The long reach of North Korea's missiles
By Bertil Lintner
BANGKOK - North Korea may be a poor country, but it has some of the most
developed missile systems in the world. Not even years of near-economic
collapse, famine and hunger have hampered the country's missile-development
programs, which are meant both as a preemptive defense - to scare off potential
attackers - and for export.
Over the years, North Korea has earned substantial revenue from the sale of
missiles, and missile components and technology. It is widely believed that the
sale of missiles is the financial source for the country's nuclear program,
which is the reason United
States and other Western countries are eager to stop North Korean missile
exports.
According to US-based North Korea expert Joseph Bermudez, countries that have
bought missile parts and technology from North Korea include Iran, Egypt,
Pakistan, Libya, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. In recent years,
however, North Korea has lost two important customers: Pakistan, which has
become a US ally, and Libya, whose Muammar Gaddafi has pledged to give up his
country's weapons-of-mass-destruction program.
Assisted by Soviet experts and technicians, North Korea began producing
surface-to-air missiles more than 40 years ago. But the first ones were quite
rudimentary, and it was not until North Korea signed a military agreement with
China in 1971 that the industry took off. Gradually, however, the North Koreans
themselves became capable of developing and fine-tuning their growing arsenal
of missiles - together with some rather unexpected, non-communist partners.
The first was Egypt. North Korea helped that country in the war with Israel in
October 1973 by providing some pilots. In return for that assistance, Egypt
transferred a small number of its Soviet-supplied FROG-7B and rockets and
launchers to North Korea, which had already started a ballistic-missile
program. As early as 1965 - and with the Korean War still in fresh memory - the
Great Leader Kim Il-sung established the Hamhung Military Academy to conduct
research into missile technology. In an inaugural speech before the academy, he
stated:
If war breaks out, the US and Japan will also be involved. In
order to prevent their involvement, we have to be able to produce rockets which
fly as far as Japan. Therefore it is the mandate of the Military Academy to
develop mid- and long-range missiles.
In the early 1980s, Egypt provided North Korea with Soviet-made Scud B missiles,
which can carry a 200-kilogram warhead 290 kilometers or more. None of these
missiles was test-fired, but they were used as models for reverse-engineering
in a string of new factories that were built near the Chinese border in the
north, far away from the Demilitarized Zone and prying South Korean and US
eyes. The first North Korean-made replica was finished in 1984 and called the
Hwasong 5.
Throughout the Hwasong program, North Korea cooperated closely with Egypt, and
part of the deal was that the North Koreans would set up a production
capability for Scud-type missiles in Egypt. North Korea also realized that
there was money to be made from its new invention.
At an early stage, Iran expressed an interest in buying missiles, which it
needed for its long and bloody war with Iraq, from North Korea. In June 1987,
the two countries concluded a US$500 million arms agreement, which included
about 100 Hwasong 5s. In Iran, the missile was given a new name: the Shehab 1.
There is nothing to indicate that the Soviet Union and other communist states
at this stage were involved to any significant extent in North Korea's missile
development, although China provided technical training to North Korean
engineers as well as high-quality machine tools.
As skills and techniques improved, North Korea began to develop more advanced
missiles. The Hwasong 5 was followed by the Hwasong 6, which could be armed
with chemical and cluster warheads. It was also sold to Iran as the Shehab 2.
In March 1993, North Korea test-fired a new missile called Rodong, which could
carry either a 1,200kg warhead 1,300km, or a 1,000kg warhead as far as 1,500km
- or enough to be able to reach major cities and US bases in Japan. A 21-member
delegation headed by Brigadier-General Hossein Mantequei, the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard commander in charge of Tehran's missile force, had arrived
in Pyongyang to observe the test. The Iranians were satisfied, and as many as
150 Rodongs were sold to Iran, where the missile was renamed the Shehab 3.
New customers were also found in the Middle East. Not only were Syria and Libya
among them, but even the conservative United Arab Emirates bought 25 Hwasong 5
missiles as well as artillery pieces and multiple rocket launchers in 1989. The
UAE, however, was not pleased with the quality of the Hwasongs, and they were
left to rust in a warehouse.
Outside the Middle East, Pakistan emerged as North Korea's foremost trading
partner for military hardware. Pakistan initially approached North Korea to buy
conventional weaponry in the early 1970s, when tension was escalating with
India over East Pakistan's attempts to break away.
On September 18, 1971, the first shipment of North Korean weapons arrived in
Karachi, but East Pakistan managed to break away anyway - with help from India
- and form independent Bangladesh that December. The following year, North
Korea and Pakistan established diplomatic relations, and North Korea sold
artillery, multiple rocket launchers, ammunition, and a variety of spare parts
to Pakistan. The modified Pakistani version of the North Korea's Nodong, or
Rodong, missile was called the Ghauri and was first tested on April 6, 1998.
Pakistan's cooperation with North Korea came to a halt when, in late 2001, the
former became an ally of the United States in the "war on terror". Now Iran has
become North Korea's main partner in missile, and most likely also nuclear,
development.
Apart from being a major source of hard currency, North Korea's
missile-development program serves another, equally important purpose.
Pyongyang has repeatedly asked Japan to pay compensation for its brutal
colonial rule of Korea, from 1910 to 1945 - and Japan is extremely sensitive to
North Korea's missile and nuclear capabilities. In 1999, Hwang Won-tak, adviser
to then South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, indicated that the North might
demand food and hard currency from Japan in return for not test-firing
missiles.
In 1998, a new generation of North Korean missiles was born with the
three-stage Taepodong 1, which it test-fired over Japan on August 31 from the
Musudan-ni launch facility on the coast of North Hamgyong province. The
Japanese were outraged and saw it as a grave provocation, but the North Koreans
stated that the purpose was only to place their first satellite - the
Kwangmyongsong 1 - into orbit to beam down hymns in praise of Kim Il-sung.
Whatever the case, the missile flew 1,090km from the launch site in North Korea
into the Pacific Ocean east of the main Japanese island of Honshu. Since then,
a Taepodong 2 with a range of 6,700km has been developed, which has brought US
bases in Okinawa, Guam, Alaska and Hawaii within the potential range of North
Korean missiles. The North Koreans are working on a third Taepodong, which will
be capable of delivering a 500-1,000kg warhead at a distance of 10,000-12,000km
- anywhere in the United States.
It is believed that it is the Taepodong 2 that North Korea now is planning to
test-fire. Whether is will scare Japan, and perhaps also South Korea, into
offering more aid remains to be seen. But the United States appears to be in no
mood to offer North Korea anything, focusing as it is on finding ways to choke
off North Korea's lethal exports - and to eliminate any threat that those
missiles pose to US interests and security.
NORTH
KOREA'S MISSILE SYSTEMS
Short-range
ballistic missiles (SRBM)
SA-2/HQ-2 SSM
Range: 60-160km
Warhead: 190kg
Year developed: 1976
DF-61
Range: 600km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: na
Scud B (R-17E)
Range: 300km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: 1981
Hwasong 5 (Prototype Scud Model A)
Range: 300km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: 1984
Hwasong 5 (Scud Model B)
Range: 320-340km
Warhead: 1,000kg
Year developed: 1985
(Note: In Iran, the Hwasong 5 is known as the Shehab 1)
Hwasong 6 (Scud Model C; Scud PIP)
Range: 500km
Warhead: 770kg
Year developed: 1989
Medium-range
ballistic missiles (MRBM)
Nodong (Nodong 1, Rodong 1, Scud Model D)
Range: 1,350-1,500km
Warhead: 1,200kg
Year developed: 1993
(Note: the Pakistani copy of the Nodong is called the Ghauri. The Nodong has a
range of 1,350km with a 1,200kg warhead; the Ghauri has a range of 1,500km with
a 700kg warhead. The Nodong 1 is known as the Shehab 3 in Iran)
Taepodong 1 (Daepodong 1, Nodong 2, Scud X, Scud Model E, Rodong 2)
Range: 2,500km
Warhead: 700-1,000kg
Year developed: 1998
(Note: This is the kind of missile that the North Koreans test-fired over Japan
in August 1998. Range according to the latest estimate by the South Korean
Ministry of Defense. Earlier estimates were 1,500-2,000km)
Taepodong 2 (Daepodong 2,
Nodong 3) Range: 6,700km
Warhead: 700-1,000kg
Year developed: 2000
(Latest estimate by the South Korean Ministry of Defense. Earlier estimates
were 4,000-6,000km)
Three-stage Taepodong 2
(Taepodong 3) Range: 10,000-12,000km
Warhead: 500-1,000kg
Year developed: Being developed
Range
requirements The entire South Korea - 500km
US bases in Japan and major Japanese cities: 1,000-1,500km
US bases in Alaska and Hawaii: 4,000-6,000km
Continental US: 6,000+km
(Source: Joseph S Bermudez Jr, Shield of the Great Leader: The Armed
Forces of North Korea, Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2001.
Bertil Lintner is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic
Review and the author of Great Leader, Dear Leader: Demystifying North
Korea under the Kim Clan. He is currently a writer with Asia-Pacific Media
Services.
