Nuclear Resonances

In a very good article marking the 25th anniversary of the Missile Technology Control Regime, published in the April edition of Arms Control Today, Aaron Karp makes a number of telling observations about the important role played by the MTCR in halting the spread of long-range missile technology.

The article is definitely worth thinking about in relation to the Unha-3 fizzle.

I’d like to go through two factors here. The first revolves around the effectiveness of arms control regimes versus Ballistic Missile Defense, and the second on epistemic factors affecting the velocity of long-range missile proliferation.

Now Karp states,

… During the 25 years since the birth of the MTCR, the number of countries with active programs to develop long-range rockets (ballistic missiles and space-launch vehicles) has declined significantly, although the number investing in cruise missiles has grown…

Furthermore Karp quite rightly points out

… The MTCR never was intended to prevent countries from acquiring all types of missiles. Rather, it was crafted as a barrier to long-range military missilery. In the 1980s, there was growing fear that many countries would work incrementally, starting with sounding or artillery rockets and gradually accumulating self-sufficient capabilities to make much larger weapons. This has not happened.…

Karp does speak about an important shortcoming, but this shortcoming is precisely what interests me today

… Even before it was announced, negotiators had given up on stopping the further spread of Soviet Scud missiles, which were in the hands of about a dozen countries in 1987. The rules were written to avoid confronting Scud capabilities, if only because Scud technology already was so widely available. Not surprisingly, Scud technology became the most difficult problem of missile proliferation, spreading to more countries and used in many armed conflicts since that time…

So the Scud genie, as we all know, well and truly is out of the bottle.

However the Unha-3 fizzle, and similar multi-stage space launch vehicle and long-range missile fizzles, demonstrate to us that the North is struggling, perhaps even going backwards, in its attempts to move beyond Scud based technologies.

The following quote from Brian Weeden (U.S Space Command ret), cited in a good little piece on the Unha-3 published by Wired’s Danger Room, on the Unha-3 fizzle is worth reflecting upon

… “Not only are they short on money, but also expertise. Developing this technology requires expertise across a range of fields, from fluid dynamics to metallurgy to materials science to flight dynamics,” says Brian Weeden, a former officer with the U.S. Air Force Space Command. “Countries that have been successful in this area all have extensive science, technology, engineering and mathematics programs to develop people with expertise in those fields.

“It seems North Korea is trying to shortcut this process by buying parts and technology from abroad,” Weeden continues, “and slapping them together instead of taking the time and investing the resources to develop the proper foundations.”…

The MTCR is not perfect. The MTCR is not a permanent solution. However, the Unha-3 fizzle, and all the others, show us that it has, thus far, worked to stymie long-range missile programmes that attempt to leap-frog Scud based technology (yes, and this also does apply to Iran).

That’s a fairly good record, especially when you compare it to the failures of BMD. Recall that a good part of the reasoning behind BMD rests on critiques of the theory and practice of arms control.

Sorry, boys, but arms control does work unlike BMD which never has worked, still does not work and never will work. Arms control is not perfect, but it never was designed to be unlike BMD.

The second point revolves around a sort of mini obsession of mine, namely the link between science and global security.

Jacques Hymans had a really, I mean, like, fantastic, article at Foreign Affairs on epistemic barriers to nuclear and missile proliferation following the Unha-3 fizzle.

He wrote,

… The dismal failure of North Korea’s April 13 long-range missile test — it broke into pieces after 81 seconds of flight time — has also exposed the poverty of standard proliferation analyses. In the days leading up to the test, most commentators apparently took Pyongyang’s technological forward march for granted…

… To be sure, a single technical failure need not condemn an entire strategic weapons program. Pyongyang’s missile mishap, however, was not a lone failure; it was merely the latest in a long line of botched strategic weapons tests. The country’s long-range missile test record is frankly pathetic: a total failure in 2006, a partial failure in 2009, and a total failure in 2012. (A 1998 test of a medium-range missile that had been jerry-rigged to fly a longer distance was also a partial failure.) And its nuclear test record is almost as bad: a virtual fizzle in 2006, and a very modest blast at best in 2009.…

Those are all pretty reasonable observations, so far as I can see, to which I return.

Now Hymans goes on to make a broader point

… Nuclear weapons programs around the world are taking much longer to get off the ground — and their failure rate is much higher — than they did during the first 25 years of the nuclear age.
As I explain in my article “Botching the Bomb” in the upcoming issue of Foreign Affairs, the key reason for the great proliferation slowdown is the absence of strong cultures of scientific professionalism in most of the recent crop of would-be nuclear states, which in turn is a consequence of their poorly built political institutions. In such dysfunctional states, the quality of technical workmanship is low, there is little coordination across different technical teams, and technical mistakes lead not to productive learning but instead to finger-pointing and recrimination. These problems are debilitating, and they cannot be fixed simply by bringing in more imported parts through illicit supply networks. In short, as a struggling proliferator, North Korea has a lot of company.…

Given my own development of an epistemic argument in the book on nuclear terrorism that I am writing (watch this space for more on tacit knowledge and stockpile stewardship), I am really glad to see that I’m not the only one thinking along these lines. Furthermore, I certainly will purchase and read Hymans’ just published book on science and nuclear proliferation with more than the usual relish.

Even the most casual of reader should be able to see the link between Brian Weeden’s comments on North Korea’s missile programme, cited above, and those from Hymans.

Surely Hymans has a point here.

However, let me just add one thing. It would have been good to also highlight the role that the MTCR and the missile non-proliferation regime has played in aggravating the epistemic challenges that North Korea has faced.

One must give credit where credit is due.

Boy does arms control both deserve and need it.