North Korea’s MaRV

Jeffrey Lewis 0:06

You are listening to the Arms Control Wong podcast, a podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:19

And I am Aaron Stein, the director of research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Jeffrey 0:24

We're back, Aaron. We are back.

Aaron 0:26

We're back.

Jeffrey 0:28

Too long.

Aaron 0:28

Too long. We had some stuff going down. We had the holidays. So it's good to be back. And it's good to get in touch with our listeners again. You know, we shouldn't have left you for so long to quote whatever song it is. I can't remember.

Jeffrey 0:41

Some shit went down. We don't feel like explaining.

Aaron 0:44

No, no, no. Nothing catastrophic. Everything good. Just everything's resolved. And so here we go. Let's do it.

Jeffrey 0:49

Outstanding. I am in Vermont.

Aaron 0:53

Is it snowing? Because we're about ready to get snow in Philadelphia. And I just got a call from my kid's school saying it's been pushed back by two hours tomorrow to start.

Jeffrey 1:03

There's a light dusting of snow on the cows.

Aaron 1:08

Are you a J term? Is it J term?

Jeffrey 1:10

Yes, I'm teaching the Middlebury College January term talking about open source and nonproliferation.

Aaron 1:19

Can I take it? Can I like audit the class? You can teach it, but yeah.

Jeffrey 1:25

If you want to zoom in. It's in person, though.

Aaron 1:29

Oh, you guys are in person. Oh, that's good. That's good. That's excellent.

Jeffrey 1:31

Oh, yeah. I got to get a test on Monday. I'm boosted. There's a whole testing regime. We're basically just, you know, we're trying to restore some sense of normalcy to all of this.

Aaron 1:46

That's right. And I think to keep up with the normalcy, you forgot your microphone and in typical emergency pod fashion, our sound isn't going to be as good as we want to. I'm also in the bathroom to hide from my kids.

Jeffrey 1:56

Oh, my God. I'm an idiot. I drove up. I drove up and I don't have a microphone. I don't have headphones. And I knew I was going to record podcasts because, you know, North Korea, back at it again.

Aaron 2:11

They are the gift that keeps on giving. They are why our podcast does as well as it does. So let's just get into it. Boom. Happy New Year.

Jeffrey 2:21

I was very excited. You know, I think it's appropriate to begin a new year with gifts. And these are the traditional gifts that I've come to expect from Kim Jong-un.

Aaron 2:31

What do we call it? All ballistic missiles are hypersonics. Is it a MARV? Is it a glider? Let's start at the beginning. What went down?

Jeffrey 2:42

Yeah, so North Korea tested a... what I would probably call Hwasong-8, which is like that stubby little version of the Hwasong-12. And last September, they tested it with a kind of wedged-shaped glider. And now in January 2022, they have tested that same booster with a conical warhead with little fins that is... A maneuvering reentry vehicle. The North Koreans called it a hypersonic weapon system because, you know, all missiles are hypersonic and everybody's into the hypersonic right now.

But it's a MARV.

Aaron 3:22

It's a MARV. Yeah, they tested their MARV. And they had shown the MARV off a couple months prior, I can't remember, which led a lot of analysts, I think Ankit Panda, friend of the pod, to speculate almost immediately when we heard that there was a launch that they were showing off their little stubby wing friend.

Jeffrey 3:38

Yeah, at the Defense Expo in the fall, which was just like a glorious opportunity. You know, the North Koreans basically took all of the weapon systems that they've developed in the past few years and put them on display. And Kim Jong-un gave a speech. He handed out some medals. He posed for pictures. And we didn't really do a proper podcast on it.

But then he and his boys, they like... Cleared the place out, brought in a bar, and he and his boys sat down and smoked and drank and just hung out amidst all of the phalluses. And among all those missiles, we saw not only the hypersonic glider that the North Koreans had tested in September, But we saw this unusual looking thing that had a conical re-entry vehicle with, you know, four little fins on it.

And so, yeah, Ankit pretty quickly guessed, because there was some circumstantial evidence that I outlined, but Ankit very quickly guessed before the North Koreans released pictures that this is probably what that was.

Aaron 4:40

Yeah. And I think the, I mean, the first we heard about Was, I mean, first I heard about it was on Twitter, but I think it was both the Japanese and the South Koreans that came in to confirm that there was a ballistic missile launch. And did they ever give out the data on that? Because I think it ultimately flew for about 500 kilometers, if I'm remembering off the top of my head correctly.

Jeffrey 5:02

So in September with the old glider, no. We got a report that it was sort of 200 kilometers, which is like way too short and doesn't make any sense. This one, yeah, we got the data. The South Koreans and the Japanese said about 500 kilometers, although the Japanese specified if it was on a normal ballistic trajectory. So I think they saw it boost.

And they saw it kind of go on its ballistic trajectory. And then when it dropped down below the radar, I think they just said, well, it would be 500 kilometers. But what it did was it pulled up and did a turn.

Aaron 5:39

Right.

Jeffrey 5:40

The warhead popped off. It pulled up and did a turn. And I don't think they saw that with the radar. And that ultimately went 700 kilometers. And it included 120 kilometer cross-range maneuver. So, you know, that's pretty cool.

Aaron 5:55

Yeah. Yeah. I think the North Koreans called a pull up.

Jeffrey 6:01

Yeah, they had a goofy ass name that I tweeted. It was like a glide jump. Yeah. Which, you know, I think pull up is a perfectly fine term.

Aaron 6:12

Right. So what do we what do we make of this? You know, like the world seems to have moved on. You know, we're not really talking about it too much. But what do we think here on the podcast?

Jeffrey 6:27

Yeah, well, I put up a little Twitter screed about this. I mean, I think this is one of the real dangers of using the phrase hypersonic and talking about the speed, which is, again, slower than a typical ballistic missile of this range. Because what's really interesting about this isn't The speed that it traveled at, but I would argue it's the maneuverability.

So it's the ability to make that turn and go 120 kilometers cross range. And I made a little diagram where I show that, you know, you could be sitting at Musudanri on North Korea's East coast. They could fire it on a southerly trajectory out over the East sea, AKA sea of Japan. And then that thing could do a right turn.

And then kind of come into Busan, and it basically would fly around the THAAD system's ability to see. And that's a pretty useful capability. And it would require that North Korea, or rather South Korea and the United States, it would require South Korea and the United States to invest a lot more money in more missile defense systems, more radar, more radars, and so on.

Aaron 7:37

Yeah, it's always the flying from behind the scope of the radar so that you... So basically you render it ineffective or that you have to put in more radars.

Jeffrey 7:51

Yeah, I think that's right. And, you know, I mean, I don't think that, you know, one right turn is not like the world's greatest maneuver, but it's super useful to the North Koreans. And I think over the long term... We're, I think, entering this period of really accurate, highly maneuverable missiles. And I... Don't know that people are really catching on that when we're talking about hypersonic systems, we're really talking about a whole variety of systems.

And while they're kind of for the long-range nuclear delivery mission, there's certain things that are interesting happening there. For the short-range systems, it's less the gliding, I think, that is interesting and more the possibility of really maneuverable systems. And actually, David Laboon and I wrote a paper that got quashed for reasons I don't fully understand. On some of this research.

Because, you know, the South Koreans have a maneuverable reentry vehicle. We think that's what the U.S. tested in its crazy INF test out of Vandenberg.

Aaron 9:00

Yeah.

Jeffrey 9:01

And, you know, they're talking about like making these things do U-turns in the air so they can kind of come down and hit things hiding on the opposite side of mountains and things. So they're looking at really extreme maneuvers. And so I think that You know, the North Korean system isn't nearly that sophisticated. But I do think we're entering into this era of countries looking at reentry vehicles that can do really extreme maneuvers.

And that, to me, is a really interesting stability problem that's kind of obscured by this whole language about hypersonics.

Aaron 9:34

No, I think that's right, because one of the challenges is that They're all lumped in together, right? There's this idea that hypersonics are somehow fundamentally faster than regular ballistic missiles, which if you're a long-time listener to this podcast, you know is not true, right? And then within the hypersonic family, right, there's a whole bunch of different types of hypersonics that we're talking about.

I saw one floating around. I saw a really good chart floating around on Twitter. I don't know if you saw this too. But the conical glider is different than, say, what the U.S. is putting together, which is even different than what the North Koreans tried to attest a couple of months ago, which I think we podcasted about as well.

But I think they ultimately all come back to the same things, is that the adversary or the attacker wants to have some ability to maneuver to get around radar systems and ever more capable missile defenses. And so it's sort of like the cat and mouse game, and we're at this position where a At least capabilities or at least interest in making their ballistic missiles both more accurate and more maneuverable and put them together in shorter range systems.

Jeffrey 10:46

Yeah, I think that's right. You know, my guess is that chart, it might be from Sam Wilson at the Aerospace Corporation, who wrote this really lovely piece, which, by the way, will be completely ignored. Because it is so sensible. What he tried to do with a co-author was change our language for describing different kinds of missiles. You know, because we talk about ballistic missiles and cruise missiles, but then people forget that a lot of cruise missiles are boosted up to speed using a solid rocket motor.

Right. And so he and his co-author, whose name escapes me, I feel terrible about that, tried to create a taxonomy to describe these different systems in a way that's pretty consistent. And I, you know, like I find I'm struggling with it with reporters right now. Because they can't get their head around the fact that the booster that's putting these two gliders on a trajectory is just like, you know, it's a stubby Hwasong-12.

Aaron 11:51

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And, you know, the stability problem that I think you're talking about is... I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this in a way that doesn't get too technical or jargony, which is... Basically, is that the ability to monitor these systems when they can make rapid turns and maneuvers. It gives you levels of uncertainty about being able, not necessarily to track where they're being fired from, but where they may land.

Would you say that's accurate?

Jeffrey 12:24

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, the whole point is when something gets fired... Because it can maneuver or turn, you can't necessarily figure out what the trajectory and therefore the intended target is. And so, you know, it just it intentionally adds ambiguity about target in order to improve penetration. But then you're just inherently adding ambiguity to the situation.

And so, you know, I don't I would hope that countries would be really careful about the test trajectories they pick. So that they're not, they don't begin to like go in those blurry areas where it's very hard to tell a test trajectory from an attack, you know, an actual attack. But, you know, it's just hard.

Aaron 13:06

And I think we saw a little demonstration of that

Jeffrey 13:09

In the things that the Japanese and the South Koreans both said, which is they initially reported 500 kilometers because what they saw was the missile on its ballistic trajectory, although it had a pretty depressed apogee of like 45 kilometers, I think. But when it dipped down to do its pull-up maneuver, they didn't see that. So they just recorded it as going up and down.

And then, you know, the North Koreans come on later and they're like, ha ha, dumbasses. It pulled up and then made a turn. And you didn't see that. You know, part of that is it was going away from them. And so there's the curvature of the earth and, you know, and so on and so forth. But You know, the reality is, is that they couldn't see the whole trajectory.

And it, again, it just adds a level of ambiguity and confusion that, you know, generally speaking, is detrimental to stability.

Aaron 14:05

And I think we should say is that, again, not all hypersonics, sorry, bad language, but not all these things that are doing the pull-ups are intended for the nuclear mission. But I think the North Koreans intend that for the nuclear mission. I mean, tell me if I'm wrong.

Jeffrey 14:17

Yeah, I think so. I mean... They're a little coy about how they say it. In this case, they clearly referred to the strategic mission of this system. And it's a Hwasong-12 booster, which is really closely associated with their nuclear program. And so while I think we all have questions about the short-range solid propellant systems like the KN-23, like, you know, which ones of those will be nuclear and which ones won't, this, I think, is almost certainly intended to be nuclear.

And, you know, again, I think it makes a... It makes a really effective way to target Busan because it can go out over the ocean and then turn back on the target, which is just crappy given where the THAAD system is sitting.

Aaron 15:01

Is it still on the golf course?

Jeffrey 15:03

It's still on the golf course. You can see it in satellite photographs.

Aaron 15:07

So the missile doglegs around?

Jeffrey 15:09

In fact, it's kind of funny and there's been some talk about how – The place is because, you know, they didn't really have the infrastructure they needed. And I think they brought in like a lot of like, they have people like living in shipping containers and stuff. And so there's been a discussion about how to make that a more livable, pleasant place.

Moving to the clubhouse. Yeah, I think there, you know, I think there was a clubhouse. I don't think there were a lot of rooms, you know.

Aaron 15:35

Well, the joke is, is that the warhead does a dog leg around the radar. We're firing an all cylinders.

Jeffrey 15:46

No, no, I can't. Okay. I'm sorry, listeners. We're going back on another two month hiatus.

Aaron 15:53

Yeah, no, that's a great one. Did we hit everything or is there anything else you want to talk about?

Jeffrey 15:59

You know, I think the only other thing that is worth mentioning, which is kind of funny, is how weirdly predictable this launch was in the sense that It was a single test. And so even when we knew nothing about it, we knew it was a new system or a system that was early on in its development, rather than something that we'd seen a lot because they tested just one.

And because of the way that South Korea and Japan reacted, we could tell that it didn't fly on a normal ballistic trajectory. And because of where it was tested, it really seemed like a system You know, like the, it seemed like the hypersonic glider that they had tested in September. So it seemed like a system like that.

And then OnKit was able to sort of just turn around and go look at the defense exposition and say, okay, well, what here hasn't been tested? That is a good match for this really small amount of information we have. And it was like, okay, it's that guy, which by the way, we're calling Marv now.

Aaron 17:08

Marv.

Jeffrey 17:08

And so, you know, and he calls it. And we were really able to do the same thing with the navalized KN-23 that they fired off a submarine. And so it's just kind of interesting to me how, you know, I keep getting these calls from reporters and it's like, like, What's so mysterious? You know, what could it mean?

And it's like, I don't know what to tell you guys, but they like, Kim gave a speech where he told you what he was going to test. He then had a party in an exposition center in which he visually showed you what he was going to test. And, you know, they're like marching through it really methodically. And so it It doesn't, you know, from our perspective, I mean, I don't know about you, but certainly from my perspective and just talking to Ankit and other people, it just does not feel mysterious.

It seems rote. You know, we're just in this era of testing and Kim gave us a list he's going to test and he's marching through the list.

Aaron 18:11

No, I think what's changed, you know, if you were to go back like 15, 20 years, It wasn't, I mean, how am I supposed to say it? It wasn't routine, right? Now this does feel routine. I mean, you can go back in our podcast and we basically discuss every single test and we have enough content to put out for half a year's listening if you just do a couple episodes a month because their testing cycle has become so routine now.

And I think the other thing is that their tests aren't as catastrophic failures as they used to be. You know what I'm saying? They've just gotten better at this, so everything's become more routine about it, up to and allowing us to be able to predict, even with little information, what it is that they fired off.

Jeffrey 19:04

Yeah, I'm going to hold this back a little bit, but one of the big research projects we've been doing over the past few months is really focusing on why did their missile production improve so much? And, you know, it involves a person and a place and a certain approach to things. And I'm not going to say any more than that.

I'm going to be a little bit coy, but... When we really look back at their program, they broadcast pretty directly, although in slightly careful terms, but they broadcast fairly directly the fundamental change in their manufacturing capabilities that I think put them in a position to be able to successively test all these systems in a successful way.

Aaron 19:50

Yeah. I mean, to the point where it's routine. And just to repeat my point. And, you know, again, I think the other part that makes this both more routine is that on our side, we no longer have a crazy person like tweeting about it like all the time is that we don't expect catastrophe from our side. But I'm not sure that that's better because I think we get to a point of complacency where it's just like, oh, they did it again.

Nothing to do. We kind of wash our hands with it. And we try and move on to other problems we want to be grappling with rather than the problems that we're actually faced with.

Jeffrey 20:23

Yeah, to that point, I mean, one of the things, so my distaste for Colin Powell is well known, so I don't need to rehearse that here. But of the many extremely stupid things this man said when he was in a position of authority, one of them was early on in the North Korean program when they were walking away from the agreed framework.

And he was like, well, they already have a couple of nuclear weapons, so what does it matter if they make more? And I feel like that has been a consistent kind of attitude is that once North Korea went from zero to one, we have been really unable to understand how advancements in North Korean capability affect our interests.

They're the people whose hair is always on fire and every advancement is bad. But I think for the people who are thoughtful, we don't do a great job of explaining how The specific changes we're seeing in North Korea result in specific harms to us. And, you know, the thing that Kim said at the Workers' Party Congress that I think is so important and is being reflected in a lot of the stuff we're seeing is they're shifting their emphasis.

You know, the first part of their program was about acquiring a deterrent to a U.S. invasion. And that's done with a bunch of ICBMs and nuclear weapons, including thermonuclear weapons. And that was bad enough. But the thing Kim said a year ago, which they are well on their way to doing, and people, I think, are just not really grasping, is they are now fully embracing tactical nuclear weapons.

They are thinking about... They are thinking about a large and capable stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons, which, you know, they intend to use early in a war against US forces in South Korea and Japan. And like, that's the kind of thing that you have to test. You know, they actually, it's not enough to have a few ICBMs that can hit the US of uncertain reliability where that may be true, but you still have a bunch of deterrents from that.

Like if you actually want a war winning capability, which I think he does, then you need to test. And so I think the reason we're seeing so many short range missile tests is that they are really committed to this. And so, you know, like this is a big change that's coming. And honestly, it would be in our interest to get them to stop testing this stuff.

And I, you know, I keep encountering people who are like, well, they've already tested the missile a bunch of times. So what's it matter if they test it more? Like, like, no, like they want a war winning capability. And so like, it is worth trying to stop them from testing that stuff.

Aaron 23:02

Yeah, no, I mean, I applied for funding for a paper on this and was told no. So, I have a sore spot about this, but no, it's true, you know, but it would also require, you know, something like a theme and perhaps we'll close here with this podcast and particularly with North Koreans is not grappling with reality for how it is and where it's going.

Whereas still trying to pat them on the head and treat them as a backward state that cannot aspire to compete in ways with the United States that would be, while not maybe as technically sophisticated, would be plenty enough to cause lots of damage and to risk lots of lives in a theoretical conflict.

Jeffrey 23:46

Yeah. So just a plea to reporters, don't ask me what we can do about this. We can't do anything about this because all the things that we might want to do about it, nobody wants to do. So thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and prayers. Thoughts and prayers.

Aaron 23:59

Thoughts and prayers. With that, I think we're done. I want to apologize again to listeners that there's some sound issues. I don't know what you're talking about, Aaron. It sounds great. I'm looking at my own sound and there may be some issues on my end. So this is why Scott earns his paycheck. And with that...

Jeffrey 24:18

Wait, one thing I want to say is, in case listeners are wondering, like, hey, why didn't you idiots talk about Iran's space launch? The answer is I just did a podcast with War on the Rocks about Iran's space program. We should probably throw a link up someplace, but...

Aaron 24:34

It's members only.

Jeffrey 24:35

If you're desperate for ACW content on Iran's space program, that's where it is. Sans the great Aaron Stein, who we're so happy to have back.

Aaron 24:46

I'm back. Yeah, well, the War on the Rocks podcast is their Warcast series, which I know is for members, being a contributing editor of War on the Rocks. So they're a good organization. So check them out. If you want to pay for great content on Arms Control Wonk, Which is coming back and in full swing, head on over to patreon.com slash ACW podcast.

$3 a month if you're a student, $5 a month if you are not. You can sign up to be a patron. Join our Slack channel. We have cool moderators. The Slack channel gets you in the Washington Post and The Economist and in other places. So you can be famous too, just like Jeffrey. So patreon.com slash ACW podcast.

And with that, Jeffrey, stay warm in Vermont. Enjoy J-Term and I have to go salt my driveway.