Did they have a head start? here is why I’m confused
North Korea has 1/3 the population of Iran. That is a smaller talent pool of scientists, but more than that North Korea has a very strict class/caste system. Only about 20-30% of the country is considered ‘loyal’, and I doubt North Korea would pull people from the wavering or hostile class (who collectively make 70-80% of the country) to earn degrees in engineering, physics or chemistry so they could work on a top secret military program. So Iran had a pool of 60 million people, North korea had a pool of arguably 4-6 million people to train as scientists.
Plus due to chronic malnutrition in North Korea, retardation is rampant. Shouldn’t that have made it harder to create a nuclear weapons program? Then again, the ‘loyal’ class should have less malnutrition than the lower classes.
On top of that their economies are not comparable. North Korea has a GDP of about $20-40 billion. Iran has $400 billion.
So point being North Korea has fewer people, a smaller talent pool and less money but they built nukes before Iran. Was it just motivation (the NK government wanted them more)? Did NK start earlier?
Does it really not matter as far as the size of the talent pool or money? Do you just need a few thousand really smart people and a few billion dollars a year to get the program running, and as a result both countries could easily cough up that amount of human and financial capital? I think I read in Iraq during their nuclear push they had maybe 1000-ish scientists working on their nuclear program, and I’m sure only a small number of them were truly brilliant (many were probably technicians who had bachelor degrees or lower). Even if North Korea only had a talent pool of 1-2 million people from the core class who were core class and were healthy enough to go to university, I’m sure they could get a few thousand who were talented enough to build a nuclear bomb from that group.
I guess my point is am I grossly misinformed about how much human and financial capital it takes for a nation to build nuclear weapons? Because I don’t understand how North Korea with far less human and financial capital was able to build them before Iran.
I think it’s because North Korea actually wanted nuclear weapons, while Iran just wanted the political and economic leverage from the world thinking they wanted nuclear weapons.
I think NK shows us that pretty much any country can get nuclear weapons if they want them badly enough.
As I understand it, North Korea got a supply of plutonium from various second-world sources, enough to make a handful of bombs, but that once that’s used up, they’ve got nothing. Iran, on the other hand, wants their own facilities to produce a continual supply of fissionable material, and that’s harder to set up.
If what NK exploded in their recent test was a plutonium bomb, it might explain why it mostly fizzled – to my understanding plutonium bombs are much more complex in terms of the critical mass containment than enriched uranium bombs – hence the greater complexity of the Manhattan Project’s “Fat Man” compared to the smaller uranium one. Not sure what the yield was in NK’s test but it’s not clear that this is much more than a sort of dirty bomb, spewing out lots of radiation but not that much energy. Making it arguable just what it really means to say that NK “has nuclear weapons”.
Last device exploded in 2013 yielded between 10 and 40 kt. The large discrepancy results from different cavity coupling models. At least in public literature it is unknown whether this was HEU or a plutonium blast, seems the tunnel was sealed well enough that no atmospheric Xenon analysis was possible.
NK dabbles in nuclear technology since the late 50’s with help of the Soviets and later with the help of A. Q. Khan. They have a 8 MW (at least) reactor, separation facilities and large natural uranium mines. They are thought to possess over 10 nuclear devices, although it is not clear if they are miniaturized and re-entry proof i. e. they are deliverable with their missiles.
A factor might be the willingness of the NK leadership to deprive much of the populace of basic necessities in order to devote resources to a pet project like a nuclear bomb. Iran seems a bit more concerned with actually taking care of its citizens. If you don’t care how many people you kill to get a project done it becomes a lot easier to do certain things.
North Korea created its own plutonium since the early 1990s at the Yongbyon reactor, before being caught red-handed by the IAEA under Hans Blix. The DPRK attempted to sanitize the reactor, but the IAEA detected minute particles indicating the intentional use of the reactor to create plutonium. The Agreed Framework, which was the attempt to stop the DPRK’s nuclear program after those inspections, included a deal to destroy Yongbyon and replace it with a light water reactor not suitable to weapons related activities. That deal fell apart for a variety of reasons within several years.
As others noted, the Yongbyon complex is also capable of uranium enrichment.
I also wondered how Pakistan seemed to build nuclear weapons pretty quickly, so much that when India tested it’s nukes, Pakistan responded by carrying out it’s own nuclear tests?
But Iran seems to have taken long, sure they may never have wanted to actually build nukes, but even then the Iranians were far from being on the threshold.
My guess is that NK employs standardized tests and other tools to identify students with high STEM aptitude at the earliest possible ages, and then lavishes them with all the attention needed to produce an ongoing cadre of highly competent scientists. Such cadres no doubt enjoy a very high standard of living by NK standards.
No NK parent is going to even think about standing in the way of that!
North Korea finished earlier because they started earlier. Kim Il Sung was sending scientists to Moscow for nuclear training as far back as the 1960’s, and North Korea got serious about weaponizing its nuclear technology by the late 1970’s.
The Islamists in Iran didn’t come to power until 1979, and fought a debilitating and resource-sucking war against Iraq until 1988. Iran didn’t even begin thinking about weaponization until circa 1990.
India’s first nuke went off in 1974. Pakistan had a nuclear weapons effort since the early 80s. India’s 1998 tests of more sophisticated type devices, shortly before Pakistan’s, were probably themselves a result of Indian intelligence having determined earlier that Pakistani success was itself imminent, so India had to step up and show what they were really capable of.
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I also wondered how Pakistan seemed to build nuclear weapons pretty quickly, so much that when India tested it’s nukes, Pakistan responded by carrying out it’s own nuclear tests?
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Pakistans nuclear programme began in the 1970’s. By 1983 Pakistan had carried out successful cold tests. For more than a decade before 1998, there were detailed plans in place to carry out tests within days if ordered, plans which were implemented when the Indians tested first in 1998.
I see – so on one side a show of strength to demonstrate how far had advanced the level of their power for political reasons, and on the other then a program essentially completed but standing by in case your own show of strength became necessary?
Well, AK84 is Pakistani, and perhaps not the most objective source. It’s certainly true that India’s 1998 tests were political posturing and not necessary to its nuclear development goals.