The United States and South Korea conducted a joint exercise after the launch of North Korean missiles: NPR

In this photo provided by South Korea’s Ministry of Defense, a US Air Force B-1B bomber, top, flies in formation with US Air Force F-16 fighter jets overhead. above the South Korean peninsula during a joint air exercise in South Korea, Sunday February 2, 19. 2023.

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In this photo provided by South Korea’s Ministry of Defense, a US Air Force B-1B bomber, top, flies in formation with US Air Force F-16 fighter jets overhead. above the South Korean peninsula during a joint air exercise in South Korea, Sunday February 2, 19. 2023.

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SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Sunday its latest intercontinental ballistic missile test was aimed at further bolstering its capability for a “deadly” nuclear attack against rivals, as it threatened to take additional forceful action in response to upcoming military training between the United States and the South. Korea.

The United States responded by flying long-range supersonic bombers later Sunday for a joint exercise with South Korean warplanes in a show of force against North Korea.

Saturday’s ICBM test, the North’s first missile test since Jan. 1, signals its leader Kim Jong Un is using rival drills as a chance to expand his country’s nuclear arsenal to gain the upper hand in the future relations with the United States. An expert says North Korea may seek to hold regular operational exercises involving its ICBMs.

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said the launch of the Hwasong-15 ICBM was staged “suddenly” without notice on direct orders from Kim.

KCNA said the launch was intended to verify the weapon’s reliability and the combat readiness of the country’s nuclear force. He said the missile was fired at a high angle and reached a maximum altitude of around 5,770 kilometers (3,585 miles), traveling a distance of around 990 kilometers (615 miles) for 67 minutes before hitting with it. precisely a predefined area in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

The steep-angle launch was apparently intended to avoid neighboring countries. The flight details reported by North Korea, which roughly matched launch information previously assessed by its neighbors, show that the weapon is theoretically capable of reaching the American mainland if fired on a standard trajectory.

The launch of Hwasong-15 demonstrated the North’s “powerful physical nuclear deterrent” and its efforts to “transform its deadly nuclear counterattack capability against hostile forces” into an extremely strong capability that cannot be countered, KCNA said. .

Whether North Korea has a working nuclear-tipped ICBM is still a source of outside debate, as some experts say the North has not mastered a way to protect warheads from the harsh conditions of atmospheric re-entry. The North says it has such technology.

The Hwasong-15 is one of North Korea’s three existing ICBMs, all of which use liquid propellants that require pre-launch injections and cannot remain powered for long periods of time. The North is pushing to build a solid-fuel ICBM, which would be more mobile and harder to detect before launch.

“Kim Jong Un has likely determined that the technical reliability of the country’s liquid-propellant ICBM force has been sufficiently tested and evaluated to now allow regular operational exercises of this type,” said Ankit Panda, an expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International. Peace.

Chang Young-keun, a missile expert at Korea Aerospace University in South Korea, said North Korea appeared to have launched an upgraded version of the Hwasong-15 ICBM. Chang said information provided by North Korea showed the missile would likely have a longer potential range than the standard Hwasong-15.

Later on Sunday, the United States sent B-1B bombers to the Korean peninsula for training with South Korean and American fighter jets, according to South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said Sunday’s training reaffirmed Washington’s “ironclad” security commitment to South Korea.

North Korea is sensitive to the deployment of US B-1B bombers, which are capable of carrying a huge payload of conventional weapons.

The North’s launch came a day after it promised an “unprecedented” response to a series of military exercises that Seoul and Washington are planning in the coming weeks.

In a statement on Sunday, Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s influential sister, accused South Korea and the United States of “openly showing their dangerous greed and attempting to overpower the military and occupy a predominant position on the Korean Peninsula”.

“I warn that we will monitor every move of the enemy and take corresponding, very powerful and overwhelming countermeasures against every move of his hostile to us,” she said.

North Korea has strongly criticized regular military drills between South Korea and the United States as a rehearsal for an invasion, although allies say their drills are defensive in nature.

“Now we know that any action taken by the United States and South Korea – even justified from the point of view of defense and deterrence against reckless behavior (by North Korea) – will be interpreted and protested as an act of hostility by North Korea,” he added. said Soo Kim, security analyst at California-based RAND Corporation. “There will always be fodder for (Kim Jong Un’s) provocations to arms.”

“With nukes in tow and having mastered the art of coercion and intimidation, Kim does not need ‘self-defense’. But opposing the United States and South Korea as aggressors allows Kim to justify his weapons development,” Soo Kim said.

United States National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said the United States would take all necessary steps to ensure the security of the American homeland, South Korea and Japan. South Korea’s presidential National Security Council said it would seek to strengthen its “overwhelming response capability” against possible North Korean aggression based on the military alliance with the United States.

The South Korean and U.S. militaries plan to hold a tabletop exercise this week to fine-tune a joint response to a potential use of nuclear weapons by North Korea. The allies are also to conduct another joint computer-simulated exercise and field training in March.

The foreign ministers of South Korea and Japan, meeting on the sidelines of a security conference in Germany on Saturday, agreed to strengthen trilateral cooperation involving the United States and exchanged in-depth views on the issue of the colonial-era mobilization of Korean forces forced laborers – a key sticking point in efforts to improve their relations, according to Seoul’s foreign ministry.

South Korea and Japan are both key US allies, but have often spat over issues stemming from Tokyo’s colonial occupation of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945. But the recent wave of attempts to North Korea’s missiles are pushing the two countries to explore ways to strengthen their security cooperation.