ICBM Failure Hurts NK Missile Market

by Richardson ~ September 4th, 2006. Filed under: DPRK Military, Economics.

In a previous post on why it was such a mistake for North Korea to launch the Taepodong ICBM I said:

For a nation that earns hard currency by selling missiles, it’s also not the best advertising they could hope for. Yes, the SRBM and MRBM launches were successful, but the failure puts a potential taint on the quality of all North Korea missiles, not that they were considered anything above Saturday night specials to begin with.

Looks like a combination of the ICBM failure and targeted U.S. financial actions are taking a toll on North Korea’s missle bazaar:

The missile market is not what it used to be for North Korea, with fewer buyers for a key export product and a loss in prestige when its top-end rocket fizzled after a short test flight, U.S. officials and experts said.

[. . .]

“The buyers are drying up,” said Daniel Pinkston, a proliferation expert with the California-based Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS).

Mitchell Reiss, a former senior State Department official who dealt closely with North Korea and now is vice provost at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, told Reuters: “Our efforts have complicated North Korea’s missile export business.”

[. . .]

One 2004 U.S. government study reported the North earned $560 million from missile sales in 2001.
Pyongyang has been working on missile production for three decades and is “the leading exporter of ballistic missiles to the developing world,” according to a book by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The chief exports are variations of Scud missiles, regarded as fairly reliable and accurate but based on technology advanced military powers would consider obsolete.

North Korea’s oldest and most loyal customer has been Iran, which helped finance Scud development, according to various U.S. studies. The connection dates to the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s when Pyongyang tested and began shipping missiles to Tehran.

[. . .]

But potential buyer nations now may find their U.S. aid curtailed if they buy weapons from North Korea. Pakistan, Iraq and Egypt are major recipients of U.S. assistance.

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1 Response to ICBM Failure Hurts NK Missile Market

  1. changehappens

    This is cold comfort. The NORKS weren’t successful this time. ICBM technology is now over 40 years old. The NORKS can master it. If the NORKS can miniturize their warheads to fit whatever missile they produce, then they become a regional hegemon and change the balance of power in the region. The NORKS have much to gain and little to lose by working hard to master ICBM technology.

    We don’t know China’s, Russia’s, Pakistan or Iran’s roll in helping the NORK develop their nukes or missiles. If its China or Russia as their daddy, then the NORK problems can easiy be overcome.

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