“What will they want next?” my colleague Jon Wolfsthal asked, “an MC Hammer comeback tour?”

Oh boy. Where to start?

1.

First, there is no military purpose for placing B61 gravity bombs in South Korea. Look, I am all for studying improved earth penetrators, but those are coming on B-2 bombers out of Missouri. I can’t come up with a single, credible scenario to use a B61 off the wing of a fighter aircraft operating from South Korea. Moreover, the United States would need to construct new hardened shelters to house redeployed nukes in South Korea* and stand up a unit to handle them.** The Air Force would hate this idea. And then there are the South Koreans. Some political figures may call for the reintroduction of nuclear weapons, but look at South Korea as a whole. Tens of thousands of people turned out in Seoul to protest Lee Myun Bak’s decision to allow the importation of US beef. These people rioted over the introduction of American hamburgers. Let’s not try nuclear weapons, OK?

Second, the US isn’t going to have B61s much longer. As I noted last year, the B61 Life Extension Program is in terrible, terrible trouble — largely because certain nuclear weapons afficionados insisted on a politically-driven exercise to implement as many technical changes as possible without regard to managing program risk. As a result, the cost for the program has now ballooned to $6 billion. You think the Air Force is going to spend several million to make the F-35 nuclear-capable when they are worried that cost growth will endanger the entire program? This whole enterprise has been seriously mismanaged. In 2010 and 2011, I warned that pointing to the F-35 and B61 as tangible symbols of our commitment to certain allies was a dumb idea. (“Still, I have my doubts about the viability of both the B61 LEP and the plan to make the F-35 nuclear-capable. Some future Administration is going to have to explain that the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) didn’t really mean what it said about forward-deployed nuclear weapons on tactical aircraft.”)

So, you know, apart from not having the bombs, airplanes, shelters, or people, redeploying tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea is a great fucking idea.

2.

But that’s not what really irritates me. Congress does dumb stuff all the time in the name of grandstanding. What really bothers me is that the study, as it is framed, misses a wonderful opportunity to ask a serious question. Every time I give a talk about extended deterrence, I make the case for someone, anyone to start thinking about how best to extend deterrence from our strategic triad.

The overall direction of the current budgetary environment is totally clear: With the impending retirement of the nuclear-armed Tomahawk (TLAM/N), the B61 is the last tactical nuclear weapons system. It has no support from US Air Forces Europe (USAFE) or the Air Force as a whole. Sooner or later, the B61 goes down too, and all we’re going to have are the capabilities embodied in the strategic triad of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) and heavy bombers. It’s time to start thinking about ways to use these capabilities to reassure our allies.

• My personal favorite suggestion is to resume visits by SSBNs or, in the case of politically sensitive countries like Japan, the four ballistic missile submarines converted to carry only conventional weapons (Guided Missile Submarines or SSGNs). When the Carter Administration reduced US nuclear weapons in South Korea, it inaugurated a series of SSBN visits to illustrate the continuing US commitment. It is impossible to assess how effective such visits were given how terribly Carter and Park Chung Hee got on, but the idea was, I think, basically sound. I know, for example, that certain European countries would be just as satisfied with SSBN visits as with forward-deployed aircraft. Or, at least, specific people in the correct jobs have said as much.
• Another idea is to invite allied militaries to place liaison officers at United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM). STRATCOM’s mission is broad enough — it encompasses cyber areas, for instance — that countries with nuclear allergies could still participate. Why not invite a Japanese liaison officer with expertise on Chinese cyberwarfare capabilities? They have to have at least one, right?
• I am rather less a fan of “forward deployment” of the B-2 bomber, if only because the US wouldn’t actually forward-deploy B-2s to use nuclear weapons. Call me crazy, but I don’t like reassuring allies with lies.
• Finally, it’s now common to call for relying more on consultations than hardware, but let me make a specific recommendation about the agenda for consultations. The Obama Administration did a great job of consulting with Japan during the Nuclear Posture Review, but it is less clear to me that those consultations have been sustained. The US and ROK established an Extended Deterrence Policy Committee, which is a great idea, but I’ve heard less about comparable Japanese institutions. Perhaps that’s intentional. In any event, one of the challenges is how to consult with allies that have no operational role in nuclear missions. What is there to talk about? Who do we even talk to? Fortunately, STRATCOM seems to be moving, in the Deterrence JOC and other areas, toward a conception of deterrence that is not specific to nuclear weapons, but rather focused on a spectrum of capabilities including missile defenses and conventional strike. Our own evolution in thinking about deterrence offers an opportunity to have a frank discussion with certain allies about the role that nuclear weapons do, and more importantly do not, play in their security.

The Senate will, of course, have a chance to respond to the House language. Rather than just eliminate the study, which responds to a reasonable concern about North Korea’s myriad provocations albeit in an entirely unreasonable manner, the Senate might propose a broader study, not limited to the Western Pacific, about how to strengthen extended deterrence in an era of budget austerity, with a particular emphasis on how to get more reassurance out of the capabilities we have. That seems rather more productive than asking for studies of things that won’t happen.

OK, you’ve been very patient since I opened with the MC Hammer joke. Here you go:

* The shelters themselves are probably relatively cheap. The USAF spent $214 million over 1994/1995 to build 215 shelters. In 2012 dollars, that works out to about $1.3 million per shelter. If you build 11 shelters, which is about standard from looking at airbases in Europe, you have my estimate of $15 million. That’s a rough calculation based on secondary sources — so caveat emptor — but still the cost of shelters is probably in the tens-of-millions-of-dollars range. One option, I suppose, would be to let the ROKs pay for the construction of the appropriate shelters, without committing to filling them with nuclear weapons.

** I originally wrote Munitions Support Squadron (MUNSS), but that was me being lazy. Kunsan is a US airbase, so the existing munitions squadron would assume the responsibilities, although this would not be a trivial alteration in mission. MUNSS are units that, as best I can tell, exist to support allied aircraft with DCA (dual-capable aircraft).

Updates | 12 May 2012 8:13 PST A “military source” tells conservative Chosun Ilbo that the “amendment adopted by the U.S. House Armed Services Committee to redeploy tactical nuclear weapons in the Korean Peninsula will hurt attempts to resolve the North Korean nuclear weapon issues.”  The article also manages to completely foul up the issue of nuclear weapons yields.

Also, I noticed that KCNA is now offering more detailed (though still false) claims that the US has nuclear weapons in South Korea. This is nonsense, but I’ll probably try to figure out what KCNA is sourcing.  The story refers to a “report” from the ROK National Assembly dated October 9, 2005 and a “confidential document of the U.S. forces declassified in December 2010.”

Finally, in response to a commenter, I tried to reduce the overall acronym burden.

Oh, my.

Accidents, of course, happen.  Given that many people in Iran and elsewhere believe that there is a campaign to murder Iranian scientists associated with the nuclear and missile programs, however, suspicious minds will wonder whether this accident is some form of retribution — either directly or perhaps the indirect result of overaggressive security types.

We don’t know that.  We simply have to wait patiently for more information.  Obviously, I would expect an enormous amount of scrutiny.

Perhaps to avoid jumping to conclusions about the case of Okseok Seo, I want to discuss a mystery that has fascinated me for the past 18 months.  I thought I would, briefly, recount the case of Pierre Noir — as far as I know, the only other on-the-job fatality involving an IAEA inspector.

Larry Scheinman, a national treasure, told me a story last year about Pierre Noir, an IAEA inspector of French nationality who was electrocuted during a visit in Taiwan in 1979 or 1980.  I became interested and started asking around.  A few other colleagues mentioned hearing the story, although the details differ.  Noir may have stepped on a live wire or been working on a piece of video equipment when he lost his life.  He may have been removed to a US navy vessel for treatment, where the doctors were not able to save him.  Yet hard, documented details remain elusive.

Some people, I notice, remain very suspicious about the circumstances surrounding Noir’s death.  Taiwan, after all, had a nuclear weapons program in the 1970s and 1980s, as David Albright and Corey Hinderstein (nee Gay) detail in Nuclear Nightmare Averted.   Inspectors from the IAEA, like Noir, played a central role in discovering several irregularities at the Taiwan Research Reactor — including an unsafeguarded exit port in the fuel pond — that strongly suggested Taiwan intended to divert fuel for a nuclear weapons program. Declassified documents from this period, available from the National Security Archive, show how the US used the IAEA revelations to put the screws to Taiwan to end (sort of ) its covert nuclear weapons program.  There is no evidence that I know of suggesting foul-play in Noir’s accident, but the surrounding circumstances are more than sufficient to plot a novel soaked with international intrigue.  It isn’t surprising, I suppose, that plenty of people still wonder what happened to Pierre Noir was an accident or not.

Unfortunately, as I say, I’ve come up zeros in documenting any of this.  I’ve been able to determine that Pierre Noir existed.  That’s not much, but it is something.  (I had my doubts — the name is just too good to be true.) I’ve heard the story a few times, but what I really want to do is ask you dear readers to help out.

It will be some time before we know more about the circumstances surrounding the death of Okseok Seo, but in the current media environment, he is unlikely to be forgotten — as Pierre Noir appears to have been.

The issues it raises continue to be very interesting.  I am embroiled in several very interesting discussions, one of which is occurring in the comments to my previous post, Real Fake Missiles.  My favorite moment has been encountering the acronym BFRC — Big F*cking Red Cloud.  Here are some descriptions I found elsewhere:

The thing that always scared us was, in Gemini, when the Titan [was] flight-pressurized.  And we had that glorious BFRC.  You’re familiar with that term?  It stands for “big fucking red cloud.” See, whenever they had a leak, they said, “Don’t open the elevator door!” It was big red stuff.  You’re talking about nitrogen tetroxide all around us. http://books.google.com/books?id=LWMivGgbM7kC

NTO leakage on the engine test stands at WSTF was known as a “BFRC.” One might hear over the loud speakers, “We have a BFRC on 3!” A new secretary asked her boss, “What does BFRC mean?” Like a pluperfect idiot he told her. “BFRC means Big F*cking Red Cloud.” Shortly thereafter a directive came down from the head-shed that from that time forward, BFRC’s would be referred to as “Propellant Excursions.” I really believe to this day that “BFRC” better described the urgency of the situation. http://www.spacetweepsociety.org/category/space-history/apollo/

NTO, of course, is what North Korea may use as an oxidizer.  I wonder how to say Big F*cking Red Cloud in Korean?

Many of you have noticed that Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker’s paper on the mockups garnered a significant amount of press attention, including a nice story in the New York Times by Choe Sang-hun with Bill Broad, who took a break from his battle with the Yoga-Industrial Complex.

I think most people agree that the missiles are mock-ups, but that raises a second question:  Are the mockups “complete fantasy missiles,” as Markus and Robert argue, or are they indicators of what’s to come?

I have to say, I lean toward the latter view.  The missiles are fakes, but they may be real fakes — that is to say genuine indications of North Korea’s technical path toward an ICBM.

Consider the title of Schiller and Schmucker”s article — “Dog and Pony Show.” This was a parade.  Of course it was a dog-and-pony show.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn something from mockups.

The insular little community of open-source missile modelers is busy sending emails to-and-fro on the subject.  I can’t possibly provide a comprehensive account of everything that has clogged up my inbox.  Still, I wanted to share some of the more interesting observations.

1.

It is normal to make mockups, sometimes called “missile simulators,” before building the real thing. This, for example, is a mockup of a Minuteman missile on a test-stand.

In 1994, the United States intelligence community spotted two “missile simulators” — you know, mockups.  Those two mockups were bestowed the names Taepodong 1 and 2.  As it turns out, those two missile simulators fairly represented the missiles that North Korea would test fire in 1998 and — after abandoning the 1999-2006 launch moratorium — in 2006, 2009, and 2012.

Here is how Barbara Starr described the Taepodong 2:

Last month US intelligence detected what is described as a new ‘missile simulator’ at the Sanum Dong R&D Facility. Reports of a simulator apparently refer to a hardware mock-up detected by intelligence satellites.

The missile has been given the provisional designation Taepo Dong-2 (TD-2). It is a two-stage missile. The mock-up was 32 m long, consisting of an 18 m by 2.4 m diameter first stage and a 14 m by 1.3 m second stage. The second stage appeared to be similar to a No Dong-1 missile with a rounded nosecone, while the fatter lower stage is around the size of a 1970s-vintage Chinese CSS-2/DF-3/ Dongfeng-3 IRBM propellant section.

The dimensions turned out to be revealing — although the 2.4 m first stage would house a cluster of Nodong engines, rather than a DF-3 as Starr reported, and North Korea would replace the Nodong-based second stage with an R-27  (SS-N-6).  But the missiles seen in 1994 (as depicted by Jane’s at left) are clearly forebears of the missiles depicted by the US intelligence community in 2008 (right). Ted Postol estimated the first stage of the Unha (better known as the TD-2) as 2.4 m in diameter and 16 m long.  The simulator wasn’t exactly right, but one could learn a lot about where the DPRK was headed from looking at it closely.

It is plausible, to me, that North Korea created the mockups on parade as part of a program to develop real missiles that look more or less exactly like them.  Many have observed that the missiles in the parade were numbered.  Perhaps it was a coincidence, but many of the instances of poor workmanship were more visible in the units with lower numbers. If the mockups were numbered sequentially, there is a hint of increasing realism that suggests these were more than just parade dummies.

2.

Although North Korea has not flight-tested the Musudan IRBM, the National Air and Space Intelligence Center lists it as deployed, with fewer than 50 launchers.  That’s strange — the intelligence community has a special term for missiles that are flight-tested but not deployed (“initial threat availability”) but not the other way around.

One possibility is that North Korea has deployed the IRBM based solely on static engine tests on conducted on test stands.  South Korean press reports describe at least one static test of a long-range in November 2011 and another four in early 2012, while US officials regularly noted the continuation of static engine testing during North Korea’s 1999-2006 launch moratorium.

I am certain the United States would not settle for static tests alone, but perhaps the North Koreans see the situation differently.  Still, for those who doubt the existence of the new ICBM, it is difficult to static-test an engine that does not exist.

3.

There is a huge discussion about what sort of technological path these ICBMs might represent, if any.  Allow me to articulate just one view, which I suspect is the view of at least some people in the intelligence community.  North Korea imported Scud missiles from Egypt, then proceeded to build an entire missile program on this technology.  North Korean enlarged the Scud into the Nodong, stuck a Scud on top of a Nodong (Taepodong 1) and then clustered some Nodong engines with another Nodong on top (Taepodong 2.)

Now, North Korea has imported the R-27 (SS-N-6) — a better baseline technology that uses more energetic propellants: unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) and nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4).

North Korea has apparently reconfigured the Taepodong 2, sticking an SS-N-6 on top of a cluster of Nodong engines, topped by a smaller SS-N-6-derived third stage (vernier engines only, it seems).  North Korea also enlarged the SS-N-6 much as it enlarged the Scud, creating the Musudan IRBM.  North Korea may try to replicate the approach it took to Scuds, just with a better technology.  So, North Korea may try to either cluster SS-N-6 engines or stack SS-N-6-derived stages on top of one another.  One of the big debates we are having now is about what North Korea might be able to squeeze into the 2 m first stage of the new ICBM.

You’re invited to participate, in the comments or offline at jeffrey [at] armscontrolwonk.com.

There is all sorts of wild talk, mostly around the possibility of a third DPRK nuclear test.  But that’s hardly the weirdest, most disturbing thing occurring on the Korean peninsula.

The North Korean propaganda campaign against South Korean President Lee Myung-bak is in high dudgeon with all manner of ugliness.  Particularly unpleasant examples can be seen in a series of cartoons showing Lee as a rat.  There is something really shocking about them, possibly because the artistic cues are all very modern but the sentiment expressed is distinctly medieval.

Take a gander at the cartoons below the jump.

Just a word of context: Lee Myung-bak as rat seems to be a theme, accompanied with a threat in KCNA to “reduce all the rat-like groups and the bases for provocations to ashes in three or four minutes, in much shorter time, by unprecedented peculiar means and methods of our own style” — whatever that means:

The special actions of our revolutionary armed forces will start soon to meet the reckless challenge of the group of traitors.

Those actions are an eruption of the public anger and resentment and a sacred war of all service personnel and people to protect the dignity of our supreme leadership.

Their targets are the Lee Myung Bak group of traitors, the arch criminals, and the group of rat-like elements including conservative media destroying the mainstay of the fair public opinion.

Once the above-said special actions kick off, they will reduce all the rat-like groups and the bases for provocations to ashes in three or four minutes, in much shorter time, by unprecedented peculiar means and methods of our own style.

Our revolutionary armed forces do not make an empty talk.

Seriously?  And you thought I was war-mongering when I suggested we swap the casing on the B83?

1.

First, let’s be clear about who makes the WS51200.  The Hubei Sanjiang Space Wanshan Special Vehicle Co is wholly-owned subsidiary of the state-run China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, which manufactures ballistic missiles for the Chinese military.  This is not some obscure vehicle manufacturer in China: this is a state-owned defense firm.

Late update | 24 April 2012 Oh, I hate being wrong — but I have to conclude that the sales figures for flatbed transporters probably refer to a different line of products than the WS-series, leaving us back at square one on WS-series sales.  I still suspect that, until North Korea placed its order, the WS-series existed to serve the needs of a single customer: The People’s Liberation Army.  But I overlooked the other parts of the civilian business.

As far as I can tell, three or four Chinese ballistic missiles use Wanshan TELs: the DF-11, DF-16, DF-21 and probably the DF-31.  According to sales data cumulative to 2007 and 2009, Wanshan seems to sell about 50 vehicles are year.  Looking at the expansion in launchers for DF-11, DF-16 and DF-21 and DF-31 TELs, my best guess is that Wanshan has no civilian customers.

According to the website, we know the Wanshan Special Vehicle Company had sold 100 vehicles by 2007 and 200 vehicles by 2009.

Those numbers coincide pretty closely with the added launchers reported in the annual Chinese Military Power, published by the Department of Defense.  By my calculation, China added 90-100 launches of these four types in 2008-2009, precisely what Wanshan reports as its sales over the same period.

The numbers for the preceding period — though 2007 — also work out closely (90-100) if you count all the DF-21s as getting shiny new TELs. There is a lot of rounding here and there, so take all this with a grain of salt.  Still, the overall point is very clear: To a first approximation, until North Korea placed its order, the Wanshan Special Vehicle existed to serve the needs of a single customer: The People’s Liberation Army.

2.

Second, let’s also be clear about how the Wanshan Special Vehicle Co. came to be Northeast Asia’s leading manufacturer of transporter-erector-launchers.

In 199, the United States spotted a Belarus-manufactured MAZ 547V sitting outside at Nanyuan.  The MAZ 547V is the TEL for the SS-20.  Wanshan most likely used this TEL as part of its development of the WS-series and the external resemblances are evident.

The United States was clear at the time that the MAZ 547V was a Category II system under the MTCR. (Neither Belarus nor China were, or are, members of the MTCR.)  Belarus officials confirmed the sale and did not dispute the origin of the MAZ 547V, explaining that “The chassis was designed as a missile launcher but is now sold primarily as an ‘off-road truck’ used in hauling jet fuel at airfields or coal from mines.” Given the appearance of the TEL at a missile production facility, Chinese officials clearly were not using it to haul coal.

US law did not provide for sanctions on the transfer of Category II systems (which are subject to less restrictive criteria than Category I items), so the US simply complained to Belarus.

3.

The MTCR Annex clearly controls “Vehicles designed or modified for the transport, handling, control, activation and launching of the systems specified in 1.A” as a Category II item.  This is the verabatim language used in the UNSCR sanctions document on North Korea, which make no distinction as far as I can tell between Cat I and II systems.

The important phrase is “designed or modified.”  The MTCR Annex actually defines that phrase, a definition the relevant UNSCR sanctions document also repeats verbatim:

(a)         “Designed or modified” describes equipment, parts or components which, as a result of “development,” or modification, have specified properties that make them fit for a particular application. “Designed or modified” equipment, parts, components or “software” can be used for other applications. For example, a titanium coated pump designed for a missile may be used with corrosive fluids other than propellants.

Notice that the example given — a titanium coated pump — demonstrates that legitimate civilian applications do not alter the controlled nature of the item.  The only test is whether a TEL has ” have specified properties that make them fit for a particular application.”  Possible civilian uses are irrelevant to this discussion.

There are a number of modifications to a TEL beyond the very rugged chassis designed to preserve the missile while traveling off-road.  The MTCR Handbook gives, as an example, the integration of an erector in the chassis.  The news reporting related to the Belarus sale listed other possibilities: all-wheel independent suspension, higher ground clearance, driver-controlled central tire inflation and deflation systems; and large-diameter, wide-profile, variable-inflation tires.

Driver-controlled central tire inflation and deflation systems is my favorite.  Did you know tire inflation systems are on the US munitions list?

The point is that a vehicle like this is designed with a number of special features that distinguish it from a run-of-the-mill off-road vehicle.  The existence of a few civilian applications for the same technologies does not change the fact that the item is controlled.

4.

Finally, let me close by noting that the sale of launch support vehicles is not a trivial matter.

North Korea, as this MTCR paper distributed by the United States makes clear, is dependent on foreign suppliers for heavy-duty vehicle chassis. (Warning: Wikileaks!)

In 2011, Joe Bermudez reported that North Korea’s “Second Machine Industry Bureau oversaw the contract with Chinese firms for the development and production of TELs and support vehicles based upon Minsk Automobile Plant (MAZ) designs (for example, the MAZ-543) for the Nodong, Musudan and Taepodong/Unha systems.”

The Chinese executing the contract certainly knew who they were dealing with and why. Rugged, off-road TELs dramatically increase the area in which North Korea can move its ballistic missile force. Over the past few years, North Korea appears to be investing in an actual, deployed missile force that is more than a mere abstract capability. TELs are an important element of such a capability.

The best account of this transformation is Joe Bermudez’s June 2011 article in Jane’s Intelligence Review entitled, “Behind the lines – North Korea’s ballistic missile units.”

As best I can tell, reporters don’t really understand that this isn’t the same missile as the Unha-3.

It’s not.  It’s different.  This is important.

1.

One set of issues relates to whether the missiles were real, or simply aspirational mock-ups.  I am uploading a paper — “Dog and Pony Show” — by Markus Schiller and Robert Schmucker that is strongly of the view that we are looking at mockups.  Some commenters may  disagree, especially about the little white straps.

(Schiller and Schmucker are skeptical that this will ever be a real missile, although I hasten to add that the United States saw a pair of “missile simulators” — better known as  mockups — in 1994 that gave us the TD-1 and -2 names we use today. See: Barbara Starr, “N Korea Casts a Longer Shadow with the TD-2,” Jane’s Defence Weekly, March 12, 1994.)

2.

To the extent that this new missile has received any attention at all, it is the truck that seems to interest reporters.  I find that fascinating.  Normally, I’d be impressed, but stop ignoring the missile!

The TEL is an important part of the weapons system (unless you plan to strap the missile to a donkey) and North Korea is dependent on foreign suppliers for heavy-duty vehicle chassis (warning: wikileaks cable).

China appears to be the supplier, in violation of existing sanctions on North Korea.

There seems to be some confusion about the basis for stating that the export of  TEL is a violation of the Security Council Resolution.  UNSCR1718 and UNSCR 1874 are actually pretty clear about this. All member states are obligated to prevent the supply to the DPRK of a number of items, including:

(ii)  all items, materials, equipment, goods and technology as set out in the lists in documents S/2006/814 and S/2006/815, unless within 14 days of adoption of this resolution the Committee has amended or completed their provisions also taking into account the list in document S/2006/816, as well as other items, materials, equipment, goods and technology, determined by the Security Council or the Committee, which could contribute to DPRK’s nuclear-related, ballistic missile-related or other weapons of mass destruction-related programmes;

S/2006/815 defines ballistic missile programs list pursuant to resolution 1718 (2006).  It is identical to the MTCR Annex. Both list “Vehicles designed or modified for the transport, handling, control, activation and launching of the systems specified in 1.A” as controlled items.  Although such a vehicle is a less-sensitive Category II transfer under the MTCR, there is little doubt it violates the sanctions resolution. (UNSCR 1874 expanded these obligations and provided the opportunity for an updated statement of controlled items.  Short version: TELs still not okay to transfer.)

If China exported the trucks after 2006, this is a clear violation of sanctions. The resemblance between the DPRK TEL and two Chinese models — WS2600 and the WS51200 –  are obvious.

I think it is a WS51200.  The little face plate to hide the notch in the cab doesn’t fool me any more than the bright red paint  job.  That sucker is designed to carry very large missiles. There are a series of interesting Chinese announcements about initial production of the WS51200 (1|2) including one that has been taken down.

Why the rush boys?  Have an export order that needed to be filled before a parade?

We’ve posted a FAQ on North Korea’s Upcoming Space Launch at the MIIS website, but I wanted to round up some of the reporting and suggest something provocative about why North Korea might be doing this.

1.

First, the wonkporn: North Korea allowed journalists to view, and photograph, the Unha-3 launch vehicle and Kwangmyŏngsŏng-3 satellite.

We already expected the Unha-3 to look like the Unha-2 with a larger third stage based on the “splashdown” locations provided by North Korea to the International Maritime Organizations.  (NorthKoreaTech has provided invaluable coverage of information provided to the IMO, ITU and so forth.) The images, particularly those released by AP, BBC and MSNBC confirm that the first and second stages appear the same as in 2009, while the third stage is slightly longer.

There is a small debate at SatObs over North Korea’s claim that the satellite will be placed in a sun-synchronous orbit, although I tend to share Jonathan McDowell’s view that North Korea will be happy if the satellite works for just a few days.

2.

After North Korea announced the satellite launch, Kim Gye Gwan sent a letter to Glyn Davies asking for a meeting to explain.  The Administration rejected the overture.

Chris Nelson has now published the full-text of Kim Gye-Gwan’s letter, noting “This is the translation…?…being circulated.”  Take that for what it is worth:

March 20, 2012

Dear Ambassador Davies,

I was very disappointed of the US counter position dated March 21st, 2012.

The DPRK had taken part in the last three round of the DPRK-US high level bilateral talks and moved very quickly for implementing the February 29 Agreement.

Early this month in Beijing, our side displayed the maximum magnanimity and archived an agreement in the working meeting on the DPRK-US nutrition assistance. We also suggested the IAEA to hold a technical meeting to discuss ways of moratorium on our uranium enrichment and invited its officials. Our relevant agency had already entered technical preparation works to stop the operation of centrifuges at the Nyong-byon uranium enrichment plant.

Nonetheless, the US side took counter measures in haste to suspend the implementation of the DPRK-US bilateral deal, blaming our peaceful satellite launch as a violation of the deal, which is regarded as an action without discretion and fairness.

The DPRK needs badly exploring and using the space science and technology for its economic construction and thus it can not be deprived of and abandoned. We have never hided or lied about it.  Since the first round of the DPRK-US high level bilateral talks, I had made very clear that the moratorium on long range missile launch did not include our peaceful satellite launch and that provided us with a fundamental base for our deal.

In order to show our sincerity and transparency that our launch does not aim at aggravating the situation and breaking the deal but at resolving our peaceful necessity on the occasion of the DPRK’s greatest national holiday, we invited satellite experts exceptionally from countries with advanced space exploration including the US to visit the launching station.

The US should not judge our peaceful satellite launch as a ballistic missile fire a view of confrontation and should send its experts at our invitation to the launching station and let them have an chance to see the launching and operation with their own eyes and make objective and fair assessment on our intention unless it has any hostile intend as affirmed in the DPRK-US deal.

We are concerned of the US decision to suspend the nutrition assistance process because it is a clear violation of a core element of the DPRK-US deal. We recall the US policy not to link humanitarian aids with politics and US side had mentioned that the nutrition assistance was the “irreversible step” in the previous talks.  The US should not take a very indiscrete and unfair measure of stopping the nutrition aids unless it hopes to break all items of the deal with our peaceful satellite launch.

It is our position that our satellite launching is totally separate matter from the DPRK-US agreement and DPRK is in a position to implement to the end.

Regarding this, I would be willing to meet you at the earliest dates in Beijing or other convenient place to explain our position personally and discuss ways to control the situation following the launch.

Your response on this suggestion would be highly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Kim, Kye Gwan

I underline one passage, because it got me thinking.

3.

The best thing written so far on this whole fiasco has been Georgy Toloraya’s essay for 38 North, in which he concludes the US and the DPRK “did not quite grasp each others’ real intentions or reach the right conclusions.”

That much seems obvious.  Let’s try to grasp at intentions for a moment.  Why did North Korea agree to this deal?

Many of us — myself included — have implicitly placed the nutritional assistance at the center of the discussion of North Korean motivations, as though North Korea’s strategic calculations might be altered by 240,000 tons of plumpy’nut and other sundries. Toloraya mocks that notion, which is pretty stupid when you think about it, asking”Was anybody so naive as to presume the North would cancel such a prestigious project by silently including its ‘cost’ into the ridiculously low price of 240,000 tons of food?”

That’s a good point.  If not the food, then what the hell was Kim Gye Gwan doing in Beijing?  If we look at Kim’s letter to Davies, an interesting alternative emerges: Kim describes the ability of North Korea to launch a satellite as ”a fundamental base for our deal.”

What happens if we read Kim literally and put the rocket launch at the center for Pyongyang’s strategic calculations?

Last fall, it was fashionable to argue that Pyongyang would seek a period of strategic calm during the centenary celebrations for Kim Il Sung.  That seems wildly incorrect right now, but perhaps it wasn’t so far off the mark.

It is an interesting problem for Kim Il Sung’s progeny.  How does the regime in Pyongyang do something really big for his 100th birthday without triggering another regional crisis that will mar all the fun?  When your main technical achievements as a nation are missiles and nuclear weapons, your options aren’t that great.

What if the DPRK concluded that celebrating Kim Il Sung’s birthday with a space launch was the best chance to celebrate juche, while simultaneously making efforts to reduce the political costs associated with such an act.  In other words, what if the space launch wasn’t a bargaining chip, but Kim Gye Gwan’s primary strategic objective?

It is possible that Pyongyang engaged in this entire process in the first place largely to avoid the sort international reaction that, in retrospect, seems unavoidable.  That might explain why, having gotten thisclose, the North Koreans decided to call and see if Obama was bluffing.  What would they have to lose?

I can’t assert with any confidence that this is what happened, but nor do I find any basis on which to exclude the possibility.

4.

One of the interesting little stories in all of this is how Track II observers heard — or think they heard — something different from the North Koreans.

Evans Revere, for example, has written an article in which he suggests that North Korean officials during Track II discussions heavily emphasized the satellite launch to him:

First, last week was not the first time that the DPRK spoke of its plans to launch a satellite. I first became aware of this possibility on December 15, 2011, during an exchange with a DPRK official. The official spoke at length about the DPRK’s “sovereign right” to conduct such launches and warned that any U.S. effort to interfere with or oppose this plan would make the DPRK even more determined to carry it out.

My North Korean interlocutor was well aware that a launch would violate a series of UN Security Council resolutions and would lead to serious consequences. This conversation convinced me that the DPRK was determined to carry out a launch in the near future.

The Obama administration had already heard similar statements from North Korean counterparts, and had already delivered a strong warning to the DPRK. The warning included specific statements that a launch would violate of the U.S.-DPRK understandings that eventually resulted in the Leap Day agreement.

Equally or even more important, my conversation took place three days before the death of Kim Jong-il. It thus seems likely that the decision to announce a launch had already been taken by the now-deceased Kim. After his death, the only question that remained was when to announce it.

Revere has also given a few interviews (1|2).

What is interesting about this is that Revere notes “This conversation convinced me that the DPRK was determined to carry out a launch in the near future.”  That is a telling phrase — “convinced me.” In other words, Revere had to do a little intellectual work to draw the (correct) conclusion about the meaning of the North Korean remarks.  It is, of course, completely possible that Davies and Hart, sitting in Beijing, simply did not read between the lines as Revere had done.  They may not have understood why Kim Gye Gwan was sitting in the room in the first place and completely misread what he was saying.

That’s not that hard to believe.  Face-to-face negotiations, across language and culture, are not easy.  This isn’t a simple misunderstanding, but it is a misunderstanding all the same.  A big, fundamental misunderstanding about what each party hoped to achieve from this engagement.

What is harder to understand is how long that misunderstanding persisted.  Chris Nelson added an important detail from a conversation with Revere, namely “that he passed on this information to the appropriate Administration officials, and that they appeared to already be aware of the situation.” Of course, those same officials were very dismissive of reporters who pointed out obvious discrepancies in the North Korean and US unilateral statements.

I point all this out not to lambaste Davies and Hart, so much as to ask whether anyone — inside the Administration or participating in the Track II process — spent much time considering why the North Koreans might be engaging at all. I know I didn’t. Did they really all think that this was about 240,000 tons of food aid?  Or simply pressure by the Chinese?

Of course, perhaps this is simply a complicated way of saying that the US did not understand why North Korea agreed to the Leap Day Deal in the first place.  I guess we knew that the moment the DPRK announced the satellite launch.

When the Washington Post published a letter, purportedly from Jon Byong Ho to AQ Khan, we had a lively debate here about whether or not it was real. Some of the questions related to font, kerning, stationery and even how Jon signed his name.

In trying to reach some sort of judgement about the veracity of this document, I was struck by how few examples of official DPRK stationery I have seen.  I went through all the DPRK-IAEA  communications, for example, only to find they were by TELEX.

Until now!

I have acquired a copy of the DPRK’s invitation to the IAEA to “discuss technical issues with regard to the monitoring of moratorium on uranium enrichment activities at Nyongbyon in accordance with the agreement of the DPRK-US high-level Talks held in Beijing recently.”

Now that is some stationery!

The document is also interesting because the DPRK is very clear that the invitation is to discuss the monitoring of the moratorium on uranium enrichment activities at Yongbyon.  The document contains no reference to reprocessing facilities, the disabled 30 MWth reactor or the light-water reactor under construction.  US officials were dismissive when reporters tried to point out these discrepancies.  But the reporters were right.

I have to admit, this looks terrible for the Administration.

By the way, has anyone heard a peep from Glyn Davies since all this went down?  The press is hinting that he’s no longer speaking in public. For example, the Korea Times mentioned seeing Davies outside the State Department: “Davies swiftly went back into the building, without talking to the media.”  There is a little editorializing in that sentence — the decision to mention the appearance at all, the characterization of his departure as “swift.”

Poor guy.  By my estimate, Davies has 32 years in the foreign service.  He’s probably taking this abuse to hit the magic 35 and get his retirement deductions refunded. The President should appoint Davies as an Ambassador someplace uncomplicated so he can finish out his career in peace and quiet.

Someplace where they don’t make Ambassadors tie their own ties.

Late Update | 6 April 2012 Steph Haggard has a nice analysis of the letter on his blog with Marcus Noland, North Korea: Witness To Transformation.  One issue relates to Amano’s response, dated 30 March, which is the subject of a story by AP’s George Jahn.  Here is the complete package, GOV/INF/2012/9.