U.S. General: North Korea Now Has Nuclear Warheads for Missiles
by Bruce Klingner: North Korea now has the ability to produce a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can be mounted atop a ballistic missile.
That is the assessment of Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, the senior U.S. commander on the Korean Peninsula, as he talked to reporters Friday. Scaparrotti also concluded that Pyongyang has a functioning long-range mobile missile launcher.
Although North Korea has conducted three nuclear explosion tests and several medium-and long-range missile test firings, it had not been known whether the regime had developed a nuclear warhead sufficiently small to fit on top of a missile with the range to reach the continental United States.
“Personally I think that they certainly have had the expertise in the past. They’ve had the right connections [with Iran and Pakistan],” commented Scaparrotti, “and so I believe have the capability to have miniaturized a [nuclear] device at this point, and they have the technology to potentially actually deliver what they say they have [and] I think they have a launcher that will carry it at this point.”
To date, experts have predominantly asserted that North Korea would not master for several more years the ability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead and deliver it via missile. Media reports habitually declare that North Korean missiles cannot yet reach the United States.
However, as I testified before Congress in March 2014, that benign assumption is flawed since, for example, it gives insufficient weight to Pyongyang’s lengthy collaborative nuclear and missile relationship with Pakistan, a country that all experts assess already has nuclear weapons deliverable by missile. North Korean scientists provided critical assistance to Islamabad’s missile programs in return for reciprocal uranium-based nuclear weapon expertise, technology and components.
Available unclassified evidence indicates North Korea has likely already achieved warhead miniaturization, the ability to place nuclear weapons on its medium-range missiles and a preliminary ability to reach the continental United States with a missile.
Indeed, Scaparrotti’s remarks appear part of an increasingly stronger U.S. military assessment of the North Korean nuclear threat. After South Korea recovered components of the North Korean December 2012 long-range missile launch, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. James Winnefeld stated in March 2013, “We believe the KN-08 [long-range missile] probably does have the range to reach the United States.”
U.S. experts concluded that the recovered North Korean missile provided “tangible proof that North Korea was building the missile’s cone at dimensions for a nuclear warhead, durable enough to be placed on a long-range missile that could re-enter the earth’s atmosphere from space.” A U.S. official added that South Korea provided other intelligence suggesting that North Korea had “mastered the miniaturization and warhead design as well.”
Following an August 2013 meeting between South Korean Minister of Defense Kim Kwan-jin and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, a Ministry of Defense official commented that both countries agreed that North Korea could “miniaturize nuclear warheads small enough to mount on ballistic missiles in the near future.”
During heightened tensions in 2013, Pyongyang threatened to turn Seoul and Washington into “seas of fire” through a “precise nuclear strike.” North Korea has repeatedly declared that it will never negotiate away the “treasured sword” of its nuclear arsenal, even revising the constitution to enshrine itself as a nuclear nation.
Last year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared that he would, “increase the production of precision and miniaturized nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery and ceaselessly develop nuclear weapons technology to actively develop more powerful and advanced nuclear weapons.”
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Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center, spent 20 years in the intelligence community working at the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency.
Tags: North Korea, Nuclear warheads, missiles, Kim Jong-un To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
That is the assessment of Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti, the senior U.S. commander on the Korean Peninsula, as he talked to reporters Friday. Scaparrotti also concluded that Pyongyang has a functioning long-range mobile missile launcher.
Although North Korea has conducted three nuclear explosion tests and several medium-and long-range missile test firings, it had not been known whether the regime had developed a nuclear warhead sufficiently small to fit on top of a missile with the range to reach the continental United States.
“Personally I think that they certainly have had the expertise in the past. They’ve had the right connections [with Iran and Pakistan],” commented Scaparrotti, “and so I believe have the capability to have miniaturized a [nuclear] device at this point, and they have the technology to potentially actually deliver what they say they have [and] I think they have a launcher that will carry it at this point.”
To date, experts have predominantly asserted that North Korea would not master for several more years the ability to miniaturize a nuclear warhead and deliver it via missile. Media reports habitually declare that North Korean missiles cannot yet reach the United States.
However, as I testified before Congress in March 2014, that benign assumption is flawed since, for example, it gives insufficient weight to Pyongyang’s lengthy collaborative nuclear and missile relationship with Pakistan, a country that all experts assess already has nuclear weapons deliverable by missile. North Korean scientists provided critical assistance to Islamabad’s missile programs in return for reciprocal uranium-based nuclear weapon expertise, technology and components.
Available unclassified evidence indicates North Korea has likely already achieved warhead miniaturization, the ability to place nuclear weapons on its medium-range missiles and a preliminary ability to reach the continental United States with a missile.
Indeed, Scaparrotti’s remarks appear part of an increasingly stronger U.S. military assessment of the North Korean nuclear threat. After South Korea recovered components of the North Korean December 2012 long-range missile launch, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. James Winnefeld stated in March 2013, “We believe the KN-08 [long-range missile] probably does have the range to reach the United States.”
U.S. experts concluded that the recovered North Korean missile provided “tangible proof that North Korea was building the missile’s cone at dimensions for a nuclear warhead, durable enough to be placed on a long-range missile that could re-enter the earth’s atmosphere from space.” A U.S. official added that South Korea provided other intelligence suggesting that North Korea had “mastered the miniaturization and warhead design as well.”
Following an August 2013 meeting between South Korean Minister of Defense Kim Kwan-jin and U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, a Ministry of Defense official commented that both countries agreed that North Korea could “miniaturize nuclear warheads small enough to mount on ballistic missiles in the near future.”
During heightened tensions in 2013, Pyongyang threatened to turn Seoul and Washington into “seas of fire” through a “precise nuclear strike.” North Korea has repeatedly declared that it will never negotiate away the “treasured sword” of its nuclear arsenal, even revising the constitution to enshrine itself as a nuclear nation.
Last year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared that he would, “increase the production of precision and miniaturized nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery and ceaselessly develop nuclear weapons technology to actively develop more powerful and advanced nuclear weapons.”
--------------
Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow for Northeast Asia at The Heritage Foundation's Asian Studies Center, spent 20 years in the intelligence community working at the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency.
Tags: North Korea, Nuclear warheads, missiles, Kim Jong-un To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!
2 Comments:
Another sobering fact is that Red China now holds the management contract to.operate the Panama Canal. So, if a North Korean/Red Chinese first strike significantly compromises the mission completion capabilities of the US Naval Pacific Fleet, and it falls upon the US Navy Atlantic Fleet to change oceans in order to engage the communist aggression on the Pacific, if the Red Chinese Managers of the Panama Canal deny the US Navy warships use of the Panama Canal, or sabotage the canal by sinking one or more ships in the Panama Canal, strategically blocking it's use and requiring the US Navy Atlantic Fleet to be tactically delayed by traversing an additional 14,000 miles around the tip of South America, to join the war in the Pacific, which would expose the US Naval convoy to the depredations of North Korean and Red Chinese submarine warfare as well as denying the American armed forces, the benefit of the US Naval Atlantic Fleet air power, guided missile launch platforms, submarine and surface fleet assets, and also its associated amphibious US Marine invasion forces, to be deployed to wage war in the Pacific, where those reinforcements would be critically wanted and needed, to aid in the ear effort to repulse the Red menace that has hit America an unsuspected first blow, again, and as usual.
Owe that to Democrat by the name of Carter.
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