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North Korean Nuclear Weapons Arsenal:
New Estimates of its Size and Configuration
By David Albright
April 10, 2023
North Korea keeps secret the number of nuclear weapons that it has built or deployed. As a
result, the Institute periodically estimates the number of nuclear weapons North Korea
possesses. With North Korea’s growing sophistication in building nuclear weapons, the
estimates must also become more sophisticated as well. However, due to a lack of information
about North Korea’s nuclear weapons production complex, all of these estimates have
relatively large uncertainties.
These estimates depend on evaluating North Korea’s production of plutonium and weapon-
grade uranium (WGU), another closely guarded secret. The production of these key materials
can be assessed through commercial satellite observations, prior North Korean declarations,
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports, intelligence agencies’ reporting, reports
from on-site visits and interviews, and extensive information about North Korea’s procurement
for its key nuclear activities involved in enriching uranium and producing plutonium. Over
three decades, the Institute has accumulated a large repository of such information, allowing
for the current estimates of North Korea’s stocks of WGU and plutonium.
The following table summarizes three principal estimates aimed at spanning the range of
nuclear weapons North Korea could have produced through 2022. They are (1) a traditional
estimate assuming that the arsenal is composed of relatively simple fission weapons, ones
made only with plutonium and others made only with weapon-grade uranium; (2) one with
every nuclear weapon composed of both plutonium and WGU, a “composite” nuclear weapon;
and (3) an estimate with a set of single-stage thermonuclear weapons, in addition to simple
fission weapons.
