A report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and its Beyond Parallel project asserted on Monday that North Korea has “approximately 20 undeclared missile operating bases,” one of which is described in detail by the authors.
The report assumes these bases would have to be identified and decommissioned in any serious denuclearization deal reached by President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.
The base examined closely by the Beyond Parallel report is an installation called Sino-ri, located about 130 miles north of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The point the report stressed is that Sino-ri is not just a couple of rockets tucked in a cave and crewed by a few luckless North Korean soldiers who wish they were posted somewhere else. It is a large, well-supported, and strategically important installation.
Sino-ri hosts Nodong-1 medium-range ballistic missiles capable of hitting Japan and possibly Guam. It is large enough and sufficiently well-equipped to play a key role in offensive nuclear warfare strategy, weapons development, and training for North Korea’s rocket forces, with a military academy and training area conveniently located nearby. The training area appears designed to help North Korean troops learn to drive mobile missile launchers through difficult terrain.
“The Sino-ri base has never been declared by North Korea. It also does not appear to be the subject of denuclearization negotiations between the United States and North Korea,” Beyond Parallel stated after detailing the size and importance of the base.
The report concedes that determining precisely what North Korea is doing with the Sino-ri facility is difficult using satellite images, especially during warmer months when foliage obscures some areas of the base. The driver training facility, for example, appears to have fallen into disuse over the past year. Some buildings have been demolished, while others have received recent maintenance. There are indications some of the projects initiated at Sino-ri were abandoned before completion, as some of the underground entrances appear poorly maintained. There are other bases nearby with significant anti-aircraft protection, but Sino-ri itself does not have any “readily visible fixed anti-aircraft artillery positions,” which seems like an incongruous detail.
“As of December 2018, the base is active and being reasonably well-maintained by North Korean standards,” Beyond Parallel concluded.
“The North Koreans are not going to negotiate over things they don’t disclose. It looks like they’re playing a game. They’re still going to have all this operational capability,” said Victor Cha, one of the authors of the report, as he introduced his group’s findings.
NBC News on Tuesday framed the Beyond Parallel report as an indictment of President Trump’s North Korea strategy, duly noting that Cha is presumptively skeptical of that strategy since he was a candidate for ambassador to South Korea but “his nomination was withdrawn in early 2018 because of policy disagreements.” That disagreement essentially boiled down to Cha recommending more diplomacy and strongly objecting to the Trump administration’s contemplation of pre-emptive strikes against North Korea’s nuclear program.
Skeptics claim North Korea’s gestures toward denuclearization so far have been mostly symbolic, while actual warhead and missile production continues unabated. Pyongyang also appears to be developing biological weapons at a rapid pace, embracing them as an alternative to nuclear weapons of mass destruction because they are cheaper, easier to develop in secret, and more deniable if they are actually deployed. These analyses tend to rely on satellite imagery, as the Beyond Parallel report does, since other forms of intelligence are difficult to obtain from secretive North Korea.