FOREIGN POLICY/INTELLIGENCE/NORTH KOREA: “The U.S. believes that North Korea produces its own rocket engines rather than relying on foreign imports, a U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday [8-15-17].
The comments from the intelligence community come as experts have questioned if Kim Jong Un’s regime obtained Soviet-designed rocket engines through illicit channels in Ukraine or Russia.
A report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies released Monday said the liquid-propellant rocket engines North Korea has used in recent tests resemble those originating from Soviet designs and theorized that North Korea had somehow illicitly purchased engines smuggled out of Russia or Ukraine.
‘We have intelligence to suggest that North Korea is not reliant on imports of engines,’ a U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday in response to the report. ‘Instead, we judge they have the ability to produce the engines themselves.’
The report’s author, Michael Elleman, said Tuesday that he remains skeptical that North Korea can produce engines of such sophistication on its own. Mr. Elleman said observations he made of the launch and trajectory of the missiles suggest they were of Soviet design. He inferred the missiles were imported to North Korea because Pyongyang lacked the expertise to build them unaided.”
-Felicia Schwartz and Paul Sonne, “U.S. Believes North Korea Produces Its Own Rocket Engines,” The Wall Street Journal online, Aug. 15, 2017 10:06pm