Three things to know about North Korea's missile tests - Al Jazeera

Three things to know about North Korea's missile tests

With advances in its long-range missile programme, here are three technical milestones and why they matter.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un inspects the long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 (Mars-12) [KCNA via Reuters/File photo]

byAlex Gatopoulos

Since Kim Jong-un's ascendancy in December 2011, North Korea has accelerated its missile development programme, the tempo of tests increasing considerably from those under his father Kim Jong Il. After failures in 2016, North Korea has this year made bold advances in its missile programme.

Kim Jong-un moved closer to make good on his threats to reduce the US "to ashes" with the July 28 launch of a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), claiming that this flight test demonstrates the capability of the missiles to reach the US mainland. This test comes just weeks after Pyongyang tested what it claimed to be the country's first ICBM.

Immediately following the July 28 launch, US and South Korean forces conducted live-fire exercises and the US flew two supersonic B-1B jets over the Korean peninsula in a show of force. US ambassador to the UN stated that the US is "done talking about North Korea" while Donald Trump and Japan's Shinzo Abe have agreed that it is time to take action against Pyongyang.

Here are three of North Korea's recent technical milestones in long-range missile technology which stand out and why they matter.

1. Firing almost vertically and reaching higher altitudes

There are significant challenges to testing a long-range missile in a country that is too small to run test flights within its own border. Initially, North Korea's only option was to launch these flights over its neighbours. It did that in 1998 by test-firing the Taepodong-1 missile over mainland Japan, to instant international condemnation.

Now, North Korea has started launching longer-range missiles in what is known as a "lofted trajectory", firing the missile almost vertically. This allows the missile to land a short horizontal distance from launch but travel a great distance overall. Higher altitudes are a strong indication of new, more powerful engines and a greater ability to carry a payload that distance.

These launches enable Pyongyang to conduct realistic tests of longer-range missiles. They also allow engineers to gather data sent back from the test missile to better understand the challenges faced when a long-range warhead re-enters the Earth's atmosphere at hypersonic speeds, something that generates vast amounts of frictional heat.

This is exactly what North Korea did when it tested the Hwasong-14 (Mars-14) on July 4.

According to the US military's Pacific Command, or PACOM, which monitors these launches, it flew for 37 minutes, rising to a maximum altitude (known as an apogee) of nearly 2,800km, over seven times higher than the International Space Station which is in orbit only some 400km above the Earth.

A steep, near-vertical launch allowed the missile to travel a distance that roughly simulated long-range flight by travelling higher than most missiles but splashing down only a short distance away into the Sea of Japan, limiting the diplomatic damage that would inevitably be caused by a random projectile flying through a neighbour's airspace.

The ICBM, a clunky Cold War-era name for a long-range missile, is formally defined as one that can fly more than 5,500km.

According to David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists, if the Hwasong-14 was fired under proper flight conditions, it could reach a target more than 6,700km away. This puts the missile firmly in the long-range or ICBM bracket, and means it could potentially hit the US base on the island of Guam as well as Alaska, although the naval base on Hawaii and the rest of the continental US are still out of reach.

2. Solid fuel means faster launches

First tested by the North just over a decade, ago solid-fuelled missiles are faster to set up and easier to fire.

Unlike liquid fuels, which take time to load and are extremely toxic and corrosive to handle, solid fuels are easier to maintain and are more stable. A crude analogy between the two is to liken solid-fuelled missiles to setting off gunpowder-filled fireworks rather than filling each one with liquid fuel every time you wanted to fire one. Solid fuel reduces launch times from hours to minutes.

Reducing the time from when a missile battery is taken out into the open to be readied for a launch, and therefore is exposed to enemy observation, makes it far less likely to be discovered and destroyed. Using solid fuels also scales back on the additional vehicles needed to transport volatile and dangerous liquid fuels, making a missile battery smaller and harder to spot. As this fuel is more stable, it can also take a few knocks when moved around.

3. Toughening up missile batteries

Fortifying a missile battery so it can travel anywhere on land rather than along North Korea's tiny road system - the country has 724km of paved and 24,830km of unpaved roads respectively - gives it more places to hide.

North Korea has done this by ruggedising the missile transporter (formally called a transporter erector launcher or TEL). Tracks are used instead of wheels, allowing the heavy vehicles to cross rough ground off the road system, which would be monitored by an enemy trying to track down missile batteries. The thin-skinned missile is also sheathed in a canister so it survives bumpy off-road travel.

These improvements came together in the successful February launch of the Pukguksong-2 (Polaris-2) medium-range missile. Analysts across the world quickly realised the test's importance as the combination of solid fuel, a ruggedised transporter and a protected weapon, meant a battery could potentially hide in forests, underneath cliff overhangs, under bridges - virtually anywhere - and launch within minutes from a cold start.

What is next for North Korea's missile programme?

Producing next-generation missiles that can reach the US will be key for North Korea.

This will not be an easy feat given the trickier aspects of long-range flight. Designs must be able to withstand the stresses and incredible heat produced in missiles by re-entering the atmosphere.

The challenges will come from improving the warhead and delivery system and coupling the two. North Korean scientists will struggle to extend the missiles' ranges while shrinking their still rudimentary nuclear devices so theý are light enough to be carried by the missile to the target.

Then there is the quest for accuracy, if the missiles are to have any military use.

North Korea has bragged that its latest batch of missile tests were extremely accurate. It is still vague how this accuracy is being assessed given that North Korea does not have a network of satellites able to guide distant warheads to their targets, relying on the projectiles' much less accurate inertial guidance system.

This electronic system is used in older missiles such as the Scud. It works on the principle of the missile using internally measured basic data on its speed, direction, and so on, to try to roughly assess where it ended up rather than being told where it was exactly by, say, the Global Positioning System (GPS).

If the sharp tempo of tests doesn't abate, North Korea is likely to see substantial improvements in its missile programme. Kim Jong-un seems determined to "frequently send big and small 'gift packages' to the Yankees", as he instructed scientists after the July 4 test, according to the country's state media KCNA.

Many Politicians Lie. But Trump Has Elevated the Art of Fabrication. - New York Times

Many Politicians Lie. But Trump Has Elevated the Art of Fabrication.

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERGAUG. 7, 2017

WASHINGTON — Whit Ayres, a Republican political consultant here, likes to tell his clients that there are “three keys to credibility.”

“One, never defend the indefensible,” he says. “Two, never deny the undeniable. And No. 3 is: Never lie.”

Would that politicians took his advice.

Fabrications have long been a part of American politics. Politicians lie to puff themselves up, to burnish their résumés and to cover up misdeeds, including sexual affairs. (See: Bill Clinton.) Sometimes they cite false information for what they believe are justifiable policy reasons. (See: Lyndon Johnson and Vietnam.)

But President Trump, historians and consultants in both political parties agree, appears to have taken what the writer Hannah Arendt once called “the conflict between truth and politics” to an entirely new level.

From his days peddling the false notion that former President Barack Obama was born in Kenya, to his inflated claims about how many people attended his inaugural, to his description just last week of receiving two phone calls — one from the president of Mexico and another from the head of the Boy Scouts — that never happened, Mr. Trump is trafficking in hyperbole, distortion and fabrication on practically a daily basis.

In part, this represents yet another way that Mr. Trump is operating on his own terms, but it also reflects a broader decline in standards of truth for political discourse. A look at politicians over the past half-century makes it clear that lying in office did not begin with Donald J. Trump. Still, the scope of Mr. Trump’s falsehoods raises questions about whether the brakes on straying from the truth and the consequences for politicians’ being caught saying things that just are not true have diminished over time.

One of the first modern presidents to wrestle publicly with a lie was Dwight D. Eisenhower in May 1960, when an American U-2 spy plane was shot down while in Soviet airspace.

The Eisenhower administration lied to the public about the plane and its mission, claiming it was a weather aircraft. But when the Soviets announced that the pilot had been captured alive, Eisenhower reluctantly acknowledged that the plane had been on an intelligence mission — an admission that shook him badly, the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said.

“He just felt that his credibility was such an important part of his person and character, and to have that undermined by having to tell a lie was one of the deepest regrets of his presidency,” Ms. Goodwin said.

In the short run, Eisenhower was hurt; a summit meeting with the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev collapsed in acrimony. But the public eventually forgave him, Ms. Goodwin said, because he owned up to his mistake.

In 1974, at the height of the Watergate scandal, President Richard M. Nixon was accused of lying, obstructing justice and misusing the Internal Revenue Service, among other agencies, and resigned rather than face impeachment. Voters, accustomed to being able to trust politicians, were disgusted. In 1976, Jimmy Carter won the presidency after telling the public, “I’ll never lie to you.”

President Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction in trying to cover up his affair with an intern, Monica Lewinsky, during legal proceedings. Chris Lehane, a former Clinton adviser, said Mr. Clinton’s second-term agenda suffered during his impeachment, yet paradoxically his favorability ratings remained high — in part, Mr. Lehane said, because “the public distinguished between Clinton the private person and the public person.”

But sometimes it’s easier to tell what’s false than what’s a lie. President George W. Bush faced accusations that he and members of his administration took America to war in Iraq based on false intelligence about whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Bush and his team emphasized and in some cases exaggerated elements of the intelligence that bolstered the case while disregarding dissenting information, leading critics to accuse them of lying. Among those who said Mr. Bush had lied was Mr. Trump.

Over the past two decades, institutional changes in American politics have made it easier for politicians to lie. The proliferation of television political talk shows and the rise of the internet have created a fragmented media environment. With no widely acknowledged media gatekeeper, politicians have an easier time distorting the truth.

And in an era of hyper-partisanship, where politicians often are trying to court voters at the extreme ends of the political spectrum, politicians often lie with impunity. Even the use of the word “lie” in politics has changed.

“There was a time not long ago when you could not use the word ‘lie’ in a campaign,” said Anita Dunn, once a communications director to Mr. Obama. “It was thought to be too harsh, and it would backfire. So you had to say they hadn’t been honest, or they didn’t tell the truth, or the facts show something else, and even that was seen as hot rhetoric.”

With the rise of fact-checking websites, politicians are held accountable for their words. In 2013, the website PolitiFact declared that Mr. Obama had uttered the “lie of the year” when he told Americans that if they liked their health care plan they could keep it. (Mr. Trump won “lie of the year” in 2015.)

“I thought it was unfair at the time, and I still think it’s unfair,” Ms. Dunn said, referring to Mr. Obama. Mr. Obama later apologized to people who were forced off their plans “despite assurances from me.”

On the theory that politicians who get caught in lies put their reputations at risk, Brendan Nyhan, a political scientist at Dartmouth College (and contributor to The New York Times’s Upshot) and some colleagues tried to study the effects of Mr. Trump’s misstatements during last year’s presidential campaign.

In a controlled experiment, researchers showed a group of voters a misleading claim by Mr. Trump, while another group saw that claim accompanied by “corrective information” that directly contradicted what Mr. Trump had said. The group that viewed the corrections believed the new information, but seeing it did not change how they viewed Mr. Trump.

“We know politicians are risk averse. They try to minimize negative coverage, and that negative coverage could damage their image over time,” Mr. Nyhan said. “But the reputational consequences of making false claims aren’t strong enough. They’re not sufficiently strong to dissuade people from misleading the public.”

Of course, lying to court voters is one thing, and lying to federal prosecutors quite another. When Rod Blagojevich, the former governor of Illinois, was accused of a long list of federal corruption counts related to claims that he tried to sell Mr. Obama’s seat in the United States Senate, he was asked quite directly about lying.

While Mr. Blagojevich was testifying under oath, a prosecutor pressed him on whether he made a habit, as a politician, of lying to the public. They sparred over whether Mr. Blagojevich had fed a misleading story to a local newspaper.

“That was a lie,” the prosecutor, Reid Schar, was quoted as saying.

Mr. Blagojevich refused to fess up. “That was a misdirection play in politics,” he answered.

He was sentenced to a 14-year prison term in 2011.

Joel Sawyer, a Republican strategist in South Carolina, said there were two ways for a politician to deal with deceit.

“One is to never acknowledge it, which seems to have been employed pretty successfully by our current president,” Mr. Sawyer said. “The second is to rip the Band-Aid off and say: ‘I screwed up; here’s why. Give me another chance, and I won’t disappoint you again.’”

Mr. Sawyer worked for a politician — Mark Sanford, then the governor of South Carolina — who took the latter approach. On a June weekend in 2009, Mr. Sanford slipped out of the South Carolina capitol and flew to Buenos Aires to be with his lover, but told his staff that he had gone hiking on the Appalachian Trail. His aides, including Mr. Sawyer, unknowingly passed the lie on to reporters.

Mr. Sanford later apologized profusely. Voters eventually rewarded him; today he serves in Congress.

Many of Mr. Trump’s lies — like the time he boasted that he had made the “all-time record in the history of Time Magazine” for being on its cover so often — are somewhat trivial, and “basically about him polishing his ego,” said John Weaver, a prominent Republican strategist.

That mystifies Bob Ney, a Republican former congressman who spent time in prison for accepting illegal gifts from a lobbyist, Jack Abramoff, and lying to federal investigators about it. “It really baffles me why he has to feel compelled to exaggerate to exonerate himself,” Mr. Ney said.

But other presidential lies, like Mr. Trump’s false claim that millions of undocumented immigrants had cast ballots for his opponent in the 2016 election, are far more substantive, and pose a threat, scholars say, that his administration will build policies around them.

The glaring difference between Mr. Trump and his predecessors is the sheer magnitude of falsehoods and exaggerations; PolitiFact rates just 20 percent of the statements it reviewed as true, and a total of 69 percent either mostly false, false or “Pants on Fire.” That leaves scholars like Ms. Goodwin to wonder whether Mr. Trump, in elevating the art of political fabrication, has forever changed what Americans are willing to tolerate from their leaders.

“What’s different today and what’s scarier today is these lies are pointed out, and there’s evidence that they’re wrong,” she said. “And yet because of the attacks on the media, there are a percentage of people in the country who are willing to say, ‘Maybe he is telling the truth.’”