Asia goes ballistic: North Korea's Unha-3 fizzle and India's Agni-5 launch

The failed launch of North Korea's Unha-3 space launch vehicle, alleged by many to be cover for a long range ballistic missile test, the successful test of India's Agni-5 missile, which gives India the ability to strike high value targets throughout China, South Korea's testing of a cruise missile able to strike targets covering all of North Korea, and the recent release of satellite imagery showing continued work in central China on bases for the DF-31 and DF-31A long-range missiles, all underscore that Asia appears to be in the midst of a fully-fledged ballistic missile arms race.

The world's attention has been especially gripped by the Unha-3 and Agni-5 launches.

What do they tell us about North Korea's and India's strategic capabilities and future intentions?

The first point we might focus on is whether the Unha-3 launch, Pyongyang stated that the purpose was to deliver the Kwangmyongsong-3 satellite to mark the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Kim il Sung, was in fact a long-range ballistic missile test.

North Korea has tried to follow all the protocols that any self-respecting space power should abide by. This included announcing the intended flight profile of the Unha-3 space launcher and the designated splashdown zones for the first, second and third stages of the rocket. This is done, in the case of the flight profile, through what is called a NOTAM (notice to airmen).

The North had stated that the Kwangmyongsong-3 would be placed on a near polar orbit. A North Korean news report had quoted, however, a senior space program official as stating that in fact the Kwangmyongsong-3 would be placed in a sun-synchronous orbit. The discrepancy, it has been widely reported, suggests that the North messed up their own spin and thereby only succeeded in putting their cover story into orbit.

However, it is possible to use physics to appreciate the difference between an ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile) test and a legitimate satellite launch. The North Koreans say they wanted to place the Kwangmyongsong-3 into a 500km low earth orbit. The ballistic flight profile of an ICBM test and a satellite launch of the type announced by Pyongyang differ markedly, as does the respective burn times. Because the Unha-3 crashed and burned so early in flight, reaching an altitude of around 40km after approximately 100 seconds of powered flight, it is not really possible to discern which of the two descriptions is more accurate. Furthermore, the actual splashdown of the Unha-3 was well short and due east of the designated first stage splashdown zone.

We are unable, as a matter of science, to definitively distinguish between the two in the case of the Unha-3 using telemetry alone. Notice, however, that most commentary simply assumes that it was a ballistic missile test. In fact, the previous satellite attempt, the Unha-2 launch, was a third stage failure. The splashdown of the first and second stages of the Unha-2 was consistent, though not perfectly so, with the preannounced splashdown zones and so the flight profile of the Unha-2 was in sync with a satellite launch.

The last point is worth mentioning for the Unha-3 was basically all but the same rocket as the Unha-2. The third stage, the main difference between the two, was a bit larger for the Unha-3 because the flight path was different, in order to avoid over flying Japan, which meant that the Unha-3 was not able to take advantage of the earth's rotation to gather velocity as had the Unha-2.

It should be stressed that the Unha-3 third stage is powered by a cluster of vintage Soviet SS-N-6 sea launched ballistic missile steering engines, which means that the third stage would not be able to deliver a 1,000kg first generation nuclear warhead to intercontinental range, but it could deliver a lightweight satellite and park it at a 500km orbit.

To deliver a nuclear warhead the Unha-3 would need to be modified. Doubtless a successful launch would have provided useful information for the North's missile programme, however because the failure occurred so soon after launch the Unha-3 really wasn't of much assistance.

There are not sufficient grounds to conclude that the Unha-3 launch was a covert ballistic missile test. Any analysis that suggests so, and any international political reaction that assumes so, should be treated with scepticism.

A particularly fascinating feature that the Unha-3 fizzle brings to relief is the manifold problems that North Korea's scientists are meeting in constructing viable multi-stage space launch vehicles and long-range missiles. When one examines the history of North Korea's long-range missile tests and satellite launch attempts one can see that multiple failure modes have bedevilled the North's programme.

This means that there has been little progress, indeed the North appears to be going backwards, for North Korea cannot discretely isolate and overcome the engineering hurdles that are preventing further progress.

This last point is important for it goes right to the heart of the rationale for Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) which has, for the most part, been based on the North Korean threat to the continental United States.

The 1998 Rumsfeld Commission Report, which was of crucial importance in mobilising political support for BMD, stated that North Korea has the capability to field long-range, multi-stage, missiles within five years of deciding to deploy such a capability. In 2011 then Defense Secretary Robert Gates repeated this charge. A lot of the reasoning behind this conclusion relied upon the belief that North Korea could successfully reverse engineer Scud missile technology to develop longer range missiles.

North Korea, in actual fact, needs to go beyond Scud technology to field such weapons, witness the link between the SS-N-6 and the Unha-3, and it would appear that they are struggling to push the envelope. Russia has always argued that North Korea and Iran are, in principle, limited to how far they can build upon, and advance beyond, Scud technology on their own. With outside assistance drying up the Unha-3 suggests to us that, for the moment, the North Koreans are rather clueless.

That rips apart the raison d'etre for BMD. The situation is ironic for the BMD system itself has never been successfully tested in realistic combat conditions. Surely this double-whammy is one of the more surreal features of contemporary international relations. Indeed, the Unha-3 fizzle provides some support for the notion that arms control measures, in this case the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), has done a fairly reasonable job of limiting the proliferation of long-range ballistic missile technologies.

Arms control regimes like the MTCR do not get the credit that they richly deserve. They certainly have more runs on the board than BMD.

I myself believe that North Korea's long-range missile programme is similar to some of the more notorious developmental programmes of the cold war era. These existed as bargaining chips, or trade bait as we call it during sporting draft weeks, to be used in arms control talks to limit the cuts made to more functional weapons systems. I suspect that the North views its long-range missile programme as a bargaining chip, given they are well aware of their technical limitations, to be traded away in a grand bargain with the US which would hopefully result in Pyongyang retaining its shorter range Nodong missiles.

Does the Unha-3 represent a violation of the leap-day deal, thereby further demonstrating the North's perfidy, between Pyongyang and Washington, which saw the North suspend uranium enrichment and further missile and nuclear testing in return for food aid and the prospect of improved bilateral relations?

Here most reports are quite emphatic; yes it was. But, again, things are not so simple.

It seems that the North never agreed to the notion that a space launch would represent a violation of the deal and there could well have been a measure of diplomatic confusion on this point between the two parties. Furthermore, the noted arms control analyst, Jeffrey Lewis, has an interesting hypothesis. He argues that in fact the whole purpose of the leap-day deal, for the North Koreans, was to legitimise the Unha-3 launch. This is certainly a plausible hypothesis, with what appears to be documentary support, and should by no means be dismissed lightly.

Over hasty generalisations and lurid analyses should not be used to continue the spiral of escalation on the Korean peninsula. There still exists scope, with sufficient good will and reasoned analysis of North Korea's capabilities and intentions, to reach a binding diplomatic resolution that eases tensions on the Korean peninsula.

The Agni-5 certainly has ignited the sub-continent.

The Agni-5 was unmistakably a ballistic missile test, the muted reaction to which demonstrated the extent to which India's nuclear weapons programme has been legitimised. The Agni-5 is a 3 stage 5,000km range all solid fuelled missile. The Indian missile has a weight of about 50 tonnes and has a throw-weight of approximately 1.1 tonnes. The Agni-5 gives India the ability to strike all the major population centres of China. Furthermore, the Indians argue that it augments the military's ability to assure a comprehensive second strike against Beijing because the Agni-5 is road mobile. China, however, argues that the Agni-5 is too heavy to be a road mobile missile.

Many Indian reports state that the Agni-5 is an ICBM. This is quite false. The Agni-5 places India on the cusp of having a true ICBM capability. Furthermore, it has been widely reported, in India, that the Agni-5 gives India the ability to deliver long-range multiple nuclear warheads or MIRVs (that is Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles) from a single missile.

The latter claim is pure hype. It is true that India has mastered many of the technologies required to develop MIRV, for example the Indian space programme has mastered multiple satellite launching technology. However, there is more to developing MIRVs than possessing a multiple satellite launching capability and missiles with adequate throw-weight to accommodate MIRVs.

The Indian scientific community would also need to develop highly specialised nuclear weapons with an adequate yield-to-weight ratio for the Agni-5. That means India needs to miniaturise its nuclear weapon designs to make them compact and light (for example through the use of two-point implosion which relies upon fissile cores of innovative geometry). China can deliver multiple thermonuclear warheads. India does not have the ability to develop multiple thermonuclear warheads without further testing, given that the most widely cited yield of India's 1998 thermonuclear (or hydrogen bomb) test was consistent with a fizzle yield where the first stage fails to ignite the second.

For India to truly develop a MIRV capability, certainly to match China toe-to-toe, it would most likely need to conduct more nuclear tests. This will have an interesting effect on the various nuclear trade and technology transfer deals that India has signed, including an in principle commitment made by Australia to export uranium to India.

The Agni-5 could well make India more likely to conduct a nuclear test than North Korea, given that Pyongyang does not have much plutonium to spare (we don't know whether Pyongyang has weapons grade uranium).

India will face an interesting choice following the completion of the Agni-5 test programme. Should Delhi go further and develop a true ICBM capability? Or should India concentrate on augmenting its current strategic capability through both the development of MIRV warheads and more compact, lighter and faster intermediate range missiles?

So far as we are aware both options have their supporters within the Indian strategic and scientific communities.

Where Asia goes from here, and the impact that these developments will have on Australia's position in the region, is highly uncertain. It will certainly be interesting to see what the major review of Australia's role in the "Asian century" will make of all this.

It is quite possible that Asia won't see out its century in one piece, which would be quite the irony.