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![handle is hein.crs/govehag0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Informing
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Updated December 13, 2021
North Korea's Nuclear Weapons and Missile Programs
Overview
North Korea continues to advance its nuclear weapons and
missile programs despite UN Security Council sanctions
and high-level diplomatic efforts. Recent ballistic missile
tests and military parades suggest that North Korea is
continuing to build a nuclear warfighting capability
designed to evade regional ballistic missile defenses. Such
an approach likely reinforces a deterrence and coercive
diplomacy strategy-lending more credibility as it
demonstrates capability-but it also raises questions about
crisis stability and escalation control. Congress may choose
to examine U.S. policy in light of these advances.
According to the U.S. intelligence community's 2021
annual threat assessment, North Korean leaders view
nuclear weapons as the ultimate deterrent against foreign
intervention. At the January 2021 North Korean Workers'
Party Conference, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un hailed
the status of our state as a nuclear weapons state and
praised its powerful and reliable strategic deterrent. Kim
Jong-un has said that nuclear weapons of the DPRK can be
used only by a final order of the Supreme Commander of
the Korean People's Army [Kim Jong-un] to repel invasion
or attack from a hostile nuclear weapons state and make
retaliatory strikes.
Nuclear Testing
North Korea is observing a self-imposed moratorium on
nuclear and long-range missile testing. It has tested a
nuclear explosive device six times since 2006. Each test
produced underground blasts progressively higher in
magnitude and estimated yield. North Korea conducted its
most recent test on September 3, 2017. A North Korean
press release stated it had tested a hydrogen bomb (or two-
stage thermonuclear warhead) that it was perfecting for
delivery on an intercontinental ballistic missile.
In April 2018, North Korea announced that it had achieved
its goals, would no longer conduct nuclear tests, and would
close down its Punggye-ri nuclear test site. It dynamited the
entrances to two test tunnels in May 2018 prior to the first
Trump-Kim summit in front of a group of journalists. In an
October 2018 meeting with then-Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, Kim Jong-un invited inspectors to visit the [test
site] to confirm that it has been irreversibly dismantled,
but this has not yet occurred.
Nuclear Materni Production
North Korea reportedly continues to produce fissile
material (plutonium and highly enriched uranium) for
weapons. North Korea restarted its plutonium production
facilities after it withdrew from a nuclear agreement in
2009, and is operating centrifuge uranium enrichment
plants at the Yongbyon nuclear complex and possibly at
Kangson. An August 2021 International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) report says that North Korea was operating
its Radiochemical Laboratory (reprocessing) plant and its
Yongbyon Experimental Light Water 5MW(e) Reactor.
Spent fuel from this reactor has been reprocessed in the past
to extract plutonium for weapons. During the September
2018 North-South Korea Pyongyang Summit, the North
stated it would permanently disable the Yongbyon
facilities if the United States took corresponding
measures.
Nuclear Warheads
Fissile material production in large part determines the
number and type of nuclear warheads North Korea is able
to build. The 2021 DIA report says that North Korea
retains a stockpile of nuclear weapons. Outside experts
estimate that North Korea has produced enough fissile
material for between 20 to 60 warheads. Another goal of a
nuclear weapons program is to lower the size and weight of
nuclear warhead for deployment on missiles. In July 2017,
a DIA assessment and some outside observers believed
North Korea had achieved the level of miniaturization
required to fit a nuclear device on weapons ranging across
the spectrum of its missiles, from short-range ballistic
missiles (SRBM) to intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBM). Kim Jong-un in January 2021 said that the country
was able to miniaturize, lighten and standardize nuclear
weapons and to make them tactical ones.
Delivery Vehicles
U.N. Security Council (UNSC) resolutions prohibit North
Korea's development of the means of delivering
conventional and nuclear payloads, in addition to the
nuclear weapons themselves. UNSC resolutions ban all
ballistic missile tests by North Korea. A ballistic missile is
a projectile powered by a rocket engine until it reaches the
apogee of its trajectory, at which point it falls back to earth
using earth's gravity. Ballistic missiles can deliver nuclear
and large conventional payloads at high speed and over
great distances. They are categorized as short-range,
medium-range, or long-range (intercontinental) based on
the distance from the launch site to the target.
North Korea is developing nuclear weapons and delivery
systems that possess certain critical features: mobility,
reliability, potency, precision, and survivability. Mobile
weapons have increased survivability compared with fixed
launch sites and static stockpiles. Reliability, potency,
precision, and in-flight maneuverability work together to
maximize the impact of North Korea's limited quantity of
weapons, launchers, and warheads. A key element to North
Korean missile doctrine, therefore, is continued testing to
develop, ensure, and demonstrate these features.
Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles
North Korea improved its ability to strike the entire
continental United States with an ICBM through a series of
tests in 2017. The DPRK successfully test-launched two](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.crs/govehag0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)