North Korea has taken another bold step toward achieving its stated goal of being able to send a nuclear weapon to the U.S. mainland, firing another intercontinental ballistic missile late Friday and highlighting the regime’s rapid technological progress.
The missile flew almost straight up for 45 minutes and reached a height of about 2,300 miles before crashing into the sea off Japan. But if it had been launched on a normal trajectory, the missile could theoretically have reached Denver and perhaps even Chicago, experts said.
This latest provocation compounds the problem facing the Trump administration and North Korea’s neighbors: how to stop the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un from making progress with its nuclear weapons program.
“Kim Jong Un does seem hell-bent on acquiring the capability to reach the United States with nuclear weapons,” said
Sharon Squassoni, director of the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “Although some experts judge this means he will never negotiate, it could also mean that he's looking for the capability that forces the United States to the table.”
Pentagon confirms North Korea missile launch:
The Pentagon and South Korea's joint chiefs of staff both said they had detected the launch, which occurred Friday at about 11:11 p.m. North Korea time(10:41 a.m. Eastern time). The late-night launch was unusual, as North Korea usually fires missiles soon after dawn.
“We assess that this missile was an intercontinental ballistic missile, as had been expected,” said Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.
However, the North American Aerospace Defense Command “determined the missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North America,” Davis said.
American officials assessed that the missile flew on a “lofted” trajectory to reach an apogee of 2,300 miles, before landing about 620 miles from its launch site in Chagang province in northwestern North Korea, near the border with China.
The missile landed within Japan’s exclusive economic zone off the coast of the northern island of Hokkaido, chief cabinet secretary Yoshihide Suga told a news conference convened early Saturday at 1 a.m. Tokyo time.
US detects N. Korea missile launch:
“We cannot tolerate North Korea’s repeated provocations like this,” Suga said. “We have made a strong protest to North Korea and condemned this act in the strongest terms.”
A launch this week — the anniversary of the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War was marked on Thursday — had been anticipated. Not only has Kim Jong Un repeatedly said he wants a nuclear-tipped missile that can reach the United States, but U.S. intelligence agencies in recent days had spotted preparations for another test.
North Korea on Wednesday threatened to launch a preemptive nuclear strike against the United States.
“If enemies misunderstand our strategic status and stick to options of staging a preemptive nuclear attack against us, we will launch a nuclear attack on America’s heart as the most relentless punishment without warning or prior notice,” Pak Yong Sik, North Korea’s defense minister, said at a ceremony to mark the conclusion of the Korean War, which ended in an armistice but which Pyongyang claims it won. The occasion is celebrated annually in North Korea as the “Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War.”
The test comes barely three weeks after North Korea fired its first missile technically capable of reaching the United States, launched as July 4 dawned in Asia.
That missile, which North Korea called the
Hwasong-14 (or Mars-14), was fired from Panghyon, a northwestern part of the country not far from the Chinese border, and flew to an altitude of 1,741 miles — seven times as high as the International Space Station. It landed 577 miles from its launch site, splashing down in the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
If fired on a trajectory designed to maximize its range, rather than a “lofted” flight path, the missile could have flown 4,970 miles, according to the
missile defense project at CSIS. That would put Hawaii and Alaska within reach.
But analysts at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California have suggested that the missile was capable of reaching New York City.
Jeffrey Lewis, head of the East Asia program at CNS, said that this latest test would have been designed to demonstrate that North Korea could hit more of the mainland United States.
“My guess is that they want to show more range,” Lewis said, adding that North Korea was essentially calling the Pentagon’s bluff. “We basically dared them to do this. We said, ‘It’s not really an ICBM until it can hit Alaska,’ and they’re, like, ‘okay.’”
The Kim regime has been testing missiles — and making observable technical progress — at a pace that has alarmed analysts and officials alike. Friday’s firing becomes the 14th ballistic missile launch this year alone, and the 10th that can be deemed a success, according to CNS researchers.
The Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency has
shaved two full years off the consensus forecast for North Korea’s ICBM program, now estimating that North Korea will be able to field a reliable, nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile as early as next year.
The aggressive testing schedule has already allowed North Korea to validate its basic designs, putting it within a few months of starting industrial production, the officials said.
The July 4 test, which violated United Nations resolutions against North Korea, was met with the usual rounds of international condemnation, but the world has not found a way to persuade North Korea to stop.
The United States has been leading the charge for more and more sanctions against North Korea, but Russia and China — both veto-wielding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council — have been reluctant to impose painful measures and are instead calling for a “de-escalation plan” to deal with Pyongyang.
The Trump administration needs to focus on diplomacy as well as sanctions, said
Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association.
“A deployed North Korean ICBM is not inevitable, but it will be if policymakers in Washington keep putting the cart before the horse and demanding Pyongyang meet onerous preconditions to begin talks,” she said.
The Trump administration, like the Obama administration before it, has said that North Korea must agree to freeze its weapons program before talks can begin.
“Washington's diplomacy deficit is further compounded by the dangerous illusion that sanctions alone will push North Korea to negotiate,” Davenport said, “when the Trump administration and Congress should be focused on signaling support for talks without conditions.”
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