Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Deconstructing North Korea's rocket and nuclear diplomacy

By Marko Beljac - posted Monday, 20 April 2009


On April 5 North Korea attempted to launch a satellite into orbit from the Unha-2 rocket. In response to a United Nations Security resolution condemning the launch North Korea has stated that it will restart the Yongbyon nuclear complex, consider building a light-water reactor and walk from the six-party denuclearisation talks.

The Yongbyon nuclear complex had two key functioning facilities, those being a small (5MWe or 20-30MWt) nuclear reactor and a chemical reprocessing plant. These facilities have been concerned with producing plutonium, not enriching uranium as was erroneously stated by Nick Bisley. The radiochemistry analysis by the US intelligence community of the vented fission products following the North's 2006 nuclear weapon test conclusively demonstrated that the test device was fuelled by plutonium.

Uranium enrichment has played an important role in the diplomatic impasse.

Advertisement

Hardliners in the Bush administration had used allegations on the existence of a North Korean uranium enrichment plant to undermine the Clinton administration's promising policy of bilateral diplomatic engagement. It is highly likely, through its contacts with the notorious A.Q. Khan network, that North Korea dabbled in enrichment experiments. However, dabbling in experiments does not equate to a fully fledged enrichment plant.

By and large the allegations of a secret enrichment plant have been based on fallacious extrapolation of aluminium tube orders, as with Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion.

Hawks during the Bush era used the uranium enrichment allegations to call for unfettered open access to North Korea by international inspectors in order to verify North Korea's enrichment non-admission. Demanding unrealistic verification protocols is a time honoured tactic used by hawks to undermine arms control processes that they do not like.

Obama’s intelligence Czar, Admiral Dennis Blair, in recent congressional testimony, repeated the uranium enrichment allegation. This undoubtedly gave the North a strong feeling of deja vu, which might well have tipped the balance in favour of some form of action to reignite stalled diplomacy.

Much of the media has construed North Korea's rocket launch to be a covert "missile test". This is simply assumed without argument. Under the principle of charity the North's rationale stands unless it can be demonstrated that the rationale does not hold water. For instance when the US shot down a wayward satellite it would be fair to construe this as a type of weapons test because the official rationale cannot survive rational scrutiny.

What did North Korea do and what are some security implications of the North's actions?

Advertisement

The Unha-2 rocket is taken to be derived from the Taepodong-2 ballistic missile.

A key differential between a covert missile test and an overt space launch revolves around the question of the trajectory of the launcher. If the launch was conducted on an elevated trajectory then this would be more consistent with a true space launch, for the purpose of a space launch is to project a payload into as high an orbit as possible. A covert missile test, however, would have used a more depressed trajectory to simulate combat use of a missile against terrestrial targets.

North Korea's missile design heritage is based on Scud technology. The best analysis of North Korea's missile design heritage available in the public domain is due to David Wright and Timur Kadyshev. David Wright has provided two models of the Unha-2 that provides a metric by which we can asses the North’s capability.

The first model is largely based on the Scud design heritage. The main novelty for the Unha-2/TD-2 consists of a cluster of four engines for the first stage modeled after China's CSS-2 missile. The second stage is taken either to be a single Nodong engine or a modified SA-5 engine ("SA" is NATO designation for Soviet/Russian surface-to-air missiles) for space launch only.

The upshot of all this is that an Unha-2 so configured would be able to launch, on a trajectory typical of ballistic missiles, a 1,000kg payload some 6,000km. The figure of 1,000kg is cited because this would be the mass typical of a first generation nuclear weapon. That is range sufficient to hit Anchorage, Alaska.

Wright's second model is based on possible, but speculative, improvements for the Unha-2 that go further beyond the Scud design heritage. Wright assumes that such a model would be on a par with China's vintage Long March-1 space launch vehicle. These improvements would consist of different engine propellants to garner more thrust and lighter rocket body material. An LM-1 type capability would see North Korea being able to deliver a 1,000kg warhead some 8,500km reaching San Francisco and cities to its north on the US west coast.

This all just focuses on the missile. North Korea is attributed with a nuclear warhead capability for the shorter range Nodong, but not necessarily for the Taepodong-2.

Now we know from the public comments of the US military, based on telemetry and splashdown analysis, that the North Korean launch was unsuccessful due to failure of the second stage. The failure makes it difficult to reach firm conclusions about the rocket’s trajectory. In 1998 the launch of the Taepodong-1 as a space launcher was unsuccessful due to failure of the third stage. In 2006 a launch of the Taepodong-2 failed after 40 seconds of flight.
This militates against the second, more speculative, Unha-2 design.

Moreover, mature testing programs require missileers to test and test and test again. To go from a test failure to a qualitatively more advanced design would not be rational. Engineers have their hands full with mating the Nodong engine with a new four-engine first stage. At things currently stand North Korea does not have a missile testing program.

If these be the technical aspects of the rocket launch what might we say about the political aspects?

The strategy of the North has been to engage in what is described by strategic analysts as "coercive bandwagoning" with the US. Bruce Cumings, the preeminent North Korea scholar in the United States, has pointed out that the key objective of the North in the post cold war period has been to improve relations with the United States.

For the North, apart from deterrence, nuclear warhead and missile programs are an important means by which to coerce the US towards better economic and political relations for Pyongyang has little other means by which to exert leverage. As Cumings argues, “Yongbyon, in short, began in pursuit of energy self-reliance, and ended as a bargaining chip to trade for a new relationship with the United States”.

The recent rocket launch should be seen, partly (it may also have internal causes coming a few days before Kim Jong-il’s coming out party) in the context of this approach. For the North, as stated above, the repeat of the uranium enrichment allegations tends to suggest that the Obama administration will by and large stick to the second term Bush administration approach.

The internal political aspects cannot be ignored, for both Iran and North Korea space launches. Iran recently successfully launched a satellite and has promised another one, help to garner legitimacy for the regime by projecting an aura of modernity. The same might said to apply in China (recall China’s first man in space) and was undoubtedly an important factor in the space race between the US and the Soviet Union.

Just prior to the recent re-election of Kim Jong il as chairman of the National Defence Commission, at a session of the North Korean legislature, the “dear leader” engaged in a major “campaign” blitz across the country where the rocket launch figured very highly in the propaganda offensive. According to The Washington Post Kim, “seems to have used the launch as the featured event in a campaign to convince North Koreans that he is well, strong and fully in charge of the country”.

If so, this would make the rocket launch more consistent with a space launch, not a missile test. We should not presume that the North’s actions are all designed for external political effect.

Granted the North has engaged in troublesome conduct, but as Leon Sigal has argued the behaviour of the North has tended to be tactically based upon tit-for-tat. The 2006 nuclear test, for example, occurred after fake US money laundering allegations scuttled diplomatic agreement. Such tactics are the tactics of a rational actor. For Cumings, “North Korean behaviour has been quite predictable” and “an irresponsible American media” actually “obscures the real nature of the United States-Korean conflict”. This means that North Korea would not lie outside of the rationality criterion of deterrence theory, which undermines the case for Ballistic Missile Defence.

North Korea’s reaction to the UN Security Resolution fits this tit-for-tat tactical pattern. As a part of the six-party process North Korea has declared that it has separated 37kg of plutonium, enough for a small nuclear deterrent. The Yongbyon reactor can produce about 4-6kg of plutonium per year, enough for one bomb. Should the North Korea proceed to reverse the partial disablement of the Yonbyon facility we would not expect the North to engage in the mass production of weapons. North Korea has also stated that it will consider building a light water reactor, but analysts consider this to be beyond the current capability. Such a reactor would also require an enrichment plant built to an industrial scale.

By contrast under the Bush administration the US strategy appeared to have been one of regime change based on selective external pressure, under the assumption that the regime in Pyongyang was tottering on the brink of collapse. I invite the reader to consider the ethics of subjecting a nation in the grip of famine to external pressure for strategic and political ends. This dubious approach to nuclear diplomacy has been expertly documented by Mike Chinoy, a former CNN journalist.

Further sanctions will do little to help matters. Indeed, under the tit-for-tat historical pattern sanctions might very well lead to further escalation. North Korea still has room in which to ride the escalation ladder, for instance by restarting a proper missile testing schedule. It can further play the role of spoiler by undermining attempts to control nuclear and missile technology trade. If our goal is escalation control then sanctions are not a viable policy option.

The core underlying issue that is before us is that the US needs to change the assumptions of its North Korea policy and engage in meaningful dialogue, if necessary by way of direct bilateral talks, with a view towards gradually integrating North Korea into the broader Northeast Asian regional architecture. This would open up room for would be reformers in the North Korean power structure. Such changes can occur in the most unlikely of places; it was not long after the Cultural Revolution that China began its four modernisations reform program.

To do anything less is to risk the eruption of conflict or strife on the Korean peninsula that would make Iraq and Afghanistan pale in comparison. Peaceful reintegration of the Korean peninsula, or greater co-habitation, remains a key global security issue; we could be slipping towards a major human catastrophe. In a very real sense this lies at the heart of the situation, rather than warheads and missiles.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. All


Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Mark Beljac teaches at Swinburne University of Technology, is a board member of the New International Bookshop, and is involved with the Industrial Workers of the World, National Tertiary Education Union, National Union of Workers (community) and Friends of the Earth.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Marko Beljac

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Photo of Marko Beljac
Article Tools
Comment Comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy