Monday, May 22, 2017

Missiling itself in its own foot

Last month when the U.S. shot 59 Tomahawk missiles at an air base in Syria I saw a few articles about how each missile costs about $1 million. Since then, every time that North Korea shoots one of its missiles into the sea, I wonder how much that is costing them. Does anyone know?

These medium-range missiles are probably more expensive than a short-range Tomahawk. Or at least they would be if made in the U.S. Thanks to slave labor, North Korea probably saves a lot on labor costs. But they still would have material costs. The country is under a lot of sanctions, many of which are designed to restrict the country's access to materials needed for its missile program. Those factors are going to drive the cost up even higher. Plus, North Korea is a really poor country.

So whenever Kim Jung Un fires a missile to make some kind of point to the outside world, how much of an economic hit does that impose on his country? I'm not sure what it is, but it must be something.