[Interview] Nuclear expert: North Korea likely to have miniaturized H-bomb within Moon’s term

Posted on : 2017-10-17 17:34 KST Modified on : 2017-10-17 17:34 KST
NRDC Senior Research Fellow Kang Jung-min believes all sides must work toward freezing NK program
National Resource Defense Council Senior Research Fellow Kang Jung-min is interviewed by the Hankyoreh at a hotel in the Yeouido  District of Seoul on Oct. 12 (by Park Jong-shik
National Resource Defense Council Senior Research Fellow Kang Jung-min is interviewed by the Hankyoreh at a hotel in the Yeouido District of Seoul on Oct. 12 (by Park Jong-shik

North Korea, which carried out a sixth nuclear weapons test last month, continues to move toward completing its nuclear armament. US President Donald Trump has been threatening North Korea with inflammatory statements about “totally destroy[ing]” the North and shows of force featuring strategic weapons, but North Korean leader Kim Jong-un struck back by promising “the most ultra-hardline response measures.” Experts on the North Korean nuclear weapon say that time is on the side of North Korea, not of South Korea and the US.

“North Korea’s sixth nuclear test involved a hydrogen bomb,” said Kang Jung-min, Senior Research Fellow at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and a US expert on nuclear weapons and nuclear development, during an interview with the Hankyoreh. “Now that the North has miniaturized atomic bombs, I think they’ll be able to miniaturize hydrogen bombs, too, after one or two more tests.” North Korea will be able to complete its nuclear program, Kang believes, “during the presidency of Moon Jae-in,” and he recommended that South Korea and the US “devote their energy at once to freezing the North Korean nuclear program.”

After arriving in South Korea on Oct. 11, Kang was one of the panelists in favor of halting the construction of Shin-Kori nuclear reactors 5 and 6 during the comprehensive debate on Oct. 14 for the citizen jury that will decide whether the construction will be halted permanently. The interview took place at a hotel in Yeouido, Seoul, on the morning of Oct. 12.

Hankyoreh (Hani): Did the sixth nuclear test involve a hydrogen bomb, as North Korea claims?

Kang Jung-min (Kang): I think it was a hydrogen bomb. If you look at the seismic waves produced by all six of North Korea’s nuclear tests, the sixth test was distinctly different. [The destructive force of] the sixth nuclear test is basically thought to be 100 kilotons of TNT – which is a scale you can’t get from boosting, where you add deuterium and tritium to a regular atomic bomb to produce more neutrons from nuclear fission.

Hani: North Korea also claimed that the fourth nuclear test in January of last year was on a hydrogen bomb, but scientists thought that the North had tested a boosted-fission bomb. Are you saying that things are different this time?

Kang: The fourth and fifth tests used boosting. What they did this time was the next step. The reason they moderated [the destructive power] so much was out of consideration for China, since a bigger bomb would have produced a bigger earthquake. Even Siegfried Hecker [senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University] believes that since this is North Korea’s first hydrogen test, they haven’t managed to miniaturize [a hydrogen warhead], but they’ll probably be able to do so in the future after one or two more [tests]. They’ve probably miniaturized their existing atomic bombs, their plutonium bombs.

Hani: What stage does the US scientific community believe that North Korea has reached in its development of nuclear weapons and missiles?

Kang: North Korea’s current [tests] are based on much superior [nuclear technology] than Pakistan and India, which stopped with atomic bombs. This is an extremely dangerous situation. That’s what you hear from experts in the US private sector who deal with nuclear weapons. According to people like Ted [Theodore] Postol at MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology], it’s unclear whether North Korea [has acquired] ICBM reentry [technology]. But North Korea can load a nuclear weapon and fire it at South Korea, Japan and Guam, and the risk is definite.

Hani: How long do you think it will take North Korea to acquire the ability to fire an ICBM tipped with a nuclear warhead?

Kang: That will be possible within three to five years, while Moon Jae-in and Donald Trump are in office.

Hani: Even before the sixth nuclear test, there were calls within the US scientific community to recognize North Korea as a nuclear weapon state and start negotiating with it.

Kang: You have Hecker’s proposals of the “three nos,” which would halt the production of fissile material, nuclear tests and the movement of nuclear weapons outside the country. The most important thing right now is to do these three things. We’re in a situation where North Korea can’t shut down its nuclear program. While [the international community] can’t acknowledge the North as a nuclear weapon state, the goal of denuclearization demands that we freeze the nuclear program at the stage right before that.

Hani: Is there any advice you would like to give the government?

Kang: The position of experts in the US is that South Korea must be somehow stopped from introducing nuclear-powered submarines. The idea that South Korea should respond to North Korea’s nuclear program by acquiring its own nuclear arsenal could bring about the death of us all.

Hani:You’ve been an active proponent of phasing out nuclear power and halting construction on Shin-Kori nuclear reactors 5 and 6.

Kang: In terms of safety issues, nuclear power plants are vulnerable not only to natural disasters but are to terrorism, sabotage and imminent missile attacks. Pictures released by North Korea show a picture of a nuclear plant on the wall behind Kim Jong-un. If the containment vessel in the reactor is damaged [by a missile attack], highly toxic radioactive material would be released.

[Nuclear power] is also problematic in terms of the safety of electricity. A reactor trip – which automatically shuts down a nuclear reactor – could be activated by an earthquake, but the signal for an earthquake could also be inserted by cyberterrorists. The simultaneous shutdown of eight to ten reactors could result in a nationwide power outage.

Hani: Some argue that there wouldn’t be much damage in the area around Shin-Kori because there’s not a high concentration of nuclear reactors.

Kang: The problem is not the concentration of nuclear reactors but the density of the population in the surrounding area. There are 30,000 people living near Bruce Nuclear Generating Station in Canada [where there is a high concentration of reactors], and there are 3 million people living near Kori.

 

By Kim Ji-eun and Noh Ji-won, staff reporters

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]

button that move to original korean article (클릭시 원문으로 이동하는 버튼)