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Ankit Panda Profile picture
Ankit Panda
@nktpnd
Stanton Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Author of ‘THE NEW NUCLEAR AGE’ (Polity) & ‘KIM JONG UN AND THE BOMB’ (Hurst/Oxford)
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Sep 25 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
China announces a routine ICBM test. Interesting. content-static.cctvnews.cctv.com/snow-book/inde… "At 8:44 am on September 25, the Rocket Force of the People's Liberation Army of China successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile carrying a training simulated warhead into the relevant high seas waters of the Pacific Ocean"
Apr 2 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Hwasong-16B. Image That is quite the TEL design.
Apr 14, 2023 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
A thought on this: large solid-fuel missiles are *operationally* advantageous to their liquid counterparts in nearly every way, but have certain downsides relating to their maintenance/storage/handling that deserve to be noted. 1/n Solid propellant grain, once cast, is sensitive to humidity/temperature/physical stress (during transport, for instance). That's why large, valuable solid-fuel missiles are canisterized. Over years in storage, solid fuel missiles can degrade. 2/n
Apr 13, 2023 • 13 tweets • 4 min read
NEW: North Korea claims first successful flight-test of a new, solid-fuel ICBM, dubbed the 'Hwasong-18'. This was a major objective set forth by Kim Jong Un for 2023 at the start of this year. Image One more image. Per North Korean state media, the test was meant to demonstrate a “nuclear counterattack” capability and to “make the enemies suffer from fear and anxiety.” Image
Apr 12, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
It's April 2023 and no updates yet from NADA on the anticipated SSO reconnaissance satellite launch prep. Stay tuned. Beginning in 2009, North Korea began to comply with internationally accepted satellite prenotification practices (ICAO, IMO, etc.). Unclear if that practice will resume for a satellite with an ostensible "military" role. voanews.com/a/a-13-2009-03…
Mar 23, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Interesting tidbit underscoring command and control practices (negative controls) in new KCNA on latest Hwasal-1/2 cruise missile tests for "tactical" nuclear strikes. Image Emphasizing negative control is important as KPA moves toward deploying TNWs to "frontline" units (as was decided at last June's WPK CMC meeting): "...adopting important military measures to enhance the operational capabilities of the frontline units" kcnawatch.org/newstream/1656…
Mar 23, 2023 • 10 tweets • 3 min read
North Korean state media notes that Kim Jong Un oversaw recent weapons test, including of a “a new underwater offensive weapon system.” KCNA describes it as “unmanned underwater nuclear attacking vessel ‘Haeil’”. (No previous indication that such a program existed in DPRK.) Here’s the state media report on this new “secret weapon”. This appears to be something of a North Korean analog to Russia’s Poseidon, but I have ... questions.
Dec 26, 2022 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Lots to find concerning about Monday's drone incursion across the MDL on the Korean Peninsula. Story from @nknewsorg with useful data here: nknews.org/2022/12/south-… First, inter-Korean tensions have been high going back to September; we've had an unusually intense spate of North Korean missile launches & responses by ROK in turn. Against this backdrop, drone incursion could easily have been misinterpreted as a limited attack.
Nov 29, 2022 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Caveat lector. ImageImage (I'm not saying 1,500 warheads by 2035 is obviously wrong, but this conditional statement by DoD is going to get reported incorrectly as an assessment that China *will* have 1,500 warheads by 2035.)
Nov 7, 2022 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
One the more eye-catching claims by North Korea yesterday: apparently that it launched cruise missiles "at the open sea around 80 km off the coast of Ulsan City of south Korea" (no such event was reported by ROK authorities). kcnawatch.org/newstream/1667… The coordinates provided in NK state media correspond to this point. That's an unprecedentedly southeasterly splashdown point for any North Korean missile.
Nov 6, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
New ICBM. 🧐 Image SCUDs are back. Image
Nov 5, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
Still going to use Twitter for a bit, but I've parked a Mastodon account here (tweeting to authenticate that this will be me on Mastodon if it comes to that): mastodon.world/web/@ankit (Only other social media I'm active on is Instagram, but I largely don't use that for substantive engagement on the issues I work on.)
Oct 24, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
NB: A "dirty bomb" (colloquial name for a radiological dispersal device, or RDD) is not a nuclear weapon. RDDs use conventional chemical explosives with arbitrary radioactive material to, well, disperse those materials. The military effectiveness of such a weapon is low, except for what it represents as a tool of terror (people generally find radioactive materials terrifying). Threats to human health/life vary with radioactive sources that might be incorporated into a RDD.
Oct 10, 2022 • 11 tweets • 3 min read
A short thread of assorted, early thoughts about North Korea's new intermediate-range ballistic missile (pictured below). This is the missile that overflew Japan recently. [1/n] 🧵 First, it's unprecedented for North Korea to introduce and test a new long-range missile type on a "normal" trajectory; usually, they "loft" their large new missiles (firing them at a sharp angle to reduce demonstrated range). [2/n]
Oct 9, 2022 • 36 tweets • 5 min read
KCNA: Chairman of Central Military Commission of WPK guides military exercises of tactical nuclear operation units of KPA [🧵 1/n] The military exercises of the tactical nuclear operation units of the Korean People's Army were conducted between September 25 and October 9... [2/n]
Oct 9, 2022 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
Pictures, please! : N.K. leader inspects training of tactical nuclear weapon unit: state media en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN202210… There we go.
Oct 3, 2022 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
First since September 2017. IRBM or ICBM. On the ICBM possibility.
Sep 9, 2022 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
carnegieendowment.org/2022/08/15/sou… More to say soon! This is all very interesting.
Sep 7, 2022 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
OK, I’ll tweet a few thoughts on this story. nytimes.com/2022/09/05/us/… First, everything reported here strikes me as plausible: North Korea has stocks of 122mm/152mm shells/rockets and would be willing to supply (for the right price/return).
Aug 4, 2022 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
One of the longer term consequences of this crisis (and generally of PLA behavior in last 18-24 months): Taiwan Strait median line crossings no longer rare, but regularized by PLA in the course of future exercises; pressure on ROC to respond (& higher odds of miscalculation). This would amount, effectively, to a constraining of Taiwan’s already limited strategic depth in peacetime.
Aug 4, 2022 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Helpful thread. Prior to this, PLA noted exercises would involve “conventional” fires only; some US analysts have seen DF-15 use (including in 3rd Strait Crisis) as nuclear signaling, but there’s no compelling evidence of DF-15 having a nuclear delivery role. The “nuclear” DF-15 assessments, as best I know, trace their origins to a 1993 CIA assessment that suggested there could be a nuclear warhead for the system. More recent US intelligence assessments (including NASIC 2021) describe DF-15/CSS-6 as “conventionally-armed.”