The idea that international pressure can indefinitely keep Iran as a nuclear threshold state strikes me as one of the dumbest ideas I I have ever seen held by a government official.
Reminds me when I told a Japanese official that North Korea would test an ICBM and a thermonuclear weapon soon.
"Be patient, we need to give sanctions a few years to work."
"You don't have years."
That was November 2016.
Iran as a threshold state is almost certainly going to end up as Iran the opaque proliferator. I seem to recall some other state in the region that made that particular journey. armscontrol.org/act/2007-06/fe…
Opaque proliferation was a thing -- South Africa and North Korea both did it. It is also what Iran planned for its pre-2003 program, according to the #AtomicArchive: stockpile five nuclear weapons and be ready to conduct an explosive test if a demonstration becomes necessary.
The problem is opaque proliferators can outgrow opacity. See: 🇰🇵🇮🇳🇵🇰. "Thoughts and prayers" that Iran remains a threshold state seems unlikely to work out for Israel, but I've never been one to suffer client-itis. If that's what Israel wants, it's their deterrent balance.
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Saudi Arabia got released some footage of "Iranian missiles in Yemen in 2017" that turned out to be "Saddam's missiles in Iraq from 2003" that someone stole from a documentary, #SevereClear A short thread on a wild story by @garymbaum in @THR.
The Saudis showed a satellite image of a port in Yemen where the claimed, followed by "secret" video showing the missiles. @miis_ford translated the slides.
The problem, as many online observers pointed out, is that the video of the missiles is taken from a documentary about the invasion of Iraq called "Severe Clear." The Saudis showed a brief excerpt three times; the full clip that I added shows the full clip with US soldiers.
North Korea is going to be launching a lot of interesting stuff again. Here's the information we get, where we get it from and when.
Within minutes, the ROK Joint Chiefs of Staff usually texts an announcement to reporters first. This appears in @YonhapNews, ROK's state media, which will update the story repeatedly through the day, adding details each time. Yonhap has issued four versions of the story already.
The details usually include the time of launch, place, distance and apogee. The ROK used to give flight-time; lately they've been giving burnout velocity in the form of a Mach number. These estimates are rounded and often don't match what the North Koreans will later say.
It's probably a 4,500 km-range Hwasong-12 IRBM based on the trajectory. Compare:
Hwasong-12 test on May 14 2012:
787 km range
2,111.5 km apogee
~30 minute flight time.
UI missile test on January 29, 2022
800 km range
>2000 km apogee
~30 minute flight time
North Korea has tested a lot missiles recently, but this is a big step. In 2018, Kim announced a moratorium on intermediate- and intercontinental-range ballistic missile launches. North Korea has now broken that moratorium. ICBM tests are almost certain to follow.
I should say: The ROK/GOJ numbers could turn out to be wrong. Or it could be a new missile, like a solid, with a similar range as the Hwasong-12. We won't know until we see pictures tomorrow. So, caveat lector. But for now, it looks like a Hwasong-12.
A short thread on North Korea's "hypersonic" missile test. It's a MaRV.
All long-range missiles are hypersonic! The range of a ballistic missile is, to a first approximation, a function of the velocity of a missile at burnout. Any ballistic missile that travels more than a few hundred kilometers will be traveling faster than Mach 5 (1.75 km/s).
What North Korea tested was a hypersonic glider. The system flew 700 km. The warhead separated at some point and glided for a few hundred kilometers, including a 120 km cross-range glide. I mocked up some trajectories; they're only sort of to scale.
I was quoted in this @defense_news story about Morocco's expanding air defense capabilities. Don't feel like writing a blog post, so here's a thread on what little I was able to add with OSINT. defensenews.com/global/mideast…
In December, a Spanish-language publication reported that Morocco had taken delivery of some very capable Chinese surface-to-air missiles (HQ-9B/FD-2000B). defensa.com/africa-asia-pa…
Defensa.com said the missiles were deployed at Morocco's "first military base dedicated to long-range air defense ... near the city of Sidi Yahya el-Gharb" and published a May 2021 satellite image from @googleearth of the site.
This amazing reporting by @ZcohenCNN is exactly the kind of collaboration that @JamesMartinCNS wants to continue with @CNN and @planet. I think it is civil society at its best. A short thread.
In 2013, @JanesINTEL identified a missile base at this location; a few years later @fab_hinz noticed that the sit had changed significantly. We ultimately assessed the place was a Chinese constructed missile facility: washingtonpost.com/world/national…
Our story prompted people in Congress to start asking questions. Eventually someone spilled the beans. The Trump Administration was actively withholding this information from Congress, @ZcohenCNN reported. cnn.com/2019/06/05/pol…