…but no tests, despite widespread apprehension that a nuclear test would mark the big 105th birthday celebration in North Korea.
That’s—interesting.
Some of the missiles appeared to be new types for North Korea:
Analysts were working to identify all the missiles that were shown off on Saturday, many of which appeared to have new paint jobs or be variants on known missiles.
One of the missiles looked similar to the KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missile that North Korea had included in previous parades. This missile has a theoretical range of about 7,500 miles, which is enough to reach all of the United States from North Korea, said Joshua Pollack, editor of the Nonproliferation Review.
It also put two ICBM canisters, which protect solid-fueled missiles from the effects of the environment, on the trucks that had carried the ICBMs previously. One may have been a KN-14, another missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, although it has a slightly shorter range.
I have to say that the first thing that occurred to me on reading that article was “how do we know these things are real?” We do know that the North Koreans have nuclear weapons, but we know that from the detonations of those weapons in tests. We don’t know it from parades.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Everything in that parade yesterday might have represented a weapon that is fully operational and ready to go. But I don’t trust that’s true, and when I Googled “How do we know the North Korean missiles in the parade are real?”, up came this article with some experts questioning the same thing. By the “same thing,” I don’t literally mean questioning whether all the missiles in the parade are real—they’re almost certainly not, because that would be a dangerous practice —but whether they truthfully represent the true nuclear capabilities of the country displaying them.
The answer is that we simply don’t know:
Under Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s off-and-on nuclear program has progressed significantly. Since he took power in 2011, Pyongyang has conducted three nuclear tests, including what it claimed to be a thermonuclear device.
Speaking to CNN last month, Euan Graham, director of international security at Australia’s Lowy Institute, cautioned against underestimating the country’s capabilities.
“I think a lot of people would have scoffed at the idea that a country of threadbare means like North Korea would be able to test (submarine-launched ballistic missiles),” he said.
But Schiller said there was still room for a great deal of skepticism.
“If you just look at what they showed on TV and in photos, it looks impressive,” he said. “But from an engineering and project management approach, a lot of mistakes have been done in the past year.”
One problem with the North Korean weapon program that’s likely to be on display at this weekend’s parade, Schiller said, is its apparently sprawling size.
Previously, mock-ups of ostensibly the same missile — such as the KN-08, which was rolled out in 2012 and 2015 — “looked very different,” Schiller said. “That would never happen if there is a frozen missile design, you know what the missile should look like.”
Whatever the exact state of its nuclear weapons program, North Korea deserves the Reaganesque term “evil empire,” and one nuclear bomb would be one too many. Under the last three presidents, the country has grown its nuclear weapons program despite our efforts to halt it. And now a fourth president gets to try. Here’s the understatement of the year [highlighted portion]:
“It should be noted that there is a personality difference between Trump and Obama,” the Global Times newspaper wrote Friday. The paper does not speak for the Chinese government on policy but often reflects a strain of thinking within the Communist Party.
“Trump is also willing to show he is different. Bombing Syria helps him to show that,” it continued, while noting that he was far from “revolutionary” because he dispatched only missiles, not troops…
Right now, Trump has some cards to play, said Kim of the Asan Institute.
“He might say: ”˜If you want one less battleship in the region, what are you going to give me?’”‰” he said ”” a reversal of the usual situation, in which North Korea asks what it can get from its adversaries in return for changing its behavior.
It had been the previous pattern that North Korea called the shots. That certainly wasn’t a productive pattern—except for North Korea.
Back in December of 2016 I wrote this about Trump:
It’s not a bad thing for the world to find a president somewhat unpredictable, as well as willing to project US strength and ability to defend itself. But too much unpredictability and too much aggressiveness can backfire and cause an equal reaction on the part of those who feel threatened.
As I’ve said before: we’ll see.
Indeed.
[NOTE: Here’s another post I wrote even earlier than that one, about the possible advantages (and disadvantages) of Trump’s unpredictability and bellicosity.
Trump is somewhat unpredictable, but he’s not crazy. The leader of North Korea is most likely both, as well as evil. Tiptoeing around him doesn’t seem to have done any good. Treating him as though he might be a somewhat rational actor amenable to pressure makes sense to me as an alternative.]
