Transcript
Transcribed automatically: it certainly contains errors. It’s pretty good, just not perfect. We provide it here because, for accessibility, it’s better than nothing.
Jeffrey Lewis
0:06
You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk Podcast, a podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Dr. 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
0:23
And I'm Aaron Stein, Director of Research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
Jeffrey
0:27
Good morning, Aaron. How are you doing?
Aaron
0:29
Got my coffee in hand.
Jeffrey
0:32
I'm doing pretty well. How are you? I'm all right. I've got my tea since I can't really drink coffee anymore. And this morning, it's both black tea and a little mate. It's called Morning Thunder because I need to wake the F up.
Aaron
0:50
I feel like there's a joke to be made about Morning Thunder that I'm just missing, but I'll let that one pass if it comes back. I'll bring it up later in the pod.
Jeffrey
0:59
Oh, Aaron, Aaron, Aaron, Aaron, Aaron. Dirty, dirty, dirty mind.
Aaron
1:03
I actually wasn't thinking about anything dirty. I was just thinking about... I think it's because we're thinking about missiles.
Jeffrey
1:09
And as we all know, missiles are penises.
Aaron
1:14
The Iranian morning thunder. How about we put it that way?
Aaron
1:18
They fired off the thing we've been waiting for, huh?
Jeffrey
1:22
Yeah. Yeah. Launch a missile, get a pod, little asterisk. That offer is also good for space launches, or in this case, a test of a future space launcher. Iran has kicked off its annual launching season with the test of a new, new solid propellant space launcher called the Zoljanah.
Aaron
1:44
The Zoljanah. And... When did they actually fire this off? Full disclosure, we had a snow week here last week, so I was literally snowed under with child care. So we meant to talk about this last week, but we're getting to it a week late.
Jeffrey
2:00
Well, it's actually a little clear exactly when they fired it off. They released footage of the tests, and it seems like it had been done in the past few days. So sometime around the end of January, and the Iranians indicated they were going to do a series of test launches before actually using the thing to put a satellite in space.
But You know, we got pictures, we got some video. That's enough for us to get modeling and to start thinking about the implications of this system, both for Iran's space launch capabilities, but, you know, for the other thing you can do with phallic-shaped pointy things.
Aaron
2:43
I think that the place to start is that this SLV is solid propellant, and so it's clearly an iteration on Iran's previous space launch vehicles.
Jeffrey
2:56
Yeah, you know, it's almost like the freaking weirdos who a couple years ago told the New York Times that Iran had a very large and capable solid propellant space program that had been reinvigorated. And even though it was not being covered in the press, the fact that we could see them out in the desert testing these things was like a warning, like, hey, wake up, this is coming.
Well, it's here.
Aaron
3:19
Yeah, and I remember that story because the accompanying podcast I was not on, but I believe it ended with the story about Mogadam's head and how it's missing. Yes. It's one of my favorite podcasts and I'm not even on it. But Iran's solid fuel program is alive and kicking, but I know that there's questions about the legacy of this particular solid fuel.
Jeffrey
3:44
Yeah, so Fabian Hinz is the person who really first realized that this facility at Sherwood, which had previously been identified by Janes as a new Space Launch Center, which was great work by them to, like, spot this thing and be like, hey, this is missile-related. Fabian had really been focused on the fact that there was this parallel effort to the normal civilian space program run by the IRGC, where this guy, Tehrani Mochadam, was basically pursuing solid propellant space launchers instead of the liquid propellant space launchers they use on the civilian side.
And this was all because he wanted a solid propellant ICBM, but the Supreme Leader said, no, but you can, you know... You can go ahead and have fun. So it was Fabian who noticed that after Mohaddam died in that terrible accident where, or maybe it wasn't an accident where nobody could find his head and the program was wiped out, they released like a lot of martyr videos and Fabian was like, oh, holy crap.
This new Space Launch Center isn't really a Space Launch Center. That's the, that was the new IRGC Mohaddam run program. Facility, which now we see casting pits to make rocket motors, and we also see large test stands. And so I belabor that point, but what's interesting now is we had previously associated the Space Launch Program using solid propellant with the IRGC.
When they tested the Kassad last year, it had a big IRGC logo on it. It was tested from Sharud. You know, it was just all IRGC all the time. This looks much more like something that the civilian space authorities are doing. And so Fabian has a long thread that's worth reading where we don't really understand. Did it transition from the IRGC to the civilian space authorities?
Or maybe there are two solid propellant rocket programs?
Aaron
5:43
Yeah, and I think the point worth teasing out before we dive into it is that, you know, before Mogadam lost his head, you know, the idea was, is that as parallel, well, basically is that the Supreme Leader suggested that there was a 2,000 kilometer cap on the range of missiles. And that all of this work he had, you know, probably been doing on solid fuel, we know he'd been doing on solid fuels before this cap came in, which coincided with the JCPOA.
Is that he just took that work and he sort of pivoted to the right and he said, oh, I'll make a space launcher rather than an ICBM, right?
Jeffrey
6:20
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a little unclear to me when the Supreme Leader actually put the 2,000 kilometer range limit in place. But it definitely seems like the turn toward diplomacy was this inhibiting factor. I think the limit may have been in place already, but the JCPOA really locked it in. But I think by the JCPOA, Mohaddam was dead.
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. But you're fundamentally right, right? It's that the Iranians had constrained their missile programs. And Haji Zayda, the head of the IRGC Aerospace Force, said something very similar, where he said he went to brief the Supreme Leader on their plans to make ever longer range missiles. And it was the Supreme Leader who was like, yeah, no, I'm not interested in that.
I just want them to be more precise.
Jeffrey
7:08
And so, yeah, they, you know, Mohaddam was this important, influential person. And so they had to, like, entertain him. And so off to the desert he went.
Aaron
7:18
Right. Never to return again. But, you know, enough jokes about him losing his head.
Jeffrey
7:25
There will never be enough jokes about the fact that they were unable to find his head. But go ahead.
Aaron
7:33
He's a very eccentric character. You know, listen to that podcast. I mean, so then, you know, this brings us up to the present, which is that, like, at least if you look at Fabian's Twitter thread, and I have it open in front of me, is that, you know, the markings at least on the side of the, and again, the butchering of the name, the Zoljanah, or Zoljanah.
The Zoljanah! Zoljanah, there we go. Zoljanah! Perhaps suggests that it's not the legacy of Mogadam in his head, but perhaps of a different entity that is pursuing solid fuels.
Jeffrey
8:07
Yeah, at the very least there are questions about how all these things relate to one another, and we have to keep open the possibility that there are two solid propellant missile programs.
Aaron
8:15
Crazier things have happened! True, okay, and it's not like Iran to have sort of like dual running programs that both have negative implications in pursuit to their end. But I think, not to belabor the point, the point is, again, that they just fired off a solid-fueled satellite launch vehicle, and that obviously represents an advance, or at least a... Oh, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know how else to call it. It's just like an advance in where they're going.
Jeffrey
8:45
Right, you know, We had started looking at this because a little bit before the launch, there were a couple of interviews, one with the head of the Iranian Space Agency and then another with a spokesperson for the Iran Aerospace Industries Organization, where they outlined their future civilian space launchers. And in that context, you know, they said basically they were modifying the S'more because it failed.
They have a giant liquid propellant, like four meter in diameter, heavy launcher plan called the Saroosh. But then there were two solid propellant space launchers, the Zoljanah and the Sarir. And the Zoljanah, we didn't have like a ton of information about. They just said it was kind of like the same size as the S'more. And so now that they've fired it, We can actually go ahead and model it and start to pull out some of its secrets.
Aaron
9:43
Well, I mean, I remember when it happened, again, this has been a couple of days because of the snow last week, but I think you had a Twitter thread on this that I was following, and I knew that this would be our podcast topic, so you wanted to jump into it. Yeah, sure.
Jeffrey
9:55
Well, so the first thing is, you know, when the Iranians went ahead and... Said, oh, we're playing this thing called the Zoljanah. It's about the same size as the Samorg. It can put 220 kilograms into a 500 kilometer orbit. Like we immediately went to the worksheet that I think we talked about in the Israel podcast where, you know, we were working with Steve Fetter.
We built this worksheet to basically say, if you know nothing, almost nothing about the launcher other than what it's supposed to be able to put into orbit, what kind of missile would that make? And you know, we, you know, we got sort of, you know, three, 4,000 kilometers. But, you know, then now we see it and we went through a whole complicated modeling process and I don't want to ruin it.
But like, you know, to stage IRBM is like 3000 kilometers. So I'm not sure how much we learned by actually really trying to tear the thing apart. But, you know, it's a pretty. Big diameter solid propellant first stage, you know, it's, it's a meter and a half in diameter, and that corresponds, and I'm rounding here, but you know, 20 metric tons of propellant.
Which is like big enough that if you are making motors of that size, you can really make motors of any size you want. Hint, you could make an ICBM sized motor, which would be like bigger, but like not a fundamentally different challenge once you're already making things this big.
Aaron
11:30
And I think maybe it was you who mentioned on Twitter or maybe it was somebody else, but I'm pretty sure it was you, is that we fundamentally think about these things in terms of like Cold War definitions from the START treaties. You know, ICBM is 5,500 kilometer range. You know, 3,000 is plenty of oomph for what they need to get you around.
And I think the broader point, again, is that if you can do three, you can do 5.5.
Jeffrey
11:55
Yeah, and I would argue you can do 10, you know.
Aaron
11:58
Yeah, that's my point, is that, you know, you can meet that minimum threshold to where you're in the, they have an ICBM. And it reminds me of, like, the DPRK trajectory a little bit, you know, and... I don't feel like people are paying attention. I got to be honest with you. I just feel like that one just sort of like a candle went out and the smoke has dispersed and people are like, oh, yeah, we got to go back to the JCPOA without really compartmentalizing what the hell just happened.
Jeffrey
12:25
Yeah. Well, you know, maybe because there's not much we can do about it. You know, like, I mean, it's funny because when we're modeling the thing, the thing I always say is like, oh, it's a slightly larger, less capable version of a Jericho. Which it is. It's just a little wide. It's a little bigger than a Jericho.
The actual performance in aggregate might be better than Jericho, but I don't think it's quite as efficient a rocket motor. But then as soon as you start saying that, right, or you start comparing it to the Space Launcher the Turks have talked about building, It like drives home that like, Oh yeah, there's like this giant missile proliferation race underway.
And it's nice if it'd be great if we could restrict it just to space launch vehicles and, and, and capabilities that exist in concept. But you know, there's always the risk, certainly at the regional level that these things will find their ways into Into missiles pointed at one another. So yeah, I don't know, I don't think, I mean, I know people keep, I guess the smart thing in DC is to say like, well, we're gonna have to get a handle on the missile program but I do, I don't think you can get a handle on the missile program, and so like hey guys, how about you just fix the, you know, how to fix.
That's right.
Aaron
13:41
Do you want to talk a little bit more about the Osen stuff that you were doing?
Jeffrey
13:44
Yeah, I mean, it's pretty straightforward. The Iranians told us the diameter and gave us really nice pictures and told us how much the whole thing weighed. And it looks like that the first and second stages are identical, which, by the way, is also something the Jericho does. It's not like the most efficient arrangement I've ever seen to have the first and second stage identical, but like, whatever.
Another Middle Eastern country that starts with I does it, so that's fine, you know, it's not unheard of. So you know, we just, we worked out the volume of the two stages and oh, the third stage is, is off the sphere, so that's like a previously solved problem. So you just subtract the sphere, divide it in half, and or divide what's left over in half, and you've got.
How much your each stage weighs. And you just have to figure out like how much of that's propellant, how much of that is dead mass. And you can set that, you know, like when you model it, there are two sanity checks you can do. You want to make sure that it only puts the right amount in orbit.
Jeffrey
14:49
Right. Because the first version we did was way overpowered and it put like a ton of weight in orbit. We were like, oh, it's too big. And then, you know, you've got the video of it accelerating. And so David Laboon and I spent a lot of time measuring the acceleration of the missile, which turns out to be really complicated.
But I will cautiously say, taking into account differences in measurement and the possibility that there's been some frame rate conversion and whatnot. They told us the thrust of the engine, and that's, like, basically what we're measuring as it takes off. So it's, you know, it's a pretty straightforward system, I think. 20 tons of propellant in each stage, you know, with a mass of, like, call it 24 metric tons each.
Aaron
15:39
It's a nice rocket. I'm about to say, like, that's pretty good. You know, that'll get the job done.
Jeffrey
15:44
Yeah. As an intermediate range ballistic missile, depending on which program you use and all the different assumptions you make you know, we're pretty consistently getting between 2,600 and 3,000 kilometers with a thousand kilogram payload. And some people have been like sniping at that saying like, well, you really should do it with 500, which would make the range grow.
But they don't have a nuclear weapon right now, and I can't see packing a couple hundred kilograms of explosive on something you send 3,000 kilometers. Maybe they're interested in prompt global strike. I mean, the joke's going to be on me when it turns out they've got a gliding reentry vehicle, right? I know. Well, the joke's going to be on all of them.
Aaron
16:26
Well, I think the political aspects of this are that... You know, for the past three years, the policy has been one of coercive pressure, you know, ostensibly to change regime behavior, right? That's the branded reason to bring them back to the negotiating table, to get them to a place where they would, this is, again, the most stylized and idealized.
Jeffrey
16:51
I love how you pretend that it might be somehow more sophisticated that when you scratch the surface. I mean, have you seen Nikki Haley's tweets?
Aaron
16:59
It's not more sophisticated than that.
Jeffrey
17:00
It might actually be a bit less sophisticated than that.
Aaron
17:03
Okay, let's just quit. I'm trying to be thing. This is the quote-unquote argument of the Fix-It crowd.
Jeffrey
17:11
You realize you're arguing with the QAnon shaman at this point. I mean, he doesn't know. He doesn't care.
Aaron
17:17
He eats better than I do. He eats more organically than I do. He does, even in prison. Even in prison, he is a more organic-centric diet than I do. My point is, not to go into this, is that something that we have been talking about on this podcast, you have been working on far more closely on than I have, is that the coercive strategy, basically, it's not going to prevent them from making iterative evolutions of their design on both, on missiles in particular, because we can see the passive evidence from open source intelligence, right?
Yep. And, you know, I mean, the longer you just sort of let it fester and you pretend it's about fixing it rather than waiting for the regime to collapse, the farther along they get.
Jeffrey
18:04
Well, I'd say it's even arguably worse than that, because if we step back and we say like, OK, so there's an IRGC space program using solid propellant. And this has all the hallmarks of a civilian space effort using solid propellant, which is to say that the motor was tested at a different location, it's painted differently, it's launched from a different location, it was announced by different people, like, If it is truly the case that Iran, under sanctions, is able to sustain a liquid propellant space launch program, development of one of the larger missile arsenals in the region, if not the world, and two solid propellant programs to put a launcher in space.
Like, guys, it's not working.
Aaron
18:50
No, it's not.
Jeffrey
18:51
Like, okay, if you tripled pressure and it, like, cut them down to just one space program, like, you're going to count that as a W? Because, like, they got two or three, depending on how you count it.
Aaron
19:03
Right. And I guess a growing confidence in the systems? I mean, maybe not perhaps on the solid fuel side, but definitely on the liquid fuel side? I mean, it worked, you know? On both, yeah.
Jeffrey
19:14
I mean, what am I saying? I guess growing confidence in both, right?
Aaron
19:17
Right. And the more willingness, at least, to use missiles in the past couple of years is just a way to project power, either through export through proxies or direct use against ISIS or plucking Kurds up in Iraq.
Jeffrey
19:33
Yeah, I think Iran's missiles are here to stay. And if you step back, you know, you can ask yourself the fundamental question of, do you want to have the relationship we have with Iran over the last four years where we are constantly on the brink of war? Or do you want to move to some other kind of arrangement where we are attempting to settle some of those differences diplomatically?
I would say that that choice that we're going to make We have to make that choice without any regard to the missile program, because I just don't think that there's going to be a lot we can do there. I mean, we might be able to convince them to hold to the 2,000 kilometer range limit for things that are painted green or brown, right?
But I just don't see them at this point abandoning their space program. And so, like, you know... I know, we went through this with the DPRK. We're like, oh, you have to give up your space program. The DPRK was like, no. Now we'd be happy to go back. And I, you know, whatever.
Aaron
20:36
In a way, it's worse off than the DPRK program because Iran, I think, is... At this stage of potential negotiations, is further along than the DPRK was back in, what, 1994, 1993?
Jeffrey
20:48
Oh, yeah. In fact, I give a talk on the DPRK where I start, where I've got this crude CIA drawing of the three missiles we're worried about, the Nodong, the Taepodong-1, and the Taepodong-2. And so they're like little cartoon sketches of these three missiles. And, you know, it says, you know, North Korea is a ballistic missile proliferation problem.
And I say, how it started? And then for how it's going, I show the South Korean lineup of the 15 different missiles that at the moment are worth talking about, even though we're up to like the KN, we're at least at the KN-26. So we got like, we got like 30 DPRK missiles now. So yeah, how it started?
Three. How's it going? Like 30. Right. So yeah, yeah, Iran is much farther, much, much, much farther along than even when the Clinton administration tried to do a missile deal in 2000. Iran is so much further along that I would actually go so far as to say, and this is a conversation we've had elsewhere, like there is no point to the missile technology control regime anymore.
Aaron
21:50
No, because as you said, the cartel doesn't matter if the cartel doesn't control the entirety of the supply.
Jeffrey
21:56
Yeah, a supplier's cartel that doesn't include China, asterisk, I know, but doesn't include China, Iran, or North Korea just is not a cartel. And so what it probably makes sense to do is focus the MTCR on upstream capabilities like Countermeasures to missile defenses, making sure those don't proliferate. I would imagine technologies related to hypersonic vehicles. There are still things worth controlling, but in terms of being able to put 1,000 kilograms on a solid propellant rocket and hurl it a couple thousand kilometers, I think that horse has left the barn.
Aaron
22:32
Yeah, and the last thing I want to say before we wrap up here is, you know, even that 2,000 kilometer range, and of course, asterisk, we don't know if it's actually real, right? Like, it's a declaratory statement that we've been reported to by Iranian officials as sort of the hard cap that the Supreme Leader's brought on.
Jeffrey
22:50
It's nice that they say it.
Jeffrey
22:53
But I will say... You know, thanks.
Aaron
22:58
Even 2,000 kilometers is just sort of like, well, A, how do you verify it, right? So we just have to get out of the barn that we're not going to be verifying that in any sort of real way. Two is, as you model far more, I mean, you model missiles basically for a living, it's kind of arbitrary, right?
Jeffrey
23:20
Oh, it's totally arbitrary. It is not... I mean, first of all, just the act of measuring range. You know, like watching... I've been going through all the historical documents from the Polaris program, watching them, like, figure out, like, ooh, what if we shave five pounds of insulation off? How much... What will that do to the range? You know, and it's...
So, you know, yeah, this idea that there is... For solid propellant missiles, there was this idea that there was kind of this weird gap somewhere between 800 millimeters in diameter and like a meter and a half in diameter where just making really big rockets required like much bigger equipment or the ability to do things in batches, case bonded insulation, like a whole bunch of like technical tricks.
But once you're making things this big, you have learned all those tricks. So I just think it's pointless. You know the other thing I say, Aaron? If you're really concerned about Iran having a nuclear-armed ICBM, the solution is not to let them have the nuclear part.
Aaron
24:30
That's right. You just let him have an ICBM. Because an ICBM... What do you... Exactly. This is so obvious to us. Fix the problem you know how to fix! We go in circles. Do not try to fix the problems you can't fix! Can I have one more pet peeve? And I... It's not that hard to go back to the JCPOA.
It's not that complicated. There's just a sequencing where you just, as they go back, you have some sort of mechanism to bring back the sanctions so that it's simultaneous and then sequential. It's just like what we did last time. Let's not overcomplicate this. The best way to solve this problem right now is to reimpose the restrictions placed upon Iran from the JCPOA in return for sanctions relief.
Because a 3,000 kilometer missile with a 1,000 kilogram conventional payload is a lot less bad than a 3,000 kilometer missile with a nuclear payload. I'm just going to say it. Yes. Yes. Yeah. But nobody listens to us, Aaron. No, nobody listens to us. I mean, well, people do. We can check the download stats. People listen.
Jeffrey
25:41
They just don't agree.
Aaron
25:44
They don't agree. They download it and they're like, oh, did you hear what those two idiots said the other day? These two California hippies are back at it again, telling us that we need to accept that Iran can build a...
Jeffrey
25:57
They think Iran's going to have a space program. Oh, my God.
Aaron
26:01
Like, yeah. Fabian had another good thread about Iran's manned space program and about how it may not be totally crazy. It's a thing. The testing of their capsules. You know, because our final assumptions about Iran is that this current team is going to stick around and they have elections coming up. We'd get another whack.
Jeffrey
26:19
They do. They do. And not to go into a totally other podcast, but the... Axios reported that last week they were having a meeting about seeing whether they should wait until after the election. And it was like... Yeah, we actually did that with Rohani when he was the lead negotiator in 2005. The Europeans got pissed at him because they felt like he was not dealing with them fairly or honestly.
And they, at one point, began talking about how they were going to wait For the election and see who the new team was. And the new team was Ahmadinejad.
Aaron
27:03
And so then they accomplished nothing for a decade. Well, no, they made our negotiators go to Baghdad. And where else did they make them go? Astana? Was it Astana? Yeah, Almaty, I think. I think it was Almaty. It was Almaty. That's right. Astana, Caesarea talks. And we negotiated about whether the table should be round or square. For six months.
Jeffrey
27:22
And the other case that I talk about, right, so this is just the windows closed quicker than you think, is, I mean, I remember when the Bush administration came in and they were going to pick up on the missile negotiations with North Korea. And they're like, but first we have to do a policy review. And so they spent their summer doing the policy review.
Then I think there was some stuff in the water, you know, like a maritime incursion. And so they put it off. And then September 11th happened. And then the axis of evil speech happened. And so it was suddenly it was the summer of 2002 when they were finally done with the policy review and ready to go talk to the North Koreans.
And in comes the uranium enrichment intelligence. And so like, the two finger salute, yeah, they thought they had all this time in the spring of 2001, right? That well, we'll just do a policy review, and we'll work it out, and we'll see how it goes, you know, we don't, we don't want to run, don't want to rush into anything, and, and you know, that window and slammed on their fingers and it's like, guys, you don't.
Maybe you do, right? Yes, maybe the Iranian presidential election will return a person who just freaking hates missiles, and you'll get everything you want on a silver platter. But the more likely outcome is that your chances of solving the nuclear situation go down, while your chances of solving the missile problem remain where they are currently located, at zero.
Aaron
28:46
That's right. Right, and if you... Yeah, exactly. It doesn't mean that you can't, like, go back to the JCPOA and then continue talks, perhaps on some confidence-building measures around missiles. Sure. It doesn't mean that we can't get something around missiles. It just means that they're not going to say, like, here, take my missiles and cut them in half.
Jeffrey
29:07
I mean, if Saudi Arabia wants to give up their giant Chinese missile plan and the Turks want to knock down their missile program and the Israelis want to... I don't know what they feel like doing, but, like... Maybe we could get some kind of regional arrangement. Sure, that'd be lovely. I hate missiles.
Aaron
29:23
I want to see them all abolished, but... Well, on that happy note, I have parenting duties because my wife is about ready to go into her Zoom call. So... I'm sorry. But if you want to hear more about this, talk more about this, see more about this, join our Slack channel. To do that, you have to give money at patreon.com slash acwpodcast.
$3 a month if you're a student, $5 a month if you are a normal person. And we have cool goodies in there. We have a great conversation. Some of those conversations end up in the Washington Post. Some of those conversations inform others. Discussions that end up in the New York Times. So be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Join our podcast. Join our Slack channel. With that, Jeffrey, I'm signing off. It was a pleasure. Always.
