c-span, cspan.org and listen with the free radio app. there's a link on our website to the national institution centers interactive constitution. u.s. and european strategy and the relationship between iran and north korea. good morning, everyone.

i direct the future of iran initiative here at the atlantic council. i'm happy we have another extremely topical panel. as you all know the trump administration has apparently requested some sort of understanding or follow an agreement on the subject of missiles regarding iran in order to renew waivers on the iran nuclear program. we thought it kbould very topical to get some real experts to talk about the nature of iran's program, to what extent sit a threat or not to its neighbors. what might reasonably be kpped in the way of any kind of agreement. perhaps any agreement is not feasible at this time. he, in addition to directing our

south asia center, he is a true rocket scientist. he managed the program in arms control disarmament and international security at the university of illinois. he oversaw developing projects on south asian security issues. he's also worked with cipri and he is a true rocket scientist. he has a phd in mechanical engineering with a specialization in numerical akoa acousti acoustics. the principal author of the the dossier iran's ballistic missile capabilities and that assessment. long bio. you have it here.

he's the go to guy. melissa has long worked on these issues. she's served in government. we're lucky to have here. he's an expert on turkey. he's been following the situation in syria as well. we look forward to his comments. thank you to the plow shares fund for supporting our program. if you're going tweet, please tweet at @aciran. let me turn it over to you. >> thank, barbara. good morning and welcome to you all. it's my pleasure to welcome my own colleagues and our guests.

mike. >> my job is to make the missile go up where ever it comes down is someone else's department. what i wanted to do was briefly talk no so much about the history of iran's missile program although we can address that in the question and answer period but i wanted to look at what -- this common claim that iran's missiles are all developed. they must -- we must stop allowing them to develop these systems because they could eventually deliver a nuclear weapon to increasingly longer ranges in the future. there's just some broad

generalizations as to how we define what it means to be nuclear capable. now, there are reasons to be concerned. this is a priority area as barbara mentioned. there's a lot of discussion ongoing within the administration and with the european allies over how to address the missile issue. the international standard, though it's not recognized law for determining the inherent capability of a missile is the threshold established by the 1987 missile technology control regime which was established to for stall the export of technology that could help someone build missile systems.

if we apply eight of current missile systems, which is the largest, most diverse arsenal in the region exceed that threshold. the other five all of which are some version of the family of missiles while currently lethal especially when shipped to hezbollah for use against israel, they clearly do not bust through the 500 kilometer thresholds. it's important to remember that capability does not equal to intent. our guidelines should be a first step in evaluating or saassessi iran's missiles.

the element of intent was added to the resolution that addresses the missile issue itself. the previous resolutions talked about missiles that were capable of delivering nuclear weapons. the 2015 resolution calls upon iran not to engage in activities concerning missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons. obviously intent was captured within resolution 2231. what does it mean to be desired to be nuclear capable. judging intent is subjective. there are some technical clues, intelligence information that can guide an analysis. the soundest approach in my view is to disaggregate iran's

various missile systems. we should have a report coming out on the website. i don't know if hard copies will be produced or not. we looked at this in detail. we concluded that two of iran's short range missile systems are base on the soviet export versions were designed to carry conventional weapons. not nuclear weapons. the export versions are about 20 centimeters shorter than the nuclear version fielded by the soviets. they also assigned unique identifiers to the nuclear and nonnuclear versions and they were specifically crafted for

export. these systems do exceed the empty thresholds are capable of carrying a nuclear weapon. it would be incorrect to claim in our view that the export versions were designed for nuclear delivery. iran's reason for acquiring the scud bs in the first place in the mid 1980s were for retaliatory attacks against iraq using conventional warheads. but at other end of the spectrum in terms of intent, there's strong evidence that iran's system was designed with a nuclear payload in mind. as has been well reported, the schematics on a computer hard drive that were handed over by a defector in 2004 demonstrate efforts to redesign the reentry vehicle to accommodate what appears to be a nuclear device.

the solid fueled and the liquid fueled have the same baby bottle shaped nose cone and thus can also be said presumptively to have been designed to carry a nuclear weapon. now, the case of the kayyem, it's a little bit less clear because it appeared several years after the tell-tale intelligence surfaced and it was primarily put on because it separates its warhead unlike the scud c and is more aerodynamically stable using that baby bottle shape. a conclusion, though, that the design for nuclear weapons delivery is also supported by its origins from the north korean nodong. it can also be said to have been designed for nuclear delivery. it's not entirely clear from where the design originates, whether it's from north korea or

the soviet union, but in fact, we know that both countries would have developed it for nuclear weapons delivery. the external dimensions, by the way, are exactly scaled to those of the nuclear version of the scud b and not those of the import or exported scud b that's conventionally armed. iran's missile which made its debut in 2015 is a variant and thus by its lineage, might be said to be nuclear-capable or designed to be nuclear-capable. though it's a little less clear that's exactly the intent that the iranians had, i think presumptively, we can assign it in that category. iran has recently tested another missile and it's much harder to judge because there's a dearth of really good information about this particular missile, but it appears, and i will stress the word appears, to be based on the

r-27 technology that north korea used to build an unsuccessful missile. in any case, if it is based on that particular technology, it would be logical to assume or reasonable to assume that the original r-27 was designed by the russians, soviets at the time, to deliver nuclear weapons and north korea certainly had those designs in mind. in addition, iran has developed two satellite launch vehicles and this is the real controversial part, but in my view it's not controversial at all. now, both these carrier rockets are optimized. they are designed, their technology is optimized for satellite launching, not as a ballistic missile. neither rocket has been tested as a ballistic missile and they would require some rather extensive modifications for use as a ballistic missile. for sure, they use similar

technologies, but this by itself i don't think allows one to declare that it was designed to carry nuclear weapons. quite the opposite. it is designed as a satellite launch vehicle. it's interesting to note that no country has ever converted a liquid propellant satellite launcher in a ballistic missile. it's always gone the other way around. there are sound reasons for this. they usually draw around operational requirements but nonetheless, if we look at the north korean program, as kind of the best example, the two icbms they are currently developing look nothing like, use very different technologies, design features, than the satellite launcher. that gives you an example of why people don't just convert satellite launchers to missiles. now, given the central role that ballistic missiles play in

iran's defense and deterrence doctrine, it's highly unlikely that they are going to give their missiles up. however, i think it's important for us to focus on the priority issues as opposed to those that are kind of on the margins. now, departing a little bit from the discussion so far, i would just like to take an opportunity to say that, you know, iran has said that it does not require a ballistic missile capable of traveling more than 2,000 kilometers. we should take them at their word. we should take them up on this. we should negotiate a ban on missiles that travel further than 2,000 kilometers. i think it's something that they might agree to, the iranians that i have spoken to seem to think it would be -- it might be acceptable, and in this way, we can codify at least a first step towards limiting iran's capabilities and we really forestall what the

administration itself worries about most, and that is a nuclear-armed icbm from iran. they look at the situation in north korea and they don't want to see a repeat of what's happened there in iran in the future. now, under such an agreement, you would have to deal with iran's satellite launchers and i think there are ways to verify if iran is willing to be transparent that their systems are designed for satellite launching, and you could put restrictions on some of the technologies they use to make it much more difficult to actually take your experience from satellite launches and apply them and build a ballistic missile based on the technologies you're using for satellite launches. i will end there. >> thanks, mike. >> thanks, everybody, for coming. thanks, mike, for that rundown.

i want to start by just laying out how i think this problem is conceptualized in the u.s. because it's often termed bilateral in terms of the u.s./iranian rivalry or relationship, however you want to define it, and then within this idea of the mtcr guidelines that all ballistic missiles, particularly in the middle east, are for nefarious intent and are designed at least from the outset to carry wmd. or weapons of mass destruction. with the understanding or at least the idea that these export versions of the scud, even slight variations are relatively well done. some variations, they have a better guidance system but are so inaccurate that from a u.s. or western perspective they are entirely worthless as tools of war because they can't really hit the targets that you are aiming at unless the target is extremely large. therefore, the only feasible

thing to do with them is to make sure that your warhead, your blast is big enough to cover up for inaccuracy and therefore, it is best suited for either chemical or nuclear with biological sort of tailing along there because of how difficult that is. i think it's important to challenge that assumption, particularly as this administration wants to try and think through policy options to in their words, improve upon the agreement to include a separate multi lateral negotiated limit on ballistic missiles with iran in mind. so i think the way to think about this is how many countries have ballistic missiles in the middle east, their cousins, cruise missiles and drones pulling off of that. i will get into that. and more importantly, how many can produce these relatively simple scud offshoots. then stemming from that, how frequently they have been used

in conflict to therefore challenge that initial assumption about the overarching mtcr thinking about ballistic missiles. i have a small list i have put together and i probably left some off but i will just start. 1973, the arab/israeli war the egyptians fired scuds at the israelis, the first use of blifl missiles since world war ii. the 1980s, what we are probably most familiar with, the iran/i ra iran/iraq war. the use of scuds relatively large toward the end by soviet forces. perhaps afghans as well. the yemen civil war, you had soviet supplies on each side. you had after el dorado canyon the u.s. strike on gadhafi assets in libya. libya decided to try and shoot a scud in sicily. in 1991, you had iraq firing

scuds at israel and saudi arabia and one of the largest casualty incidents for u.s. forces would be one of the scuds land on a u.s. base. you had the 2003 invasion of iraq and the iraqi use of modified ballistic missiles and cruise missiles against u.s. forces. you have ports of transfers of missiles from iran to hezbollah and how that interplays with israel. the current syrian conflict where you have seen a lot of scuds. yemen, as i said, the civil war and the houthis and if you were to expand that out, you can look at the georgia war with the russians, the conflict -- my point of laying this out in this sort of nway is to say these tools have been used relatively frequently since the 1970s and

states have taken notice. if you do a march around the region, if we wall iran off, as we say and i totally agree, iran has the most advanced and diversified missile program in the middle east, an thid i thin importantly, has menchemerged a technology supplier for missi s missiles. nevertheless, there are other states in the region that have ambitious programs themselves. egypt continues a missile program and has production capability. you have the syrians, despite this war that's been going on that has probably missile production capabilities and facilities. you see repeated israeli air strikes on what they say are missile bases. you have turkey, my real country of expertise, which has basically imported a chinese production capability for its missile.

you have the saudis which have imported chinese missiles on two different occasions. you have the united arab emirates that have imported missiles from the dprk at least twice. then you have the houthis which may be able to at least fabricate kits or disassembled iranian missiles or have internal capability. that's a little wishy-washy to me. that's just on the ballistic side. on the other side, on sort of the cruise missile cousin, the air-breathing cousins, you have seen a rapid proliferation, particularly of anti-ship cruise missiles, their use in yemen today, their use in 2006 by hezbollah against israeli forces, their use by iraqi forces against the united states in 2003 and acquisitions of more and more capable systems by ostensible american allies with

the purchase of european made storm shadow for air launch systems. so my point is that while we in the u.s. rightly because of the history of shenanigans with the nuclear weapons program in iran, are focus order ted on the iran ballistic missile program, it should not be separated from what i think is a rather obvious missile proliferation race in the middle east. so if you want, as the trump administration i think earnestly says is to try in their words improve upon jcpoa because they are not satisfied with u.n. security council resolution 2231 as the all-encompassing catch to limit, i should say, further iranian development of ballistic missiles, then you have to begin to ask yourselves what incentives do the iranians have

to limit their own ballistic missile capability when everybody else around them is acquiring it. and is an overarching security framework that places a limit on ballistic missiles in the middle east a good idea. for now, the u.s. policy options have focused more towards counterforce so again, the export of more capable and more accurate systems to strike iranian targets before they get off the ground, and missile defense. without really asking the questions and by the way, i support these exports, but does the rapid proliferation of more and more capable missile defenses actually incentivize regional states to try and defeat those missile defenses by building more missiles. so are you exacerbating the missile proliferation dynamics by trying to reassure skittish allies to try and prevent their

worst nightmare, which is sort of a bolt from the blue iranian ballistic missile attack. so with all that said, i do have some policy recommendations that i think builds off of taking yes for an answer, a 2,000 kilometer cap on ballistic missile ranges in the region is an ultimately good idea. i would be interested to hear how you would verify that because i'm sure that would come up. but the other one is the region sticks out in that i believe the only country in that area that is a member of the mtcr is turkey. so you would like, especially if you want to get together a cartel or mtcr is a cartel to prevent the exports of certain missile components, i believe it's up to 44 countries now, you have iran outside of it, that

busts your cartel. we have the iranians and north koreans sitting outside of your cart cartel, you don't have a cartel. nobody wants the iranians in the mtcr but something along the lines of abiding by mtcr guidelines for export, something the chinese do to varying degrees of success, but again, keeping the bar very, very low, recognizing the most of these things i'm throwing out there will probably fail. and even something along the lines of just all the states coming together and adhering to the hague code of conduct. this idea you have at least declaratory of how you intend to why your missiles registered somewhere, something along those lines because missile flight times in that region are so short, tensions are so high,

that trying to grab everything at once, trying to maximize leverage to force capitulation in a region where there's not really a history of that working versus settling for managing an issue and what is good enough may be the best policy option going forward. >> great. i'm delighted to join the panel today. excellent comments by my colleagues thus far. looking forward to the discussion to follow on. i wanted to round out the discussion by offering some thoughts on the dggc and also u.s. policy and posture in the gulf but then also more broadly vis a vis iran. starting with an acknowledgment that the united states itself maintains a considerable force presence in the gulf to deter iranian activities of various flavors, but to include the missile dimension. that includes strike assets

based onshore but also via the occasional swing through of the carrier strike group as well as several missile defense installations in several partner gulf countries. but over the last two decades, the united states has also embarked on several cooperative agreements with partners in the region to build their own missile defense capacity that has largely functioned along bilateral lines, given perennial tensions with gulf partners multilaterally. but starting a bit with the gulf threat perceptions, what is really driving their interest to make these capability investments. certainly for the saudi and uae, they see a significant challenge emanating by iran's missile buildup both in the ballistic sense as well as the cruise missile defense and the complementary relationship and force protection that iran

maintains in being able to leverage both its cruise missile capabilities along the coastline with its maritime capabilities, it's swarming small boats, its capabilities that in previous years have impeded some of the commercial shipping throughout the gulf which of course is a shared interest strongly with the united states, and the saudis and emiratis in particular have made significant investments in partnership with the united states to combat that array of challenges but to include the missile defense area. the smaller gulf states i think fear more being caught in the crosshairs of a potential conflict between iran, the united states and primarily targeting saudi and the emiratis and of course, the qataris trying to hedge their bets in their relationship with iran. these shared interests, shared threat perceptions are really

based on a view that iran leverages its missile capability as part of its coercive tool kit, as part of its core strategy that is largely asymmetric in nature. iran's strengths lie in its ability to operate below the level of conventional warfare but it uses an array of capabilities, both asymmetric and unconventional but also conventional such as missiles, to project that power influence, and the ballistic missile capability in particular i think iran views as its ace in the hole following the jcpoa as a significant point of leverage in terms of its natural prestige and its ability to project power in the region. but despite some of the gulf shared perceptions with -- threat sperpperceptions with th united states and despite its investments in its missile defense capabilities, i think at the end of the day the gulfees

tend to prioritize focus and certainly political attention against some of the other capabilities that the iranians bring to bear, whether that's support for its proxy threat network, its information operations activities and its cyberactivities. you see that reflected in both public statements but i think also in ongoing consultations with the united states and the debate that occurs in terms of where the level of emphasis needs to reside in terms of a shared strategy for the region. we certainly saw that play out in the obama administration and i think it continues in this one. but i also think we're seeing a bit of a frameship when it comes to iran's missile challenge that both michael and aaron had touched on and that is largely due to yemen, and the fact that the primary challenge in many

ways for the partners, the u.s. partners in the region isn't so much that is emanating from across the gulf, but they're more existential and through the back door through yemen. the houthi strikes within saudi territory against commercial shipping and the babel mendev have shown as well to the united states that there is a different missile challenge emanating from iran and leveraging its proxy assets in the region. outside of its traditional relationship with hezbollah, and i think this raises interesting questions in terms of u.s. strategy and the investments that it's making with its partners in the region in terms of where missile defense assets are currently arrayed from a force posture perspective and ongoing consultations with the saudis in terms of whether to deploy some of their assets to

the south to address the houthi challenge, and i think a good process of lessons learned to talk about the strike in saudi territory and the response to that, and in thinking holistically in the maritime domain about the commercial shipping challenge that's in the gulf and its immediate vicinity, but one that really stretches from the gulf up to the babel mendev and into the suez canal as being looking at that as one holistic picture and the partners in the region need to bring that to bear to address that flow and to keep it free and open for global shipping. from a u.s. policy perspective, the truffle administration is

clearly limiting the ballistic missile program to one of the four conditions essentially for continuing the u.s. commitment to the jcpoa that's been stated publicly. since the beginning the trump administration has made very clear that it does not necessarily separate the jcpoa from iran's broader strategy. it has clearly disparaged the previous administration in terms of deprioritizing iran's other activities and capability development in the region and the ballistic missile capability being the link between the jcpoa and broader activities and looking at them as one comprehensive whole which is, in many ways, imperiled the jcpoa, but i think has also at the same time helped strengthen some of the support from the gulf countries who believed that the obama administration had deprioritized some of the other elements of iranian focus, and i

think they have in some ways appreciated the trump administration's linkage between the two, although that has made maintaining the commitment to the jcpoa more difficult. both a benefit, but also a weakness in kind of making that linkage together in u.s. policy, and the trump administration has been quite clear in at least one arm of its new strategy, that of trying to expose to the public iranian missile activities and more broadly, its destabilizing activities. you'll recall ambassador haley's quite public unveiling of iranian materiel that had collected in yemen that is also now on display at boeing air force base for think tankers to come and view by invitation from the department of defense. you may have seen that on social media from some think tankers in town.

so, clearly, the trump administration is trying to expose the level of iranian investments and its missile capability to try to build some momentum for further strengthened action against it. just last week a new report came that that was discussed at the u.n. that many of you may have heard speaking to experts, describing iran's non-compliance with u.n. sanctions on its weapons and ballistic missile development, specifically related to yemen. again, this is likely to be leveraged as a tool to build international support for a follow-on push to constrain iran's missile development. we've also seen increased sanctions from the u.s. treasury from the administration against entities responsible for

different stages of the development and production of iran's ballistic missiles. i would presume we would see more. this, of course, follows on sanctions efforts pushed in 2017, and it seems that the uptick in sanctions is in some ways a continuation of what the obama administration had been building towards in the last year or two of its administration. in fact, the 2017 sanctions, i believe, some of the information for justifying those sanctions was a case that had been built during the obama administration so somewhat of a continuation there. clearly, that is another leg in addition to exposing the pressure through sanctions is another leg of the administration's policy, and then you see the reflection on capitol hill in terms of the house putting forward sanctions

measures to address missile development but also the broader array of iranian destabilizing activities that has now been handed over to the senate. in some ways as a hedge, i believe, in my analysis, as to how the administration may end up on the jcpoa to show some resolve and to try to convince the administration that congress is taking this issue seriously, but i believe the fact that it has not progressed beyond the senate is probably because of that ongoing dialogue between the hill and the administration in terms of trying to uphold the deal despite these broader concerns. and you know, how this plays into the -- what the exposure with sanctions being pressed, how that plays into then the diplomatic leverage that could potentially be mustered in a

follow-on agreement, i think it fundamentally comes down to whether this administration which is taking a very hard line tack, is willing to consider what the iranians actually want out of the equation, out of the negotiations, and whether that dialogue is possible in this current political environment when this administration has taken such a hard line stance, and even if a negotiation results in a range cap, as has been tabled, the 2,000 kilometer limit which i think is well and good and should be pursued, reflecting back on the challenges in the region and if the frame has shifted to yemen and some of those regional challenges being preeminent for some of our partners as well as for u.s. and global commercial interests, does that get us as far as we need to go in terms of

addressing the iranian challenge. i think i'll stop there. >> thank you. i think what i hear from all of you is it's not a technological problem because these are relatively easier technologies compared to many of the technologies to acquire or master and it's also legally, there is no binding framework for you to address this problem, but the broader problem is the lack of political frame work, our political challenges vis a vis the u.s. interests as well as iranian interests as well as our arab allies' interests. but there is a technical issue that i want to go back to you and i want to start with you both on that. i used to be a testing agent. i worked in the high-altitude testing, and you know, as they say putting iran's missile program in perspective, the united states loosely speaking the united states tests its missiles 30 to 40 times before

it declares it operational under varied conditions and you watched the iranian missile program much closely than i do, and i, off the cuff, i don't think the iranians subject themselves to those rigorous testing conditions. >> i would -- >> i'll relate it to the next question. you mentioned the possibility of the hague code of conduct, and one provision under the hague code of conduct is the prenotification of any testing equipment, which also provides me an opportunity to technically look at this program and also politically an opportunity if you want to restrict the iranian missile program to invoke an international framework to see this, because the reason i draw this is in my own region where i work, india and pakistan are not subject to the hague code of conduct but they have a bilateral agreement amongst

them, and the ballistic missile launch notifications, and that works very well despite the political relationship of the worst of conditions. so is there an opportunity or lesson you can draw from here? >> well, let me address the issue of testing. i agree with you that, you know, historically countries whether the u.s., france, the soviet union would test dozens of times before actually deploying a system, but we don't see that necessarily in other countries and i think there's a number of reasons why. in iran, i think they typically test five, six, seven before they actually go to deployment. they may announce deployments earlier, but i'm not sure they're truly deployed, but i think it's very instructive to look back at the development program. this is a two-stage, solid fueled missile capable of traveling about 2,000

kilometers. they began some ground testing and i think the first launch was in 2009, if i'm not mistaken and they did five or six tests. they haven't tested at all since february of 2011, and i think what happened is they encountered some technical difficulties that they weren't sure they could overcome and it became less of a priority with the shelving of the nuclear program or at least placing the nuclear program in abeyance and i think they've kind of set this system aside and they showed how testing can reveal the inability to master something. i think they were also affected by the, quote, accident. was it in november of 2011 or '12 at the facility where i think upwards to 15 or 17

iranian missile scientists were killed by a series of explosions in an area which would not have had energetic material, but that's beside the point. you can draw your own conclusions, and i think that set their program back, as well. but my point i want to make is most of the missiles that iran, you know, is developing are based on scud or nodong engines, which they imported large numbers of these engines from the koreans back in the '90s and early 2000s, that reduces the requirement for testing because the engine and the guidance system are the two real challenges, and we don't have an idea of how accurate their

systems are when ther attesting a new modification because we don't know what the aim point is. presumably we don't. they may not either. it's hard to tell. this is one of the issues the koreans have right now is they have no idea how accurate or inaccurate their current long-range missiles are and i would expect to see them testing more, but you're right. they don't test a lot. just one other note, the iraqis in the middle of their war with iran wanted to extend the range of their scuds to reach tehran. what they did was they cannibalized three scud missiles to create two kind of longer air frames that allowed them with a lighter payload to reach tehran, and i think it was 600 kilometers away and they tested that thing 10 or 11 times over the course of a year, year and a half before they started launching them against tehran and that gives you an example of if you're really serious about creating a new capability you

have to do a lot of testing and they did it. they learned how to make that system work as a result. so people that argue, you know, not everyone holds the same set of requirements. yeah, that's true, but if you want to achieve something you cannot avoid doing the necessary number of tests. >> i can talk a little bit about intent because i think it's important. i don't think there's anything technical holding back the iranians from developing longer-range systems. i know they're going to run into problems and i actually completely agree with that, but i think if the government commits the resources and puts the political backing behind it. if you look at a time frame over a decade and maybe a little longer, these challenges will probably be worked out and the reason why i say this is because i think it's pretty well established, particularly on the u.s. side, is the data exchanges or at least the technical

cooperation between the dprk and the iranians, we see some external proof of this, if you can look at the hwasong 14 which the second stage looks a lot like the iranian missile, which is one of their space launch vehicles, and within the u.s. treasury designations, the linkage is about the 80-ton rocket engine, and the 80-ton engine where there could be cross cooperation. >> i would like to challenge. yeah. sure. i know there's disagreement in the community about this. i think the point that there is disagreement in the community about this suggests that we don't really know how technically capable they are, and we are largely looking at it from the outside in, but when you look at intent, it looks like the iranians through this lack of testing or this push towards longer range systems, have chosen not to for this period, and i think that choice is ultimately reflective of government policy. so you don't always have this push to go longer and longer

even though you probably have a technical capacity to do so, and about the idea of a framework for a bilateral -- that sounds like a good idea to me. i mean, within the overarching framework of the region. the question is is everybody willing to do something that simple, and i think that that would be the challenge for the diplomats. >> the cooperation between iran and north korea to me is clearly, they exchange ideas and some information. i don't think there's much debate we could have about that, the degree to which they're cooperating, however, i think is it's not as deep as some would suggest and i'm not suggesting that you are one of those, but if you look at the design of the satellite launch vehicles, they

actually use a cluster of nodong engines for the first stage and that's a logical thing to do if that's what you've got. you know, i think engineers would readily, you know, conclude the same that most engineers would. if you have these technologies, this is what you can do with it, but how they arrange them, how they fit the steering engines on there and power them, they adopted two very different approaches. so if you look at the details of the designs they are different. with the r-27 steering engines, we're not quite sure what the, how the second stage of the hwasong 14 and 15 are configured which it's more conjecture based on the little bit of data we have. i happen to agree with that assessment, but again, it's making do with what you've got and i don't know who created that idea first, whether it was the iranians or the north koreans, but i would say that

the degree of cooperation would be severely limited by the security both countries impose on their particular systems, and that is they compartmentalize everything, and i've talked to a number of russian and ukrainian scientists who actually worked in iran and north korea during the 1990s, early 2000s and they all said the same thing independently. yeah, we knew so-and-so was supposed to be in north korea and iran but we never saw them because we were stuck with a certain group of people and those were the only people that we discussed very specific things about. so if you have that type of program structure, it's really hard to be cooperating on a grand scale. last thing, on the 80-ton, quote, engine, the actual sanction says working on an 80-ton booster. a booster is typically a full stage, not just the engine.

both the first stage of the unha and satellite launchers happen to weigh about 75 to 80 tons, so i think it's in reference to that. i've been trying to find out exactly what they meant, and who wrote it and why. they may not distinguish between booster and engine. so far i come back leaning more toward booster as opposed to engine, but it's a little bit unclear. >> i'll come to you, but i just wanted to touch on your point about north korea and iran. the other interesting point that strikes to me is both these countries' programs are inherently self-referential and they do not know where their aim is headed towards but also, they do not know if they are headed in the right direction technologically speaking. it makes sense to refer to each of the countries however compartmentalized they are and the collaboration at the strategic level to know that my designs are accurate and that

i'm headed in the right direction and that also plays into a level of validation of testing, so as to speak, if the batch number 11 of this missile mortar is tested and if my designs are based on those designs, the shelf life of the rocket mortars are also validated for the next five years. so i would not discount that. but -- >> no, i mean, i think, you know, aaron and michael have sufficiently covered the more technical elements of this but more broadly from a policy perspective, the value of pursuing technical discussions in the context of a broader framework has multiple sources of value. there's the information that the international community can gather in the process given some of the gaps in understanding and just better knowing the iranian capabilities and their trajectory. there is a confidence building that occurs by forging those technical links upon which you

can build, perhaps, broader political and policy level discussions, and even if you aren't able to pursue the longer term agreement, you at least have that baseline level of understanding a bit more information on the technical basis and perhaps a launching pad down the road to be able to resume policy, political discussions if the diplomatic scene and the political players shift in a few years' time. >> just one thing on that. i think what's really interesting as an outsider looking in on this because we're all watching from the outside looking in is how iran has used its missiles in syria and yemen. i think the multiple uses of the kiom has been at least, for me particularly enriching because you get to learn more about how the kiom works and how accurate it may or may not be and i think

you can see the limits of its range and the payload with what we saw with the attack on the saudi airport, and then the iranian missile when they fired it into eastern syria. and the way in which they use that and the way i conceptualize it from a policy perspective on the u.s. side is yemen is like a playground and th they're testing things out. they're going up against high-end u.s. systems. again, not operated by u.s. personnel, but nevertheless, more or less what they would face in a showdown over the gulf and they're doing pretty well, and i think we have to acknowledge that and to figure out how these technologically, less developed systems are posing unique challenges to american hardware, particularly in yemen. syria, far more conventional and yemen, far more asymmetric.

if i was sitting in the u.s. military, i would be watching every single day as i'm sure everybody is, writing down notes and saying, wow, this is how they plan to employ these things because they're quite -- they're quite creative, i should say in how they're rolling these things out. >> just, if i could just as an addendum to that. i think the differentiator with yemen, though, is a potential principal agent problem that we might have in drawing lessons from the yemen context versus how the showdown might occur in the gulf, in so far as iran has been increasing its contact with the houthis, but at the end of the day the relationship with iran and the houthis is not as close as it is with lebanese hezbollah and the dynamics would be different in a situation where you have a conflict in the gulf where iran is the primary actor itself.

>> you shed light on this a little bit, but i wanted to amplify it, and if i hear all of you and whatever i'm reading, i get the feeling that iran and north korea have the most transparent missile program because everybody is looking at them, but nobody is looking at close placing the other countries in such a microscope. so what -- can you just shed a light on the other broad capabilities and the intent around the gulf? >> i think the saudis paraded their missiles for the first time a few years back which was quite shocking, but it was at the period when iran was testing a lot of different systems. it was also when iran, and it was before jcpoa, et cetera, so i think they were trying to advertise their capabilities, and the emiratis have received some scuds from north korea.

they may have a base where they actually have them. they also may be just stockpiled somewhere. they have just a small number of them and i have no idea what they would use them for. presumably if they are attacked by ballistic missiles they would launch them against the iranians in retaliation, but they're not going to really do much damage. they kind of lack the range to hit anything, but the base right across the gulf from there, whatever it's called. so, yeah, the egyptians, you know, they've had missile development programs since the '50s and they've launched how many? half a dozen scuds at the israelis? is it '67 or '73? >> '73. >> the yemenis had a lot of scuds that they purchased from first the soviets, or were given to them by the soviets during

their civil war, and after, and they also imported scuds from north korea. i think there's the 2002 intercept by the spanish navy, but that went on to yemen, but they really had no reason to advertise it because i don't know who yemen would have been advertising to at that time. and your rundown of missile-capable countries and you left out the most sophisticated capabilities and that is israel which i found somewhat interesting because israel doesn't really test ballistic missiles. they use the jerricho 2 and 3 are essentially the same elements as their satellite launcher, and these are solid propellant systems which are different and you can transform them for -- for missile or space

launch use more easily, but it's with the liquids. they haven't tested jerricho 2 or 3 as a ballistic missile. i don't think they've done it with the jerricho 3. i think the one time they're accused of doing it, it was a failed launch at least when i look at what little trajectory data i have. >> nothing to add other than i forgot the israelis. >> it's easy to do with the list of so many countries. >> before i jump to the audience, i have another technical question for you, which is essentially the one thing that keeps coming up is the satellite launch vehicles, the modification to ballistic missiles or the other way, and you suggested there were extensive modifications needed. could you elaborate on some of those modifications you are referring to? >> yeah. if you look in the case of the

iranians, the second stage of both the satellite launchers are two-stage systems. the north koreans have always used three stages which is another interesting departure between the two, but the second stage uses these steering engines from the old soviet r-27 a submarine launched missile. they also use a more energetic thrust, when you're launching a satellite, that's okay. you're not fighting gravity. the satellite launcher goes up and then it parallels the surface of the earth so you're not fighting gravity in the same way. so you're trying to accelerate by basically the tangent of the earth's surface to get the orbital speed you need. the maximum altitude of a satellite launcher goes to in the case of the iranians was 200 or 400 kilometers.

a long range missile, an icbm on a maximum range trajectory peaks at 1200 kilometers. it goes up much higher. so you'll be fighting gravity as you try to use it as a ballistic missile because of the long, low thrust, burn times, gravity is going to pull it down. so if you want -- and it's going to rob you of a lot of range. so what you're going to do is put a higher thrust. so you will completely refigure the second stage and you know, this can be done. people have done it in the past, but again, it's usually done the other way around with the lower thrust systems. >> and it needs to re-enter as well. >> plus, you have to master re-entry and you have to test this thing as a ballistic missile because the flight paths are very different. this is something the koreans will face and they've been using the highly lofted trajectories it's easier to do some of the second-stage starts when you're in a vertical configuration as opposed to something that's 30 degrees. so that's another issue.

>> thanks, guys. i'm just curious on a practical level. the iranians have said they won't accept any new agreement on missiles, they have been quite specific about this. is there anything you envision that the united states and the europeans could agree on in regard to the iranian missile program perhaps over the proliferation of rockets to yemen. what about the israeli point of view on this? they've been very specific about not allowing rocket factories in syria. they've shown they will bomb anything that they feel threatens them. how do you see that playing out? and just a point, in a few years iran can theoretically buy anything it wants including sophisticated bombers so is this the wrong debate to be having in some sense? iran has missiles because it doesn't have the kind of air

force that the israelis certainly have and the uae and and saudis have. thanks. >> president macron's comments last week about placing a missile program on our international surveillance, the prospects? >> i can address part of your question. i will shamelessly plug the iiss. we did a project looking at how iran might re-arm itself in 2020 when they're allowed to purchase things, and we looked specifically at the air force. they don't have the money to buy a new air force. they're going to buy one or two fighter wings, probably something like the -- was it the su-30 or something from china. they just don't have the capital to invest the billions and billions of dollars it would require, and i think the protest showed something that the

iranian regime knows it faces and i think that's only going to get worse. so iran will rely on ballistic missiles for the foreseeable future because of that, and also, this is their way of war. i mean, this, if you look at the wars that have been fought in the region, they've extracted lessons from every one of those wars and it re-affirms their belief that ballistic missiles are their best way to offset the superior air forces and fire power of the other -- of its rivals in the region and the united states. >> yeah. i think this goes back to an idea i was attempting to introduce in my opening thoughts, which is that, you know, the united states and its allies, its european allies but also its regional partners, need to have a conversation in terms of what really matters, where the shared interests are. the 2,000-kilometer range cap matters, i think, to the united

states and european allies in so far as it circumvents that icbm potential direct threat to the homeland. in terms of regional interests where our regional partners lie, but also u.s. interests in the region so far as the united states maintains the personnel there, and has an interest in the security of its allies and partners. iranian development using its missile capabilities through proxies in both syria and yemen matter and perhaps should be part of a larger conversation about trying to address the causes and drivers and outcomes of those civil wars. does that mean trying to not only interdict arms flows to yemen which is an ongoing activity? is there a step beyond that in terms of where the houthis actually deploy and target the missile capabilities and can there be some sort of dialogue along those lines when it comes to syria and the buffer zone that currently exists to a

certain degree in southern syria can that be extended further northward, can there be a conversation in terms of the types of capabilities that are deployed south of that buffer zone? i think there should be an internal conversation between the united states, and its allies and partners in terms of where those relative challenges rest and where the shared consensus is, and then pursuing those lines of effort together with the iranians. >> that's fine. that's fine. >> thank you. john greenwald, ex-foreign service and international crisis group. thank you for all of the very good detail on the problems and the issues and thank you also for some indication of policy achievements that you think would be useful if one could achieve them to deal with those issues. but one hardly ever gets something for nothing and

diplomacy as with any other part of life, so i would like to ask what concessions from the united states and other countries concerned about iranian missiles might be commensurate, appropriate and potentially interesting from the iranian point of view? >> i'll take it. it builds on the first question. so the first policy recommendation is the u.s. and the europeans have to agree on something. i'm not sure that the u.s. and europeans are agreeing and if you don't agree amongst yur selves as allies, then you can't maximize leverage on t iranians to try and force concession. the nuclear question was really, really easy because nobody wants proliferation in iran and that includes russia and china and you can win broad based

consensus and what can iran get in return for a cap? this is why my original point is you have to think of the region as the region and not bilaterally and so you would have to expand the scope of conversation so that everybody would be subjected to the same limits that you would want to place on the iranians. this is not something where they violated the non-proliferation treaty so there was consensus on the idea that you could divert pressure to bring them back in compliance. this would be something external to that, therefore everybody in my opinion would have to abide by or at least come up with something. this is what the iranians say they want, and this is extremely easy to say because nobody's going to agree to that because i think the inspections or anything like that would be so onerous they would make people uncomfortable particularly in

u.s. allied countries and so they have, in my opinion, a lot more flexibility a, because of the lack of consensus amongst the p-5 plus 1 and the u.s. and europeans in particular, and lack of consensus within the p5 plus 1 adjacent gcc, where they are not willing to discuss this, either. i don't have a great answer to your question other than it's significantly challenging, far more than the jcpoa was. >> yeah. you know, i actually have had a project on this specific issue, and i actually wrote about it in "arms control today" a few years ago. to make it region wide, the two real challenges besides iran would be the df-3s that are in saudi arabia and the jerricho systems in israel.

i was in tel aviv last october talking about this very issue and whether they would accept any limits and pretty much the universal answer is why should we? we're not, you know, we don't care if they can threaten we're don't care if they can threaten europe. in fact, we kind of like the idea that they can threaten europe because it puts more pressure on iran on these other issues. they're more concerned with the transfer of the 1 tens and rockets because they can be fired in large numbers. the 2,000 kilometer range doesn't provide much to the israelis. saudis are pretty cool on this as well because they don't want to enter into anything that relieves pressure on iran. i can understand both positions. i think the alternative concession might be, as i said

earlier, allowing some form of space launch activity in iran as long as it's very transparent, just the space launch part. they are reasonably transparent with their space launch program. they go to international conferences and explain in detail the form and function of their launchers. there would have to be some technical limitations on large solid strap-on boosters for example, would be forbidden. the use of crikyerogenic engine would not but like we see in 14 and 15 and 12, those have to be capped. it is pretty intrusive but things you could consider that might win them over. i wouldn't hold my breath but might win them over. >> are you suggesting that the quid pro quo would have to be

missile or would it be asymmetric? like in the nuclear agreement talking about the nuclear program. >> as it was for the jqa, right? >> i haven't given that much thought myself. >> i think it comes down to again what do the iranians want. the most recent extremely was the negotiations where they wanted a broader array of options available. sanctions economic relief. has the not necessarily a total consensus view within iran. there are some elements of iran that don't want an opening to the west either. they view that as a back doorway of the governance. i think that potentially could be on the table. we're in a different frame shift here in the united states.

so far what might be politically palatable from the united states given this administration and hard line positions in congress, i think the end of the day, it's more of a european shift where that trade space might occur and determining what degree of relief could be given to induce iranians missile score while maintaining what they both care about. it's delicate but i suspect iranians would be interested along those lines. >> you mentioned, of all the iranian missiles have are the

range 2,000 kilometer or some more? >> 2,000 or 3,000 kilometer? >> it seems like you said most of the missiles in iran are 2,000 kilometer range. because of that, they're incapable of having nuclear warheads, am i correct? >> no. >> we concluded that can fly 2,000 kilometers was designed for the missile use or modification of that missile was specifically -- there was an intention to put a nuclear war i had on it if you accept the authenticity, and there's no reason not to, of the documents smuggled out of iran in 2004. so the presumption is that these are all designed to be nuclear capable. the one that's a little less

certain is this new one because we don't know too much about it. it in principle could fly 2,000 kilometers. they put a huge warhead on it, supposedly. we just don't have enough information what its basis is. >> what is the limitation to have in order to put nuclear warheads on them? what should be the range? >> i think you can put a nuclear warhead on anything you want, if you can make the warhead small enough. we put them on little davy crockett rockets. pakistan is using artillery rocket. we put them on honest johns and these are all systems less than 300 kilometers. it really depends how small you make it. we have nuclear artillery and so did the soviets during the cold war. there's no inherent limitation. one comment i would make is that no country has ever developed a

2,000 kilometer range missile without first having had a nuclear weapon. which is an interesting thing. i point that out when the iranians started developing it, it really concerned me, wait, this isn't something someone does unless they have an intention down the road to do something else. >> thank you. >> thank you. andreas ross with the german newspaper. this is also for you, michael in that you made a point of pointing us to the fact the notion of intention was introduced in the security council resolution. i'm a little unclear what the political significance of this is at this point after what you described there are in fact a lot of missiles that seem to have that intention. does this in your opinion make sense in the first place? seems like a slight change

favoring iran? did that make political sense to you and does this distinction, in your opinion today, provide any diplomatic openings at all, or is the sheer breadth of the intentional nuclear arsenal so great it doesn't really matter? >> when we started -- when mark and i started looking at this project and pursuing it, what we were trying to do was provide or offer a possible framework for delineating what it means -- what the security council resolution means and what would be prescribed under that council resolution and what would be permitted. so we kind of threw something up there that was a little more structured than this simple, we'll just use what the mtcr says. the mtcr is an agreement reached

with 35 countries now. originally, it was 7 countries back in 1987. the father of the mtcr, richard sphere, told me how he came up with that definition, which is quite interesting as well. nonetheless, what we wanted to do was put something out there. we may not be right. i'm not claiming we answered the issue. what we want to do is prompt a debate that looks at it. we do know the debates in the security council since the passage of it said it wasn't intended to be a nuclear delivery system following the logic that the iranians put out there. that may or may not be true, but how do we -- do we have a framework for doing the analysis to determine what its intent was, whether it's the original intent or iran's intent? >> can i jump in? one of the challenges of this, i

think the security council resolution was to get the jcpa over the final goal line. what i mean by that is the basic framework for the u.s. understanding, or at least public understanding and outlined in the iaea documents for the iranian nuclear program was a specific design for a nuclear weapon that would fit in the baby bottle warhead michael keeps talking about. that baby bottle warhead was on the schedule. you've seen it elsewhere. you can have them for conventional stuff, better aerodynamics so they can fly farther. that is what makes it difficult. one of the things we learned is that the iranians were not willing to discuss hard caps on their ballistic missile program. if you're sitting in washington or a different capital, do you worry about the missile or what goes inside the missile? i think ultimately negotiates worry about what goes inside the

missile. we care about the design of the warhead stopping that production rather than stopping a hard cap on missiles. i think that's where the trump administration have moved things forward and become asynchronous with a lot of countries involved in this because the missiles are secondary of the issue what goes inside the missile. this idea of nuclear capable is amorphous, good job looking at your report trying to define it. trying to define what nuclear capable means, you can put a nuclear weapon on anything. >> very telemuic. >> trying to figure this out. that's the hard part. clearly, that was crafted diplomatic language in such a way to where it largely doesn't say -- doesn't place the type of restrictions being interpreted at least in the press, particularly in the u.s.

>> barbara slaten, thanks. what about focusing on something that is covered by 2231, the transfer of missile technology? is there any realistic way of doing a better job of enforcing that? is that something, do you think -- i'm trying to imagine the russians or chinese agreeing to more sanctions on iran after nikki haley's dog and pony show. i can't imagine it right now, but maybe you can. >> i could be wrong, but i believe that some of the sanctions related -- treasury pushes and then some of the legislation that's being considered is under the auspices of trying to actually enforce the unsker. so i think yes is the short answer to that. >> i think the ultimate

difficulty, it's clear what the houthis are using are iranian origin. what's less clear is when did they get into yemen. i know they look into this a lot. the difficulty in strict legalees is how do you pinpoint date of transfer. i think that's ultimately the problem, at least that's what i hear from the u.n. security council panel of experts who look at this specific issue. everybody knows it's going on. putting together the case of when it was transferred becomes the difficult thing to do, try and at least bring the issue up and the u.n. security council likely to be vetoed and you have secondary issues because you have cover on the u.s. side to stay within the jcpoa but to increase pressure.

>> i'm interested in the question how they're transferred and i don't have an answer to it. they've obviously broken it into two pieces to facilitate the transfer. it shows that it was very crudely welded back together. i've talked to a number of people who actually were -- decision-makers, the u.s. part of the navy that operates in the gulf and the central command region. they have their suspicions how it might be transferred. if those suspicions are indeed correct, i think it will be very hard to interdict it. >> there's a land border between yemen and several countries, two. draw your own conclusions. >> the rumor is they're going by ground. that's what i hear. >> yes. >> that's what i've heard as well. that will be very difficult to

interdict because it would involve watching over ports in many different countries. >> you're being very delicate. >> i try to once in a while. >> there are no other questions? thank you. >> whoa. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. let me say our next event is march the 12th. for you iran hands here and we have a special treat, from syracuse university, the speaker will talk about iran's political elite. the families that have governed iran since the revolution. should be very interesting. thank you all for coming.

tonight on c-span's landmark cases, we'll explore the 1886 case of yick wov hopkins discriminating against a chinese laundromat owner and justice matthews found in favor of the laundromat owner and that it

applies to immigrants as well as citizens. examine this case with mae ngai professor from columbia university and the extraordinary intervention of chinese america and josh blackman, south texas college of law professor in houston. watch landmark cases tonight at 9:00 eastern c-span or c-span.org or list within the free c-span radio app. for background, order your landmark cases companion book for $8.95 plus shipping and handling. @c-span.org/landmarkcases. and a link for interactive constitutional cases. tomorrow, the commanders of central command and africa command will testify before the

armed services committee. also, watch online at c-span.org or listen with the free c-span radio app. the mash for our lives rally against mass shootings will take place in washington, d.c. on the national mall. watch live coverage saturday, march 24th, starting noon eastern on c-span. up next, legal analysts preview supreme court cases involving freedom of speech issues. the cases weigh issues of union membership and collective bargaining fees wearing political apparel to polling places and california law requiring clinics to advertise abortion services. >> good morning. welcome to the heritage foundation. i'm elizabeth slattery. i'm a legal fellow here in tmeae center.