The land of the flighty

[Occhidiangela]

The fuzes required are a lot more difficult to make. Likewise, the fuzes themselves are watched very closely by the US government because they know how they can be used. Those type of fuzes only have two uses, building demolitions and bombs (be they convention or non). While the NKs could threaten their neighbors, lobbing a nuke at the US with a missile is a lot more unlikely considering that they probably cannot get the minaturization necessary to do so. If they want to hit the US, it's going to have to be by ship and they're going to have to take a lot of subterfuge to hide that they are the ones doing it.

May I point out that illegal tech transfer has been going on for some decades, as well as "turn a blind eye" tech transfer? There are other governments and actors than the US government, some of whom don't give a flying hoot about American security.

I tend to believe that the NK's, with sufficient effort, would do the research and produce the materials on their own. As Pete points out, you are looking at 60's and 70's tech. One man's rubbish is another's treasure.

As to them weaponizing a missile with MIRV's or a nuclear tip, the US and Russians were doing that in the 1960's. This is 40 year old tech. I concur with you that the NK's have their work cut out for them, given the mess their economy and industrial sector is in, but they are not quadraplegic, economically speaking. I am also confident that their autonomous ability to produce the NoDong and TaePoDong missiles speaks rather well of their industrial plant.

Occhi