North
Korean Missile Claims Are ‘a Hoax’
By Nina
Burleigh
August
12, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- As President Donald Trump escalates his war of
words against North Korea and its leader, Kim
Jong Un, a team of independent rocket experts
has asserted that the two rockets the rogue
regime launched in July and described as
intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are
incapable of delivering a nuclear payload to the
continental United States, and probably not even
to Anchorage, Alaska.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology rocket
expert Ted Postol and two German experts, Markus
Schiller and Robert Schmucker of Schmucker
Technologie, published their findings Friday in
the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,
in a paper they titled “North
Korea’s ‘Not Quite’ ICBM Can’t Hit the Lower 48
States.”
Newsweek saw an early version of the paper.
Postol
is professor of science, technology and national
security policy at MIT who has advised the
Pentagon and Congress on missile-related defense
projects. Schiller and Schmucker are missile
engineers with the Munich-based company who have
previously analyzed North Korean missiles, and
in 2012 determined that the country’s supposed
ICBMs were “fakes.” Schiller has worked on
missile analyses for NATO, the EU, the German
and Austrian armed forces and other institutions
in Europe. Schmucker has worked at NASA and
served as a U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq.
“From
the point of view of North Korean political
leadership, the general reaction to the July 4
and July 28 launches could not have been
better,” the authors wrote. “The world suddenly
believed that the North Koreans had an ICBM that
could reach the West Coast of the United States
and beyond. But calculations we have made—based
on detailed study of the type and size of the
rocket motors used, the flight times of the
stages of the rockets, the propellant likely
used, and other technical factors—indicate that
these rockets actually carried very small
payloads that were nowhere near the weight of a
nuclear warhead of the type North Korea could
have, or could eventually have. These small
payloads allowed the rockets to be lofted to far
higher altitudes than they would have if loaded
with a much-heavier warhead, creating the
impression that North Korea was on the cusp of
achieving ICBM capability.”
Postol
during an interview with Newsweek
called the missiles “a hoax,” although Friday’s
report doesn’t use that language.
The
White House has not responded to a request for
comment Friday morning. Newsweek will
update if and when it does.
“The reality is the North Korean Hwasong-14 is a
sub-level ICBM that will not be able to deliver
atom bombs to the continental United States,”
the scientists wrote in a draft version of their
report shared exclusively with
Newsweek.
The
scientists based their analysis on publicly
available information about the trajectories of
the missiles lofted on July 4 and July 28.
These independent experts determined that
defense and other analysts who decided the North
Korean missiles could carry the weight of a
nuclear payload were focused on the rocket
motor’s ability to place the rocket on maximum
achievable range, as opposed to maximum
achievable altitude.
In
other words, the independent analysts believe
that the North Korean rocket scientists
engineered the power of their rockets with an
eye toward gaining height, without demonstrating
that their devices had the range or thrust to
fly far enough horizontally—while carrying the
extra weight of a nuclear bomb—to hit a target
in Alaska or the continental U.S.
The
independent analysts also wrote that the two
July missiles carried reduced payload weights in
order to increase the altitude of their
trajectories.
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Based
on what the analysts know about the North Korean
rocket, they estimated that in order for the
missiles to reach Seattle while carrying a
nuclear bomb, the payload would have to weigh
300 kilograms, and in order to reach Anchorage,
the bomb would have to weigh less than 500 to
550 kilograms.
“Since
it is extremely unlikely that a first generation
weaponized North Korean atomic bomb would weigh
substantially less than 500 kilograms, we
conclude that neither variant of the Hwasong-14
missile could deliver a first generation North
Korean atomic bomb to the continental United
States,” the authors concluded.
Their
analysis deviates from an anonymously sourced
Defense Intelligence Agency report published in
The Washington Post earlier this week
suggesting that the North Koreans have
miniaturized atomic bombs that their rockets
could loft into the United States.
But
based on an examination of what was purported to
be an atomic bomb the North Koreans displayed in
1998, as well as on available intelligence about
bombs that have been developed in Pakistan and
Libya, and taking into consideration available
information about the material resources and
abilities of the rogue nation’s scientists, the
independent analysts conclude, “It is
overwhelmingly likely that it would not weigh
less than 500 kilograms.”
The
authors warned the rocket tests demonstrated
that the North Korean missile technology was
advancing, and that the country will eventually
produce missiles with sufficient payloads to
deliver atomic bombs to the continental United
States, but that is “probably years away.”
Another
independent expert, Michael Elleman, senior
fellow for missile defense at the International
Institute for Strategic Studies, said the new
report is the first to identify the engine
propelling the North Korean rockets, information
that allows researchers to narrow their
assumptions about the missile’s capability.
“They have greater fidelity, in other words,” he
said. But Elleman said the weight of the payload
in the July missile tests remains uncertain.
In a
separate statement attached to the article,
Postol, an expert in ballistic missile defense,
stated that while existing ballistic missile
defenses “will never work reliably,” there is
still time to develop a defense system with
available U.S. technology.
This article was first published by
News Week
-
See
also -
North Korea's Nuclear
Threats To U.S.: What Pyongyang Can And Can't Do
(Yet)
North
Korea's missile program linked to Ukraine
The
views expressed in this article are solely those
of the author and do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Information Clearing House.
