In September 2017, North Korea shocked the world by exploding the most powerful nuclear device tested anywhere in 25 years. Months earlier, it had conducted the first test flight of a missile capable of ranging much of the United States. By the end of that year, Kim Jong Un, the reclusive state's ruler, declared that his nuclear deterrent was complete.
Today, North Korea's nuclear weapons stockpile and ballistic missile arsenal continues to grow, presenting one of the most serious challenges to international security to date. Internal regime propaganda has called North Korea's nuclear forces the country's "treasured sword," underscoring the cherished place of these weapons in national strategy. Fiercely committed to self-reliance, Kim remains determined to avoid unilateral disarmament.
Kim Jong Un and the Bomb tells the story of how North Korea-once derided in the 1970s as a "fourth-rate pipsqueak" of a country by President Richard Nixon-came to credibly threaten the American homeland by November 2017. Ankit Panda explores the contours of North Korea's nuclear capabilities, the developmental history of its weapons programs, and the prospects for disarming or constraining Kim's arsenal. With no signs that North Korea's total disarmament is imminent over the next years or even decade, Panda explores the consequences of a nuclear-armed North Korea for the United States, South Korea, and the world.
24 global ratings
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Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea
Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea
byAnkit Panda
24 global ratings | 4 global reviews
From the United States
Mooonshinefunk
5.0 out of 5 stars This is the definitive book about North Korea’s nuclear strategy, nuclear weapons, and missiles.
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2020
Verified Purchase
I’ve read most of the books about North Korea’s nuclear program as well as the books about Kim Jong-un’s rule and a lot of books about North Korea before his reign. This is the best and most thorough book if you want to understand North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Panda describes Kim Jong-Un’s nuclear strategy, and how that ties into the larger defense doctrine. He also has by far the best and most detailed overview of the development of North Korea’s nuclear program and especially its missiles. A lot of the material is exclusive because it’s based on Panda’s sources within governments. To top it off, Panda writes in an accessible way which is not at all the norm for books with this much information about nuclear weapons and missiles. If you are interested in nuclear weapons or North Korea, read this book.
3 people found this helpful
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Kyle Erickson
5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and highly readable
Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2020
Verified Purchase
Ankit Panda shows his in-depth knowledge of East Asian security issues in his new book- I found his analysis of nuclear deterrence and the Kim regime’s goals helpful in unpacking the last three years of relations between the US and DPRK. He also provides important context and focuses a lot on Kim Jong Il’s search for a robust nuclear deterrent during his time in power.
All in all, if you’re interested in either nuclear deterrence, North Korea or Asian geopolitics, this book deserves a spot on your shelf.
One person found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating in-depth look at North Korea's nuclear deterrence, and its' geopolitical impact
Reviewed in the United States on August 30, 2020
I've followed Ankit Panda on Twitter for a while and enjoyed a lot of his writing as a subscriber to The Diplomat — especially a big fan of his podcast, which initially got me interested in everything arms controls, nonproliferation, disarmament, and North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
The book divided into three sections, with the first section acting as a helpful historical refresher on North Korea's founding in 1948, the geopolitical theatre surrounding the Korean peninsula, and the three generations of North Korean leaders (Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and now Kim Jong Un).
The second section dives deep into the technical details of the country's weapons developments and nuclear capabilities, including specifics on all the known missile and nuclear tests — and how the international community reacted to each of them (UN sanctions, diplomatic ties, rhetoric changes, etc.). This section also includes an interesting look at how North Korea collaborated with other countries and leveraged the expertise of AQ. Khan of Pakistan.
The last chapter in the second section deals with the dilemmas of building a resilient command and control (or C2) system for North Korea to have a credible nuclear deterrent. This chapter was a fascinating chapter for someone like me without any prior understanding nor background in this field.
The final section looks at what a North Korea possessing credible nuclear weapons and ICBMs means for the greater geopolitical landscape in Northeast Asia, especially with the current Trump administration and the growing diplomatic competition between the US and China (and Russia).
I thought I was reasonably familiar with the developments from ~2017 onwards, especially with the 2018 North Korea–United States Singapore Summit - but Ankit provides a wealth of uniquely new details and insights from his sources in the intelligence community and many off-the-record discussions in DC.
The incredibly detailed footnotes and references open up a vast repository of first-party sources for the reader to explore further.
One person found this helpful
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K. Dekleva
5.0 out of 5 stars brilliant book about nuclear deterrence in the DPRK
Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2020
Ankit Panda has written a superb book on the complexity of North Korea’s nuclear program, and on how it fits into a deterrence doctrine. His analysis is sound, and helps one understand why Kim (or any other future DPRK leader) will never give up its nuclear capability. Panda’s book is a valuable addition to the field, and it reminded me of similar excellent works about India’s and Israel’s nuclear programs by George Perkovich and Avner Cohen, respectively. It is a must read! Congratulations to Ankit Panda on a fine achievement.
One person found this helpful
--
Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea
by Ankit Panda
4.55 · Rating details · 29 ratings · 8 reviews
In September 2017, North Korea shocked the world by exploding the most powerful nuclear device tested anywhere in 25 years. Months earlier, it had conducted the first test flight of a missile capable of ranging much of the United States. By the end of that year, Kim Jong Un, the reclusive state's ruler, declared that his nuclear deterrent was complete.
Today, North Korea's nuclear weapons stockpile and ballistic missile arsenal continues to grow, presenting one of the most serious challenges to international security to date. Internal regime propaganda has called North Korea's nuclear forces the country's "treasured sword," underscoring the cherished place of these weapons in national strategy. Fiercely committed to self-reliance, Kim remains determined to avoid unilateral disarmament.
Kim Jong Un and the Bomb tells the story of how North Korea-once derided in the 1970s as a "fourth-rate pipsqueak" of a country by President Richard Nixon-came to credibly threaten the American homeland by November 2017. Ankit Panda explores the contours of North Korea's nuclear capabilities, the developmental history of its weapons programs, and the prospects for disarming or constraining Kim's arsenal. With no signs that North Korea's total disarmament is imminent over the next years or even decade, Panda explores the consequences of a nuclear-armed North Korea for the United States, South Korea, and the world.
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Patrick Anderson
Oct 14, 2020Patrick Anderson rated it it was amazing
Shelves: favorites, national-security, nuclear
This text does a great job breaking down the history, technology and what we can glean of the thinking and logic of the North Korean nuclear program and how the hermit kingdom views it's strategic deterrent. If you want an approachable introduction to the conundrum of North Korean nuclear deterrence and how we should approach a DPRK that can hold US allies and US cities at risk this is a great read.
I would also point out that if you're looking to get the most out of this text I highly recommend reading Nuclear Strategy In The Modern Era by Vipin Narang and reading/listening to some of the analysis done by the Middlebury Institute on the Arms Control Wonk blog. (less)
flag2 likes · Like · comment · see review
Matias Singers
Aug 30, 2020Matias Singers rated it it was amazing
I've followed Ankit Panda on Twitter for a while and enjoyed a lot of his writing as a subscriber to The Diplomat — especially a big fan of his podcast, which initially got me interested in everything arms controls, nonproliferation, disarmament, and North Korea's nuclear weapons program.
The book divided into three sections, with the first section acting as a helpful historical refresher on North Korea's founding in 1948, the geopolitical theatre surrounding the Korean peninsula, and the three generations of North Korean leaders (Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il, and now Kim Jong Un).
The second section dives deep into the technical details of the country's weapons developments and nuclear capabilities, including specifics on all the known missile and nuclear tests — and how the international community reacted to each of them (UN sanctions, diplomatic ties, rhetoric changes, etc.). This section also includes an interesting look at how North Korea collaborated with other countries and leveraged the expertise of AQ. Khan of Pakistan.
The last chapter in the second section deals with the dilemmas of building a resilient command and control (or C2) system for North Korea to have a credible nuclear deterrent. This chapter was a fascinating chapter for someone like me without any prior understanding nor background in this field.
The final section looks at what a North Korea possessing credible nuclear weapons and ICBMs means for the greater geopolitical landscape in Northeast Asia, especially with the current Trump administration and the growing diplomatic competition between the US and China (and Russia).
I thought I was reasonably familiar with the developments from ~2017 onwards, especially with the 2018 North Korea–United States Singapore Summit - but Ankit provides a wealth of uniquely new details and insights from his sources in the intelligence community and many off-the-record discussions in DC.
The incredibly detailed footnotes and references open up a vast repository of first-party sources for the reader to explore further. (less)
flag2 likes · Like · comment · see review
Rachel
Nov 20, 2020Rachel rated it really liked it
Shelves: 2020, non-fiction, reviews, north-korea
Kim Jong Un and the Bomb by Ankit Panda
This fascinating $53 book was my Friday night companion and I learned a lot. It paints a realistic picture of North Korea’s political history, nuclear weapon development and strategy, and how the world, in particular, the US and its various Presidential administrations have viewed and approached North Korea, Kim Jong Un’s diplomacy and thinking behind North Korea’s regime survival and deterrence of “hostile forces” through its collection, reverse engineering, and development of nuclear arms, submarines, military vehicles. 2017 was a truly momentous year for North Korea with its successful intercontinental ballistic missile test.
There’s a lot to unpack and contemplate in this book, and the author, the senior editor of The Diplomat and an international security expert, writes everything in a layman-friendly yet technical way with a rational, impassive manner. Love how at the beginning he mentions all errors are his own - I found 3 typos in this book, likely due to the creation of compare documents of the manuscript which ended up duplicating punctuation marks, words and phrases. I felt “Singapore Summit” appeared way too many times - the media gives too much emphasis to the Singapore Declaration - this book reinforced my view - earlier agreements actually had North Korea make stronger commitments such as the Six-Party Talks and the Agreed Framework. It doesn’t help that Trump created a fiction that the summit resulted in agreed denuclearisation. This is also a book where the word Singapore appears on the page 1 - I feel like lots of books nowadays like to insert Singapore in its pages; I’m convinced it’s a 2019-2020 literary trend.
Some questions I had: Who is AQ Khan? How interesting must it be to be a US intelligence analyst reporting on North Korea? What happened to Kim Jong Il’s 300 staff who were purged? What’s the relationship like between North Korea and its biggest ally?
Foreign Affairs has a good, short summary on this book.
I highly recommend this 2020 read if you’re interested in all things North Korea, Northeast Asian history, US-North Korea relations, or political strategy. (less)
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Peter Macksen
Dec 30, 2020Peter Macksen rated it it was amazing
In Kim Jong Un and the Bomb, Ankit Panda has laid out a concise, readable account of the North Korean nuclear weapon and ballistic missile programs. However, most importantly, the book doesn't limit itself to being a narrative history. Ankit clarifies the strategic outlook of the North Korean regime, and the way nuclear weapons fit into this structure.
Kim Jong Un and the Bomb has something for individuals at all levels of interest in North Korea. People with little to no knowledge of the regime's nuclear and missile programs, or why states pursue such programs, find a detailed overview that grounds them well for further research if they are so inclined. More knowledgeable readers will not only find the strategy and theoretical command-and-control discussions interesting, but the book acts as a handy compendium of information on the DPRK's nuclear complex, including its warhead production, enrichment, and warhead storage locations.
If you read only one book on the North Korean nuclear weapons complex, this is an excellent candidate. (less)
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Larry
Jan 04, 2021Larry rated it really liked it
I try and read everything that I can find on North Korea. So it is no surprise that I would really enjoy a book that all by rights should have been a “dry” read. A book about the technical in’s and out’s of the Hermit Kingdom’s long path to attaining nuclear weapons that could reach the continental United States. The book really wasn’t dry. It’s a fascinating history and story of this terrible yet obviously crafty blood dynasty and the bombs path from grandfather, father to where the world is now with Kim Jong Un. (less)
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Flecher Feng
Nov 15, 2020Flecher Feng rated it really liked it
A very thorough study of North Korea’s nuclear history.
The Kim dynasty has been playing with the big powers and the whole world with tricky yet delicate adept for decades, in defiance of all the world orders and their promises, yet without any real harm afflicted to it. To me, the history itself exposed the funny bone of the world we live in — if you are bad enough, no one will treat you as a bad boy, but an appalling opponent.
Sad for the whole world and mankind.
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Maria
Nov 18, 2020Maria rated it really liked it
Excellent, non-hyperbolic assessment
flagLike · comment · see review
Rob
Dec 30, 2020Rob rated it it was amazing
Probably the best book about Kim Jong Un we're going to see while he's still alive. (less)
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A Nuclear North Korea’s Wake-up Call
A spectacular pre-dawn parade on Saturday served to remind the world of North Korea’s continuing missile progress.
Ankit Panda
By Ankit Panda
October 13, 2020
---
This article is presented by
Diplomat Risk Intelligence, The Diplomat’s consulting and analysis division. Learn more here
A Nuclear North Korea’s Wake-up Call
Credit: Rodong Sinmun
On Saturday, October 10, North Korea celebrated the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), the country’s ruling party. The occasion was celebrated in a grand way, with an unprecedented pre-dawn military parade. Thousands of uniformed military personnel marched through Pyongyang’s renovated Kim Il Sung Square in perfect unison, trailed by scores of heavy military vehicles.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un kicked the occasion off with a public address. An emotional Kim acknowledged that 2020 had been a difficult year for the country. North Korea locked its borders down early this year, acknowledging the coronavirus pandemic as a possible threat to its “national survival.” Kim claimed that not a single case of the disease had been detected in North Korea—a claim disputed by experts. He went on to apologize nonetheless for shortfalls in his promises of economic development, citing a difficult external environment amid international sanctions and the spate of natural disasters that struck the country this summer, including multiple floods and typhoons.
But Kim’s core message stuck to familiar themes, emphasizing that the WPK’s leadership would see North Korea through dark and difficult times. He also emphasized his continuing commitment to national defense—albeit without directly using the world “nuclear.” “We will continue to strengthen the war deterrent, the righteous self-defense means, so as to contain and control all the dangerous attempts and intimidatory acts by the hostile forces, including their sustained and aggravating nuclear threat,” Kim said, refusing to shy away from the continuing prominence of nuclear weapons in the country’s national defense strategy.
Kim said that his nuclear weapons “will never be abused or used as a means for preemptive strike. He clarified, however, that if “any forces infringe upon the security of our state and attempt to have recourse to military force against us, I will enlist all our most powerful offensive strength in advance to punish them.” This was a restatement of North Korea’s offensively oriented nuclear strategy, which reserves the right for nuclear first-use to deter adverse military action against its territory or leadership.
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The nighttime staging of the military parade certainly caught overseas analysts off-guard, but if there was a rationale, it wasn’t about obscuring views of the Korean People’s Army’s (KPA’s) new military kit. Instead, the brightly lit display of military might amid the darkness of the night evoked themes in North Korean propaganda over the last year, since the collapse of U.S.-North Korea diplomacy at the February 2019 Hanoi summit. The nighttime setting seemed to underscore that under the WPK’s continuing guidance and the KPA’s self-reliant national defense capabilities, North Korea would triumph and persevere. After all, at 75, North Korea’s founding party has now outlasted the Soviet Union, which managed a 74-year lifespan.
A ‘New Strategic Weapon,’ As Promised
The parade reached its climax with the reveal of an all-new intercontinental-range ballistic missile (ICBM) design. Prior to the parade, North Korea’s largest known nuclear-capable ballistic missile was the Hwasong-15, the ICBM that was tested for the first (and so far only) time in November 2017. After four Hwasong-15s rolled through Kim Il Sung Square, an even larger missile appeared in its wake. Four of these super-large ICBMs followed in the wake of the Hwasong-15s, in a single file formation. Not only were these missiles the largest ever to be seen in North Korea, they were the largest road-mobile missiles on integrated launchers seen anywhere in the world.
The reveal of a new ICBM wasn’t particularly surprising. Kim, at his December 2019 report to the 5th Plenary of the 7th Central Committee of the WPK, promised that the world would soon witness a “new strategic weapon.” That same month, North Korea’s Academy of National Defense Science oversaw two apparent liquid propellant missile engine tests at the static engine test stand at Sohae. Though no pictures or video were released of those tests, state media emphasized their “important” nature.
True to form, the new missile—whose name is unknown, but is presumably “Hwasong-16” following North Korea’s naming conventions—appeared to be a large two-stage liquid propellant ICBM. Its unveiling at a parade commemorating a significant WPK founding anniversary was consistent with past precedent. The 70th anniversary celebrations in October 2015 culminated in the reveal of a modified Hwasong-13 ICBM. In October 2010, North Korea similarly revealed the Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile. The reveal of the new ICBM saw Kim keep his promise to show the world his “new strategic missile.”
For the United States, this missile is not good news. Not only does it underscore the failure of the Trump administration’s diplomatic attempts to constrain North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs; it also emphasizes the continuing growth of Pyongyang’s qualitative capabilities. A lot remains unknown about the precise capabilities of this new missile, but its sheer size certainly implies that it would be capable of carrying and delivering multiple nuclear reentry vehicles to likely the entire continental U.S. As North Korea’s weapons-grade fissile material stocks continue to grow, it likely will have enough fissile material on hand to justify allocating resources toward a multiple reentry vehicle capability.
The strategic logic of such investments is straightforward for North Korea, which seeks render credible its nuclear deterrent in the face of U.S. doubts and, more seriously, missile defenses. Like the Soviet Union, North Korea will likely respond to economic incentives. All else being equal, it will be cheaper for North Korea to add warheads to a limited number of ICBMs instead of building out a massive fleet of single reentry vehicle-capable ICBMs. More seriously, North Korea apparently continues to be limited in the number of ICBM-ready launch vehicles it possess. This bottleneck, too, will make multiple reentry vehicles appealing.
But Pyongyang will have another consideration: overwhelming the Alaska-based U.S. Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, the only U.S. missile defense system tested against ICBM-class targets. By adding warheads to its ICBMs, North Korea will improve the probability that at least one of its thermonuclear reentry vehicles successfully penetrates U.S. missile defenses. To keep up with changes in North Korea’s growing force, the U.S. will have to spend hundreds of millions adding interceptors. North Korea, meanwhile, even under economic sanctions, appears fully capable of continuing to expand its ICBM capabilities.
The Hwasong-16 is likely to be the focus of much analytical energy in the U.S. and elsewhere in the coming months. The missile remains untested and Washington will be keen to keep it so. When Kim hinted at his “new strategic weapons” last December, he also formally ended his April 2018 unilateral moratorium on testing long-range missiles and nuclear weapons—to facilitate the conditions for productive diplomacy. But now, with a U.S. election around the corner and his moratorium no longer in place, Kim may look to conduct another ICBM test. Not only would this have technical value for advancing North Korea’s deterrent, but it would also likely give a fillip to internal ideological fervor ahead of the WPK’s 8th Party Congress in January 2021 , which was announced late in the summer.
Despite the nighttime setting, Kim’s reveal of his new ICBM made it clear as day that North Korea remained a capable and growing nuclear state.
Progress With Solid Propellants
While the ICBM understandably seized headlines, the October 10 military parade included a celebration of North Korea’s other missile capabilities and general missile modernization. Since November 2017, every single North Korean missile to have seen testing has used solid propellants. While liquid propellants can be more efficient and energetic, solid propellants are cast into missile airframes at the time of manufacture, obviating the need for immediate fueling prior to use. As a result, these types of missiles are more responsive in a crisis and can enhance survivability.
While North Korea has used small-diameter solid propellant missiles for more than a decade, beginning in 2019, it tested three suites of larger-diameter solid propellant short-range ballistic missiles. While the North Korean names for these missiles aren’t known, the U.S. intelligence community has dubbed them the KN23, KN24, and KN25 respectively. The testing success rate for these three systems is high, with no known KN23 or KN24 flight failures, and a single suspected KN25 failure in flight. Overall, these missiles represent the burgeoning modernization of North Korea’s short-range conventional precision strike capability. Pyongyang has suggested that these capabilities would be used to hold at risk South Korean military facilities, including airfields where Seoul may base its advanced F-35A Panther stealth fighters.
The parade appearance of these systems was hardly surprising in this context. Kim has not only applauded these systems, but also conferred major promotions on key officials associated with realizing their potential. Ri Pyong Chol, for instance, was promoted to the rank of marshal of the KPA days before the October 10 parade and played an instrumental role in the testing program for these systems. Ri, today, appears to be one of Kim’s most trusted advisors and even kicked off the parade on the ground on October 10.
But beyond the suite of short-range solid propellant systems, a new missile made an appearance at the parade. Towed on flatbeds, four missiles labeled Pukguksong-4 followed. North Korea has used the “Pukguksong” (or “North Star”) naming convention for its larger-diameter, nuclear-capable solid propellant missiles, beginning with the Pukguksong-1 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). In October 2019, the Pukguksong-3, a follow-on SLBM, was tested. The Pukguksong-4, seen for the first time at the parade, appears to be an all-new missile—possibly intended for deployment on land.
Little is known about the performance parameters of the untested missile, but what is concerning is its apparently large diameter, which may match or exceed that of the Pukguksong-3. North Korea has shown that it is willing to bring its naval missiles on land; the Pukguksong-2, for instance, followed the Pukguksong-1 and to this day remains North Korea’s longest-range land-based solid propellant medium-range ballistic missile. It too made an appearance at the parade. But the Pukguksong-4 may presage a more dangerous future ahead: one where North Korea may possess not just multiple reentry vehicle-capable liquid ICBMs, but solid ICBMs alongside them.
North Korea is idiosyncratic in its willingness to deploy large liquid propellant ICBMs in a road mobile configuration. No other nuclear state has deployed liquid propellant missiles of these sizes on road mobile transporter-erector-launchers, given the operational and safety complications. A solid propellant ICBM would represent a logical evolution for North Korea’s nuclear forces and Pyongyang has signaled its interest in such weapons. The April 15, 2017, military parade, for instance, culminated in the demonstration of two aspirational canisterized missile designs that appeared to be indicate aspirations for solid propellant ICBMs.
Modernization Across the Board
Beyond the country’s missile forces, the military parade also featured prominent conventional weapon systems and related support equipment, including a new air defense radar, an apparent “prototype” main battle tank, and new anti-tank guided missiles. Given that the parade was broadcast with a delay, Korean Central Television even broadcast footage of neon-clad MiG-29 fighters—the most advanced fighters in the Korean People’s Air Force inventory—taking off from Sunchon Air Force Base near Pyongyang and overflying Kim Il Sung Square. From the “strategic” nuclear forces all the way down to armor and even small arms, the parade was a celebration of North Korea’s apparent ability to survive and innovate under harsh economic sanctions.
The parade raises natural questions about the next phase in potential U.S.-North Korea or multilateral diplomacy to seek limits on Pyongyang’s progress, which remains unencumbered. An immediate issue of concern is missile testing. With the exception of a spate of tests in March this year, North Korea has kept a low profile as it deals internally with the pandemic and natural disasters. But Kim Jong Un has recently declared an “80-day” battle ahead of the anticipated January 2021 8th Party Congress. Whether either event will coincide with a new ICBM test is uncertain, but much may depend on how the U.S. election pans out. A Trump reelection may prompt Kim to remind Washington policymakers that time is not on their side, despite the continued presence of sanctions. A Biden victory would merit a similar reminder, but would likely leave Pyongyang in a more challenging position as it anticipates the results of a new administration’s policy review in the first months of 2021.
What the parade does in the end is clarify the big picture about North Korea’s status as a nuclear weapons possessor: its nuclear forces grow larger and more refined with every passing week. Having largely crossed the qualitative thresholds it felt were needed for a rudimentary and minimally credible deterrent in 2017, Pyongyang is continuing to evolve its force.
Ankit Panda is editor-at-large at The Diplomat, the Stanton senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and author of ‘Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea’ (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2020). Follow him on Twitter at @nktpnd.
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Ankit Panda is the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Follow him on Twitter.
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