Kim Jong Un announced that he would close North Korea’s nuclear test site. The Trump administration has greeted this announcement as part of its success in dealing with North Korea.
North Korea has announced that they will dismantle Nuclear Test Site this month, ahead of the big Summit Meeting on June 12th. Thank you, a very smart and gracious gesture!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2018
But North Korea may be doing less than Trump thinks.
The nuclear test site consists of a number of tunnels for underground nuclear explosions and support facilities for that testing. KCNA, the North Korean news agency, has released a list of activities to close the site.
First, explosives will be used to collapse the tunnels, KCNA said. Then, entries to the site will be blocked and all observation facilities, research institutes and guard structures will be removed. Guards and researchers will be withdrawn, and the area surrounding the test site will be closed.
Journalists from China, Russia, South Korea, the United States and the United Kingdom will be invited “in the interests of transparency” to view the site and a dismantlement ceremony scheduled for late May.
Nothing has been said about inviting specialists from the International Atomic Energy Agency or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, who might be able to evaluate how the test site has been used and to what extent it is being deactivated.
There has been speculation that the test site was damaged irreparably by North Korea’s last big test. This is possible, but unlikely.
In the past two weeks, buildings have been removed at the site. It is not clear whether international visitors will be allowed access to the tunnels.
The modifications that are being made to the site are probably to remove indications of the kinds of tests that were done and how the North Koreans obtained information from them. What might be learned if experts had access to the tunnels?
In the announcement that the test site would be closed, subcritical experiments were mentioned for the first time. It would be very likely that North Korea would have done such tests in developing their devices, but this is the first they have admitted it. Subcritical experiments give information about the behavior of fissile and other materials under extreme temperatures and pressures and about the behavior of an entire weapon assembly. There are many ways to do them, and seeing a North Korean experimental setup would reveal much about how sophisticated their program is.
At one time, subcritical experiments required significant amounts of fissile material. The Soviet Union did such experiments at the Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site (SNTS), now in Kazakhstan. Some they did in the open, and scattered metallic plutonium on the surface. Others were done in large containers, some of which were in tunnels and others on the surface.
As part of the decommissioning of the SNTS, the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency sealed the tunnels by dynamiting the entrances. This collapsed the tunnel perhaps ten meters in. To retrieve the plutonium, the tunnels had to be opened again. The story is here. The top photo is mine, of one of the collapsed tunnels in the Degelen Mountains.
One question would be whether North Korea did those kinds of experiments.
More modern subcritical experiments can be seen in these two videos. The sound on the second one is annoying, but it’s the only way you can tell something has happened. And there are other possibilities.
Other useful information from the tunnels might be more about the geology of the site and, if possible, isotopic sampling where the tests were done.
The test site can probably be reactivated by mining the collapsed entries to the tunnels, or another test site could be developed elsewhere. It will be prudent to monitor overhead imagery for indications of opening another site.
A part of the arms control community raised questions over verification of Iran’s likely subcritical experiments at the Parchin military base and used them to undermine the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the agreement Donald Trump repudiated. It will be interesting if they insist on similar inspections at the North Korean test site.
Which brings us to the overall question of verification of all steps that North Korea takes in any agreement with the United States. From the tweet I’ve quoted, it’s clear that he has no idea what is required.
Cross-posted at Nuclear Diner.
Major Major Major Major
They’re playing him like a fiddle right?
Mike in NC
For a renowned con man, he’s pretty dumb and easy to roll.
Cheryl Rofer
@Major Major Major Major: yep
Baud
They’re doing less than zero?
Major Major Major Major
@Mike in NC: it’s almost kind of suspicious.
Villago Delenda Est
The North Koreans are not stupid.
Donald is, and Donald will refuse to listen to American and other experts who know about these things, because they are all bearers of “Fake News.”
Mnemosyne
Is this the place to point out that Donnie’s racism will help get him rolled by the North Koreans? Trump knows that he’s smarter than Kim Jong Il because, hey, just look at the guy! You know what he means.
sdhays
@Mike in NC: It helps when you don’t consider the negotiation as having any bearing on you personally as the leader of a nation with broader interests and longer history and future than yourself. Spanky wants to open Trump Hotel Pyongyang and get kickbacks from “Li’l Rocketman” all while lots of people praise him. He doesn’t give a shit about anything else.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: no if you call him racist he’ll just say “fine! I guess I should just be a Nazi now!”
ETA trump could very well think all Asians are super smart, as many racists do
Ruckus
@Mike in NC:
The con man isn’t always the one benefiting from the con. In the case of drumpf it seems it’s almost always someone else or no one that is. Often the one(s) that gain were not in any way involved in the con. IOW he’s not very good at cons. Either. Of course you are going to say he won the election. But he didn’t play this as a con. He was up front about who he is and what he’d be doing if elected. That’s why no one expected him to win.
Cermet
This silly move is utterly meaningless – why? Because the North Korean hydrogen bomb program is solely based on a reliable russian design. The only thing they needed was a single test to prove they had a true hydrogen bomb (200+ kT class.) Wake up people. This is putin’s game, match and set. He got what he wanted (a nuclear armed North Korea) to both threaten the US AND scare the hell out of the Chinese. This is already a miniaturized weapon that will easily fit atop their ICBM (Also of russian design.) Little doubt putin supplied all the expertise, and critical mfg skills required for all these systems – as such, no further nuke testing or missile is needed. The Korean program went from a complete and useless Pakistan nuke (at best 3 kT atomic) to a true hydrogen bomb in a few years of no testing. RIGHT.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Sure, them Asians are super smart when it comes to all of that boring book-learnin’ stuff, but they still won’t be able to outsmart a white man when it comes to the important stuff like business and negotiations.
/Trumpista
Another Scott
Thanks for this.
On the tunnels damage (or not), Jon Wolfstahl at 38 North:
(See the original for embedded links)
Agreed. There are other articles at 38 North that have before and after pictures of the hillsides, etc. Even if there is damage, the complex is quite large so digging under another nearby hill/mountain is obviously not impossible – if they wanted to expend the effort.
And I agree with his (earlier point) in the piece that Donnie being hostile to the CTBT makes restraining the DPRK program unnecessarily difficult and problematic.
Cheers,
Scott.
MattF
@Cermet: Talk about recklessness from Putin. And how likely is it that Trump will (ever) call him on it?
Cheryl Rofer
@Cermet: Could you give us your sources for this? I haven’t seen this theory anywhere else.
Another Scott
@Cermet: The Bulletin’s Nuclear Notebook – DPRK’s Nuclear Programs (as of January 2018):
(Sorry if the formatting is wonky.)
Putin wasn’t first in national office until 1999.
It’s important to get the history of this stuff right, and not to assume that the Kims don’t have agency. Even if Vlad helped them – and maybe he did to some extent, though I’m very dubious – we need to remember that nuclear weapons were first developed in the 1940s. Any modern nation state that puts its mind to it can make them – even the DPRK. The technology isn’t that difficult any more. That’s why international agreements to limit them are so important.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
So I just had a random thought about Kim Jong Un.
He’s a pretty young guy and, while I’m sure it was fun at first to be an absolute autocrat who can have his relatives torn to pieces by dogs, after a certain point it just becomes really fucking boring to sit in your isolated palace night after night and only be able to access the outside world from the internet. Being an international pariah who can only travel to very few places means that you have lots of boring days doing the same thing over and over again.
So what if Kim’s end game actually is to get North Korea back out onto the world stage as a respected country while still somehow hanging onto as much of his monarchy as possible? He’s seen all the same coverage of the royal weddings and royal babies that we have, and he may wonder what it might be like to have even a little of that interest and respect directed towards himself and his eventual family.
I dunno. It may be a crazy thought. But IMO being a dictator is an old man’s game.
Brachiator
Does this mean that Iran has been cheating?
Still, it’s crazy making to see how desperate Trump is to inflate his role in achieving … something.
sdhays
@Mnemosyne: I wish we had someone we could trust leading the US and its allies in discussions with the DPRK so that we could adequately test and channel that desire, if real.
trollhattan
Has he run out of brothers to assassinate? I’d begin there. The cute sister may be safe, for now.
Cheryl Rofer
@Brachiator: The Parchin story is long and complicated. The short answer is no, Iran has not been cheating. They didn’t come completely clean about every experiment they ever did at Parchin, but we’ve (and the IAEA has) figured out pretty much what it was – subcritical experiments.
Mnemosyne
@sdhays:
I did a little Googling and he does seem to have a wife and at least two kids, though they are very much downplayed in NK media.
Maybe I just have too much imagination, but I’m picturing him scrolling through the news when the latest royal baby was born, seeing the outpouring of public interest and affection, and being a little envious.
Baud
@sdhays: Would NK even be negotiating with someone we can trust though?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The North Koreans have figured out trump can be had for a photo-op, especially since he’s announced he views the summit as a huge factor in the midterms.
LongHairedWeirdo
It’s hardly surprising that Trump knows nothing about what’s happening. He doesn’t have to. Let’s face it: he’s agreed to meet with North Korea without preconditions and that gets him Goppies and Trumpies screaming “NOBEL PEACE PRIZE!” and the news media acting as if this is anything other than another attempt to screw with the “so-called reality based community.”
Cermet
@MattF: No chance at all. In fact, anyone in the CIA with half a brain both realize putin’s hand in all this and how useless calling this out would be. The fart cloud is depending on his next election via putin. Like too work in intel for awhile, and frankly, they often are lead by the nose by the senior people who, get their direction from the WH. This time, I am sure they are not doing that but also, realize it would end their chance to move up if they cross this fart cloud.
Brachiator
@Cheryl Rofer:
Thank you very much for the clarification.
On the other hand, this only increases my exasperation at Trump’s stupidity.
Another Scott
@Mnemosyne: I said on another site shortly after his father died, that (IIRC) I wouldn’t be surprised if he ended up being someone who would break the DPRK out of its isolation and put it on its way toward rejoining the community of nations. No particular reason, other than (as you say) being absolute ruler of a decaying prison gets to be boring after a few generations. I think I had similar feelings about Assad, jr., so that goes to show that my prognostication skills need work. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Cermet
@Another Scott: You did not understand my post. I acknowledged the North had nukes – they tested them. They were little more than a joke as real atomic bombs go. Suddenly, in a few short years they go from a 3 kT joke (fission only) to a near 250 kT true hydrogen bomb with NO intermediates devices. No, putin started his end game just five or six years ago. So, your time lines support what I said. My main point is they need ZERO further testing so making agreements to stop testing and any development is absolutely meaningless. Do we or the russians need to test? No. We have tested enough to build our current weapons. Thanks to putin, that is now true for the North. They (the north) manufactured it, of course. Under the expertise and guidance of russian scientist/engineer’s. Also, critical pit technology was, with little doubt, given to them. No accident that Wiki shows the plans for an optimized atomic bomb now (full design of the critical pit and imitator.)
J R in WV
Thanks Cheryl, this is very interesting, and I always think it’s better to learn more about scary stuff. When you understand it better, sometimes it isn’t as scary. Nothing is much scarier than nuclear war, in my book.
Interesting thought about Kim perhaps getting bored as absolute leader of his small nation, with so little worth his attention compared to Paris, Geneva, London, etc. He has to smuggle in cognac, after all…!!
He spent time in school in the west, I forget where now, but he knows what’s out here that he’s missing out on. So maybe he does want access t the rest of the world. Perhaps he could become monarch of a somewhat democratic Korea, it was a monarchy for centuries after all. Then he could get invited to royal and diplomatic events, meet with The Donald at Davos.
Or not…
Cheryl Rofer
@Cermet: Sources? Links? Nobody else I know is saying this.
Mnemosyne
@Another Scott:
I don’t think the Assads were nearly as isolated internationally as the Kims have been, though. And I don’t think that Kim would succeed in his aims without being willing to stop being the godlike absolute ruler he was raised to be, which I doubt he would be able to do.
But I do suspect that it’s part of what he wants. The Chinese media was apparently pretty complimentary of his wife when they were there on their recent state visit. I wonder if the Chinese were playing to that angle.
Mnemosyne
@J R in WV:
Apparently NK has a fair number of waterparks, because Kim likes waterparks, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Shanghai Disneyland gave him a little heartburn when he saw the press coverage of it and how successful it’s been financially.
Another Scott
@Cermet: Even if AQ Khan’s warheads weren’t that great, the Kims had them for something like 20 years. One learns a lot from nuclear tests – that’s why there are nuclear tests, after all.
Without some evidence to support your contention that the DPRK couldn’t do what they have clearly done without Vlad’s assistance, you’re just bloviating. Who can you point to that supports your view?
That T&F piece (from The Bulletin) makes the point that they still haven’t demonstrated that they have a re-entry vehicle, or the ability to control the warhead after re-entry, and all the other pieces needed for a working nuclear weapons system. (Blowing a hole in a mountain is just one part of the puzzle.) Yet everyone they mention who has weighed in about topic doesn’t think that they can’t get there in 1-2 years. And without Vlad’s help. Are they wrong?
Cheryl asked for a link. I will too. Any forthcoming?
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
jl
IIRC, North Korea has announced similar initiatives before, and used the slogan ‘denuclearization’ as a promise in its diplomatic initiatives. I find it difficult to believe, on a common sense level, that any sane national leadership in the position of North Korea or Iran would ever make an irreversible commitment that prevented it from ever having a nuclear weapons capability in the future as a deterrent. Especially after the US Iraq invasion and several about faces in US policy on Libya.
That doesn’t mean you don’t try to negotiate the best deals you can, or junk imperfect agreements and treaties that are in force. “Trust but verify” as the Rooskies and the notorious misguided liberal arms-control and non-proliferation do-gooder Ronald Reagan said.
The chances are far too high that Trump will do something stupid, both in terms of going to disastrous war because he got cranky one day, or it might up his approval rating a point or two, or in going into dumb agreements. We have to hope for the best until he is out of an office he has no business holding.
Cermet
@Cheryl Rofer: AS I said, no one wil ldare. As for the source, I gave the best evidence – a joke bomb five years ago and now a hydrogen bomb similar to the best we produce. QED.
Geeno
@Mnemosyne: He doesn’t need to let the rest of the country in on internationalism. He just needs to be able to travel, with full dignity, at will. The home town press will just say Kim pwns the West with all the pictures of him in more advanced countries, and they have been conditioned to believe it.
Cheryl Rofer
@Cermet: That’s conspiracy theory reasoning. I’m talking to the best in the nonproliferation business on Twitter and elsewhere. None of them think this, and they’d say so if they did.
The first DPRK nuclear test was probably a fizzle. Your phone has more computational power than all the computers in the world in 1943-45. And there’s plenty more information available now, starting with A.Q. Khan’s nuclear superstore. Any competent group of scientists and engineers can make a nuclear bomb in five or six tests.
Cermet
@Another Scott: Are you seriously saying they need a MIRV capability? LOL. We can’t shoot down a fucking fake re-entry vehicle with a transponder most times. You think Kim cares about a real MIRV’ed system? Please. Having an real hydrogen bomb city killer and an ICBM is all he needs to prevent any military attack by us. As I stated above, the proof is overwhelming . As for their learning for twenty years (no, they haven’t tested successful nukes that long) amounted to little: their bomb was and remained under 3 kT; and many experts said 2 kT at best. Please, try using your intelligence. Testing using those terrible weapons of 2 kT yield doesn’t suddenly, and in under five years. improve yield by two magnitudes. putin had every reason to do this and is, frankly, expending every effort to undermine us and destroy NATO, as well. He had every reason to do this and little doubt, that ass wipe did.
Cermet
@Cheryl Rofer: That is an assumption. But even if true, jumping from a fission bomb to a fully optimized hydrogen bomb is extremely difficult and no, testing alone will not do that. One needs to know the right things to do and have extremely good electronics and explosives that few countries can easily build. That is why those special components are tightly controlled for sale. AS for what others think, please. That proves little and does not change the facts of how fast they developed a hydrogen bomb. If they understand how fast the change occurred, then they need to explain how that occurred.
Mnemosyne
@Cermet:
I’m sorry, are you trying to explain to someone who builds nuclear bombs for a living how nuclear bombs work? Really?
Go open the dictionary to the word “mansplainer.” Your picture is illustrating it.
SgrAstar
@Cermet: sorry, just spouting qed does not count as evidence. So…your sources, sir.
Cheryl Rofer
@Cermet: It wouldn’t have to be a “fully optimized hydrogen bomb.” And it’s not that hard. Hard enough that nobody’s going to make one in their garage any time soon, but not that hard for a capable and determined group of engineers and scientists.
The first US test of a deliverable hydrogen bomb, Castle Bravo, was quite a bit off expectations, but it was much higher than expected. I’ve heard Harold Agnew, the third director of Los Alamos, talk about his reaction to the test. “It kept getting hotter…and hotter…and hotter.” Harold wasn’t one to express fear, but you could hear the remembered fear in his voice that maybe that would be his last test.
Bill Arnold
@Cheryl Rofer:
I have seen this a few places, e.g. Bill Palmer at palmerreport.com has said it (well, KjU as Putin’s puppet at least, and I think h-bomb) more than once. Not sure why. Maybe a meme in some circles. There are hidden wheels that I’m missing I pretty sure.
[I see Cheryl has sort of covered this; here’s another link]
Frankly, have seen no public evidence it was an H-Bomb. Could have been a (very) large boosted(?) device (or large fission device) ala a variation on Orange Herald, and the casing mockup just that. I think you’ve said the same.
Cheryl Rofer
@Bill Arnold: I’ve been dubious about the Palmer Report until today, when they said that the North Korean test site had been ruined by a missile test gone astray! That was new and inventive. Also totally without logic or evidence.
Cheryl Rofer
@Bill Arnold: Yes. We don’t know that the casing they showed was what they tested. And they do such a good job of containment that we haven’t gotten the isotope samples that would help to figure out whether it was pure fission, boosted, or two-stage.
catclub
@Baud: I still think there has been very little discussion of what NK measn by denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. It means all US forces leaving the peninsula. Remember when new Zealand could no longer allow US Navy ships there because the US refused to affirm that they had no nuclear weapons on board? Like wise for US Army in Korea, US Air Force, and US ships in Korean Ports.
Why am I the only one (that I have noticed) to bring this up.
2. How good or bad of a thing would it be to get all US forces off the Korean Peninsula? Would the South Koreans AND the Japanese have kittens if Trump agreed to that? What fraction of the US Defense budget is spent maintaining the pacific Fleet and the Installations in Korea?
Could some of that be saved?
Another Scott
Hey Cheryl, and everyone. Have you ever heard of anything like this? (Via Jody Lieberman’s news roundup at TheBulletin.org) – Ashahi Shimbun (from May 10):
(Emphasis added.)
Really?!?!
Has any country ever accepted demands like that, even after a formal defeat in a war??
“Sure, Mr. Trump, we’ll let you move most of our best scientists and engineers out of the country, the ones we invested in for decades while the country starved, yes sir…”
(groucho-roll-eyes.gif)
Expanding the agreement into missiles, and also into things that they officially deny (their chemical and biological weapons), seems like an intentional way to blow up any chance of any quick nuclear agreement. Sure, reducing those weapons systems is a worthwhile goal, but one doesn’t get them by demanding them (and expecting to give nothing in return) less than a month before the final meeting.
Korea has thousands of years of history, and historical enmity with a much, much larger neighbor, and have remained independent. They’re not going to be bullied or bamboozled by an in-over-his-head old property developer from Queens and a bunch of hangers-on wearing MAGA hats…
:-/
If this is the approach that Donnie’s people really are taking, I hope the ROK and Japan and everyone else has plans for when it all falls apart.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
You just Know that the Walrus of Doom and his cronies have a near-unbearable itch to demand (with a cackle) that the North Koreans to put its nuclear engineers in those test tunnels before sealing them, though after the US takes samples to determine what that large tested device actually was.
Pluky
“and scattered metallic plutonium on the surface“
For the love of all that’s holy . . .
Another Scott
@Bill Arnold: Bolton is scary and dangerous, but he’s not an a know-nothing idiot.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the demands are driven by (the infamous) Stephen Miller (from August 2017):
Miller is still around and still has Donnie’s ear.
Wikipedia tells us:
The demands listed in the Asahi Shimbun article sound right up his alley…
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
Mmm, Miller. Remember this?
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/stephen-miller-duke-donald-trump
Cheryl Rofer
@catclub:
Within the wonky community on Twitter, it’s accepted that that is something like what North Korea means, whereas Trump and Bolton seem to think it means that North Korea will hand its nuclear arsenal over to Trump as he arrives in Singapore. Bolton keeps citing Libya as the precedent, but Libya hadn’t even unpacked its centrifuges and could just send them in their original packing to Oak Ridge.
This is a recipe for disaster.
@Another Scott: Yes, this is Bolton at work with unreasonable demands to wreck the negotiations so he can have his war. And yes, that seems to be a genuine quote.
Bolton is very smart, according to a friend who has briefed him.
Cheryl Rofer
Jeffrey Lewis is tweeting about this right now.
Bill Arnold
@Cheryl Rofer:
This is what confuses me about him. He’s obviously smart and has some talent for wrecking complex things by finding and exploiting their weak spots. But why is he so often so wrong and yet so unwilling to admit it? I regularly deal with some extremely smart people and almost never see this flaw. It’s like there’s willfully and selectively broken metacognition.
I suppose I should watch some videos of him and read more of what he’s written.
Vhh
@Cheryl Rofer: Absolutely. Even easier with the Los Alamos Primer, 40 lbs of HEU (stolen) and some nice explosives. Put in a shipping container and bluff your way to heaven.
Vhh
@Cheryl Rofer: In 1989, Gorby caved and E Germany joined the free W. Germany. In 2018, Trump is heading to cave so S Korea can join Kim’s NK slave colony, while the GOPers cheer. Or Bolton gets his war. Maybe even two of them.
Cat48
I’ve read in more than one newspaper that the mountain/tunnel system NK was using collapsed after severe earthquake-type shaking which freaked out China, who told NK no more launches. That’s probably why Kim.stopped testing. It’s not a nuclear agreement unless the IAEA gets to inspect at least once. That’s ridiculous bc Inspectors have checked Iran over 400 times—per a military person on TV. It will be a laughable deal with no nuke inspections. Thanks, Orange Dotard for nothing, after lying about the Iran Deal daily, w/o even being able to explain what it contains. Grrr
Cheryl Rofer
@Cat48: You’ve got the gist of it. But let me remind you of an earlier post that didn’t get a lot of eyes. It’s possible that the test site is damaged, but it’s been very badly reported. Either way, it’s a small concession but the pr value is high, particularly for a president who is desperately looking for that.
Cheryl Rofer
@Bill Arnold: I have known more than one person like that. Smart, unfortunately, does not mean good judgment.
Bokonon
If this was Iran … we wouldn’t be accepting this.
Of course, if this was Iran, we would also be taking the talking points for our non-acceptance from Bibi Netanyahu.
But you see my point.