If North Korea Collapses, What Happens to Its WMDs?

Robert J. Peters

April 15, 2015

http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/if-north-korea-collapses-what-happens-to-its-wmds/

Securing and eliminating North Korea’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons could be an insurmountable challenge. 

This article was first published at 38 North, a blog of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins SAIS. It is republished with kind permission.

North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) pose a number of challenges, particularly how to find and secure those weapons if the regime collapses. This paper will look briefly at 1) North Korea’s nuclear, chemical and biological programs; 2) activities coalition forces might conduct in a collapse scenario; and 3) challenges posed by an operation to eliminate the North’s WMD.

The North Korean Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Weapons Programs

North Korea‘s WMD programs date back decades and are believed to have produced significant stockpiles of weapons. According to open sources, North Korea likely has upwards of 10-16 weapons today and potentially up to 100 by the end of the decade. While it is hard to know the degree of their sophistication, it is a safe assumption that they are low-yield (about 10 kilotons), non-boosted, first generation weapons. Few outside of North Korea have a sense of where the warheads and fissile material are stored, given the scarcity of intelligence information coupled with North Korea’s proclivity to develop hardened and deeply buried facilities and storage depots. This lack of understanding about the locations of nuclear weapons storage will make finding them before they can be employed or moved in a collapse scenario enormously challenging.