Tag: missile research and development

Japan to develop long-range missiles as tensions with China rise | CNN

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Japan on Tuesday announced plans to develop and build an array of advanced long-range missiles as it bolsters its defenses amid increasing tensions with neighboring China.

The Japanese Defense Ministry said it had signed contracts with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) to develop and mass produce the weapons under a plan extending to 2027.

The deals, worth more than $2.8 billion, follow Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s announcement in December that he planned to boost defense spending and enable Japan to possess “counterstrike capabilities,” the ability to directly attack another country’s territory in the event of an emergency and under specific circumstances.

In taking the new defense initiatives, Japan is bending the interpretation of its post-World War II constitution, which put constraints on its Self-Defense Forces in that they can only be used for what their name implies, defending the Japanese homeland.

Under the deals, MHI will begin mass production this year on two types of already developed missiles – ground-launched Type 12 guided missiles designed to target ships at sea and hypersonic glide missiles designed for island defense, the ministry said. Deployment of those weapons is scheduled for 2026 and 2027, it said.

The Defense Ministry news release did not say how many of each missile would be acquired.

Meanwhile, MHI will this year begin development of advanced versions of the Type 12 that can also be launched by aircraft and ships. Defense industry news site Janes reported that the updgraded Type 12 will have a range of up to 1,000 kilometers (620 miles), five times the reach of the current version.

At the same time, MHI will begin development of submarine-launched missiles that could be fired by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s fleet of conventionally powered boats.

In December, Kishida instructed his defense and finance ministers to secure funds to increase Japan’s defense budget to 2% of current GDP in 2027.

Along with the development of Japan’s own missiles, Kishida said in February the country planned to buy as many as 400 Tomahawk cruise missiles from the United States. Tomahawks can hit targets as far as 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) away.

Japan’s military buildup comes amid increasing tensions with China, which has been growing its naval and air forces in areas near Japan while claiming the Senkaku Islands, an uninhabited Japanese-controlled chain in the East China Sea, as its sovereign territory.

Meanwhile, China has been upping its military pressure on Taiwan, the self-ruled island whose security Japanese leaders have said is vital to that of Japan.

Just this week, Japan scrambled fighter jets as a Chinese aircraft carrier group came within 230 kilometers (143 miles) of the southern Japanese island of Miyako while it simulated strikes on Taiwan.

Chinese military exercises around Taiwan last August including the launching of ballistic missiles, some of which landed in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone.

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April 12, 2023
North Korea tests long-range ballistic missile, Seoul says | CNN

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Seoul, South Korea
CNN
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North Korea launched a presumed long-range ballistic missile Saturday afternoon, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, a day after Pyongyang warned of “unprecedented strong responses” if the US and South Korea go ahead with planned military exercises.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said the missile landed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone west of the northern main island of Hokkaido, sparking condemnation from the United States.

Japan’s Defense Ministry said the missile reached an altitude of 5,700 kilometers (3,541 miles) and flew a distance of about 900 kilometers (559 miles). It was launched from Pyongyang’s Sunan area around 5:22 p.m. local time Saturday, the South Korean JCS said.

Japanese officials said the missile flew for more than 60 minutes.

North Korea launched a missile last March with a slightly longer flight distance and time. That projectile was believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), its first test of such a missile since 2017.

In November, after another similar launch, Pyongyang announced the “test firing of a new kind” ICBM, which it called the Hwasong-17.

Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said at the time it had the potential to reach the US mainland. “The ICBM-class ballistic missile launched this time could have a range of over 15,000 km when calculated based on the flight distance of this ICBM,” Hamada said in a statement. “It depends on the weight of the warhead, but in that case, the US mainland would be included in the range.”

North Korea tests its missiles at a highly lofted trajectory. If they were fired at a flatter trajectory, they would in theory have the ability to reach the US mainland.

The US government described Saturday’s missile launch as “a flagrant violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions,” according to a statement from White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson.

“While [the US Indo-Pacific Command] has assessed it did not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel, or territory, or to our allies, this launch needlessly raises tensions and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region,” Watson said. “It only demonstrates that the DPRK continues to prioritize its unlawful weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs over the well-being of its people.”

Watson said the US is urging other countries “to condemn these violations and call on the DPRK to cease its destabilizing actions and engage in serious dialogue.”

Earlier this month, the Kim Jong Un regime showcased almost at least 11 advanced ICBMs at a nighttime military parade in Pyongyang in the biggest display yet of what its state-run media described as North Korea’s “nuclear attack capability.”

Analysts said those missiles appeared to be Hwasong-17s.

Ankit Panda, a nuclear policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said on social media that if each missile in the parade were equipped with multiple nuclear warheads, they could represent enough volume to overwhelm US ballistic missile defenses.

Saturday’s test came after the North Korean Foreign Ministry lashed out at the United States and South Korea on Friday over their plans for upcoming military exercises.

Washington and Seoul are expected to hold nuclear tabletop drills next week at the Pentagon, the South Korean Defense Ministry said Friday. The allies are also expected to hold military drills next month in the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea, in the same statement, also said it would consider additional military action if the UN Security Council continues to pressure Pyongyang “as the United States wants.”

In January, Kim Jong Un called for “an exponential increase of the country’s nuclear arsenal” and highlighted the “necessity of mass-producing tactical nuclear weapons,” according to the country’s state media KCNA.

Kim had called for the development of a new “Intercontinental Ballistic Missile system,” capable of a rapid nuclear counterstrike, according to the KCNA report.

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February 18, 2023
North Korea’s record year of missile testing is putting the world on edge | CNN

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Seoul, South Korea
CNN
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In 2020, North Korea conducted four missile tests. In 2021, it doubled that number. In 2022, the isolated nation fired more missiles than any other year on record, at one point launching 23 missiles in a single day.

North Korea has fired more than 90 cruise and ballistic missiles so far this year, showing off a range of weapons as experts warn of a potential nuclear test on the horizon.

Though the tests themselves aren’t new, their sheer frequency marks a significant escalation that has put the Pacific region on edge.

“The big thing about 2022 is that the word ‘test’ is no longer appropriate to talk about most North Korean missile launches – they are hardly testing missiles these days,” said Ankit Panda, a nuclear policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Everything we’ve seen this year suggests that Kim Jong Un is dead serious about using nuclear capabilities early in a conflict if necessary.”

The attention-grabbing tests also threaten to set off an arms race in Asia, with nearby countries building up their militaries, and the United States promising to defend South Korea and Japan by the “full range of capabilities, including nuclear.”

Here’s a look back at a year of weaponry and warnings – and what could come next.

Of the more than 270 missile launches and nuclear tests by North Korea since 1984, more than a quarter came this year, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Missile Defense Project.

Of that total, more than three quarters were recorded after Kim Jong Un came to power in 2011, reflecting the dictator’s ambitions – of which he made no secret, vowing in April to develop the country’s nuclear forces at the “highest possible” speed.

That lofty goal was reflected in a flurry of testing, with North Korea firing missiles on 36 days this year, according to a CNN count.

“For missiles, they set daily, monthly and yearly records,” said Bruce Klingner, senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Asian Studies Center.

The majority of these tests were cruise and ballistic missiles. Cruise missiles stay inside the Earth’s atmosphere and are maneuverable with control surfaces, like an airplane, while ballistic missiles glide through space before reentering the atmosphere.

Pyongyang has also fired surface-to-air missiles and hypersonic missiles.

“North Korea is literally turning into a prominent operator of large scale missile forces,” said Panda. He pointed to recent instances where North Korea fired missiles in response to military exercises or diplomatic talks by the US and its regional allies, adding: “Anything that the US and South Korea will do, North Korea can proportionately demonstrate that it has capabilities to keep up as well.”

Among the ballistic missiles tested was the Hwasong-12, which traveled more than 4,500 kilometers (about 2,800 miles) in October – flying over Japan, the first time North Korea had done so in five years. Another notable missile was the Hwasong-14, with an estimated range of more than 10,000 kilometers (more than 6,200 miles).

To put those distances in context, the US island territory of Guam is just 3,380 kilometers (2,100 miles) from North Korea.

But one particular weapon has drawn international attention: the Hwasong-17, North Korea’s most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to date. It could theoretically reach the US mainland – but there are still a lot of unknowns about the missile’s ability to deliver a nuclear payload on target.

North Korea claimed to have successfully launched the Hwasong-17 in March for the first time. However, South Korea and US experts believe the test may have actually been an older and less advanced missile.

The Hwasong-17 was tested again in November, according to North Korean state media, with Kim warning afterward that the country would take “more offensive” action in response to “enemies seeking to destroy peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula and region.”

Since early this year, the US and international observers have been warning that North Korea appears to be preparing for an underground nuclear test – which would be its first since 2017.

Satellite imagery has shown new activity at North Korea’s nuclear test site, where the country has previously conducted six underground nuclear tests. It claimed its most recent test was a hydrogen bomb, the most powerful weapon Pyongyang has ever tested.

That 2017 nuclear test had an estimated yield of 160 kilotons, a measure for how much energy the explosion releases.

For comparison, the US atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in Japan, yielded just 15 and 21 kilotons respectively. The US and Russia have performed the most explosive tests in history, yielding upwards of 10,000 kilotons.

It’s not clear exactly how many nuclear weapons North Korea possesses. Experts at Federation of American Scientists estimate it may have assembled 20 to 30 nuclear warheads – but its ability to detonate them accurately on the battlefield is unproven.

Though there had once been hopes of a diplomatic breakthrough in 2019 after landmark meetings between Kim and then-US President Donald Trump, those were dashed after both leaders walked away without having struck any formal denuclearization agreements.

US-North Korea relations have nosedived since then, with Kim in 2021 announcing a sweeping five-year plan for modernizing the North’s military, including developing hypersonic weapons and a nuclear-powered submarine.

This year is an extension of that vision, with North Korea working toward developing its own strategic nuclear deterrent as well as nuclear options in any conflict on the Korea Peninsula.

There are a few possible reasons why this year has been so active. Some experts say Kim could have felt empowered to act while the West was preoccupied with the war in Ukraine. Panda, the nuclear expert, added that tensions tend to flare when South Korea has a conservative government – which has been the case since May.

North Korea’s aggressive acceleration in weapons testing has sparked alarm in the region, pushing its exposed neighbors – Japan and South Korea – closer to Western partners.

The US, South Korea and Japan have held a number of joint exercises and fired their own missiles in response to Pyongyang’s tests. The US stepped up its presence in the region, redeploying an aircraft carrier into waters near the peninsula, and sending top-of-the-line stealth fighter aircraft to South Korea for training. Meanwhile, the Quad countries – a grouping of the US, India, Japan and Australia – have deepened military cooperation, with their leaders meeting in May.

Individual governments have also taken dramatic action, with Japan saying it will double its defense spending, the pacifist nation’s biggest military buildup since World War II.

But experts have warned that this rapid militarization could fuel instability across the region. And there’s no clear end in sight; the US and South Korea have more joint exercises planned in the spring, which could propel North Korea to continue firing tests “just to show their displeasure,” said Klingner.

He added that negotiations are unlikely until Kim has further developed his weapons, when “in his mind, he’d be coming back to the table in a position of strength.”

“Each of the lanes of the road, they’ve been improving their capabilities, both nuclear and missile,” he said. “It’s all very, very worrisome.”

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December 26, 2022
North Korea launches ballistic missile, says South Korean military | CNN

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Seoul, South Korea
CNN
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North Korea launched a short-range ballistic missile toward waters off its east coast on Wednesday, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The missile was fired at 3:31 p.m. local time from the Sukchon area of South Pyongan province, according to the JCS. It added that the South Korean military has strengthened its surveillance and is closely cooperating with the United States.

Japan’s Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said the missile flew about 250 kilometers (about 155 miles) “at a very low altitude of about 50 kilometers (about 31 miles) or less,” and landed in the East Sea, also known as the Sea of Japan.

He added that authorities are still examining further details like the missile’s orbit, and condemned the launch as threatening “the peace and security of our country, the region and the international community.”

This marks the 32nd day this year that North Korea has carried out a missile test, according to a CNN count. The tally includes both ballistic and cruise missiles.

By contrast, it conducted only four tests in 2020, and eight in 2021.

Wednesday’s launch comes during midterm elections in the United States, with votes still being counted as Democrats and Republicans vie for control over Congress.

Also on Wednesday, South Korea’s military said a missile fired last week was a Soviet-era SA-5 surface-to-air missile – not a short-range ballistic missile, as it had claimed at the time.

On November 2, South Korea said Pyongyang had fired as many as 23 missiles to the east and west of the Korean Peninsula, including the now-identified SA-5, which landed close to South Korean territorial waters for the first time since the division of Korea.

JCS said the missile landed in international waters 167 kilometers (104 miles) northwest of South Korea’s Ulleung island, about 26 kilometers south of the Northern Limit Line – the de facto inter-Korean maritime border, which North Korea does not recognize.

Debris from the missile was salvaged from the sea, and displayed to the press at the Defense Ministry in Seoul on Wednesday.

Tensions in the Korean Peninsula have steadily risen this year, with South Korea and the US responding to Pyongyang’s missile tests by stepping up joint drills and military exercises, as well as their own missile tests.

South Korea is also currently carrying out its own standalone drills in an annual exercise that emphasizes defense operations, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The drills are expected to continue through Thursday.

On Monday, North Korean state media released images purporting to show last week’s missile launches with a warning that what it called the “reckless military hysteria” of the US and its allies was moving the peninsula towards “unstable confrontation.”

Pyongyang’s missiles and air force drills prove its “will to counter the combined air drill of the enemy,” said the report.

The US and international observers have been warning for months that North Korea appears to be preparing for an underground nuclear test, with satellite imagery showing activity at the nuclear test site. Such a test would be the hermit nation’s first in nearly five years.

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November 9, 2022
North Korea says missile tests are practice for ‘tactical nuclear strikes’ on South Korea | CNN

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Seoul, South Korea
CNN
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North Korean state media has broken its silence over the country’s recent spate of missile tests, claiming they were part of a series of simulated procedures intended to demonstrate its readiness to fire tactical nuclear warheads at potential targets in South Korea.

The Kim regime has tested ballistic missiles seven times since September 25, the latest of 25 launch events of ballistic and cruise missiles this year, according to a CNN count, raising tensions to their highest level since 2017.

Quoting leader Kim Jong Un, who oversaw the drills, the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the tests, which coincided with nearby military drills between the United States, South Korea and Japan, showed Pyongyang was ready to respond to regional tensions with by involving its “huge armed forces.”

KCNA said the series of seven drills of North Korea’s “tactical nuclear operation units” showed that its “nuclear combat forces” are “fully ready to hit and wipe out the set objects at the intended places in the set time.”

Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program and professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said North Korea’s announcements Monday indicated potential progress in its missile program.

“What I find notable is that these launches are not framed as tests of the missiles themselves, but rather of the units that launch them. That suggests these systems are deployed,” Lewis said on Twitter.

KCNA said on September 25, North Korea workers took part in exercises within a silo under a reservoir to practice what it described as loading tactical nuclear warheads to check the swift and safe transportation of nuclear weapons.

Three days later, they simulated the loading of a tactical nuclear warhead on a missile that in the event of war that would be used in “neutralizing airports in South Korea’s operation zones.”

On October 6, North Korea practiced procedures that could initiate a tactical nuclear strike on “the enemies’ main military command facilities” and, on Sunday, enemy ports, Pyongyang’s state media said.

Among the key military installations in South Korea is the US Army’s Camp Humphreys, the largest US military installation outside of the United States with a population of more than 36,000 US servicemembers, civilian workers, contractors and family members.

Experts say that North Korea has likely manufactured some nuclear warheads – “20 to 30 warheads for delivery primarily by medium-range ballistic missiles,” Hans Kristensen and Matt Korda of Nuclear Information Project with the Federation of American Scientists, wrote in September.

But its ability to detonate them accurately on the battlefield is unproven.

Analysts noted that with Monday’s reports, North Korea broke six months of silence on its testing program. Before that, an announcement and images of the tests were usually made available the next day.

Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said Pyongyang had “multiple motivations” for making an announcement Monday.

Besides providing a “patriotic headline” for domestic consumption on the 77th anniversary of its ruling party, “it is making explicit the nuclear threat behind its recent missile launches,” Easley said.

“The KCNA report may also be harbinger of a forthcoming nuclear test for the kind of tactical warhead that would arm the units Kim visited in the field,” he said.

South Korean and US officials have been warning since May that North Korea may be preparing for its first nuclear test since 2017, with satellite imagery showing activity at its underground nuclear test site.

The KCNA report said the recent drills, from September 25 to October 9, were designed to send a “strong military reaction warning to the enemies” and to verify and improve the country’s fighting capabilities.

In the report, Kim called South Korea and the United States “the enemies” and said North Korea doesn’t need to hold talks with them.

Kim further emphasized that Pyongyang will thoroughly monitor enemies’ military movements and “strongly take all military countermeasures” if needed, KCNA stated.

The United States, South Korea and Japan have all been active with military exercises during the North’s recent wave of drills.

A US Navy aircraft carrier strike group participated in several days of bilateral and trilateral exercises with South Korean and Japanese units that ended Saturday, a statement from the US Navy’s Task Force 70 said.

“Our commitment to regional security and the defense of our allies and partners is demonstrated by our flexibility and adaptability to move this strike group to where it is needed,” said Rear Adm. Michael Donnelly, commander of Task Force 70/Carrier Strike Group 5.

South Korea’s National Security Council on Sunday “strongly condemned” North Korea’s recent ballistic missile launches, and it said the South Korean military will further bolster its combined defense posture and deterrence through joint military drills with the US and trilateral security cooperation involving Japan.

Japan’s Joint Staff said the security environment around Japan was becoming “increasingly severe” and that drills with the US Navy were strengthening the alliance’s capability to respond to threats.

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October 9, 2022
US and South Korea test-fire missiles in continued response after North Korea launch | CNN

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CNN
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The United States and South Korea launched four missiles off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula on Wednesday morning local time, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The test was the allies’ second exercise in under 24 hours, following a provocative test-launch Tuesday morning by neighboring North Korea, which fired a ballistic missile without warning over Japan in a significant escalation of its weapons testing program.

The US and South Korea initially responded to the provocation with a precision bombing exercise on Tuesday, which involved a South Korean F-15K fighter jet firing two air-to-surface munitions at a virtual target in a firing range west of the Korean Peninsula, per the South Korean Joint Chiefs.

The allies typically respond to missile tests by North Korea with military exercises.

Wednesday’s launch included four ATACMS missiles, the statement by the South Korean Joint Chiefs said. Also known as Army Tactical Missile Systems, such weapons are surface-to-surface missiles that can fly around 200 miles (320 kilometers).

According to John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, the launch was designed to demonstrate that the US and its allies have “the military capabilities at the ready to respond to provocations by the North.”

“This is not the first time we’ve done this in response to provocations by the North to make sure that we can demonstrate our own capabilities,” Kirby told CNN’s Pamela Brown on the “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”

“We want to see the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, (North Korean leader Kim Jong Un) hasn’t shown an inclination to move in that direction, quite frankly he’s moving in the opposite direction by continuing to conduct these missile tests which are violations of security council resolutions,” he added.

On Tuesday, the US and Japan also conducted a joint response to the North Korean launch, with US Marine Corps and Japan Air Self-Defense Force fighter jets flying over the Sea of Japan, also known as the East Sea.

Following a 25-minute phone call with US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said North Korea’s latest launch posed “a grave challenge to peace and the stability of Japan, the region and the international community” and that Biden shared this view completely.

Analysts say there’s little the US and its allies can do to stop Kim’s relentless weapons buildup.

“The North Koreans are in no mood to talk. They’re in the mood of testing and blowing things off,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Failed US-North Korea summits during the Trump administration have led Kim to believe he can gain nothing from talks, Lewis said.

Since 2019 negotiations with former US President Donald Trump were cut short with no agreement, the North Korean leader has laid out a program to develop missiles with nuclear capability – and he’s following that timetable, Lewis added.

“North Korea is going to keep conducting missile tests until the current round of modernization is done. I don’t think a nuclear (test) explosion is far behind,” Lewis said.

Kirby, the National Security Council spokesperson, said North Korea is making progress.

Every time the Kim regime launches a weapon, “They learn, they get better, they get more capable,” he said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday.

Ankit Panda, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said North Korea appeared set on a course to develop nuclear weapons.

“Denuclearization is now I think in the dustbin of history as a failed policy,” he said.

“There is simply no practical plan at this point, especially in the short term, to bring North Korea to the negotiating table and to pursue denuclearization.”

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October 4, 2022
Japan issues rare alert as North Korea fires missile without warning over main island | CNN

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Seoul, South Korea
CNN
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Japan urged residents to take shelter early Tuesday morning after North Korea fired a ballistic missile without warning over the country for the first time in five years, in a major and potentially dangerous escalation of recent weapons tests by the Kim Jong Un regime.

The launch, which prompted immediate backlash from Tokyo and Seoul, comes amid a spate of missile tests, with five launches in the past 10 days, and follows renewed military drills between the United States and its regional allies.

The intermediate-range missile was launched from Mupyong-ri near North Korea’s central border with China at around 7:23 a.m. local time, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS). It flew about 4,600 kilometers (2,858 miles) for 20 minutes at an estimated maximum altitude of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) over Japan’s Tohoku region on the main island of Honshu before falling into the Pacific Ocean, some 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) from the country’s shore, Japanese officials said.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida strongly condemned the launch and called North Korea’s recent ballistic missile launches “outrageous” in comments to reporters at his official residence.

Tuesday’s launch is the country’s 23rd such missile test this year, including both ballistic and cruise missiles.

There were no reports of damage to aircraft or vessels near the missile trajectory, according to Japanese authorities, but the unannounced missile triggered a rare J-alert, a system designed to inform the public of emergencies and threats in Japan.

In such emergencies, alerts are sent out via sirens, through community radio stations and to individual smartphone users. On Tuesday, alerts were sent out at around 7:30 a.m. local time to people in Aomori prefecture, Hokkaido and Tokyo’s Izu and Ogasawara islands, according to Japanese officials.

A tweet posted by Japan’s Prime Minister’s office urged residents to take shelter in buildings and to “not approach anything suspicious that is found and to immediately contact the police or fire department.”

Other governments were quick to decry the launch, with South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol branding it a “reckless” provocation, adding that North Korea will face a decisive response from the South Korean military and its allies.

The White House also “strongly condemned” the test, with National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson calling it a “destabilizing” action that shows North Korea’s “blatant disregard for United Nations Security Council resolutions and international safety norms.”

Kim Seung-kyum, chief of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), and Paul LaCamera, the United States Forces Korea commander, held a meeting after the launch and reaffirmed the combined defense posture will be further strengthened against any threats and provocations from North Korea, the JCS said.

The US Indo-Pacific Command also released a statement saying American commitments to the defense of Japan and South Korea “remain ironclad.”

Ankit Panda, a senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said regular missile testing was was part of North Korea’s plan to maintain its nuclear forces.

“It is quite possible that the United States, South Korea and Japan will take away a message from this missile test that North Korea is continuing to assert itself to show that it has the ability to deliver nuclear weapons to targets including the US territory of Guam,” he said, adding that “risk reduction” to stop a crisis from escalating should be the current priority.

“If such a crisis were to play out, it would play out under a significantly more advanced North Korean nuclear capability, which I think would significantly limit the options that the United States and South Korea would have, potentially to retaliate or manage escalation with North Korea,” he said.

Tuesday’s launch could herald an intensification of provocations by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, experts told CNN.

“Pyongyang is still in the middle of a provocation and testing cycle and is likely waiting until after China’s mid-October Communist Party Congress to conduct an even more significant test,” said Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul.

“The Kim regime is developing weapons such as tactical nuclear warheads and submarine-launched ballistic missiles as part of a long-term strategy to outrun South Korea in an arms race and drive wedges among US allies.”

Four previous missile launches occurred in the space of a week in late September and early October, around the same time US Vice President Kamala Harris made an official visit to Japan and South Korea, and as US, Japanese and South Korean navies held joint exercises.

North Korea’s tests also come as international attention remains firmly focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – and as both Moscow and Beijing appear reluctant to side with the West to further censure Pyongyang.

In May, Russia and China vetoed a US-drafted United Nations Security Council resolution to strengthen sanctions on North Korea for its weapons testing, in a vote the US said was likely to fuel Pyongyang’s program to develop nuclear-capable missile systems.

Washington and the International Atomic Energy Agency have both warned this year that North Korea may be preparing for a nuclear test, which would be its first since 2017.

Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the Middlebury Institute, drew a connection between the missile tests and a potential nuclear test.

“North Korea is going to keep conducting missile tests until the current round of modernization is done. I don’t think a nuclear (test) explosion is far behind,” he told CNN.

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October 3, 2022