Hyung-jin Kim, The Associated Press
Published Saturday, February 18, 2023 9:34 PM EST
Last updated Saturday February 18, 2023 11:10 PM EST
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Sunday said its latest ICBM test should further bolster its “lethal” nuclear attack capacity against its rivals, as it threatened additional powerful moves in response to planned military training between the United States and South Korea.
Saturday’s ICBM test, the North’s first missile test since Jan. 1, signals its leader Kim Jong Un is using the drills by his rivals as a chance to expand his country’s nuclear capabilities in order to use his influence over future deals with the United States to increase. An expert says North Korea may try to conduct regular operational exercises with its ICBMs.
The official Korean Central News Agency of North Korea said the launch of the existing Hwasong-15 ICBM was organized “suddenly” without prior notice, under direct orders from leader Kim Jong Un.
KCNA said the launch was designed to verify the weapon’s reliability and the combat readiness of the country’s nuclear forces. Launched at a high angle, the missile reached a maximum altitude of about 5,770 kilometers (3,585 miles), covering a distance of about 990 kilometers (615 miles) during a 67-minute flight before accurately hitting a preset area Bodies of water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
The steep angle start was apparently aimed at avoiding neighboring countries. Flight details reported by North Korea, which roughly match launch details previously assessed by its neighbors, show that the weapon is theoretically capable of reaching the US mainland when fired on a standard trajectory.
The launch of Hwasong-15 demonstrated the North’s “powerful physical nuclear deterrent” and its efforts to transform “its capability of deadly nuclear counterattack on enemy forces” into an extremely powerful uncounterable one, KCNA said.
Whether North Korea has a working nuclear-tipped ICBM is still a source of outside debate, as some experts say the North hasn’t mastered the technology to protect warheads from the harsh conditions of atmosphere reentry. The North has claimed to have acquired such reentry vehicle technology.
The Hwasong-15 is one of North Korea’s three existing ICBMs, all of which use liquid propellants, which require injection before launch and cannot remain fueled for long periods. The North is pushing to build a solid-fuel ICBM that would be more mobile and harder to detect before launch.
“Kim Jong Un likely determined that the technical reliability of the country’s liquid-propellant ICBM force has been sufficiently tested and evaluated to now allow for regular operational exercises of this type,” said Ankit Panda, an expert with 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 improved version of the Hwasong-15 ICBM. Chang said the information provided by North Korea showed the missile will likely have a longer range than the existing Hwasong-15 if launched on a normal trajectory.
The North’s launch came a day after it promised an “unprecedentedly” strong response to a series of military exercises Seoul and Washington are planning in the coming weeks.
In a separate statement on Sunday, Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un’s influential sister, accused South Korea and the United States of “openly displaying their dangerous greed and attempting to gain military superiority and supremacy on the Korean Peninsula.”
“I warn that we will watch the enemy’s every move and take appropriate and very powerful and overwhelming countermeasures against their every move hostile to us,” Kim Yo Jong said.
North Korea has staunchly criticized the regular military training sessions between South Korea and the US as an invasion rehearsal, although allies say their drills are defensive in nature. Some analysts say North Korea often uses South Korea-US exercises as an excuse to test and modernize its weapon arsenals, which it says is essential to winning sanctions relief and other concessions from the United States.
“We now know that any action by the US and South Korea — no matter how justified from the perspective of defending and deterring (North Korea’s) reckless behavior — will be construed as a hostile act and opposed by North Korea,” said Soo Kim, security analyst at the California-based agency resident RAND Corporation. “There will always be fodder for (Kim Jong Un) gun provocations.”
“With nuclear weapons in tow and having mastered the arts of coercion and bullying, Kim needs no ‘self-defense.’ But seeing the US and South Korea as aggressors allows Kim to justify his weapons development,” Soo Kim said.
US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said the US would take all necessary measures to ensure the security of the American homeland, as well as South Korea and Japan. South Korea’s Presidential National Security Council said it would seek to strengthen its “overwhelming response capability” against potential North Korean aggression based on the solid military alliance with the United States.
South Korean and US militaries plan to hold a tabletop exercise this week to refine a joint response to North Korea’s possible use of nuclear weapons. The allies will also conduct another joint computer-simulated exercise and field training in March.
Last year, North Korea set an annual record by launching more than 70 missiles, including nuclear-capable weapons. North Korea said many of those weapons tests were a warning of previous military exercises between the US and South Korea. Last year it also passed legislation allowing it to use nuclear weapons preemptively in a variety of scenarios.
Kim Jong Un entered 2023 with calls for an “exponential increase” in the country’s nuclear warheads, the mass production of tactical battlefield nuclear weapons targeting South Korea, and the development of more advanced ICBMs targeting the US
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