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Sunday, September 04, 2016

Supply and Demand

North Korea continues to expand its nuclear weapons capabilities. Are the North Koreans expanding production capacity anticipating a larger market?

North Korea apparently doesn't have nuclear missiles--yet. But they are expanding missile production capacity:

[Three] major factories known to produce machine parts for North Korea's sanctioned nuclear and missile programs have been modernized or expanded, according to analysis of recent satellite imagery seen by Reuters, a further sign of its commitment of scarce resources to weapons.

North Korea is expending scarce resources, isn't it? In part, that just represents the will to make the people eat grass in order to get nukes.

But hasn't it occurred to people that the investment of scarce resources into missile and nuclear programs is intended to literally pay off?

Recall that North Korea has expanded uranium and plutonium production path to nuclear warheads.

Because of these factors, I remain concerned that any limitations that Iran might have been willing to endure (with or without cheating on them) in the Iran nuclear deal might be moot if the money Iran has received can be used to purchase North Korean nuclear missiles:

I've long worried that a nuclear deal with Iran will fail to consider that Iran is likely outsourcing some parts of their nuclear program. But what if I'm thinking small?

What if North Korea sells Iran nuclear missiles and rents the facilities in North Korea to launch them?

From North Korea, these missiles could reach Europe, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, and a number of targets in America. So Iran doesn't need to have the missiles inside Iran, really.

Iran gets money and nukes, North Korea gets money and nukes. And the surviving members of the Axis of Evil are all fat and happy.