Tag: ballistic missiles

How can the ROK defend NK’s undisclosed operational missile bases? For the sake of “fake diplomacy”? Just read the UN Security Council resolutions —which ban ALL ballistic missiles from NK. Seriously, how contorted can these rationalizations for NK weapons possession get?? https://t.co/qif9Ogwfzq

— Victor Cha (@VictorDCha) November 14, 2018

President Moon said KJU is not deceiving anyone because he never agreed to close SRBM bases, and they aren't related to ICBMs or IRBMs. Which means he's ok with NK pointing SRBMs at SKorea.

I love this feeling of schadenfreude watching Moon make a total ass of himself. https://t.co/niYIL7VHhE

— John Lee (The Korean Foreigner) (@koreanforeigner) November 13, 2018

👇1. Exactly what I told @washingtonpost @mradamtaylor but this part of my quote didnt make it in story (it's ok, it happens; @ArmsControlWonk said it but slightly differently). NK is doing what KJU ordered it to do in Jan 1 – mass produce missiles and nuke warheads… https://t.co/EIxd86U2X2

— Duyeon Kim (@duyeonkim) November 13, 2018

Like I said when this story initially broke, next someone is going to point out that the Kim regime still has artillery pointed at Seoul like it is some big revelation:

South Korea’s presidential office on Tuesday played down a new report on North Korea’s “undisclosed” missile sites, saying the state intelligence communities of South Korea and the United States earlier acquired relevant information.

Cheong Wa Dae added that it’s going too far to call the North’s continued activity a “great deception” given that it has no specific agreement to dismantle or disclose the facilities mentioned in the report issued by Beyond Parallel, a group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The group said it has located 13 out of an estimated 20 missile operating bases undeclared by the secretive communist regime.

“The dispersed deployment of these bases and distinctive tactics employed by ballistic missile units are combined with decades of extensive camouflage, concealment and deception practices to maximize the survival of its missile units from pre-emptive strikes and during wartime operations,” the report said.  [Yonhap]

You can read more a the link, but the South Korean government has basically took a nothing to see here, this is just business as usual approach to the news.

I really hope no one is surprised by any of this; next someone will take notice that the artillery that threatens Seoul is still in place:

A U.S. think tank said on Monday it had identified at least 13 of an estimated 20 undeclared missile operating bases inside North Korea, underscoring the challenge for American negotiators hoping to persuade Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.

In reports released by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, researcher Joseph Bermudez said maintenance and minor infrastructure improvements have been observed at some of the sites, despite the ongoing negotiations.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. President Donald Trump pledged to work toward denuclearization at their landmark June summit in Singapore, but the agreement was short on specifics and negotiations have made little headway.

Shortly after that summit, Trump tweeted that “there is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.”  [Reuters]

You can read the rest at the link, but the plan all along for the Kim regime was to get a peace treaty signed and sanctions dropped for little to nothing in return.  As long as the sanctions remain in place it is still not a complete win for the Kim regime.

Via a reader tip comes news that the US media is trying to make big news out of the fact that the North Koreans are continuing to develop missiles:

U.S. spy agencies are seeing signs that North Korea is constructing new missiles at a factory that produced the country’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States, according to officials familiar with the intelligence.

Newly obtained evidence, including satellite photos taken in recent weeks, indicates that work is underway on at least one and possibly two liquid-fueled ICBMs at a large research facility in Sanumdong, on the outskirts of Pyongyang, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe classified intelligence. [MSN]

I don’t know why anyone would consider this big news? The North Koreans never agreed to stop missile development. The only thing agreed to was to work towards denuclearization. The definition of what denuclearization means is still be negotiated.

Not everyone is surprised by this news though:

Several U.S. officials and private analysts said the continued activity inside North Korea’s weapons complex is not surprising, given that Kim made no public promise at the summit to halt work at the scores of nuclear and missiles facilities scattered around the country.

The North Koreans “never agreed to give up their nuclear program,” said Ken Gause, a North Korea expert at the Center for Naval Analysis. And it is foolish to expect that they would do so — at the outset of talks, he said.

Mr. Gausse may be right about this not be surprising, but here is where I believe he makes an incorrect assessment:

“Regime survival and perpetuation of Kim family rule” are Kim’s guiding principles, he said. “The nuclear program provides them with a deterrent in their mind against regime change by the United States. Giving up the nuclear capability will violate the two fundamental centers of gravity in the North Korean regime.”

The nuclear program’s main purpose in my opinion was not to prevent regime change. The North’s conventional threat, mainly the artillery batteries located along the DMZ has prevented any regime threatening attacks for decades despite deadly provocations by the Kim regime over many decades.

Not everyone is fooled by the Kim regime’s intentions:

“We have this backward. North Korea is not negotiating to give up their nuclear weapons,” Lewis said. “They are negotiating for recognition of their nuclear weapons. They’re willing to put up with certain limits, like no nuclear testing and no ICBM testing. What they’re offering is: They keep the bomb, but they stop talking about it.”

The further analysis to this is that the Kim regime needs the nuclear weapons and a delivery system to threaten the United States to begin the negotiations that will lead to a peace treaty and eventual withdrawal of US troops. The removal of USFK is needed in order to realize the Kim regime’s ultimate goal of a confederation.  They needed a left wing administration in charge of the ROK and nuclear weapons to accomplish this goal, and they now have both.

Fresh out the oven: N. Korea has expanded a key solid-fuel missile facility in recent weeks, new satellite imagery shows, underscoring the challenge the U.S. faces as it tries to get N. Korea to denuclearize.@ArmsControlWonk @DaveSchmerler @planetlabshttps://t.co/EVavHTKTD9 pic.twitter.com/RAXiJI6A2I

— Jonathan Cheng (@JChengWSJ) July 1, 2018

So does this mean that the US Fires Brigade will no longer be needed?:

South Korea plans to set up a new guided missile unit that can take down North Korea‘s long-range artillery sites.

Local broadcaster KBS reported that the South Korean army will combine its first and third military headquarters to launch a new ground operation command in October.

Under the new command, an artillery force will be established and armed with tactical ground-to-ground guided missiles that are capable of striking large targets within a short period of time.

A single launch pad can fire four missiles in a matter of seconds, with the rockets capable of traveling more than 93 miles.

Equipped with a precision guidance function, the missiles are said to be ideal for targeting North Korea’s long-range artillery concentrated along the military demarcation line.

Experts say the artillery brigade will also be able to curb enemy threats at an early stage and thermobaric weapons attached onto the warheads could potentially incinerate everything inside a targeted mineshaft. [UPI]

You can read more at the link.

Here is some more reporting that North Korea ballistic missile technology jump apparently came from Ukraine:

When North Korea launched a series of increasingly potent missiles last year, analysts were left scratching their heads. How had the renegade regime’s weapons program advanced so quickly?

The answer may lie more than 4,000 miles away, in eastern Ukraine, according to one nuclear expert.

Michael Elleman is convinced that North Korea’s recent missiles were powered by engines made at a once-buzzing factory in the former Soviet Union.

Elleman, a senior fellow for missile defense at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank, believes that Pyongyang acquired the 1960s Soviet-era missile engine known as the RD-250 within the past two years.

With some slight adjustments, Kim Jong Un’s government used that engine to successfully launch a medium-range missile and two intercontinental ballistic missiles, he says.

In a report published late last year, Elleman suggested that North Korea had procured the high-powered Soviet engines through a network of arms smugglers. He said it was unlikely that the transfer had been sanctioned by the Russian government or even those operating the warehouses and factories.

“These facilities have what we call ‘bone yards’ where you have old engines that are no longer in service that are just stored,” he said. “It’s not surprising that there are dozens that would be available for transfer.”

At about 6.5 feet tall and 3 feet wide, and weighing 800 or 900 pounds, the engines could be boxed and transported like a big motorcycle, Elleman suggested.  [NBC News]

You can read more at the link, but this arguably another unintended consequence of the war and instability allowed to happen in Ukraine.

The New York Times has a very good article published that shows who are the various scientists in North Korea that have made Kim Jong-un’s nuclear and ballistic missile ambitions so successful:

“We have never heard of him killing scientists,” said Choi Hyun-kyoo, a senior researcher in South Korea who runs NK Tech, a database of North Korean scientific publications. “He is someone who understands that trial and error are part of doing science.”

Analysts are still trying to explain how North Korea managed to overcome decades of international sanctions and make so much progress so quickly. But it is clear the nation has accumulated a significant scientific foundation despite its backward image.

Its new ICBM is a feat of physics and engineering that has stunned the world, and each of its six nuclear tests has been more powerful than the last, boosting Mr. Kim’s stature at home and his leverage abroad.  [New York Times]

Also if you are wondering how the North Koreans have been so successful so quick with their nuclear and missile programs, this may explain it:

In 1992, a plane carrying 64 rocket scientists from Moscow was stopped before departing for North Korea. It is not clear how many, if any, former Soviet scientists made it to North Korea in the decades since.

Theodore A. Postol, a professor emeritus of science, technology and international security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the North has “this fantastic record for flying rockets the first time and having them succeed.”