Will North Korea Test a Nuclear Weapon?

Aaron Stein 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Arms Control Wonk podcast. My name is Aaron Stein. I am an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a contributor to the Arms Control Wonk website, and a PhD candidate at King's College London.

Jeffrey Lewis 0:16

And I'm Jeffrey Lewis. I'm the founding publisher of Arms Control Wonk, and I stare at the ocean from my office in Monterey.

Aaron 0:25

I stare at the lake from my office in Geneva. But anyways, today we're not going to be talking about the ocean or the lakes. We're going to be talking about North Korea. Just to start off with, President Obama is making an Asia trip this week. He is currently in Tokyo before heading on to South Korea, Malaysia, and then the Philippines.

And as one might expect, the trip to South Korea has elicited concerns that the North Koreans may, in response to Obama's visit and the ongoing or future military exercises between the United States and South Korea, put Once again, tested nuclear weapon. I think we're interested to hear about the bigger picture, about what does this mean and maybe some of the activity that's taking place at the test site currently that has led to the suspicions about a future test.

Jeffrey 1:23

Yeah, well, so there are a bunch of, like, vehicles driving around the test site, which tends to get people's attention. You know, it's much harder to say what the vehicles are, but usually activity at a test site is not a happy event.

Aaron 1:39

I've seen some speculation. There's a couple schools of thought out there about what it could be, and some people say, well, it's nothing to worry about. It's just true. Keeping the roads clear from snow, whereas others are a lot more worried about what this could mean, maybe not just between the two, but it's serious preparations being made to actually test the device moving forward in the next couple of days.

Jeffrey 2:06

Yeah, I think it's the challenge of trying to make judgments when you're staring at a site from space and all you see is vehicles. I mean, the North Korean test site is in a place that has a lot of snow and floods in the spring. And so they often do have to do maintenance. But on the other hand...

Sometimes they do nuclear tests. I guess in this case, my colleague at 38 North, Jack Liu, thinks it's not likely to be a test because he hasn't seen communications equipment on site. And, you know, I'm more, I think, agnostic about it. You know, the satellite photographs he looked at were four days old now. And, you know, maybe there weren't communications trucks on site then, but maybe there are now.

I don't know. I tend to take kind of a wait-and-see approach with the North Koreans.

Aaron 3:03

They're certainly not predictable in some of their actions. But I think whether they test now or not, I mean, they— Have a clear track record of moving forward with developing, well at least they've said that they're going to develop new types of weapons, or they've threatened this as well. Do you think that there could be a link between ongoing preparations at the new test sites and their previous claim that they're moving towards something, the nebulous term of new types of weapons or new types of devices?

Jeffrey 3:35

Yeah, there are two things that they've said that really got my attention. One was they released a statement saying that because the US does annual exercises, that they were going to do exercises of their own on a regular basis. And at the same time... You know, they've done a ton of digging at the site. And so, you know, we've been staring at the digging.

And then they released this kind of second statement that says they were going to do a new type of nuclear test. And it kind of raises the prospect that maybe instead of... Instead of digging a tunnel every time and doing a test kind of one at a time, that they might be actually taking the tunnels and making branches off of it and kind of turning it into like a test complex so they could do two or more tests at the same time.

Aaron 4:29

What's the value of doing multiple tests? What type of data could they glean from that? And do you think it's more of a step in the direction of institutionalizing their testing infrastructure? Or again, this is an ad hoc, tip-for-tap reaction to American actions in the region?

Jeffrey 4:51

Yeah, I think when we look at The Soviet testing experience, you know, they tested in places that were not really nice to live at. So most of the test personnel don't live on site year round. And so it's kind of a big deal to schlep everybody out to the mountains and do the test. And so the Soviets decided that even if it was technically harder, it was worth their while to do multiple tests at the same time.

I think that's doubly true with the North Koreans who aren't just resource constrained, but still have to deal with the Chinese and other people getting upset at them. And so I can see real value for them doing two tests at once and only having to pay the political cost once. It's not like we're going to sanction them twice as much for doing two tests.

Aaron 5:45

And I think what

Jeffrey 5:47

What enables that is they may have a lot more access to fissile material in the form of highly enriched uranium now. I mean, there used to be this old joke when we thought they had just a tiny amount of plutonium, you know, enough for one or two bombs. What would you do if North Korea tested a nuclear weapon?

And the joke was, tell them to test the other one. But that joke's only funny when they don't have enough plutonium and HEU for lots of bombs. And so if that's changed, if they feel like they have new amounts of fissile material, especially HEU, they might decide that it's well worth their while to test on a pretty regular basis.

Aaron 6:26

Yeah, you know, I think...

Jeffrey 6:48

With the North Koreans, the phrase they were using was a new type of test. So that's why my assumption was the first thing they would try would be simultaneous tests. But I do worry that now that they've tested a few times, I think they probably are starting to get technical goals. So they're not just temper tantrums anymore.

And I wrote an article for foreign policy making this argument, essentially saying that, you know, By their third test, the Chinese had already started working on thermonuclear weapons. And then the fourth Chinese test was they put a live, simple nuclear weapon on a missile and fired it across the country. So I worry that... The North Koreans might consider stunts like that, right? Either working on thermonuclear weapons or, God forbid, testing a live nuclear weapon on a missile. so I think it's most likely they're just going to do simultaneous tests, but I really do worry that over the long term there are some really horrible and disruptive things they could do. Let me speak to this larger issue. I mean.

Aaron 7:56

Is this, as I said earlier, it seems like this is moving beyond just tit for tat. I mean, they have access to fissile material now, both plutonium and growing stock, probably assumed, of HEU. Is this a bigger idea or is something bigger going on here? Are they transforming from this being, let's say during their first test, let's call it a political weapon, to now being something that could actually be used to be more incorporated into Be incorporated more, I guess, incorporated better into their national security doctrine and actually have a usable weapon on their hands rather than a device.

Jeffrey 8:34

Yeah, that's certainly what I worry about, right? I mean, I think that... When they started, you know, the first test didn't work. And no other country had ever had a first test fail. And so my guess always was that they basically skipped the step of making the really simple, giant nuclear weapon and tried to make a small enough nuclear weapon to put on a missile.

And so my guess is that the first test didn't really work all that well, and the second test was... Better but not perfect because they were trying to achieve this technical goal of miniaturizing a device. And if you think, like I do, that the third test was pretty successful, you know, that raises this question of, like, what are they going to do next?

And so, you know, I think we've always thought of them as conducting these tests as, I think what I just said was, you know, a political temper tantrum. But, you know, this will be their fourth test. And so I think they have kind of transitioned to this point where they have purposes in mind. And those purposes are linked to military capabilities that they want.

You know, I think a lot of us laughed when we saw the map of the United States with the paths of missiles showing different targets. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, it's kind of ridiculous in some ways. But on the other hand, you know, they've stood up something they call the Strategic Rocket Forces Command. They've spent a bunch of money upgrading that site.

They've announced that it's a service that's, you know, like the Air Force or the Army or the Navy. They've announced the guy's name who's the head of it. They've given him a promotion. You know, they are really... Talking about their nuclear-armed missiles in a way that's not just a bargaining chip or not just something political, but like a real military capability.

Aaron 10:39

It's true. I think the one thing that we can't do, and we look at it from the outside, is mirror. We can't think of it in terms of, well, the Manhattan Project produced X, and then we moved to Y, and then we had to Z, and then we had a usable force. Is there any credence to the idea that maybe all of their tests really did have a purpose?

And as you said earlier, maybe the first test failed not because they went for the simple fat man bomb that everybody could whack together, in quotes, but something... Maybe it was intended to be a first stage to a thermonuclear weapon. Maybe a try to miniaturize right off the bat. I mean, is there any sense that we know, I mean, is there any direction coming from them about what exactly these things are intended to do in the future?

Other than these maps that pop up that show targets in the U.S. and strategic rocket forces intended to provide, in quotes, deterrence.

Jeffrey 11:37

Well, you know, with the third test, they said that they had achieved miniaturization. And I think a lot of people in the United States kind of laughed at that or didn't think that was real. You know, they keep saying that that's what they're doing. And, you know, again, I think the best explanation for why the first test didn't work, and I've written this, is that...

It was an effort to try to build a miniaturized device, and that's really hard to do without any prior testing experience. And so, you know, third time is a charm. It took them three shots at it before they developed a device they like. And once you've got a relatively small fission device, yeah, you could eventually, if you chose, transition to thermonuclear weapons.

And I know it sounds... Almost sounds crazy to imagine the North Koreans doing that but I spend a lot of time thinking about the Chinese case and in The Chinese in the 1950s were absolutely clear that they did not plan to spend any more time than necessary on simple fission devices, and they were going to go right to developing thermonuclear weapons for ICBMs, which is crazy to imagine China in the 50s doing it.

But it's absolutely what they did. It took them a long time. And one of the fascinating things that you can see in US intelligence assessments from the period is we just could not wrap our heads around the fact that they had such an ambitious goal for themselves.

Aaron 13:09

I mean, if you go back in the future, one thing I really like doing in arms control cases, and maybe because it's the subject of my dissertation, is I think that the best answer for the present is in the future, and that really in-depth case studies usually point to the direction of a program. In this case, I'm thinking about their HEU program, I mean, their enrichment program.

At the time when... It was the Bush administration who first pointed to it, and a lot of people rolled their eyes. As it turned out, they did have an issue program. Does that give an indication of their original intent, or do you think that was from the get-go, we're just going to have both pathways to the bottom open and pick an all-in-the-above approach, or perhaps both?

Jeffrey 13:55

You know, I think it was probably a little bit of an issue of just timing. In the sense that when the North Koreans got really interested in nuclear weapons, which probably was in like the late 60s, the way one did that was to build a reactor and then separate the plutonium from the spent fuel. And so... By the early 80s, they were building the reactor at Yongbyon that created all of the problems.

And so I think they locked in a plutonium program because that's what people did at the time. And it triggered... This crisis with the United States, which gets resolved is the wrong word, but managed for a time with the agreed framework in 1994. And what's interesting to me is, you know, I think the North Koreans, particularly Kim Il-sung, was very suspicious, almost certainly was interested in hedging, you know, may have decided it would be worth cheating on the agreement.

I don't know. Well, he dies before the agreement gets signed, but Kim Jong-il may have decided it was worth cheating on the agreement. And so when North Korea looked at the world in the... 1990s, there had been this change, which is Pakistan had in the early 1980s successfully enriched uranium using centrifuges, which at the time was kind of thought to be a fancy technology that was way too advanced for a country like Pakistan.

Boy, were we wrong. And then, so that was kind of available, right? So the North Koreans had access to the Khan network, and they were in the process of selling missiles. And, you know, I... Suspect that when Khan said, you know, hey, would you like some centrifuge capabilities in exchange for these missiles you're selling me? I think the North Koreans were probably like, yes.

So, you know, I don't know if they sat down and thought it out that carefully so much as they just availed themselves of opportunities as they presented themselves.

Aaron 16:09

It's a really interesting case study. The way Khan allowed, as I call them, Technology takers in the nuclear field to bypass certain bottlenecks that then opened up different realms of possibility in terms of proliferation. All the multiple case studies. He's really a catalyst. And I still don't think we've completely unwrapped his role in the Korean program, the Iranian program.

We haven't unpacked it as much as we should have. But I think just switching gears here into the final, it seems as if they're even shutting out China now, diplomatically. I mean, the U.S., we can sanction them again, but there seems to have been, at least a couple of years ago, this belief that we could bring China around to pressure them not to test.

That doesn't seem to be the case anymore. And this goes back again, and just to that final question, perhaps we'll wrap up here. If there's no political tool to lean on them anymore... What's to stop them moving forward for more tests, particularly if they are preparing a test site to support a larger nuclear district?

Jeffrey 17:21

Yeah, well, so I guess I wanted to say two things about that. First is in terms of China. The relationship between North Korea and China has always really interested me because we tend to talk about North Korea like it's a Chinese client state. But the North Koreans don't like the idea of being client state. And they were, throughout the Cold War, I think much closer to the Soviets and tended to play the Soviets and the Chinese off against one another.

And so... Once the Soviet Union disappeared, although Vladimir Putin lately has been making a bid to warm relations with Pyongyang, there was this really complicated relationship when the North Koreans needed the Chinese but also wanted to keep them at arm's length. And I think you saw that particularly with Kim Jong-il, who was not close to the Chinese and did not appreciate their unsolicited advice that he reformed the economy.

And now that Cheong Song-taek, Kim Jong-un's uncle, right, who was married to Kim Jong-il's sister, has been executed, a lot of people thought he was the person who was closest to the Chinese. And that suggests a real limit on their influence. Then if they have a bunch of fissile material now from a HEU program that we have trouble seeing and the Chinese have very little influence, then yeah, I think you could see a lot more tests.

We had talked before about Where I wanted to end this conversation. And I wanted to end it by mentioning a great talk by Sig Hecker. He used to be the director at Los Alamos and is now at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation, where I have to say I'm also a non-resident fellow, or a non-resident affiliate, or some silly thing like that.

And he just gave a talk about his 10 years of visiting North Korea. And his big takeaway message, and maybe we should put some links up on the Arms Control website when we put this podcast up, but his big takeaway message was that... When all this process started, we thought about North Korea's nuclear weapons as bargaining chip that they intended to trade away and that existed largely for political reasons.

And he's noted now that they have so many more real capabilities than they had 10 years ago, and things are so much further. And my own personal observation about that is that represents a kind of change where these have gone from an abstract capability that was the subject of negotiations to a real military capability that they may be really unlikely to give up.

That's a grim place to end a podcast, though.

Aaron 20:14

We have this tendency. We did it last week. It ended in a bad place. Yeah. I don't know how we're going to have to fix that in the future, but no, we don't end up well.

Jeffrey 20:23

We should probably pick subjects other than arms control, right?

Aaron 20:26

Yeah, that would certainly help.

Jeffrey 20:28

Never has a happy ending.

Aaron 20:29

How about we end with a bet? I've long wanted to start a political gambling site so that we can place wagers on these things. Do you think they'll test while Obama's in the region, or do you think that nothing will come of this and they'll test sometime down the road?

Jeffrey 20:50

My experience has been that they threaten to test more than they actually test. And it usually takes them a while to get around to it. So I've lost a lot of bottles of wine betting on tests that didn't happen quite as quickly as I did. So I'm super reluctant to do that right now. But they are clearly signaling...

That a test is in the works, and there may be some intermediate steps that we have to go through before we get to that. They've got a lot of bad things they can do. That menu is really long, and nuclear testing is usually dessert.

Aaron 21:31

Well, I think we'll end it there. Thanks a lot for listening, and thanks, Jeffrey, for talking again. I guess we'll talk next week.

Jeffrey 21:36

All right. It's always a pleasure, man. Bye.