearly off in some of the pictures. But as a whole, they were all like, yeah, that's UDMH.

Other voice 36:42

Fantastic.

Aaron 36:44

It's so interesting. Well, you know, it's fantastic the way you can do that now by flipping it around and nerd sourcing.

Jeffrey 36:50

Right.

Aaron 36:50

I mean, it's kind of like crowdsourcing, but it was a very specific crowd. It was a high level crowd.

Jeffrey 36:55

Yeah. And so we kind of got to the end of it. I'm like, yeah, I think that thing. That we thought was sort of, you know, at the very edge of what the North Koreans were capable of doing. That's what they did. And so the consequence of that is it jumps the range estimate for the KN-08 slash KN-14. And we still don't know what the KN-14 is. I mean, it could just be a modified KN-08, or, you know, God knows, it could be a whole different set of crap But, you know, the KNO-8 now jumps up to like 11,000, 12,000 kilometers.

Sorry, DC. It can hit DC with a compact nuclear weapon.

Aaron 37:31

Right, which we think they have.

Jeffrey 37:33

Which sucks. It does. Now, admittedly, it's only a static engine test, right? So, you know, they actually have to fly the thing. And as we saw, static engine tests are easier than flying things, the North Koreans just discovered. Right, right. But at the same time, you know, they are going to move into the phase of testing something much more worrisome than we thought it was.

Aaron 37:58

And that's bad. Yeah, no, absolutely. It is bad. But, you know, what do you think, what does it tell you, though, when they have Yesterday's problems.

Jeffrey 38:13

So, you know, first of all, we have almost no information. The North Koreans haven't released any pictures.

Aaron 38:18

Well, tell the listeners what happened.

Jeffrey 38:19

Oh, yeah. The North Koreans tested a missile and allegedly, according to the U.S. government, which has, you know, radars and satellites and things, and according to the South Korean government, it exploded. Yeah. We don't know when, though. Right. So we don't know what it is, but the leaks seem to indicate that it is this thing called the Musudan.

Which is the same SS-N-6 we were talking about, but with one SS-N-6 engine, which is like the classic SS-N-6 configuration, made a little bit bigger. And so that's kind of similar to the submarine-launched ballistic missile that we figure exploded, right? Yeah. Catherine Dill did that beautiful video analysis that showed that it exploded rather than launched.

Aaron 39:04

And then you and I talked about it.

Jeffrey 39:05

Right. So now they did a ground launch version of that same missile. And it seemed to go boom.

Aaron 39:14

We don't know when, though.

Jeffrey 39:15

Right. Now, so this is the thing, though, that, like, I give everybody the same, like, caution. And it's what I told our current favorite journalist, Anna Fifield, at the Washington Post, because she published Schmerler's model of the missile, which is so cool. We love Anna. Anna actually cares about these things. That's great. But the thing that – and we should put up a link to her story in the show notes.

But the thing that I said to her is, you know, it's normal at the beginning of a testing program for rockets to fail, right? So the North Koreans tested the Taepodong-2. The first time they tested it in 2006, it flew for 42 seconds and exploded, right? Then in 2009, it did a little better, but still, if I recall correctly, blew up.

And then in 2012, it blew up.

Aaron 40:09

The Iranians have a similar history.

Jeffrey 40:10

Yeah.

Aaron 40:11

But then in December 2012, it worked fine.

Jeffrey 40:13

Right? And then this past year, it worked fine again. So they had a series of failures that were followed by a series of successes. And so even though it exploded, they learned a lot of stuff.

Aaron 40:31

What does a single engine give you to learn about, say, clustering?

Jeffrey 40:37

Well, they have to get the engine to work first. Right. I mean, I think that's the challenge. And we can speculate what the problem was. I keep saying this. Maybe I'm being too cautious. I don't want to troubleshoot their missile for them in public. I mean, they're not stupid, so they probably know what's going on. They just don't know how to fix it yet.

But there are nice academic papers on why missiles with this fuel type explode after ignition. And I don't know when this thing exploded. It may have flown for a while, but the submarine-launched missile, when it went up, it didn't light. It chugged black smoke, and then when it finally ignited, it exploded. And so it's possible this was the same failure mode because it's the same – I mean it's basically the same missile, right?

There's some small differences, but to a first approximation, it's the same. Yeah.

Aaron 41:36

But whatever, they're going to get that to work out, right?

Jeffrey 41:39

They're going to figure out how to make that engine work, and then they're going to go back and take whatever fixes that they put in the single SS-N-6 engine, which I guess is like a 4D10 or a 4D10. So many designations. We'll just keep calling it the SS-N-6.

Aaron 41:55

And they'll fix that, right? And they'll fix that, and then eventually the Musudan and the SLBM will work, which will suck.

Jeffrey 42:01

And that means that eventually the KNO8... I'm presuming that it's a similar design the KN-14 will also work. And that will really, really suck.

Aaron 42:12

Right. So, I mean, the takeaway that I get is the map of death. Is that what we call it? Yes. You know, it's the policy goal, not just a piece of propaganda.

Jeffrey 42:23

Yeah, it's real. Like, they have, yes. Stop laughing. The joke is on us. That thing is real. They are building a missile that will put a nuclear weapon in Washington, D.C. It will take them a while. You know, they're still testing. They got to get the Musudan and the SLBM worked out, and then they'll be able to transition from static engine testing to flight testing.

But sooner or later, just like with the Taepodong-2, they're going to get there. So this is like my spiel, because people are always like, Well, I think, this is what I told Anna, I think people see these failures and they're like, oh, great, problem solved. It didn't work, right? But the opposite is true, which is they learn stuff.

And this is like our warning. We've got this window to negotiate. Or, you know, if you're of a more hawkish mindset, do something else. And when that window closes, it will close with them having a nuclear-armed ICBM that can hit Washington, and I think you will pry that from their cold, dead hands. So, like, this is our warning.

We have this window. This window will probably last a few years. If we do nothing, the window will close, and, you know, the missiles they will be parading through Pyongyang will be real. Shit, you know what? That's not a happy note, Aaron.

Aaron 43:36

No, it's not. That was one last question before we wrap up. It seems like we also have to convince the Russians and the Chinese, too, about getting together and doing something collectively about this rather than haphazardly.

Jeffrey 43:50

Well, maybe that's the happy note, that as bad as the situation gets, all it means is that we're going to have yet more and more visitors to the beautiful Monterey Peninsula. That is the happy note. Soak up the sunshine, watch the whales frolic off the coast.

Aaron 44:06

A good Monterey piano art.

Jeffrey 44:11

Yeah, actually, one of our colleagues from D.C., she was not aware that the Santa Lucia Highlands Produces a spectacular Pinot Noir. They do. They do. And she had one at a restaurant and she went home with a bunch of bottles.

Aaron 44:30

And then bring more in California officials like that. You'll also help our local economy.

Jeffrey 44:34

Right. So people will come. They will see the beautiful sunshine. They will see the frolicking whales. They will drink the lovely wine. We will all stare at Jerry Brown trying to figure out who's going to be brave enough to be like, mellow out or you will pay.

Other voice 44:47

California, over Alice, California level.

Jeffrey 44:59

Yeah, the world's going to go to hell in a handbasket, but, you know, Monterey isn't on the map of death, so... You'll survive, and your work will continue.

Aaron 45:08

And so will the podcast. I think that's the ultimate happy note.

Jeffrey 45:10

But you know what? For the podcast to survive, we've got to help Karl out.

Aaron 45:17

The Podfather. Yeah.

Jeffrey 45:20

So I think we need to say one more time that there is a Patreon page. And if you are a fan of the podcast, you can make a small, tiny little donation to help Karl cover all of the expenses relating to editing and production.

Aaron 45:36

He does everything for free. He's the man. He is the pot father, as I said. So thank you, everybody, for listening. I'm Jeffrey. Until next time.

Jeffrey 45:44

All right. It was great talking to you, Aaron. Yeah.