article_snippet.sent: (North Korea is in the headlines again.
article_snippet.sent: According to a Wall Street Journal report Thursday, Chinese nuclear experts have told the United States that Pyongyang may already have as many as 20 nuclear warheads.
article_snippet.sent: The key takeaway from the latest assessment of North Korea nuclear capability is not in the actual number of warheads, but the type of warhead, as this gives a better clue to the future of North Korea's weapons capabilities.
article_snippet.sent: True, the reported Chinese estimate of 20 warheads is large enough to constitute a nuclear "arsenal.
article_snippet.sent: However, that number is not actually significantly larger than conventional open source estimates of 10 to 15 warheads previously provided by U.S. and other experts.
article_snippet.sent: The big takeaway from a Wall Street Journal report Thursday is instead the prediction that North Korea could be in a position to double North Korea arsenal by next year with weapons-grade uranium.
article_snippet.sent: If that assessment is correct, and Pyongyang can indeed boost Pyongyang nuclear stockpile by the end of this year to around 40 warheads by utilizing highly-enriched weapons-grade uranium, then the plutonium program that the U.S. and members of the Six-Party talks had been negotiating over this past quarter century would suddenly seem trivial.
article_snippet.sent: After all, the plutonium program that the U.S. and members of the Six-Party talks had been negotiating over this past quarter century might be capable of spitting out maybe a few weapons worth of plutonium annually.
article_snippet.sent: For a start, This news would mean that North Korea activities would undoubtedly meet the definition, if North Korea had not already, of a runaway nuclear weapons program, with the potential to be fueled by a large supply of raw uranium buried in North Korea mines.
article_snippet.sent: In addition, while the plutonium program that the U.S. and members of the Six-Party talks had been negotiating over this past quarter century has a clear and detectable profile, the thousands of centrifuges that spin in a uranium-based program have no detectable heat signature or topographic profile, meaning you could store the stuff not just in the labyrinth of underground tunnels in North Korea, undetectable from the sky, but in any large warehouse.
article_snippet.sent: And up until 2006, no one thought the Kim regime would actually dare undertake a nuclear test.
article_snippet.sent: Just as concerning is the NORAD commander's assessment on North Korea missile capabilities.
article_snippet.sent: On April 7, Adm. Bill Gortney said during a press briefing that the Defense Department believed Pyongyang's KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is operational, with a warhead capacity.
article_snippet.sent: First, Adm. Bill Gortney's statement, when combined with the latest Chinese assessment, implies that North Korea now not only has nuclear weapons, but the ability to miniaturize such weapons for a warhead that could be placed atop a missile with range rings extending to the U.S. mainland.
article_snippet.sent: Second, and just as importantly, Pyongyang's advances in mobile ICBM capabilities could end up undermining the state of stable deterrence that currently exists on the Korean Peninsula.
article_snippet.sent: Put simply, mobile ICBM capabilities could give North Korea confidence that North Korea is immune from any U.S. counterstrikes.
article_snippet.sent: And if that ends up being the case, the United States could find the United States with a renewed headache in Asia -- and the United States carefully calibrated plans for the United States pivot to the region crumbling.
highlights_snippet.sent: Report says North Korea may have as many as 20 nuclear warheads .
  