North Korea’s Biggest ICBM Yet

Jeffrey Lewis 0:01

You're deterred. You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, a podcast on arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:22

And I am Aaron Stein, the director of research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Back in the saddle again, Aaron. Two times in two weeks. This is a new pandemic record for us, I think. Although maybe at the outset we were a little better. I can't remember.

Jeffrey 0:38

I have faith that we are going to be able to make this happen. I do too. I do too. So I thought today we would talk about the new ICBM that North Korea unveiled in its military parade this past fall. I know it's a little bit late, but we have spent the last three months modeling the missile based on the images we had in the parade, as well as looking at some other information.

And we've worked up a... Well, it's a pretty surprising set of hypotheses about what the heck this thing is. And I'm, you know, planning on sooner or later putting it up on the blog and hit and publish. And so I thought maybe this would be a good time to preview some of the very strange things we think we're seeing.

Aaron 1:28

So when was the parade? I mean, 2020 has just kind of become like this blur or sort of like clay in my head. I know that the parade was relatively recently. I just can't remember which month it was in.

Jeffrey 1:41

The parade was in October. I actually panic. I panic every time someone asks because it was on October 10th and 1010 is like a day in Taiwan. And I didn't remember that 1010 happened to be the day that they did the parade for the 75th anniversary of the Workers Party of Korea. So it's been it's been a couple of months.

Aaron 2:02

Yeah.

Jeffrey 2:02

And they showed off the what are you guys calling it? The Chunky Boy. No, Chunky Boy is what we were calling the new short-range ballistic missile. This one has become known as Chungus Humongous.

Aaron 2:15

Chungus Humongous, that's right. I knew there was a chunk involved there somewhere. So why don't we start there?

Jeffrey 2:21

That's because we know it's a Hwasong missile, but the North Koreans have not given us the Hwasong designation yet.

Aaron 2:28

I get to peek behind the curtain a little bit. The amount of details that went into modeling this missile in terms of, like, Rebuilding it to get the amount of size is incredible, what people are doing with this stuff.

Jeffrey 2:43

It is a pain in the nutsack, Aaron.

Aaron 2:45

I know that, but as someone who just watches it, who doesn't do it, I'm like, wow, that's really interesting and really cool. But anyways, I don't want to steal your thunder. So they drove this thing around, and it's quite big.

Jeffrey 2:58

Yeah, so the first task was trying to measure it, and... There are a range of measurements, and I think we're all sort of in about the same place. My first measure was a little short. My second measure I think is closer, but it leaves some questions. So I'll just tell you what we did. The problem is this thing is there aren't any really good references.

When we are taking an image or a video and we're trying to extract measurements, you want something for a sense of scale.

Aaron 3:30

Right.

Jeffrey 3:31

But the problem is you need something really reliable for a sense of scale because, you know, whether it's 2.4 or 2.5 or 2.6 meters in diameter ends up mattering a lot. And so, you know, we're talking about centimeters in terms of accuracy, right? And... We have often found that making many measurements produces better outcomes. Like many poor measurements tend to be more accurate than a few good ones.

But in this case, we really only have a couple of different shots of this thing really in the same context of the parade. Right.

Aaron 4:10

No, and I just remember, you know, from the images is that, you know, even the image itself wasn't exactly sort of, I'm using my hands here, people can't see it, but straight on, it was sort of at an angle. So it was difficult like that too, if I remember correctly.

Jeffrey 4:22

Well, this is a huge problem. I mean, one of the big things that we have done, which I'm very proud of, is to start using tools like Photoshop, which has a filter called Vanishing Point, and to use Blender, which allows you to model scenes in order to take into account perspective. And perspective is worse with a long freaking missile.

And on top of that, these missiles are so big that you really are taking shots from a long way away. And if you're zooming or if you're tightly cropping the image around the missile, you end up with a lot of lens effects. So it is really kind of a nightmare to measure these things. And I think at the end of the day, I have a number that I am happy with.

But it's it's it's not a number that I would like bet my house on. You know, I think we're probably we're like in the ballpark. Right. But but but it's a big ballpark. You know, it's it's it's it's the what? Like the polo grounds, not Wrigley Field. Like, I don't know.

Aaron 5:33

Well, I mean, well, it's a big ballpark. It's a big ballpark. I don't know. For the sport, the tortured sports metaphor. You have a range of possibilities, let's say. Yeah.

Jeffrey 5:43

So I'll tell you what we did is we did it, you know, we did it the bad way because it was kind of what we were forced to do, which is to say we used a small number of good images, which is, you know, you know, your mileage may vary. But even then, in the good images, the best...

References we had were two. Okay, one is and these are not great, so I don't love these. one is Max R has a satellite image in which we think we see the launcher tarped up. Oh, okay. I don't. Is this out there? No, this is no, no, no. This is a sneak preview. Well, I don't know if Maxar is going to publish it, but they made it out to be about 28 meters in length, and that's going to be on the low side for the length of the thing.

It's probably... The diameter I'm getting using another method is a little bit bigger. Originally, I was getting a diameter very consistent with a 28-meter length vehicle, but now I'm a little bit off. That would have been about 2.4 meters in diameter for the missile, which put me on the low side of what everybody was saying. The second thing we did...

And this is like just, oh, this is desperation. There are a pair of men driving the vehicle.

Aaron 7:27

Right. You can see them through the window.

Jeffrey 7:29

Yes. And because there are two of them, this made me feel a little bit better because we have some idea of the average height of a North Korean. Well, a North Korean male of military age, which is, yeah, those, and those numbers, those numbers ain't great, right? Okay, like you know, they're from like defectors and things, and you know, but like whatever.

And quite happily, the height of North Koreans today is just about the height of South Koreans in the 1960s. And we have a beautiful study of South Korean soldier proportions that the Defense Department did.

Aaron 8:16

I was about to say that sounds like something the U.S. Defense Department would have done.

Jeffrey 8:20

Yeah. And so we literally understand the relationship for what is I can't remember. I think it's 165 centimeter Korean, you know, of if you're 165 centimeters tall. What is then the distance between your eyes and your chin? How long is your forearm? And so that data. Applied to the men driving the vehicle. Generates an estimate that's about 2.5 meters in diameter.

So I don't love the range, and I've seen other people say as much as 2.7, and yeah, sure, it could be kind of in there. It's probably not 3 meters, and it's probably not 2 meters, and it's likely closer to 3 than 2, but it's in there somewhere.

Aaron 9:15

I mean, I know why, but tell people why even those slight variations, even though we're talking about meters, you know, matters for when you model it.

Jeffrey 9:24

Well, in this particular case, there's a bunch of stuff. I mean, one obvious thing is it just makes the fuel tanks bigger and more fuel means it goes further. Although it turns out that it's not as sensitive to diameter as I was worried about. So I think our answer is pretty robust here. But then we noticed something else when we were measuring it, which is that the upper stage is ever so slightly conical.

I remember this debate.

Aaron 9:50

I remember following along.

Jeffrey 9:52

You wouldn't notice it with the naked eye, but when you actually start drawing perspective lines, you're like, ah, it tapers.

Aaron 10:02

Yeah.

Jeffrey 10:02

Which we think is a weight-reducing... Measure, but we're not a hundred percent sure. and so you know, it ends up affecting how big the base of the payload area is, because that is going to raise a question about how many warheads you might be able to stick on this thing. And if it's 2.7 meters in diameter at the base, then the tapering isn't so much.

And you can put four warheads on there, no problem. If it's tighter than that, then you start to really wonder how big are DPRK warheads and can you pack more than three.

Aaron 10:48

Right. Okay.

Jeffrey 10:51

Which is, by the way, a giant conclusion to extract from the distance between a man's eyes and his chin. Even if he's got another dude sitting next to him, then we can average them.

Aaron 11:05

Yeah, yeah, no, yeah. That's great that you have that reference point. Where'd you find that?

Jeffrey 11:10

Oh, it's online. DTIC has it. Everything is on DTIC. I love DTIC. Everything is on DTIC. So all of which is to say, you know, this is like a benchmarking exercise. If they show us the missile again, we'll have another chance to measure it. And the more we measure it, I think the better our answers will get.

But for now, my working number is 2.5 meters in diameter.

Aaron 11:33

And how many meters in length? 28?

Jeffrey 11:36

Ah gonna have to look that up on ye olde spreadsheet oh my god i take it back i've got 2.6 meters that causes me a little distress why did i remember it was 2.5 i got 2.6 meters and in that case it's about 25 meters long 25 and 2.6 it's a big one man chungus humongous it's really big you know

Aaron 12:01

I think sometimes because the perspective on these parades, you lose, and because nobody's standing next to it, you actually lose perspective about how large these things are.

Jeffrey 12:10

Oh, totally. I still occasionally am shocked when I see Kim Jong-un standing very close to one of the tires. Yeah, they're huge. And I remember the tires are like person-sized.

Aaron 12:24

Yeah.

Jeffrey 12:24

And it's like, oh, yeah, right. That thing is freaking giant.

Aaron 12:27

Yeah, because this happens to me too. You look at it and you go, oh, that's not so big. And then you're like, well, wait a minute. Hold on. Somebody needs to go stand next to it. That's why I'm referencing it. You really do lose perspective unless somebody's standing right next to it.

Jeffrey 12:40

Yeah, it's big.

Aaron 12:41

It's big. Okay. So then you were able to get these, should we call them rough estimates? Yeah, let's call them rough estimates. Rough, approximate, rough. I mean, approximate sounds a little better. And then you have the fancy tools.

Jeffrey 12:58

Yeah, so we needed to go ahead and try to figure out what's under the hood, right? And so, like, one nice thing is we were able to measure the volumetric ratio of the tanks because you can see indicators of where the tanks probably are in terms of the construction of the skin of the missile. And so it, you know, it looks like the volumetric ratio is pretty consistent with UDMH and NTO as a propellant, which is indicative of the type of rocket engine it is.

Aaron 13:28

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Jeffrey 13:30

And so we are pretty convinced that the first stage is a cluster of RD-250s, which is basically the same engine that we saw on all the missiles tested in 2017, although really long-range ones, so the Hwasong-12, 14, and 15. But very specifically, this is kind of a goofy engine. It's got one turbo pump and two thrust chambers.

So you see two nozzles, but it's one engine. But on the Hwasong-12 and 14, they basically use the one pump with just one chamber, which is pretty inefficient. The real configuration of this, which is what the Soviets did with the RD-250, is one pump and two chambers. And that's what's in the Hwasong-15.

Aaron 14:23

Okay.

Jeffrey 14:23

So you see two nozzles sticking out.

Aaron 14:25

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey 14:26

So each pair of thrust chambers is 788 kilonewtons. So you're looking at a total thrust of about 1,600 kilonewtons, which is, you know. And we actually think this is a pair of those engines. So four nozzles, four thrust chambers, two turbo pumps.

Aaron 14:44

Got it. Got it.

Jeffrey 14:47

And and that would be consistent with the type of fuel we see. It's consistent with what North Korea has available to it, because this is the same engine type that they tested on three different missiles in 2017. And it is a and honestly, the way the North Koreans were doing it with just a single engine was goofy.

Like the Soviets never did it that way. They always clustered these things. Right. And so you wouldn't expect them to just stop at the Hwasong-15 any more than you'd think if you – they're like potato chips. You don't eat just one.

Aaron 15:23

No, you never do. You just have to stop yourself from eating the whole bag.

Jeffrey 15:27

Although not as big as it could be. The Soviets for the – I said I could do this off the top of my head. I can't do it. I think the thing to say there is the R-36 was even bigger. The Soviet R-36. The Soviet R-36. Yes. We say Soviet R-36 because it was designed by an entity that is now in Russia, but it was produced by an entity that is now in Ukraine.

And it forms the technological basis of a Ukrainian space launcher known as the Cyclone.

Aaron 16:03

I think if I were to sort of pull out, the point is that the way that even in this large EPRK missile is that even with just the four nozzles, right, is that it still could be big.

Jeffrey 16:15

Oh, yes, exactly.

Aaron 16:17

I think that's what you're trying to say.

Jeffrey 16:19

In my own sad, pathetic little way. Well, two things. I'm trying to say that, and I'm also trying to say... Is that they can add another engine. No, I was trying to move us on. I was trying to move us on. Okay. You're exactly right, Aaron. It can be bigger.

Aaron 16:36

It can be bigger. The point is it can fly farther or carry more. Right?

Jeffrey 16:40

Yeah, although when you hear how far this thing can fly. I was about to say, it can carry more.

Aaron 16:46

Which is why the diameter matters and why the conical matters. Yes! Pulling it together.

Jeffrey 16:51

It's a biggin'. It's a biggin'.

Aaron 16:53

It's a big one. Okay. All right. Oh, but it's so much worse. Okay. So the point is, okay, so we got this. Okay.

Jeffrey 17:01

So the first stage, very straightforward. 2.6 meters in diameter, probably four thrust chambers, two turbo pumps, 1600 kilonewtons. You know, it looks like Ukraine's Cyclone Launcher, which is a space launcher that is derived from the same missile. And, you know, it's just Ukraine doesn't do ICBMs, so they do space launchers. Right. So this is like a known thing, but it could definitely be bigger.

Okay. So how far can it fly? Well, that's where... The other two stages come in. Right. Because there's a big first stage that looks like it is based on the cyclone, which is, you know, like not surprising. A couple of years ago, there were some North Korean spies who were arrested in Ukraine trying to acquire missile information.

Aaron 17:52

I'm not sure.

Jeffrey 17:52

There was a there was a sting in 2011. Where the Ukrainian security services realized that there were these North Koreans hanging around Yuzhmash, which is the place that makes the space launcher, trying to get information about Ukraine's ability to make rocket engines.

Aaron 18:17

And so when... Yeah. I was just saying, the mechanics of North Koreans trying to pay people off to give them, like, an owner's manual... I don't know how you blend it in rural Ukraine.

Jeffrey 18:33

Yeah, I mean, I think like any good magician, it's about drawing people's attention. And so the attention that might have been paid to a person saying, oh, my God. You're a North Korean, they were probably distracted by, oh my God, he's had a suitcase full of money. Yeah, exactly.

Aaron 18:51

It's about the cash they were carrying along with them. But yeah.

Jeffrey 18:54

And it's like, well, did you, you know, was the guy, did the guy look Korean? It'd be like, I don't know. I was just staring at the money. The money was Swiss francs, dollars or euros, right? Yeah. Now, having said that, these were two North Koreans who were arrested.

Aaron 19:12

Right.

Jeffrey 19:14

And and the Ukrainians said that there were other occasions where the North Koreans attempted to acquire this information and that eventually in 2016, they basically barred North Koreans from entering Ukraine because they kept seeing them. So, you know, at the time, we didn't know, like, does this mean that the North Koreans were aspiring to these capabilities? Yeah.

Or does it mean they got them, right? Because the only stories we had were of successful arrests and stopping people. But then, you know, you obviously naturally wonder, which is why when North Korea tested an RD-250-looking engine in 2017, we were like, oh, crap, they must have compromised USEMASH. Right. Right? Mm-hmm. So this is where the speculation starts, right?

And just to bottom line up front, the things we see look to us like North Korea either compromised a larger range of technology at Ujmash than we previously knew or aspires to To develop rocket engines beyond the RD-250, similar to those built by USMASH. Today. Yeah. Which is a little bit of an inference, so I'll walk you through the line of argumentation.

We need some engine for the second stage, right?

Aaron 20:49

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey 20:51

You could just take one thrust chamber and a turbo pump and stick it in the second stage and call it a day. That is really inefficient and doesn't work all that well. And in particular, it gives you something very un-North Korean. Which is the North Koreans tend to like these upper stages that burn for a long freaking time.

Okay. It's something we've actually noticed in the other Hwasong series that they don't want high thrust engines that burn up all the fuel really fast. They tend to go for lower thrust engines that burn a longer time. There's a joke to be made there, but I'm not going to do it. Okay.

Aaron 21:38

Maybe it's the sting of rocket engines, but go ahead.

Jeffrey 21:43

All right, we'll let that pass. All right, so. Do you remember in December 2019 when North Korea did two engine tests at Sohe? Yeah, I do.

Aaron 21:52

Yeah, I'm about to say, you guys, you should remember it very well. Right.

Jeffrey 21:57

We were snooping on Sohe and we, you know, the missile, the static engine test site was dismantled as part of the Singapore agreement with Trump, or at least as a goodwill gesture following the Singapore agreement with Trump. When Hanoi collapsed, it was all put back together again. I said that in a funny way because I started putting it back together before Hanoi collapsed, but whatever.

Once they put it back together, we monitored it. And in December of 2019, we saw a shipping container show up. And I think this is the first time that an NGO used commercial satellite imagery to announce that a country was about to violate a nonproliferation commitment. And we actually had it on CNN before they did the freaking test.

I remember that, yeah. So we were very proud of that because here we were using commercial imagery and the North Koreans weren't exactly hiding it. But the morning picture that Planet took didn't capture the shipping container. It's only that we had encouraged them to take lots of pictures and they took two that day. So maybe we did get a little lucky.

There were two tests. The first one, which was a big one that we were able to verify because it left a giant burn scar, which we think is probably a test of the first engine cluster. Right? The second test is a mystery because the North Koreans, in that annoying North Korean way, bragged that the test lasted seven minutes.

It's the only technical detail. They tell us nothing about either of these tests. They don't even admit that they're rocket engine tests, right? You have to sort of infer that from where they did it. But they gave us one specific, very technical piece of information, which is that the second test lasted seven minutes long. That is really long for a rocket engine.

That is really, really, really long for a liquid propellant rocket engine. There is, however, one rocket engine That I know of that can fire for up to seven minutes. Would you like to guess what that rocket engine is, Aaron? Tell me.

Aaron 24:24

I can guess, but just tell me.

Jeffrey 24:27

That rocket engine is, in fact... The upper stage of the Cyclone.

Aaron 24:35

Listeners can't see me, but I'm squinting and sort of like furrowing my brow. This is not good.

Jeffrey 24:41

UseMash has a series of engines, which I am now furiously pulling up the PowerPoint. But they have a series of engines called the RD-861. I remember this. The 861 is the late 60s, early 70s version. The G is the 90s version. The K is the modern one. And that burns for seven minutes. And so I think when they told us that they did a rocket engine test that lasted for seven minutes, they were bragging.

That they hadn't just copied the RD-250, that they had also copied or compromised the RD-861. This shit can fly anywhere at once, can't it?

Aaron 25:36

I mean, just, you can put that in your head. You only need the fancy missile model. I mean, you need the fancy missile model, but if it burns that long.

Jeffrey 25:44

It's a really nice engine.

Aaron 25:46

If it burns that long.

Jeffrey 25:49

Well, so, I mean, the thing is it doesn't have to burn that long, you know, and you can start it and you can stop it and restart it, which is nice. And in this case, when we model it, there's probably not enough fuel for it to burn seven minutes. Right. Right? There's basically enough fuel for it to burn off 260 seconds.

So 260. So, like, five minutes.

Aaron 26:13

That's just... Four or five minutes. That's still plenty. That's plenty of giddy-up. I mean, I know it is speculation, but...

Jeffrey 26:24

I would make two observations about it. One is the North Koreans went out of their way to say, we tested a rocket engine that lasts seven minutes. You know, like a level of detail they do not provide unless it is like, you know, tattooed on Kim Jong-un's middle finger.

Aaron 26:41

Well, apparently he wears Hermes gloves now, so maybe we can't see the tattoo. That's nice.

Jeffrey 26:45

You know, like it's a very specific bit of bragging they've done. Right. And obviously it is an engine that is associated with the Space Launcher. Right. Built at USMASH that they already copied the first stage engine and they already appear to have compromised the design information.

Aaron 27:06

Or at least we're interested in it.

Jeffrey 27:08

Right. So it's not, you know, we're not just picking a random rocket engine that was tested for seven minutes. We're testing a rocket engine that was tested for seven minutes by the same people who build the other engine that North Korea is producing its own domestic variant of, which makes for a perfect second stage. And then there's the third stage.

So, how to talk about this one. So, this thing is so big, there is no reason to put one warhead on it.

Aaron 27:48

Doesn't sound like it, no.

Jeffrey 27:50

Like, the Hwasong-15 can already take a North Korean warhead and, you know, put it in Florida. So, there's no reason for the thing to get physically larger. And, you know, real reasons not to get larger. It's just, you know, it's bigger. It's harder to move around. You know, you lose a lot. I mean, the North Koreans are really interested in solid propellant ballistic missiles because liquid propellant missiles are a pain.

Liquid propellant missiles become a greater pain the bigger they get.

Aaron 28:19

Right.

Jeffrey 28:20

So if you're going to make it bigger, you're making it bigger to put multiple warheads on it. And it is absolutely possible. This is this speculation. I feel pretty good about the previous speculation. This is speculation that I can't prove that just worries me. Mm-hmm. So you could just put three warheads on a platform and let them fall in kind of a pretty little footprint.

Aaron 28:54

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey 28:56

Early Soviet ICBMs did that. They didn't bother with a post-boost vehicle that, you know, made some effort at, well, you know, multiple independently targeting.

Aaron 29:11

Dropping them off, as I like to say. It's like the bus. Yeah.

Jeffrey 29:15

And, you know, the bus is useful. Partly it's useful for targeting, but, you know, it's also nice if you want to, like, position things because you want to get, like, a nice spread out of things in space so that they can't be intercepted and whatnot, or it's harder to intercept them.

Aaron 29:28

Yeah, it's more efficient.

Jeffrey 29:30

Well, so, USEMASH or USENOY, I guess. What, USENOY is the Design Bureau, USEMASH are the manufacturers, and I use them sort of interchangeably.

Aaron 29:41

And I'm sure your pronunciation is wonderful.

Jeffrey 29:44

Yeah, I know. I should say Yuzhnoi.

Aaron 29:50

Yuzmash sounds like the starter kit for some bootleg liquor out in Kentucky.

Jeffrey 29:54

Yeah, I get lazy. So they market a space tug, the DU-802, which we think is a Soviet PBV that has been commercialized.

Aaron 30:13

Okay. And I really do see your speculations that basically they have compromised the entire system. This is speculation. I think so. Okay. Yeah. I mean, this is where you're going. Well, I mean, we know they compromised the first stage.

Jeffrey 30:26

We know that. I mean, because they showed us that. I think there's a fairly good case that they compromised the second stage. Yeah.

Aaron 30:36

I follow your logic while you say fair.

Jeffrey 30:37

It strikes me as like, I would say it's not certain. I would say it's more likely than not, I think, that they compromise the second stage or at least aspire to copy it. We'll talk about what they can and can't do. It's hard to say, but they definitely have indicated to us like, hey, we're not just going to stick an RD-250 on top of this thing.

We're smarter than that. If you believe that they have compromised two different engines from this system... Yeah? Do you... The space tug that's freaking for sale?

Aaron 31:20

Maybe they bought one. That's a joke. I mean... They could have through an intermediary. They published academic papers on it. I've got one.

Jeffrey 31:28

Yeah. With nice little diagrams. And don't get me wrong, it's a little bit too big to fit on top, like just like off the shelf. I don't think you could buy one off the shelf. But I do think if you were the North Koreans, this would be a sensible thing to copy.

Aaron 31:44

As a baseline for your own design.

Jeffrey 31:47

Yeah, because presumably if you're walking off with design information or you've got people who are consultants or you just have a bunch of Ukrainian speakers from their joyous holiday in the country, it seems like a natural fit.

Aaron 32:06

Right. And I've always – you know it works, right? You know it works. You know it works. So it's something that you could aspire to do.

Jeffrey 32:14

Copying it to the best of your ability. And it's not that fancy. I mean, I'm sure, whatever, maybe the North Korean one won't work as well, but like... Right. There's nothing about it when you look at it where you're like, well, I don't know. Could you actually build cylindrical tanks? Like, I mean, it... You know. I got it.

Yeah. Well, so I know you'll get pushback, but yeah, I get it. Sure. Yeah, of course. Well, and when we're done, I want to talk about what to make of all this information, but I... You know I think it's probably the case that if they if they are going with multiple warheads on this thing that they're gonna try and they're not gonna be satisfied with a with a footprint I mean they're there they're gonna want to copy the available information that is you know widely talked about in the in the public literature so our model Has a pair of RD250s as the first stage.

So four nozzles. It's got a pair of 861s in the second stage. And it's got this little tiny post-boost vehicle with about 500 kilograms of fuel. I know it's kind of depends on some parameters here and there. And, but it could take three, maybe four warheads to 12,000 kilometers.

Aaron 34:00

Yeah.

Jeffrey 34:01

Kind of, kind of, kind of, kind of depends on how heavy you think the warheads are.

Aaron 34:05

Right.

Jeffrey 34:06

You know, we, we tend to model them at 470 kilograms because that was the, That was the mass of the appropriate Soviet-era system and also the postulated mass of the first DF-31RV. So it's kind of a good number for a first compact thermonuclear weapon. But, you know, maybe the North Koreans do worse than that and they can only put two.

You know, it's a good question. Don't really know. But it's big. It's big. So, yeah. I would say I got, you know, three warheads, 10,000 kilometers, no problem. I think probably three warheads to 12,000 kilometers. And I think, you know, if everything goes perfectly for them, and we'll talk about it again, like the closing thought I want is kind of what do we make of all this?

But, you know, if they were really good at it and everything was engineered just right, you know, you might be able to get four, four to 12,000. Might. I mean, that's I think that's probably an extreme case. I would probably say three to twelve thousand would be my guess.

Aaron 35:17

So, yeah, that's what I say. That's a big missile.

Jeffrey 35:21

It's a big one. It's a big one.

Aaron 35:26

Oh, Jesus.

Jeffrey 35:27

I mean, I don't have anything else. This is big. Yeah! And, by the way, not as big as it could be, because like I said, or like you summarized for me when I got all long-winded and weird at the beginning, you could make it bigger.

Aaron 35:42

Long-winded and weird could be the alternative name of this podcast. Yeah. Is... No, it is that they have... Assuming... Well, I think that maybe you should then talk about the final thought, because there's a lot of assumptions built into this. Because it could be bigger if the assumptions that we are making are correct, or you are making at the beginning are correct.

Jeffrey 36:01

So... I am a big believer in designing public policies that are robust against uncertainty. I mean, one of my pet peeves and and this is a by the way, this is a nonpartisan pet peeve because actually both groups of humans do this, which is, you know, it's rare that I get to it's rare that I get to triangulate.

Yeah. Since I think one side tends to be much more right than the other, but whatever. Both groups do this. People build logic chains. Right. And even though they're like 90% logic chains, when you have five or 10 of those things struck strung together, you know, you have a much lower probability of being right. So. It is important that we design policies that are robust against uncertainty and the possibility that we are wrong.

So my general observation when we are looking at North Korea is that what we are trying to do is establish benchmarks. When they show us something in a parade, They are saying they aspire to build this thing. It does not necessarily mean that they have this thing. It doesn't mean that the thing that they have will work.

And a great example of that is the Hwasong-13 and 14 they showed us, which I think clearly indicated they aspired to cluster Musudan engines, right? Soviet SS-N-6, and what the hell was the number on those things? 4D10s or something? It's so long ago, I don't remember the engine designation. But they basically imported that engine from post-Soviet Russia in the 1990s.

They reverse engineered it, put it in the Musudan, and they were going to cluster it to make an ICBM. And everybody said, you're crazy. That will never work. They did it. They tested it. It worked. But, you know, the Musudan's a nightmare, and you can see that they gave up. It was a dead end. So when we're looking at a parade item, what we are seeing is an aspiration.

And when we have ample experience that North Korea pursues those aspirations, but then... Sometimes it doesn't work. So I don't want to say that if they fire this thing tomorrow, it will work. I'm not even willing to say if they fire this thing tomorrow, it will have all these components. But what I think we need to do is establish a benchmark.

What the North Koreans are telling us... And trying to show us is that they have much more technology from the Cyclone system than we realize. And that if we don't play nice, they're going to test that. That then becomes our benchmark. And if the thing flies and it flies like I expect it to fly, then we know that this analysis was right.

And if it doesn't fly that far, then we know that there are shortcomings. And then that's really valuable because it tells you where to put the screws, right? Like where to try to cut down on technology assistance. So, you know, I don't want to say that I am certain. That they have all of the pieces and parts that they are showing us and that those things all work fine together.

But I am pretty confident that that's what they are trying to convey to us. And that has implications both for what we might want to try to head off. And if they test it and it doesn't work or falls short or is not as impressive, what kinds of things we might do to try to limit the capability?

Aaron 39:30

No, I mean, I operate in much the same way. But, you know, the countries I study tend to be a little bit more overt in their, well, the North Koreans are in your face, but they're in your face in a different type of way. But, you know, I simplify that by saying I just take leaders at their word.

If he says by showing off this big thing, it's clearly the goal of the program and whether or not they fall short doesn't mean that your logic chains are faulty assumptions. It just means that, you know, they still have more work to do to move forward to that ultimate end goal, as you're saying.

Jeffrey 40:05

Well, and I actually think that is the lesson of the Hwasong-13 and 14, the ICBMs that they showed us in parades but never built. Because if you look at those two missiles, they look so much like the Hwasong-14 and 15. Like, they're not the same, but conceptually, I think they were the same. You know, I think conceptually the North Koreans like this is what we want to build.

And this is what we have to build it. And it just didn't work. And they had to import a better technological foundation for building the missiles that eventually did work. And so, you know, some people look at those missiles and say, well, not everything North Korea shows you is true. They showed us these things. They didn't work and they never flew them.

And, you know, we could tell you that wasn't going to work. And it's like, yeah, that's that's all right. But it is also the case that it was, I think, a very clear indication of an aspiration they had, which then, you know, eventually they made good on. And I still remember, by the way, when Bob Gates... Leaked, well, leaked because he had you know, authority to declassify, but he just announced out of nowhere.

I think it was in Singapore because we all wondered if like he had jet lag. He's like, oh, the DPRK is building a road mobile ICBM. And we were all like Bob, are you feeling okay? Like, like that doesn't sound right. And then in another setting, he said it again. And he said it in a way that would leave no doubt that he knew what he was talking about.

He said, you know, normally a country doesn't do this, but the DPRK is building a road mobile ICBM. And then we saw the thing in the parade. So I do think it is, you know, that was a case where I think Gates... Acted as a consummate public servant. And he took potentially really explosive information and he put it in the public domain in like a nice, gentle way so that when the parade happened, people didn't freak out.

I think we need to do that same thing here. Like when they flight test this thing, it is possible we will realize North Korea has a much broader array of technology from Ukraine that we didn't realize.

Aaron 42:20

And then, I mean, just to stitch it together before we do the outro here, it's just what you mean by policy is... Not wishing away the bad thing that they can't actually doing it, but assume that the bad thing is their goal, and to try and stop, at least or manage, pursuit of the bad thing, you know, to be, you know, super simplistic in that. So rather than wish it away and say like, oh no, these people are stupid, they're backwards, they can't feed themselves, and so they'll never be able to do this, you're a crazy person, it's that this is what they're going to do if allowed to do it, you have to stop them or at least manage the problem as they are in the pursuit of that.

Jeffrey 42:53

Right, and the straightforward implication of this missile is that the ground-based mid-course defense architecture we have is just not going to work. Because the idea of the ground-based mid-course defense was that it would be capable of dealing with a very rudimentary ICBM threat.

Aaron 43:18

Yeah.

Jeffrey 43:19

It's a very expensive capability that provides a very thin or I think what the National Academy has called fragile defense, which might work against one North Korean ICBM or maybe even a handful of North Korean ICBMs. I mean, I'm pretty skeptical. But like at least conceptually, it could have – conceptually, if it worked the way it was supposed to, which I'm not convinced it did, but if it did – Conceptually, it was an appropriate defense to a very modest threat.

Aaron 43:49

And not these. I mean, it's an entirely different assumption. But not these. It's an entirely different assumption against a class of North Korean ICBMs.

Jeffrey 43:57

Well, and I think the simplest way to say it is if each one of these things carries three to four warheads, right? We don't know. So, but three to four. The current firing doctrine for GMD is four interceptors. That's really nice because that gives me between 12 and 16 interceptors per missile, right? The Obama administration bought 14 new interceptors at the very end to deal with North Korea's new missiles.

Do you know how much 14 interceptors cost? A billion dollars. A billion dollars. Each one of these North Korean missiles requires approximately $1 billion of defense. If they build 10 of them. Yeah. And and honestly, if they build 10 of them, then you're intercepting 30 to 40 warheads. And at that point, you know, 90 percent defense is not good enough.

Right. Right. Well, then, I mean, I mean, yes, but eventually they build so many that 90 or even 99 percent aren't aren't enough because, you know, one still gets through and it's a it's a bad freaking day and you're deterred.

Aaron 45:14

You're deterred, yeah, exactly. Or you're talking about large left-of-launch capabilities to drive down the number of the incoming... It's just crazy. It just gets you to a bad place very fast.

Jeffrey 45:28

But I think that's an example of an architecture that is designed without uncertainty in mind. Right? It's designed in... The GMD system in Alaska... The extra 14 they bought. Well, I think the whole system was fundamentally designed against the idea that North Korea existed at a certain level of technological capability. And no one asked the question like, And I understand why no one asked because people were like, oh my God, they're going to build an ICBM.

We need a defense. And then, you know, people are like, no, we don't need a defense. They can't build an ICBM. No one was the turd in the punch bowl. It was like, what if they're capable of building really good ICBMs? Like, what if all of you are wrong? What if the answer is not crappy ICBM or no ICBM?

What if the answer is, you know... Chungus Humungus, which is now staring us in the face. And the answer is the GMD system is a freaking disaster for dealing with something like that because there are just going to be too many warheads to effectively defend against.

Aaron 46:33

So, you know, maybe we could... It's called competitive strategy for the kids at home. Go back to the talky talk. Go back to the talky talk, which is what happened in the Senate. Maybe the talky talk is... Which is what happened in the old days. I mean, like... Just saying, the talky talk, you know, might be... You might give it a try.

Jeffrey 46:50

Or, you know, you could, what, there were six of them on display, I guess, or five. I forget how many there were, but there was one more in the back. So, you know, maybe you could just spend $6 billion this year on another 70 Interceptors or whatever the hell it's going to be.

Aaron 47:08

All right, I'm going to do the sign-off now because I have crying children upstairs. Well, look, everybody, this has been great. We are taking your votes on the Slack channel for episodes. It is very clear that people wanted a Gornokarba episode, but that's going to require a little bit of work on our end, and we also have the IRBM episode coming up as well.

Put this tied for a second. Yeah, this is tied for a second. And if you want to get involved in this conversation, head on over to patreon.com slash acwpodcast. $3 if you're a student, $5 if you're not. You too can join and vote on our next episode. So with that, Jeffrey, signing off. It was a pleasure, Aaron.