The South Korean government has released images from its first successful test of a domestically developed hypersonic boost-glide vehicle. This includes shots of the vehicle impacting the water at the end of its flight. A weapon of this kind would give South Korea a significant new way to hold targets in North Korea at risk amid an ever-deepening arms race on the Peninsula.

South Korea’s Presidential Office, more commonly referred to as the Cheong Wa Dae or the Blue House, announced the test in a Korean-language press release yesterday. The Blue House initially released a video of President Lee Jae Myung and others observing the test from a conference room at the Anheung Proving Ground, which is located in South Chungcheong Province on the country’s western coast. South Korea’s Agency for Defense Development (ADD) manages testing at Anheung. A series of still images from the test itself was subsequently posted on the Blue House’s website.

Included in the still image gallery are shots showing the launch of the missile, a formal name for which has not yet been disclosed, from a wheeled transport-erector-launcher on a platform sitting just off the coast. The low resolution of the pictures makes it hard to tell whether the missile and/or the TEL are of an existing South Korean design or are based on one. We will come back to this later on.

As mentioned, there are also pictures of the hypersonic boost-glide vehicle hitting the water. At first glance, the vehicle looks to have a broadly conical design with stabilizing fins at the base. However, at least one of the fins looks to be truncated. Closer inspection of the available images shows further indicators that might point to it actually having a more wedge-shaped design with a distinct top and bottom, though it is still not definitely clear given the low resolution. Conical boost-glide vehicles are generally understood to be easier to design, relatively speaking, than wedge-shaped ones. Historically, hypersonic boost-glide vehicles of any kind have proven to be technically complex and challenging to turn into viable operational weapons, even by countries with extensive past experience with their development.

“This test launch was conducted to verify, for the first time, the vehicle’s core technologies in a hypersonic flight environment: the performance of ultra-high-temperature heat-resistant materials, guidance and control capabilities, and the ability to perform irregular flight maneuvers at low altitudes,” the Blue House said in its release yesterday, per a machine translation of the Korean text. “The HGV [hypersonic boost-glide vehicle] successfully separated after ascending to the target altitude and executed its planned flight path within the hypersonic environment without any issues.”

With all this in mind, the fact that the vehicle just remained intact through to impact is noteworthy. At the time of writing, South Korean authorities do not appear to have disclosed more specific details about the test, including how far the boost-glide vehicle traveled before hitting the water or what peak speed it reached. Important questions also remain about how the vehicle is guided during the mid-course and terminal phases of flight, challenges that do not appear to have been addressed by this particular test.

In general, unpowered hypersonic boost-glide vehicles need to be brought first to an optimal altitude and speed. This is typically achieved using a sufficiently sized rocket booster, with existing ballistic missile designs often serving as a starting point.

Once released from the booster, a boost-glide vehicle flies along a relatively shallow flight path within the Earth’s atmosphere. The vehicle is able to maneuver along the way, sometimes erratically, while traveling at hypersonic speeds, generally defined as anything about Mach 5.

All of this sets hypersonic weapons of this kind apart from traditional ballistic missiles, even ones with advanced maneuverability capabilities, which all follow a broadly arcing trajectory to their targets. The combination of speed, flight trajectory, and maneuverability offered by hypersonic boost-glide vehicles creates distinct challenges for opponents. They are hard to spot and track, let alone attempt to intercept, and there is less time for defenders to react overall. This ability to penetrate enemy air defenses and cover ground rapidly makes these weapons particularly attractive for strikes on very high-value and time-sensitive targets.

“The HGV [hypersonic boost-glide vehicle] is a ‘key strategic asset capable of changing the game on the battlefield,’ as its unpredictable flight trajectory and overwhelming speed allow it to launch surprise strikes against key strategic targets during contingencies,” the Blue House’s release explicitly noted, again according to a machine translation.

With all this in mind, South Korea does have an entire family of domestically-produced ground-launched ballistic missiles that could be suitable starting places for launching an unpowered hypersonic boost-glide vehicle. President Lee was notably shown a TEL for the country’s newest Hyunmoo-5 ballistic missile at Anheung yesterday, though no explicit connection has been drawn between that weapon and the hypersonic test. The Hyunmoo-5 is itself still a relatively new development, having only entered service around the end of last year.

When it comes to new South Korean arms developments, the Hyunmoo-5, which entered service around the end of last year, has been and continues to be a major point of discussion by itself. It is officially categorized as a short-range design, despite how big it is (35 tons gross weight), which is said to be due largely to the equally substantial size of its warhead (17,000 pounds). Past reports have raised the possibility that it could be capable of flying out to intermediate ranges if the warhead weight were reduced. Short-range ballistic missiles are defined as ones with ranges between 190 and 620 miles (300 and 1,000 kilometers), while intermediate-range ballistic missiles can hit targets out to between 1,864 and 3,418 miles (3,000 to 5,500 kilometers). Medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBM) fall in between these two categories.

With its massive unitary warhead, the Hyunmoo-5 already gives South Korea an important new way to hold deeply buried and otherwise hardened targets in North Korea at risk. This fits in directly with the country’s broader Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMPR) policy, as TWZ has previously written:

“While the Hyunmoo-5 has been widely reported as a future pillar of the KMPR, its specific ability to penetrate deeply buried bunkers, such as those used by the North Korean leadership, the same functions mean that it can also fulfill elements of the ‘kill chain.’ In this way, it could be used as part of a pre-emptive strike, to try and knock out North Korea’s launch capability by targeting its hardened command-and-control facilities and missile storage areas.”

By virtue of the very high speeds they reach in the terminal phase of flight, hypersonic boost-glide vehicles also offer bunker-busting benefits on top of the other aforementioned advantages they bring to the table.

In addition, the hypersonic boost-glide vehicle test reflects a broader arms race that has been expanding in scale and scope for years now. South Korea is also developing an air-breathing hypersonic cruise missile, seen in the composite image below, as well as new air- and sea-launched ballistic missiles, the latter of which will be loaded on new surface warships and submarines.

Though there are always questions about the actual maturity and viability of the designs, North Korea continues to churn out its own new missile developments. This includes two separate test launches of purported new hypersonic designs just in recent weeks. Tit-for-tat missile launches are not entirely uncommon on the peninsula, but there are limits to how quickly a test like the one South Korea conducted yesterday involving an emerging technology can reasonably be staged.

Friction between the North and South has been at a particular high point, in general, following an incident on September 21, in which three South Korean troops were injured along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), as well as the United Nations Command (UNC) on the Peninsula, have said a North Korean landmine placed in violation of the Armistice Agreement was to blame. South Korean authorities have demanded an apology and raised the prospect of some form of action in response, though President Lee has more recently sought to downplay the situation. The government in North Korea has denied the accusations and threatened an “immediate and powerful counteraction” should South Korea seek to retaliate.

An operational hypersonic boost-glide vehicle capability would also expand South Korea’s capacity to challenge opponents regionally beyond North Korea. Though the regime in Pyongyang represents the most proximate national security threat to the country, China and Russia have also been growing points of concern for South Korean authorities in recent years.

“We must secure our national security through our own strength,” President Lee said after yesterday’s hypersonic test, per the Blue House’s release. “The government must not rest on today’s success but must further advance the technology so that the hypersonic glide vehicle can establish itself as a robust strategic asset safeguarding our future security.”

South Korea’s very public test of its new hypersonic boost-glide vehicle underscores the country’s still-expanding efforts to broaden its options for striking even the best-defended targets in North Korea, as well as projecting power elsewhere regionally. At the same time, it remains to be seen when the South Koreans may field a real operational capability in this regard.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

The post First Look At Hypersonic Boost-Glide Vehicle Just Tested By South Korea appeared first on TWZ.

By Kit KLARENBERG

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Private messages show show Hamish De Bretton-Gordon, a top British pundit on the Salisbury poisoning incident, was a close associate of the MI6 officer who handled the Russian intelligence defector at the center of the scandal — and reaped considerable benefits from his proximity to the case.

This September, a former British Army officer named Hamish De Bretton-Gordon filed a column with the UK Telegraph complaining that “Russian bots” had “tried to make out that I’m part of a security service conspiracy.” Having shot to prominence as a media commentator on chemical and biological weapons after the alleged poisoning of turncoat Russian spy Sergei Skripal, De Bretton-Gordon dismissed accusations that he collaborated with UK intelligence as the product of the “Kremlin’s malign tactics.”

Despite his fervent denials, leaked emails reviewed by The Grayzone indicate that De Bretton-Gordon has spent years privately coordinating his public statements with senior British military and intelligence figures. The correspondences show him training operatives in Turkey and instructing Israeli military figures on Syria’s still-elusive stockpile of chemical weapons, “and a bit of Novichok,” referring to the Russian toxin supposedly used to poison Skripal.

They also suggest he stood to profit personally from exaggerating the threat posed by Russia. In the emails, De Bretton-Gordon described his day job as “flogging gas masks” to British military and law enforcement. He seemingly grew his firm’s business with outlandish warnings of imminent Novichok hand grenade attacks by Russian agents. As his prominence grew, the BBC hired De Bretton-Gordon to serve as an advisor on a drama about the Skripal poisoning.

His principal contact listed in the emails is Pablo Miller, an MI6 officer and veteran of the Royal Tank Regiment. Miller is widely believed to have recruited and handled Skripal before the Russian GRU defector was allegedly poisoned in Salisbury, England in March 2018 under questionable circumstances.

After the Salisbury incident, the British government issued a D-notice to prevent mainstream reporters from investigating Miller’s relationship with Skripal. Despite being an obvious subject of interest, Miller went completely unmentioned during the rolling coverage that dominated British media for months as a result.

The emails show Miller was nonetheless following that coverage closely. In June 2018, he wrote to De Bretton-Gordon thanking him for his “sterling media work” during what he called the “dark days of March and April.” During that period De Bretton-Gordon appeared in British newspapers and television reports on the poisoning on a near-daily basis, consistently attributing blame to the Kremlin without evidence and emphasizing the chemical weapons threat he claimed Russia posed.

The next month, De Bretton-Gordon sent his MI6 pal a lengthy Telegraph article warning of potential all-out chemical and biological wars with “rogue” states. De Bretton-Gordon’s commentary featured extensively in the piece, which framed Britain as a sitting duck in the event that Moscow were to target the country with missiles equipped with nerve agents or other toxic weapons.

When not hyping up De Bretton-Gordon’s apocalyptic warnings of potential Russian chemical weapons attacks, the article functioned as a long-form infomercial for his then-employer, Avon Protection Systems. The firm, which manufactures protective equipment for military, law enforcement and fire personnel, stood to profit handsomely from inflated perceptions of what governments call Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) threats. De Bretton-Gordon’s email signature at the time identified him as the company’s Managing Director for CBRN.

De Bretton-Gordon’s big break

The Telegraph noted the company’s business was “booming,” with orders “flooding in” from government clients the world over, supposedly reflecting how “a new age of poison weapons is upon us.” Later in the piece, an Avon executive boasted that the Salisbury incident and other recent alleged CBRN usage had “been good for us.” Britain’s elite SAS were among the cited customers for the “sinister looking” gas masks sold by Avon Protection Systems, which were said to be “worthy of Darth Vader.”

At no point did the Telegraph article mention De Bretton-Gordon’s employment by Avon.

But thanks to his newfound media prominence, De Bretton-Gordon wouldn’t have to stay with the company much longer. In January 2020, he emailed Pablo Miller bragging that he had “been offered a fellowship” at Cambridge University. De Bretton-Gordon wrote that he’d decided to accept the role because, in his words, “it beats flogging gas masks!”

Four months later, De Bretton-Gordon founded a dedicated personal “CBRN and bio security” consulting firm, in an apparent attempt to derive profit from his talent for stoking public fears of looming chemical and biological catastrophe.

De Bretton-Gordon helps MI6 officer avoid media scrutiny

The leaked emails show De Bretton-Gordon quickly emerged as a preferred adviser for the BBC, and repeatedly served as a go-between for Miller and the British broadcaster, whose journalists had apparently become aware that Miller was an MI6 officer.

Correspondence from November 2018 shows De Bretton-Gordon was also rewarded for his relentless media appearances with a position as a “senior CBRN mentor” in Britain’s Ministry of Defence. Though the work was unpaid, he received an MOD ID card and Ministry railcard, saving him substantial sums on train travel. De Bretton-Gordon wrote Miller to inform him of his new title, noting that he was currently advising the BBC on what he derided as “CBRN ‘pisch’” for a forthcoming “drama on Salisbury.”

“I’ve been asked by the writer if you would be interested in contributing,” he mentioned to Miller, adding that he’d told the British broadcasters that the spy was unlikely to agree. The MI6 veteran responded, “you correctly guessed my answer to the BBC question… it would not be appropriate for me to comment in public on the issue.”

Miller lamented that the British state broadcaster’s cognizance of his clandestine involvement with Skripal indicated his “true professional provenance” had “long ceased to be much of a secret.” But he wished De Bretton-Gordon good luck, telling his colleague that he was sure the drama would succeed given his “expert guidance.”

The next January, De Bretton-Gordon explicitly described Skripal as Miller’s friend when forwarding him a Forces News article on the removal of the roof of the Russian defector’s former home, excitedly informing him, “I see your mate is in the news again!”

De Bretton-Gordon was quoted liberally in the report, explaining it was necessary to remove the roof as it had allegedly accumulated “enough Novichok to kill thousands of people.” The chemical warrior claimed British authorities were now “much better prepared to deal” with future CBRN attacks in the aftermath of the incident.

Weeks later, De Bretton-Gordon emailed Miller to warn him Salisbury “will be awash with journos” on the March 4 anniversary of Skripal’s poisoning. In response, Miller thanked his friend for the “heads-up,” and wrote that he’d likely be leaving the country to ensure he was far away from the city while it filled up with reporters.

The correspondence also reveals how close the two men had become, and how their relationship had begun to blur into commercial territory. In October 2019, Miller asked De Bretton-Gordon to help publicize a Kickstarter for his daughter’s theatre production — a personal favor suggesting a friendship rather than a purely professional engagement. But Miller refused to let media contacts anywhere near it, explaining that following the Salisbury incident his daughters were forced to close their social media accounts after being relentlessly hounded by the press.

During the same exchange, De Bretton-Gordon reminded Miller he’d been contracted for an upcoming BBC drama on Salisbury, and once again offered him a role. Miller declined, saying he was firmly opposed to playing “any part for any BBC show. Ever.” De Bretton-Gordon defended his participation in the project by revealing that the MOD had specifically requested he “help on the Salisbury piece… to make sure the military bit looks right.”

The production in question was a three-part BBC One series that aired in 2020 called “The Salisbury Poisonings.” The project’s IMDB page lists De Bretton-Gordon as a “military advisor.”

De Bretton-Gordon wants critics “prosecuted for treason”

As The Grayzone previously revealed, De Bretton-Gordon played a deeply malign, multifaceted role throughout the Syrian dirty war. On top of endless media appearances as a bogus “expert” on CBRN matters, he was part of a covert MI6 effort to smuggle soil samples out of opposition-controlled areas in an effort to prove the Syrian government used chemical weapons. A report on this initiative in the Mirror tabloid made clear the purpose of British intelligence was prodding the US into military intervention against Assad.

It seems plausible whatever samples De Bretton-Gordon gathered in Syria were concocted, perhaps by his own hand. He provided evidence to a number of official investigations into purported chemical attacks during the conflict. In at least one instance – an OPCW/UN Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) probe into an alleged April 2014 toxic gas strike in Talmenes – videos submitted by an opaque NGO De Bretton-Gordon founded called CBRN Taskforce were found to show clear signs of falsification.

De Bretton-Gordon’s communications with his spy buddy contain references to him visiting Turkey, “to do a bit of training.” The country was the central hub for MI6 and CIA operations during the dirty war on Syria. It is an open question whether his training sessions covered staging chemical weapons attacks, and if other states in the region were taught in this dark art.

 

The self-styled CBRN expert also bragged about sharing his purported expertise with the Israeli military. In an email sent in December of 2018 De Bretton-Gordon boasted to Miller that he’d just returned “from Israel,” where he said he’d been “briefing the IDF (and no doubt others!) on Syrian [chemical weapons] and a bit of Novichok.”

He was clearly impressed by the Israelis, crowing, “Those boys don’t mess about!”

De Bretton-Gordon’s work overseas was apparently taking a toll on his day job, however. In an email that month to Miller, he explained how he was “always on the edge of sacking with all my ‘extra’ activities.” These machinations also put him in conflict with Peter Ford, Britain’s ambassador to Syria from 2003 to 2006, who’d become an outspoken critic of the dirty war against Damascus.

After De Bretton-Gordon authored an op-ed for The Telegraph in May 2019 demanding the West intervene to prevent Syrian government forces from recapturing Syria’s Idlib, Ford issued a response nailing his failure to acknowledge that the province was at the time under the control of the MI6-supported Al Qaeda affiliate, Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham.

In response, De Bretton-Gordon emailed Miller a note deriding Ford as a “complete See You Next Tuesday” who parroted “Assad and Putin propaganda.” He called for Ford – and the members of a now-defunct collective of antiwar academics known as the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media – to be “prosecuted for treason.” De Bretton-Gordon seemed particularly piqued that the academic collective had poked holes in the narrative he’d spun about Syrian chemical attacks.

De Bretton-Gordon cheers as his enemies “exposed”

In August that year, De Bretton-Gordon contacted Miller to celebrate The Times publishing a hit piece on David Miller, a member of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media.

“Glad to see that some of Assad’s and Putin’s ‘useful idiots’ who try and give me a hard time are being exposed,” De Bretton-Gordon cheered, before suggesting “must get more of them out in the open.”

This prompted a wider discussion about the so-called “stooges” who publicly challenged established, MI6-approved media narratives on Syria and Russia.

For his part, Pablo Miller expressed disgust over a recent “fawning evaluation” of Putin’s 20 years in power by dissident journalist Mary Dejevsky. Miller derided Dejevsky as one of many media figures who foolishly believed “Putin was the answer to Russia’s woes,” and suggested without evidence that she was likely “taking Moscow gold.” Thankfully, he added, events “Crimea, Syria, and Salisbury” had managed to “wake the twits up.”

The slanted manner in which these events were framed in the media did indeed coincide with a perceptibly negative shift in public sentiment towards Russia throughout the West, helping make a world-threatening standoff with Moscow a fait accompli. At every step, De Bretton-Gordon and other intelligence-aligned commentators acted as military and intelligence propagandists, ensuring the media and popular culture was constantly deluged with paranoia over a multi-spectrum Russian “threat.” Those who question the narrative are denigrated as “useful idiots,” and much worse.

This August 6, De Bretton-Gordon based an entire op-ed for the Telegraph on a conversation he’d recently had with an unnamed “Western intelligence officer” of his acquaintance. Could that anonymous spy have been Pablo Miller?

The self-styled chemical warfare expert was clearly not keen to discuss his relationship with the MI6 man. De Bretton-Gordon immediately hung up the phone when I reached him and identified myself as a journalist.

Original article:  thegrayzone.com