What Is North Korea Actually Realistically Capable Of?

As you’re all abundantly aware, North Korea is back in the news, and so is the President of the United States. It’s a nuclear face-off that no one anywhere wants because there’s a real possibility that thousands of lives, perhaps millions, hang in the balance.

Contrary to what you may think, North Korea’s nuclear threat isn’t what most people should be worried about. It’s actually its artillery and conventional missiles, scattered all around the Korean Peninsula, that are the real threat. Even the sneakiest pre-emptive strike from the US-South Korean military forces couldn’t take all of these out in time for Seoul and parts of Japan to suffer from retaliatory strikes by the DPRK.

Nevertheless, North Korea’s nuclear capabilities are – quite rightly – on the minds of many. Although the threat to the American mainland is still slim, it is fair to say that it's growing by the day – so let’s take a look and see just how much of a danger North Korea’s nuclear capabilities currently are.

A Timeline of Nukes

No one wants this – at least, we hope no one wants this. Leo_Traveling/Shutterstock

Before we look at their rocket technology, it’s good to be reminded of how far their nuclear weapons program has come along.

So far, the secretive state has detonated at least five nuclear warheads, all underground. Its most recent – which took place on September 9, 2016 – registered as a 5.3-5.6M seismic event on seismographs around the world.

In fact, aside from satellite observations that track military movements in North Korea, seismic waves are arguably the best way to determine whether or not a subterranean nuclear test has taken place.

The wave patterns generated by nuclear weapons are distinct from that of normal earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. Using these waves, scientists can actually work out roughly how powerful the nuclear weapon was, and even what type of warhead was used.

So far, despite the country’s ambitions to develop a more powerful hydrogen bomb, it looks like they’re still using plutonium to create an implosion-style nuclear weapon. The seismic shock waves of a hydrogen bomb would show up as a 7.0M quake, but so far, the country hasn’t produced a weapon that breaches 6.0M.

The explosive yield of the latest device was around 10 kilotonnes of TNT. Fat Man, the plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War, had a yield just over twice that, just as a point of comparison.

The suspected range of North Korea's missiles, based on their ICBM tests. Chris Jones/IFLScience

Apart from these five confirmed tests, there have been rumors of a possible sixth and seventh, both supposedly tested back in 2010, but the jury remains undecided on those ones. It’s more likely than not that these two closely-spaced detonations were, in reality, a series of natural earthquakes.

In any case, North Korea has developed nuclear weapons, but they’re relatively weak at the moment – relatively being the key word here.

Honey, I Shrunk The Bomb

The latest development in this sense came about just a few days ago when the Washington Post – citing anonymous US intelligence officers – published a report claiming that North Korea is now able to “miniaturize” their weapons and mount them on warheads.

If accurate, this is a major step-up. Nukes are almost useless as weapons in the modern age if they can’t be launched on a missile. Now, it appears the country has manufactured 20 to 60 small nuclear warheads, an unknown handful of which can be attached to long-range missiles.

So now the key question is: What are North Korean missiles like?

That’s a complicated question. North Korea has inarguably made huge progress on missile technology since it first started giving it a go a few decades back, but it fails as often as it succeeds. When it test fires a new rocket, it either explodes on the launch pad or, as planned, lands in the Sea of Japan – a provocative act to one of its oldest foes.

At present, it has fired at least two intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the second of which traveled 1,000 kilometers (621 miles), reached a height of 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles), and then splashed again into the Sea of Japan.

The mushroom cloud of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 – a scene that hopefully will never be replicated. Everett Historical/Shutterstock

Experts have suggested that, if aimed at a certain angle, the missile could have a maximum range of 10,400 kilometers (6,462 miles). When the rotation of the Earth is taken into account, this range is only extended.

Technically then, these missiles could reach both the western and eastern seaboard of the United States. Hawaii is easily in range, as is Guam, an American territory in Micronesia with 163,000 people living on it – and one that’s been threatened by a North Korean missile strike.

Apocalypse Soon

So should we all be quaking in our boots? Well, not yet, because North Korea has a major technical problem they have not yet overcome: atmospheric re-entry. When an ICBM launches, it often breaches through several layers of the atmosphere before angling down again to reach its intended target.

However, analysists observing the latest launches pointed out that the extreme heat that builds up during the re-entry process clearly shows that the North Korean ICBMs are disintegrating mid-flight. Right now, the communist regime has the range, but not the appropriate shielding.

Nevertheless, it’s true that North Korea has nuclear weapons, and it looks likely they could place them atop short-range missiles and do untold damage to nearby countries.

Both South Korea and Japan – enemies second only to the United States – are protected quite substantially by surface-mounted and ship-mounted missile interceptors, which can accurately and quickly shoot down incoming missiles from North Korea. Still, the fact that the threat of a nuclear exchange exists is enough to worry anyone.

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Tillerson Seeks to Calm Tension in Asia After Trump’s Korea Remarks

By Daniel Ten Kate and Kambiz Foroohar

August 9, 2017

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‘Americans should sleep well at night’: Secretary of State

U.S. allies Japan and South Korea brush off warnings

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Tillerson: Trump Uses Language N. Korea Understands

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson addressed escalating rhetoric between the United States and North Korea, stating he believes there is not any imminent threat to the U.S. Tillerson spoke with reporters on a flight from Malaysia to Washington, D.C. that included a refueling stop in Guam. (Source: Bloomberg)

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson tried to ease concerns that the U.S. was heading toward a military confrontation with North Korea after President Donald Trump rattled global markets with his warning that he could unleash “fire and fury” against Kim Jong Un’s regime.

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“Americans should sleep well at night, have no concerns about this particular rhetoric of the last few days,” Tillerson told reporters on his plane after a tour of Southeast Asia. Trump “felt it necessary to issue a very strong statement directed at North Korea,” he said.

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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson walks to a meeting at the World Conference Center on Feb. 16, 2017, in Bonn, Germany.

“Americans should sleep well at night, have no concerns about this particular rhetoric of the last few days,” Tillerson told reporters. Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

Echoing Trump’s tone, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said in a statement Wednesday that North Korea “should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people.”

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Trump’s threat reverberated around the world, sparking a market sell-off and prompting a wave of criticism even from members of his own political party. Senator John McCain of Arizona, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he wasn’t sure Trump was ready to act, while Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, said Trump’s language was counterproductive.

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The president returned to Twitter on Wednesday morning with a posting that the U.S. nuclear arsenal “is now far stronger and more powerful than ever before.” He added in a follow-up message that “hopefully we will never have to use this power, but there will never be a time that we are not the most powerful nation in the world!”

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‘Wrong Direction’

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“It’s not the way you should be conducting foreign policy,” Cardin said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe’’ program. “What the president is doing by making his own unilateral decisions that indicate that we’re ready to start a military confrontation -– that’s just moving in the wrong direction.’’

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Markets retreated for a second day amid the heightened tensions. The S&P 500 Index lost 0.1 percent to 2,472.58 at 12:26 p.m. in New York, after declining 0.2 percent Tuesday, the largest decrease in almost five weeks. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index declined 0.7 percent, and the CBOE Volatility Index rose 3.8 percent to 11.40.

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The Daily Trump: Tracking the 45th President

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‘Pay Dearly’

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Tillerson said the U.S. is engaged in a very active diplomatic effort to halt Kim’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon that could strike the U.S. mainland. He said North Korea should be looking for talks “with the right expectation of what those talks will be about.”

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Trump’s threat to hit North Korea came as that nation -- reacting to new United Nations sanctions against its nuclear program -- warned the U.S. would “pay dearly” and said it was examining plans to fire a missile toward an American military base on Guam. The exchange followed a Washington Post report, citing a Defense Intelligence Agency analysis, that Pyongyang has successfully developed a nuclear warhead that will fit on its missiles.

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While global powers and financial markets have long been accustomed to over-the-top rhetoric from North Korea, the U.S. has traditionally taken a more diplomatic stance. Trump’s suggestion that he might meet Kim’s threats with action startled markets and prompted a renewed focus on the narrowing list of options available.

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What U.S.-North Korea Hostilities Might Look Like: QuickTake Q&A

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Trump and his chief of staff, retired General John Kelly, were in constant contact with the White House national security team regarding North Korea before the president made his comments, Lindsay Walters, a White House spokeswoman told reporters in Bedminster, New Jersey, where Trump is vacationing.

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But she and other administration aides declined to say whether the specific language used by Trump were part of those consultations or whether Tillerson and Mattis took part in the discussion.

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Trump’s threats may be straining the credibility of his office. In the two nation’s most at risk in any armed confrontation between the U.S. and North Korea, officials largely brushed off Trump’s warning that he would unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

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South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency cited an unidentified official at the presidential office in Seoul saying there’s no “imminent crisis.” A senior Japanese official, who asked not to be identified to discuss internal deliberations, said very few people in the government are taking Trump’s comments seriously.

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Seoul Vulnerable

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But Trump’s comments and Kim’s threat to strike the U.S. mainland revived concerns in the region about the protection of the American nuclear umbrella. In the event of a military confrontation, it’s not likely that the U.S. would be able to immediately knock out all of North Korea’s capability, leaving the 10 million people in Seoul vulnerable to an artillery and rocket barrage.

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“The prioritization of the American homeland and the security of the American homeland is upsetting a lot of understood truths: The idea that the U.S. would defend Seoul as if it were Los Angeles,” said John Park, director of the Korea Working Group at Harvard Kennedy School. “Now the view is, in order to protect the American homeland, collateral damage over there is acceptable.”

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Senator Lindsey Graham said Wednesday that Trump’s rhetoric created a “red line’’ that made it clear that the U.S. would be willing to take action if North Korea didn’t pull back.

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“This is not a language problem. This is a North Korean regime trying to get the capability to strike America,’’ the South Carolina Republican said on “CBS This Morning.’’ “We’ve failed for 30 years. It’s time to try something new.”

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In a statement on Wednesday, China urged all sides to avoid escalating tensions and to return to dialogue, a statement echoed by diplomats at the United Nations.

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UN Reaction

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“This kind of rhetoric doesn’t help at all,” Sacha Sergio Llorenty Soliz, Bolivia’s ambassador to the UN, told reporters in New York. “What has been said by President Trump and Kim Jung Un is really detrimental to purposes of the UN charter.”

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Countries should focus on implementing the latest round of UN sanctions, which targeted about $1 billion in North Korean exports, Carl Skau, Sweden’s deputy UN ambassador, said.

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“The resolution is not only about sanctions and putting pressure on the North Koreans,” Skau said. “It’s also about the importance of dialogue and the humanitarian aspect as well.”

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North Korea’s reported progress on miniaturizing nuclear warheads -- coupled with two test flights of intercontinental ballistic missiles in July -- are raising pressure on Trump. Before taking office, he pledged to prevent North Korea from developing an ICBM: “It won’t happen,” he wrote on Twitter.

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While Kim’s efforts to develop a missile capable of delivering a nuclear weapon to the continental U.S. face big technological hurdles, he has made significant progress. He still needs a rocket that can survive reentry and a guidance-and-control system capable of directing it to the U.S. without breaking up.

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