Another North Korean Missile Parade

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, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:20

And I'm Aaron Stein, Chief Content Officer at War on the Rocks.

Scott LaFoy 0:23

And I am Scott LaFoy, super producer at the Arms Control Wong podcast and senior director for nuclear and technology security programs at Exeter Government Solutions. Hey, guys. Been a bit.

Jeffrey 0:36

Hey, we have a we have a three person pod. It's a it's a virtual throuple.

Scott 0:41

Oh, yeah. I love that phrase. Thank you.

Aaron 0:45

God, it's been a while. I can't remember the last time you were on the show.

Scott 0:47

I was just telling my wife earlier tonight, I was like, has it been a year since we've done a three-person pod? It may be. It may have been the last parade or certainly well into 2022.

Aaron 1:00

I've been calling this juice on juice. How do you pronounce it? Jouche? Jouche? Jouche? Jouche. Jouche on parade. That's what I'm calling it. The take on one of my favorite Rage Against the Machine songs. I don't know. I mean, I'm getting tired of these freaking parades. There's a lot. There's a lot of parades. It's no longer so novel.

Do they have to one-up themselves every single time they do it now?

Scott 1:26

They do, and that's why the paratroopers had neon RGB lighting strapped to all of their costumes, and why they did that para-drop directly into Kim Il-sung's square again while wearing sparklers. It was lovely. We're all tired of these. This is the first one I haven't watched.

Aaron 1:44

So I was gonna ask you that, Scott, like I guess on the podcast, did any of you actually stay up to watch it? Jeffrey, you're like looking at the ceiling.

Jeffrey 1:55

No, I was trying to remember because we were sitting in the office at CNS and we were live streaming KCTV and it didn't play when it was convenient. And I think I'm fairly sure I went home And then only later did I realize that the parade had happened. And I think what I'm remembering is I remember looking back on my phone and seeing the, you know, crack team of OSINT researchers that I now employ, who apparently were all watching it.

But I did not. I'm a sensible human being. I went home and went to bed and got to look at the pictures today. And, you know, with the It's interesting. You know, we got to see Kim's daughter again, although that's not even all that exciting anymore. And I don't know. You know, some of the missiles were interesting.

Scott 2:47

Some of the missiles were interesting. Who are you and what have you done with Jeffrey?

Aaron 2:55

Seriously, man, the missiles were good. I mean, that was the most interesting part.

Jeffrey 2:59

I will tell you, the part that I found most exciting about the whole thing was that many hours before the North Koreans released pictures, Maxar got a nighttime high obliquity shot. And it was perfectly effing timed. For the Hwasong 17s to be right in front of the rostrum or whatever the hell the North Koreans are calling it with the solid propellant ICBMs coming up behind.

So that image to me, which Maxar took was, that was really exciting because even if the North Koreans had not released one single image of the parade, we would have gotten the most important piece of information. But, you know, as it turns out, then the North Koreans released all the images and, you know, it was like not as exciting as the Maxar shot.

Scott 3:57

So what I'm getting is you just don't like it when they give us all the imagery. You like the chase. That's the fun part is the red teaming and the adversarial detection.

Jeffrey 4:10

Yeah, I mean, right now, I'm just looking at this parade as a giant freaking stack of work. Like, now we have a bunch of missiles that we have to remeasure, that we have already measured. We just have to remeasure them to make sure that they are the same size as the ones we measured in the past, you know?

So, like, we do a lot of things, like, oh... Is that four axles? Yup. It's still four axles, you know? So like maybe if we find some amazing, clever change and, and obviously the interesting thing, which we will talk about is the, the solid propellant ICBMs or, or at least the canisters for solid propellant ICBMs. But, you know, the other stuff we'd all seen before, and it's really going to be a matter of looking for minute changes rather than anything really dramatic there.

Scott 5:02

Well, I think with that lack of enthusiasm, I'm going to have to start the whole thing over. Welcome to Tell Control Wonk Podcast. I'm Scott LaFoy, your host, where we'll be talking about the history of the Wanchen 51200 and the first time that 15 goddang of these things appeared on screen at once.

Aaron 5:18

I was going to say, isn't the story from that, you know, before we get into the big canisters, is how many they put out there? How many of the tells that they put on Perrette?

Jeffrey 5:27

Yes. You know, one thing that... Yeah, I mean, Scott, I'm interested to hear your opinion on this, but... You know, we know the facility where North Korea manufactures the towels. We've watched that facility get expanded significantly in recent years. You know, there's a big new building there. There was some press reporting out of Kyoto News. I think it was Tomo Inoue who wrote that story.

And he's really good. And he, you know, is... Typically on top of stuff, so that it seemed to be that the U.S. and Japanese governments a few years ago thought that the North Koreans had made this big financial commitment to import components that would go into a substantial expansion of the number of tells. And so, like, yeah, I don't know how...

I don't know how... Independent, they are in terms of producing things. I don't know how dependent they still are on different foreign components, but I do think we did used to have this idea that the missile force was going to be constrained by the number of tells, and the North Koreans have both moved to expand teleproduction, but then also started doing goofy stuff like, you know, putting canisters in the Bottom of reservoirs so you know, like, I don't know, I don't know how you parade something like that. I was a little disappointed we didn't see, you know you know, just canisters from from reservoirs, but it it does seem like that choke point in their force is something that they have tried to address. Yeah, I think that's that's exactly right. I don't know if we want to jump into the the

Scott 7:10

Exactly what's going on there and whatnot, but I mean, I guess now as good a time as any. One of the exciting things for for listeners, for folks who've listened for a long time, you've probably heard us talk about this forever, but the transporter erector launchers, the big ass trucks that they carry big missiles on, something that China and Russia do as their their sort of default basing mode for their ICBMs, a very valuable type of basing mode Has always been presumed to be relatively constrained around the number 6.

2014, it was reported that six of these Wanshan 51200 special heavy vehicles produced by China went over to North Korea for forestry reasons with a strong end-use license. The North Koreans treated that end-use license the same way that any of us treat software end-use license, just sort of clicked yes, took it, and converted it for the same way I use for iTunes, illegal WMD development.

And so for years, up until 2020, so for six years, every time they paraded these things, we were counting, people were looking at satellite imagery of the prep for the parade, anyone was looking for any number that surpassed six. There was rumor and hints and, you know, thoughts that more than six had been transferred. But six was the number for a long time.

And when professionals asked, you know, why can the North Koreans make ballistic missiles and they can't make trucks? The answer was always, I don't know. I don't know enough about trucks, but apparently the North Koreans don't either because they can't. Or at least they hadn't shown them. Fast forward to 2023, it's been almost 10 years, it's been almost a decade since the initial transfer, and now we've seen 15 of these, which is, you know, not a mathematician, more than six.

And so, like you said, they put this significant investment down, they've expanded what was previously considered a significant constraint on their ICBMs, because the, you know, if you have a static ICBM in 2023... The United States is going to kill you in an exchange and they're going to kill you first.

Jeffrey 9:20

So, you know, you'd have to build a lot or you have to make a move.

Scott 9:25

But the reason I also wanted to flag is kind of funny because at the same time that the North Koreans were talking about launcher numbers, STRATCOM won't shut up about Chinese launcher numbers in the launcher missile distinction. And I find it very funny. It's two parallel kind of conversations going on.

Jeffrey 9:46

Yeah, that's a whole other podcast that we should do about the fact that the number of LAN-based fixed and mobile launchers in China for ICBMs now exceeds that in the US.

Scott 9:58

Yeah, technically you may be correct, but... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeffrey 10:03

Got to count the subs. But I do think that it's a kind of interesting moment because... As I have pointed out many times, I think we've engaged in a little bit of wishful thinking about this problem. It's like, ah, they won't get the RV to work. Ah, they won't figure out how to build the trucks. Ah, they can't make bridges that are going to be strong enough.

I think they are actually going to figure, you know.

Scott 10:34

They're there.

Jeffrey 10:35

Yes, these are barriers that they're facing, but they can ultimately figure things out. I sometimes teach an example of this in my, well, actually the class I no longer teach on China's nuclear forces. There are these two wonderful documents. One is an NIE that rightly makes the point in the late 1950s that China does not have the scientific and technical base that it needs to build nuclear weapons.

And it goes through and explains, this is how many people you would need. This is how many physicists you would need. This is how many engineers. And it's just like China has nothing close to that. But it concludes from that that this is not a realistic thing for the Chinese to do. Nia Rongzhen, the Chinese person who was responsible for like building the bomb, has a whole section in his memoir about how, you know, gee, when we started, we didn't have anything like the number of scientists and engineers we had.

So we had to set up all these schools and we had to train all these people. And so they're saying the same thing, but from the perspective of the NIE, it was a static shot of a moment that said they can't do it right now. But for a dynamic program that's trying to achieve certain goals, it just means that you're delayed and you have to take certain steps.

And so I think we are very focused on the fact that a decade ago, they were forced to import six launchers. Without taking into account that in the decades since then, I think they have been working very hard to expand their ability to produce their own systems, even if they're not as necessarily good as the Chinese system.

Year after year, you're going to get to this point now where you're like, golly, that's a lot of launchers.

Scott 12:19

People don't take into account how industry develops and gets better. It's not the same thing. Exactly. And that's For years, we were trying to figure out if they were just chop jobs. And, you know, I remember the very exciting late 2010s when people were trying to figure out if they only had the six. And we, again, kind of engaged in this wishful thinking.

We saw more than six variants. We saw all these different types. Are they just between the parades, chopping them up and replacing the parts? But I think it's, you know, Fifteen of them showed up. They're either producing them or producing incredibly good fakes. But I think that we're past that point, most likely. It's a big truck. It's hard to make, but it's not a nuclear weapon.

Jeffrey 13:06

What do you think, Aaron? Think they're papier-mâché?

Aaron 13:09

I don't think they're papier-mâché. I do think the skill sets to build transmissions and engines is different than building missiles. Sure.

Scott 13:17

Well, that's why it took them a decade. They built a nuclear weapon faster than that.

Aaron 13:21

But certainly not insurmountable or certainly not something that a nation could import surreptitiously over how many years this has been?

Jeffrey 13:29

I remember that Earth Control Blog post. I think it has been a decade. It's got to be more than a decade because the parade was in 2012.

Scott 13:36

The parade was in... Oh, you know, that's true. We're in year 11. It was, I think, the United Nations report may have been 2014 or... It's 9.30 at night. I don't remember the numbers correctly. It's one of those two.

Aaron 13:50

I do remember a long post about tells back in the vintage.

Jeffrey 13:55

Their domestic tell industry is almost old enough to buy cigarettes. It's older than Kim Jong-un's daughter.

Scott 14:02

Yeah. I think that the big takeaway for me as someone who obsessed over the TELs and the TEs and the MELs for years is that we are past the point where the question of can they build these domestically matters. It's how many can they build. Maybe it's one per year, maybe it's very slow, but my gut feeling based on what we've been seeing is, unless they're faking things in an incredibly good way, that we are past the point where they can't build their own launchers as well as their own missiles.

Jeffrey 14:39

You know, we should probably just list the missiles they showed us. So here's my list. Tell me if I'm, if I'm missing anything. So they showed us the 300 millimeter artillery launcher. They showed us the 600 millimeter artillery rockets, which are almost certainly nuclear armed. I mean, they say they're nuclear armed. They showed us the, they showed us some canisters.

That are probably cruise missiles?

Scott 15:10

Are those the ones that look like the Taiwanese canisters? Big square ones?

Jeffrey 15:15

No, those are the cylindrical canisters.

Scott 15:18

Oh, the ones that look like S-400s.

Jeffrey 15:21

We had a discussion today about whether we thought they were the, whether we thought they were air defenses or whether we thought they were cruise missiles.

Scott 15:28

Okay, I know that one, yeah. Looks like an S-400, but also looks like a, yeah.

Jeffrey 15:32

Well, if neither of us know, then maybe we should just leave that out of the podcast.

Scott 15:36

No, no, no. I, I'm saying I do know, I, I know which one you're talking about. I just watched the parade before the pod. I, I.

Jeffrey 15:42

Okay. And then we saw, we saw the two different short range ballistic missiles. The one, the square canister, which is the kind of shorter squatter missile. And then we saw the classic KN-23 Iskander. And then it jumps up to the Hwasong-17. And then the new solid propellant ICBM.

Scott 16:07

Totally skipped all my favorite missiles. No MRBMs. What did I miss? No, no, no. They totally skipped it. They didn't do a single MR. They brought the Hwasong-12 back out to parade it around in 2022 and tease me, and then they threw that thing right back in the closet.

Jeffrey 16:21

Yeah, very notable that there was a bunch of stuff they didn't show us. In particular, an interesting question is, is the Hwasong-15 now just goodbye?

Aaron 16:30

We've talked about that on the podcast. Did it just go away?

Jeffrey 16:35

Or the Hwasong-14.

Scott 16:37

Every time we think one of these totally goes away, except for the K-08, f*** that thing, everything else comes back after two or three years like it's on its freaking reunion tour. So, like, I don't know if we're going to... I don't know. It's really weird because I definitely thought the 14 was a throwaway stepladder. Now, they could have also produced, like, seven of them because they expected the first six to blow up and need to get rid of them to test other things, but Their arsenal's weird now.

Jeffrey 17:08

So is there anything interesting to say about the Hwasong-17, a missile that we have talked about endlessly?

Scott 17:15

The only thing I found interesting was that there were 11 of them, at least 11 of them.

Aaron 17:21

That's a lot. So it's just pure numbers. It's the numbers. I think the interesting part about this part of the podcast is just the numbers.

Jeffrey 17:28

Yeah. I mean, it's a significant fact because when we modeled the Hwasong-17, we came up with three warheads. Sure. So that's 33 nuclear weapons.

Scott 17:42

Sure. Bad news if you live in Alaska.

Jeffrey 17:45

And if we're going to shoot four interceptors per reentry vehicle, I mean, we might get it. Maybe they'll get a shot at the bus before it starts deploying things, but maybe not. 33 times four is a big number. And it's a hundred million dollars in interceptor. So if we're looking at, I'm just going to start rounding to make this stuff easy.

120 interceptors, which is not exactly enough to deal with. I guess what, you know, it's, Even 120, 130 interceptors, that's like more than a billion dollars.

Scott 18:36

We're on a rough side of the cost curve. Or 1 11th of an aircraft carrier.

Jeffrey 18:45

Wait, I actually have to do this math. I can't do this math. Let me get out my calculator. 32 times four is 132. Three times 11 is 33, times four interceptors is 132, times $100 million per interceptor is 13.2 billion? There we go. $13.2 billion. That's what it would cost to defend I mean, and that's, you know, that's back of the envelope, but it's not a great exchange ratio.

Scott 19:23

The problem with that is keeping up with the Joneses, because from a defense standpoint, $13 billion, look at the Navy's budget, that gets thrown around. Keeping up with that as it expands, every year adding $2 billion worth of interceptors is not feasible. It's something that we could not reasonably keep up with, in the same way that North Koreans could probably produce offensive capabilities while maintaining the rest of our posture.

Just heading off those tweets before we get them.

Jeffrey 19:52

I don't know. Maybe we should start taking missile defense advertisements. You're going to need more. You can always use more.

Aaron 20:00

Should we talk about the canister? I sort of feel like it's like listening to the show.

Scott 20:05

I had so many feelings about the canister. This is the second time they've done this. And this time looks more real. But they've done this to me before. And it's a personal attack. So this is the second time I put a canister. And for new listeners who this is their first episode, first off, wild choice. A canister is like when you are going to basically...

Jeffrey 20:32

This is not the episode to introduce you to the Arms Control Walk podcast. The three of us punch drunk after watching a North Korean military parade. Yeah. Not submitting this for any Webby Awards.

Scott 20:52

Another thing about those f***ing guys and their f***ing canisters. All they talk about is trucks and canisters. I was told this was the nuclear weapons pod. This definitely sounds like Destruction Derby pod. So these f***ing canisters are always... This is the thing we've been watching for also a decade. Evidence of a solid propellant ICBM. Something that we knew has been aspirational.

Something that we know that based on all of the rest of the things they have been testing in the periphery for the last decade, a solid ICBM is what they want. A solid ICBM is the thing that makes the most sense because a liquid ICBM is easier for the United States to destroy on the pad before it's launched.

So this is the second time. The first time was in 2017, if memory serves, that they have put a canister up on a... One of these special heavy vehicles to look like a Russian or Chinese-style mobile solid propellant ICBM. Now, the first time, they, of course, played with my heart. It was a cool thing to do. There has been no evidence that the thing that they paraded in 2017 was real.

However, as far as I know. However, it was clearly aspirational. We are now six years later, and they've been testing some real chunky, solid, proper diameter, solid propellant motors. And now we're in the era where the flight test of a baby ICBM is absolutely realistic.

Aaron 22:31

Oh, I would expect an ICBM test of this thing soon.

Scott 22:35

Yeah.

Aaron 22:36

I mean, within the year.

Scott 22:37

I know I'm not the prolific author amongst us, but the one time there's a thing I'm excited that I wrote was years ago for NK News. I wrote a timeline piece on how long it would take for someone to jump from a motor the size of the Pukuk Song 1 I remember this, Scott. Yeah, I have to every now and then find my copy of it to remind myself what my timeline was.

And it's basically that we are in testing season. There should be a test within basically the next two years, and we should see a heavy regimen within a little more than that.

Jeffrey 23:13

Okay, so I do want to get a little bitter about this. Yes, let's do it. So after you wrote that piece, I went and did a variant where I did the same thing, where I looked at early Thiokol large diameter solid propellant rocket motors. And I looked at how long it took the US to jump from Pretty big motors to big motors that clearly led to an ICBM.

And, you know, the answer was Once you tested something about 80 centimeters in diameter and a couple of thousand kilograms, you were like in the ballpark. And getting past that point was hard. But once you kind of got to that point, I guess I should say getting to that point was hard. But after that, you could scale pretty easily.

And so, and this was, this was a couple years ago. And I, you know, just basically looking at it I, I sort of observed that based on the US and Soviet experience, cause then I went and looked at the Soviet ones too, that between the first big diameter test of, of such a solid propellant motor and flying an ICBM would, would be a matter of a couple of years.

And I got asked by some people doing a study, who I like and will remain nameless, whether I thought that North Korea could test a solid propellant missile in the next few years. And my answer was yes. Yes, they have already tested large enough diameter motors that scaling it up would not be that significant of a deal.

I would expect a solid propellant launch, you know, at the time I was saying as early as next year, but, you know, probably in a couple of years, which is kind of exactly the timeline we're on. I didn't get cited in that report, which said North Korea could not develop a solid propellant ICBM within 15 years. Rude.

I was a little bent out of shape. The math is the math. I didn't make up the Soviet timeline. I didn't make up the Thiokol timeline.

Scott 25:44

Well, and that was the point of the thing I wrote was also taking a look at it and going, hey, the U.S. and the Soviet Union were also rich comparatively. And so it was also looking at the timelines of how did post-war France figure it out? How did India figure it out? The answer was the timeline got smaller between each.

I'm going to put really big Quotes around poor. It's not poor countries, it's just not the two uber powers in the neighborhood. Even when you don't have that industrial base behind you I think it was India took like nine years, maybe it was 11 years between the oh for the PSLV, yeah, and so the the sort of assumption I took was, you know As long as you're putting your capital into it, it's going to take less than the last person who reached this.

It's going to take less time. We know ballpark how much time it took China. We know better how much time it took France. We know somewhat what time it took India. And that number keeps dropping down because China is something crazy, like 20 years, because we know that their program had, I would say... A bit of a problem in the middle.

France took a couple years.

Jeffrey 26:55

Cultural revolution. Yeah, it turns out. It turns out when you don't let people go to school, it really is kind of a drag on your rocket program.

Scott 27:02

Which turns out to be a really helpful model studying what could possibly impact a North Korean missile program. But the short version is I super agree with you. It was like seven to nine years. And that's where we are now.

Jeffrey 27:16

Yeah, my number was shorter than that, but like... Well, I mean, it was, it was basically a few years and that's where we are now. Cause I, I dated it from the first time they did like a, a, a Pukuk song test, which is a pretty big diameter.

Scott 27:34

Yeah.

Jeffrey 27:34

So, you know. I guess the thing I would say about this is the parade ends with these big canisters. We have seen canisters like this before, but the context in which we're seeing them now is unambiguous. It's at the end of the parade, and so it's clearly meant to be an ICBM. They put these things in the order of their range.

It comes after they've tested a really large solid propellant motor that's suitable for the first stage of an ICBM. It comes after Kim Jong-un has said that they're going to test soon a solid propellant ICBM. It just we we have plenty of evidence that they are now about to embark on this shift from liquid propellant rocket engines to solid propellant rocket engines. That's going to be a substantial increase in the survivability of their force And like, we're not going to do anything about it.

Aaron 28:37

Well, we're going to watch it on the parade. Yeah. Next year. I mean, when we get the band back together in about six months, we'll have more to see.

Jeffrey 28:49

So I just, you know, I don't know. It's, it's, I guess that's why I'm ultimately unexcited about the parade. Because it's like, oh, look, more evidence that they're deploying nuclear armed artillery. Oh, look, more evidence that they're investing heavily in short and medium range ballistic missiles. Oh, look, more evidence that they're developing liquid propellant ICBMs with multiple warheads.

And oh, look, there is a solid propellant ICBM. It's all the he said he was going to do. It's all lined up on the road. And, like, we're just watching. Okay. Good times.

Scott 29:28

To put it another way, similar to y'all said you're going to do a new start episode soon, two of the big threads for this podcast since its inception in, what, 2014, have been the development of the North Korean arsenal towards a survivable Mobile arsenal and the slow death of the arms control regimes, and 2023 may be the year where those two threads terminate because we hit both of them. We've hit our solid propellant ICBM, we're just waiting. Like, we're gonna do an episode on that, it's gonna be exciting, but like that's been coming for so long And with New Start, it's the same thing.

We're in the same bad place with it, and we've been putting these episodes out for years. We're kind of where we thought we would end up, and that sucks.

Aaron 30:22

Get in there, Aaron. No, I was just going to say, going back to you not being cited, Jeffrey, you can literally... You map out the trajectory of this missile's development just by listening to the podcast. Because again, I don't study this on a day-to-day basis. I think listeners know this by now. But we documented the engine test.

We documented the building of the test stand. You know, we documented the speech and we documented everything. If you just go back through, it's just like you just get iterative and iterative. And this is going to end up with a really long test. It's either going to go really high and come down. So it's going to be super lofted.

Or, you know, our ultimate worry is that they test it to its full range just down to the ocean.

Jeffrey 31:08

I mean, we really just want them to loft it to make sure that the ionospheric disturbance tracker picks it up, you know, just to give our Slack channel the love it so richly deserves.

Aaron 31:22

Well, let's make a prediction as we wrap it up here. I mean, you guys did the model. When do you think they'll flight test it?

Jeffrey 31:29

I think they could flight test it tomorrow if they want. I mean, they could not. They could be having some problems. Like, we just don't know. But once you slap that sucker on a test stand and you fire that first stage... If it works, and it looked like it worked you know, that it's just when when are you confident? So you know, I I'm not going to predict tomorrow because that's that's awfully soon but definitely before the next definitely before the next worker party workers party conference so you know, certainly in the next year or two, I would think That they're they're going to do this unless they hit some, you know, technical showstopper that that really slows them down. Smokes too close to the solid propellant vessel one too many times. I mean, it's happened before, right? Poor Tehrani Mohaddam really set the Iranian solid propellant program back by a few years, although it's back, but great. Yeah, yeah, good times for us

Love that. Maybe they'll be looking for Kim Jong six head. I was gonna make a morbid joke, but I'm gonna stop myself. I think I just did make a morbid joke. Is there anything else we need to add to this one?

Scott 32:57

If anyone needs a Sighacker-equivalent, not a Sighacker-equivalent, a Sighacker-inspired, non-equivalent rando to come kick the tires on their new canistered tell to prove that it's real, you know where to find us on Twitter.

Jeffrey 33:14

Oh, yeah.

Scott 33:15

I've been to North Korea before. I would go again.

Jeffrey 33:19

I've never been, and I would love to go check out the Tell Factory.

Scott 33:24

Oh, it'd be a lovely trip. Just, you know who would help validate that y'all are doing... Come on, Kim Jong-un.

Jeffrey 33:31

I'll bring your daughter something nice.

Scott 33:33

I got a little one, too.

Jeffrey 33:38

I could bring some of her LOL dolls. Your daughter will love them, I swear. Those are probably sanctioned, right? I'm going to go to prison. OFAC's going to be all up in my business.

Scott 33:48

If they're not, we will be. Well, it was awesome to get to talk to y'all again. They need to hold interesting, vaguely interesting parades more often so I can come on. I think I'm going to write up for the blog, having not written that since... I don't think I've written for the blog since I did a cruise missile article on North Korea that, Jeffrey, you just don't remember that we co-authored together, which is still very funny to me.

... But I think a write-up on the Wanshan 51200s and kind of putting to bed, like, we're kind of done following this arc for a while unless something really weird happens with him. We'd always keep one eye out on him to see if it was truly something bizarre, but a brief history of special heavy tells maybe in order to wrap this up.

Jeffrey 34:41

Aaron, where could we find a group of people who'd be interested in such an obscure and bizarre topic? Where would such a community exist?

Aaron 34:50

It only exists in one place. It's the Star Wars Borah of the online community, where you can find everything from discussions of heavy tales to being cited in the Washington Post and The Economist. That's our Slack channel, where you can become a member at patreon.com slash ACW podcast, $3 for a student. $5 if you are not. You get to join the nichest conversation about heavy tales on the planet, but certainly the coolest and most fun.

That's patreon.com slash acwpodcast to join.