North Korea, 3D Printing, and Military Parity
Channel: PassionateGeek
Date: 16/04/2013

Dan Brown recently asked if 3D printing will allow North Korea to achieve military parity with the U.S.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Of5qi16p2u0)

My answer is no, and here's why:
The biggest advantage 3D printing can provide for weapons manufacturing is to decentralize the operation and thus make it nearly impossible to eradicate a countries weapons manufacturing capability. Unfortunately such a strategy brings about it's own problems, namely - 

* In addition to making supply lines complicated and difficult, the infrastructure of a country becomes a prime target
* Quality control becomes difficult
* Complex weapons are difficult to make without at least centralized assembly

This means that, for a country like North Korea, the best way to take advantage of 3D printing is to keep centralized manufacturing and use 3D printers instead of their current machines.

My final argument is that North Korea's population size will forever prevent them from gaining military parity with the U.S., no matter what technology they use.

3D printing will not allow North Korea to achieve military parity with the U.S.