The primary issue that is being negotiated with North Korea is its nuclear weapons and the missiles they might be mounted on for attacks on the United States and its allies, South Korea and Japan. A meaningful agreement will have to include many technical issues.
Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo are not nuclear or rocket scientists, nor can we expect most politicians to be. But the technical facts are no less difficult to learn than the economics. (Oops! They get that wrong, too. I will push forward anyway.) Pundits commenting on the negotiations and people who simply want to understand may find this list useful.
- North Korea has nuclear weapons. We don’t know how many or whether they are mounted on missiles. They have tested five nuclear devices, the last of which was probably a thermonuclear weapon (H-bomb). The best guesses at how many they have are in the 20-30 range. Estimates as high as 60 can be found.
- North Korean missile testing is not as far advanced as nuclear testing. Questions such as whether the warheads can survive re-entry into the atmosphere and ability to aim them remain for outside observers and possibly for the North Koreans as well.
- North Korea has several types of missiles with different ranges. Some would be aimed at Japan or South Korea, others at the United States, depending on those ranges.
- The Earth is a sphere, so North Korean missiles headed for the United States will go north on a great circle route, not straight across the Pacific, as is too often shown on television graphics.
- We know some things about the North Korean weapons complex, but not as much as we’d like. We know the reactor that produces plutonium and the centrifuge facility that produces enriched uranium, but not whether there are other such facilities. We know some of the other manufacturing facilities, but not all of them.
- The North Koreans used explosives to close the entrances to tunnels at their nuclear test site. My professional opinion, based on photos of the demolition, is that this was a minimal closure and the tunnels can easily be accessed again. I haven’t seen other opinions.
- The North Koreans have several missile test sites. They have offered to deactivate one, but we don’t know which one.
7a. It is useful to learn the names of the various sites.
- Verification is an essential part of arms control. It’s an abstract word that includes many concrete actions. The International Atomic Energy Agency and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization can supply the expertise to design verification plans and carry them out. They are international organizations with inspectors from many countries.
- Verification consists of getting information from North Korea about their holdings of fissile material and the facilities in which missiles and bombs are produced. It includes inspections of those facilities by human visits and by installed equipment. The inspectors report to their organizations or an organization set up by treaty to monitor the treaty. Decisions must be made on schedules of inspection, equipment to be used, access to facilities, and other details.
- Taking apart a nuclear weapon can be tricky. If North Korea decides to dismantle its nuclear weapons, that adds a layer to verification that we don’t have a lot of experience with.
- Other expertise exists in the United States, in the State Department, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense. Each has different sorts of expertise. A couple hundred of these experts backed up the negotiations with Iran on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
- Other arms control agreements have elements that can be used in an agreement with North Korea – New START and its predecessors, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, previous agreements with North Korea, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and the JCPOA.
There are more basic things too, like how nuclear weapons work, why enriched uranium and plutonium are the fissile materials of choice, the kinds of fuels for missiles, but these are extras. It’s enough to know that plutonium (not “enriched”) and enriched uranium are the fissile materials and that the photos the North Koreans have shown are plausible as nuclear weapons and that the nuclear and missile tests show real progress.
So far I have seen no indication that Trump or Pompeo understands any of this.
Acknowledgement: This post grew out of a Twitter conversation with Dan Nexon.
MattF
There’s no sign they understand, no sign they want to understand, and no sign they feel a need to understand. The whole Trump (and Pompeo) song-and-dance is for the benefit of the media. The media write the headlines, after all.
debbie
@MattF:
Trump is convinced he already knows everything, and Pompeo thinks his swagger will get him through anything. We are very fucked.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and isn’t there still speculation that this was due to damage to the site, from either an earthquake or a mishap with one of their tests?
@MattF: I don’t think Pompeo is as dumb as trump, but he may well be just as arrogant, just as convinced that he can force the North Koreans to de-nuke. by the force of his moral righteousness and the threat of military force if not idiocies like “chemistry” and a personal relationship
Major Major Major Major
@MattF: It’s still good to try and get them to understand, if for no other reason than to educate the public. Which is why posts like this are good. Thanks Cheryl!
Barney
For interest, an azimuthal equidistant projection, centred on North Korea.
https://www.jasondavies.com/maps/north-korea-distance/
Showing, for instance, that Seattle, Brisbane, Mecca and Berlin are all about 8,000 km (5,000 miles) away. Though only the range to Seattle seems to be a part of international diplomacy.
debbie
Thank you, Cheryl. I knew none of this, especially the trajectory. If we’re lucky, NK will aim for Trump Tower (though I hope it spares the old, beautiful Brentano’s Bookstore just across the street).
SiubhanDuinne
@MattF:
Was thinking the same thing, exactly.
The media write the headlines, but I think the song-and-dance routine is also for Congress, and of course for Trump’s base.
Kim Jung Un must be laughing his dictatorial ass off.
Platonailedit
@SiubhanDuinne:
And South Korea, Japan and Singapore were left holding the bag.
Pogonip
May I interrupt briefly to make readers aware of one of the unluckiest people in the world:
http://www.onlineathens.com/news/20180615/hart-county-grandmother-kills-rabid-bobcat-with-bare-hands
1). Since she’s unlucky enough to live in an area having a bad rabies season, she was attacked by a rabid bobcat;
2). Since she was unlucky enough to be unable to escape, she and a relative had to fight off the bobcat with a knife and her bare hands;
3.). Since she’s unlucky enough to live where medical care is iffy,she has a bill of $10K and counting for the rabies shots and reconstructive surgery.
I tried to find a go-fund-me for her but couldn’t, although the story says there are donations taken. Since you have shown yourselves willing to donate in the past, I wanted to make you aware. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
dmsilev
I don’t have the link immediately at hand, but a reporter asked Pompeo for any details about the verification issue and was basically blown off ( something along the lines of ‘what a ridiculous question.’).
Not surprising and not encouraging.
rikyrah
Thanks for the post
Cheryl Rofer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I addressed that here. Long story short: No real reason to believe the test site has been damaged irreparably. That story seems to have come from a reporter’s misunderstanding of a Chinese geological journal paper. But it’s still around.
Gbbalto
@Pogonip: In for 100.
The linked story has the donation link
HeleninEire
@MattF: Yes. But these are the facts that we need to know as we crush him.
Thank you Cheryl.
sukabi
The one they’ll agree to deactivate is the one that’s already damaged to the point of being useless.
Pompeo getting belligerent with the reporters asking about verification shows that he’s as stupid as Drumpf.
The Pale Scot
@Pogonip: I read that link as “online heathens”. “That sounds interesting” I said to myself
Gbbalto
Wanted to ETA that funding link was in the linked story but cannot do it from cell phone for some reason. BAD WEBSITE! BAD BAD WEBSITE!
Amir Khalid
@MattF:
@debbie:
The three hallmarks of Trump’s presidency have been cruelty, bigotry, ignorance, and stupidity.
sukabi
@Pogonip: last paragraph:
The Dangerman
Pompeo might; Trump doesn’t and won’t (he won’t leave the FOX channel because he can’t figure out the remote; he has a separate TV for his porn).
scav
Was I the only one expecting the first point being a world map with a bit red arrow pointing to North Korea? Everyone must be so much kinder than I am.
Cheryl Rofer
@debbie: Notice that the trajectory goes over Russia and China. So if Trump decides to nuke North Korea, that’s how the missiles will fly. What do you think Russia and China will think about American missiles coming in their direction? This one is particularly important for Trump to understand.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et Al.)
Maybe you don’t know this, but learning shit is for losers. Anything Donald Tяump doesn’t already know isn’t worth learning about. I wish I were kidding about this, but I’m not here.
SiubhanDuinne
@Platonailedit:
Yeah ?
The Dangerman
Donald Trump = Elizabeth Holmes. One is President, one might end up dead broke.
d58826
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
IIRC Pompeo graduated first in his class at West Point. Der Fuhrer might have been able t56o buy a degree from U of P but things work differently at West Point.
Doug R
@Barney: Looks like my theory of NK aiming for Seattle and hitting Vancouver BC (or Victoria) is valid.
Trident, NAS Whitbey and JB Lewis/McChord all about equidistant.
d58826
@Doug R: Seattle will still probably glow in the dark as a result
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
What you did there, we saw.
SectionH
@Amir Khalid: The four hallmarks of Trump’s presidency have been cruelty, bigotry, ignorance, stupidity, and arrogance…
raven
@Pogonip: Two of my “research participants” were from Elberton, it’s a heavy granite producing area.
raven
Try this link for the funding account.
Aleta
@Pogonip: Thanks. From your link, I saw that a fund site address has been added to the article. “Phillips’ cousin Amy Leann Mize has set up an account in Fundly dot com to raise money for Phillips medical expenses.” Exact address in the article. (I know nothing about fundly.)
Pogonip
I knew you helpful people would come though!
Thanks, linkers; I couldn’t get the original link to work either but I knew someone would figure it out.
raven
@Aleta: I posted the link above. They are over the requested limit.
Pogonip
And I stillcan’t get it to work, will keep trying.
Aleta
Thanks Cheryl. I appreciate your professionalism, honesty and super intelligence.
Aleta
@raven: oops. No wonder they say reading is an important skill. : ) Thanks.
raven
@Pogonip: My embedded link works fine.
burnspbesq
@SectionH:
And an almost fanatical devotion to the grift.
gene108
Republicans do not trust the IAEA. Whenever the IAEA is inspecting other countries, the Republicans refrain is the IAEA is being duped and the country in question is still cheating.
I think nothing short of US military taking control of North Korea’s facilities and directly watching them 24/7/365 will satisfy Republicans N. Korea is not cheating Andy even then some Republicans will still complain about N. Korea cheating.
One of our political parties is not rational.
Aleta
I haven’t read Robert Kelly’s work or the objections to it. And I wasn’t aware he’s being attacked by people on the left (or bots?)
Posting this (from his twitter) w/o the understanding that Cheryl and others may have.
Robert E Kelly
Mike J
Another issue with the trajectory. We have an ABM site in Alaska. Nobody has ever actually destroyed a missile in flight, but if it comes down to it, we’ll try.
Russia has said they never saw any of the missile tests from North Korea. If they have insufficient radar coverage, they may not know if we are attacked. The first indication they may get is dozens of missiles launched from the US towards Russia.
Kraux Pas
Nice list.
How do we make sure the administration sees it or cares?
Cheryl Rofer
@Aleta: Kelly is a good guy and very knowledgeable about North Korea. One of the networks brought him to Singapore to comment on the summit. I don’t agree with him on every detail, but agree much more than disagree. I suggested to him this morning that I block stuff like that instantly. Although he’s probably getting more of it than I do.
I’m seeing more bots and trolls than before the summit.
Kelly is the “BBC Dad,” whose two wonderful children interrupted his interview a year or two ago.
Frankensteinbeck
@debbie:
Depends. There’s not going to be a war, and there’s not going to be nukes flying. Jong Un is not stupid and isn’t going to do it unless he’s attacked. Trump, while an absolute moron, is an utter coward who thinks Jong Un is great anyway. There will be no treaty unless South Korea and North Korea hand it to Trump together to sign, and even then they’ll know his signature isn’t worth squat. If, as is incredibly unlikely but plausible, we pull out of South Korea, North Korea is not going to invade. They couldn’t win. So, most likely North Korea will get a little less shunned on the international stage, maybe work out minimal step towards peace and openness with South Korea, and the US will look like blithering idiots no one trusts. That’s it. Value judgments differ, but I don’ think that rises to ‘very fucked.’
Kraux Pas
@Aleta: It took me a minute to figure out this wasn’t the producer of “the Practice” and “Boston Legal.”
David E. Kelly
Cheryl Rofer
@Mike J:
That’s why the site is there. How effective it is is another question. Don’t hold your breath, Washington and Seattle. The tests have not been reassuring.
Two things here: Russia is playing a game called “Nothing we can see.” Also, the tests have gone out from North Korea into the Sea of Japan, rather than the trajectory toward the United States. It may be, if Russia is telling the truth, that they don’t have their radars pointed in that direction.
gene108
@Kraux Pas:
Get Fox and Friends to talk about for a week and get Hannity to talk about it non-stop and then send in Kim Kardashian to tell Donald how important it is.
Kraux Pas
@gene108: Nice, we’re working our way up the right wing information food chain. How do we get it on Fox or, more to the point, how do we get Breitbart to pick it up?
Maybe we could label it as “the truth liberals are hiding about nucular weapons.”
Doug R
@Mike J:
Note the large country most missles aimed at the United States have to cross.
Canada.
Canada, part of the NORAD or the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
In addition to RADAR/listening stations in Alaska and Canada, bases at Cold Lake Alberta and Bagotville Quebec are specifically tied in. Remember Justin Trudeau reminding trump about Bagotville being built to protect aircraft factories using aluminum during the Second World War?
Decades old alliances forged since the last time the world tried to slaughter itself, pissed away.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
just turned on MSNBC and they were talking about new North Korean hacking aimed at US companies. “New” could cover a lot of ground, and it could be somebody in the Pence/Bolton camp looking to stir up trouble, but it’s at least in part a reminder to the sort of people who get their news from twitter and “top of the hour” type reports that this is gonna be a lot more complicated than they, or trump, think
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
Your math is as good as mine! ?
debbie
@Frankensteinbeck:
Bombs may not be heading our way, but our lack of standing in the world increases every day.
debbie
@Cheryl Rofer:
He’ll never understand and Miller will keep telling him it will be no big deal.
Omnes Omnibus
@debbie: That was baked in when Trump was elected.
J R in WV
@Cheryl Rofer: There’s a fleet of bombers and a fleet of submarines, both armed with nukes. Presumably the military will see to it that we don’t scare either Russia or China while starting WW III… assuming they can make Trump understand that.
Schlemazel
I have questions
1st, one that is probably dumb: I have known since Mr. Wizard explained it to me in the 1950s that the ‘great polar route” is the right way to fly intercontinental but not why that is true. Can someone explain that to me (small words please!)
I have a friend who is a real rocket scientist from by days at NASA and it is his guestimate that DPRK is maybe 5-10 years away from being able to reenter a warhead and target with anything like accuracy. I won’t go into detail as to why he believes that but wonder if others agree. (as with all things espiongy there is no 100% sure of anything).
Gelfling 545
I’d be impressed if he mastered one fact. He could probably get re-elected on the basis of it. “ Look at him being all presidential and knowing a big presidential fact and all!”
Schlemazel
@Cheryl Rofer:
Would that trajectory hold if the missiles came from submarines in the pacific? not to encourage the assholes but wouldn’t the route be much shorter & more direct?
Schlemazel
@burnspbesq:
+1 for the Monty Python reference
raven
@Schlemazel: shorter
waysel
@Schlemazel: Take a ball and a short piece of string, make a few marks on the ball. You will quickly show it to yourself. Seriously.
Dorothy Winsor
OT, but I have Morning Joy on from today and I can’t believe we’re debating the border policy using a religious book that Americans aren’t required to believe in. WTF?
raven
@waysel: and then staple it to a ping pong paddle and you won’t have to read the NTY!
sgrAstar
@SectionH: @SectionH:
…and fanatical devotion to….
waysel
@raven: Hooray!
scav
@Schlemazel: The great polar route is the shortest between contenents depending on the continents: it would be a poor choice for North and South America for example! Simple answer. It’s because we’re on a globe. The shortest line between two places on the same hemisphere might go over the pole. Grab a globe or an orange, a piece of string and test it out. The reason we don’t intuitively think of it is because we’re always looking at flat maps. a) straight lines on a globe don’t appear as straight lines in many map projections (see discussions of the Mercator projection is you want more words) and b) the shortest real world line may go off the map entirely and reappear elsewhere on it and that really warps our intuitive brain.
Cheryl Rofer
@J R in WV: @Schlemazel: Submarines could avoid the trip over Russia and China.
Schlemazel
@raven:
yes but why?
waysel
@Cheryl Rofer: Wow! I didn’t realize they could launch nuclear warheads from subs. What do we know about NKs sub fleet? I assume it would be a wholly different missile, too. Do they likely have what it takes?
Cheryl Rofer
@Schlemazel: Here are a couple of explainers, and a Great Circle Mapper you can play with.
I am not a rocket scientist, but my experience is that determined countries figure these things out faster than I project they can. I think it’s possible that North Korea can re-enter and target a warhead pretty accurately now and that that possibility will go up a lot in the next 2-3 years.
Gin & Tonic
@Schlemazel: Get a globe and a piece of string.
John Revolta
@Dorothy Winsor: This. When Sessions and Huckerbee and other top Govt officials start citing the fucking Bible as justification for their actions people need to start screaming pretty quick, because we are in deep trouble.
scav
@Schlemazel: It might help your brain get it if you bring the scale down to that of a mountain. Sometimes the shortest path between two places on the mountain involves going over the top of it.
JAFD
@Schlemazel: Way back when I was young in the ’50’s they had each of us stretch a piece of string around the globe in the classroom…
(Do they still have globes in the classrooms ? Libraries ? Do any 21st century kids get a globe for their 9th or 10th birthday ? Do I dare to eat a peach ?)
Omnes Omnibus
@JAFD: Go ahead with the trousers rolled thing.
JGabriel
Cheryl Rofer @ Top:
Does it still? I was under the impression that the most knowledgeable people, and the ones with the most expertise, have been resigning or getting fired.
Cheryl Rofer
@JGabriel: Some of the top people have been leaving, but there is still plenty of expertise at the mid and lower levels. I have been told that Pompeo is making use of those people in the North Korea talks, but I see no public indication that is the case.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Sitting in a coffee shop. They just played Neil Diamond’s “America”. Almost brought me to tears. I’d like that country back that he was singing about please. When immigrants saw landing in the US as a step toward freedom.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: This one can tear me up, and I’m not even of Irish extraction.
Jay
@Mike J:
NORK missile tests were conducted towards the south east of Korea, on the “flight path” towards Guam and Japan, away from Russia.
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yeah, but he’s veered far worse than many people expected. I used to think the country would recover after he’d left office, but if this appalling awfulness does continue until he leaves, we may be beyond redemption.
Jay
@Doug R:
Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure we’ll still let you know about incoming mail.
Jay
@Schlemazel: @waysel:
Schlemazel,
It’s believed that in the later tests, the NORK’s sent up instrument packages with the dummy warheads, that collected data to the point of destruction and datalinked it back to North Korea.
So, they gathered the information they needed to engineer the required heat shielding for the warhead. How long it takes them, depends on which way they want to go. The Shenyang Capsule uses cheap, end grain oak blocks as a “consumeable” heat shielding for re-entry. Much less complex than special metals, ceramics or specialized coatings.
Accuracy depends. With the advent of MIRV warheads, ( more than one warhead per missile, smaller yeild) and the fact that both the US and USSR were focused on strategic targets, ( submarine bases, missile bases, command and control, etc), accuracy became very important. On the other hand, if you can only make a few big bangs, strategic targets arn’t that important, so accuracy doesn’t matter much.
waysel,
There is a lot known about the NORK submarine fleet. It’s not capable of anything other than Coastal operations, and while they are working on Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles, they are where the US and USSR were in the late 1950’s, so, short range missiles with conventional or chemical warheads at best.
So if the NORK’s want to inflict maximum pain with the few warheads the have available, they will hit Guam, Okinawa, and Japan, ( accuracy won’t matter), and drop the rest just over the Rockies in the Dakota’s, where the fallout will kill off the food grown in the Midwest.
So, statements that the NORK’s are 5-10 years away from accuracy, is projection based on what the US expects of it’s nuclear program, not what the NORK’s, with their history of famines, expect from their program.
Jay
@Jay:
Oops, this part:
“So if the NORK’s want to inflict maximum pain with the few warheads the have available, they will hit Guam, Okinawa, and Japan, ( accuracy won’t matter), and drop the rest just over the Rockies in the Dakota’s, where the fallout will kill off the food grown in the Midwest.”
Should have been paragraph #4.
JGabriel
@Cheryl Rofer:
Thanks, Cheryl. It’s good to know there are at least some people with the necessary nuclear and diplomatic/cultural/historical expertise still hanging in there, even while the Trump administration either ignores or targets them.
Make7
@Schlemazel: Here is a “3D” Interactive Earth Globe to view missile trajectories:
https://www.echalk.co.uk/Science/physics/solarSystem/InteractiveEarth/interactiveEarth.html
Select the ‘Political Borders’ view and uncheck the ‘Earth rotation’ option. Click and drag with your mouse to change the viewpoint.