The suspected ICBM flew to an altitude of 6,000 kilometers (3,728 miles) and a distance of 1,080 kilometers (671 miles) with a flight time of 71 minutes before landing in waters off Japan’s west coast on Thursday, according to the Japanese Defense Ministry.
Thursday’s launch is North Korea’s 11th of the year, including one on March 16 that is believed to have failed. Analysts said the test could be the longest-ranged missile launched to date by North Korea, surpassing its last ICBM launch in November 2017.
Japan’s Deputy Defense Minister Makoto Oniki told reporters Thursday the missile’s altitude would indicate it was a “new breed of ICBM,” a possible sign North Korea is getting closer to developing weapons aimed at the United States can aim.
The US joined allies South Korea and Japan in condemning Thursday’s launch and urged North Korea to refrain from further destabilizing acts.
US President Joe Biden is currently in Belgium, where he is attending a G7 summit with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The meeting is part of a series of gatherings, including an extraordinary NATO summit, at which Western leaders are trying to coordinate their responses to Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. There will also be a European Council meeting on Thursday.
According to analysts, the recent spate of North Korean missile tests suggests the country’s leader Kim Jong Un is trying to show an increasingly turbulent world that Pyongyang remains a player in the struggle for power and influence.
“North Korea refuses to be ignored and may seek to exploit the global preoccupation with the war in Ukraine to confront its status as a nuclear-armed state with a fait accompli,” said Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, CNN said.
“North Korea is far from initiating an aggression on the scale of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But Pyongyang’s ambitions also go beyond self-defense as it seeks to overthrow the post-war security order in Asia,” Easley added.
Thursday’s test also comes just two weeks after South Korea elected a new conservative president, Yoon Suk Yeol, who is expected to take a harder line against North Korea than outgoing incumbent President Moon Jae-in.
In response to Thursday’s suspected ICBM test, the South Korean military fired multiple warning missiles for the first time since 2017, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a text sent to reporters.
“Our military is monitoring the movements of the North Korean military and has confirmed that we have the capability and attitude to accurately target the launch site of origin and to command and assist facilities when North Korea launches a missile,” the JCS said.
Provocative act
Analysts said North Korea appeared to conduct a so-called Loft missile test on Thursday. “It’s a tactic they often use to test longer-range systems without overflying another country in a provocative manner,” said Joseph Dempsey, senior research fellow in defense and military analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
He said preliminary data from Thursday’s test suggests it could be a Hwasong-17, a much larger ICBM than the Hwasong-15 tested in 2017.
Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said the data suggests Thursday’s missile could have a maximum range of about 15,000 kilometers (9,320 miles) — depending on whether it’s theoretically within range of the continental United States would be the weight of the warhead it would carry – and about 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles) farther than the Hwasong-15.
Despite the potentially extended range, Kim said Pyongyang has yet to demonstrate its ability to master the technology required for a warhead to successfully re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere in the final stages of flight.
US answer
Pyongyang’s other recent launches, on February 26 and March 4, were likely intended to test a new ICBM system, the US Department of Defense said earlier this month.
The US Indo-Pacific Command said earlier this month that the US was stepping up “intelligence, preparedness and surveillance activities” related to North Korea following the recent missile launches.
The move is a signal from the Biden administration that it needs to strengthen its military stance to ensure the US and regional allies like South Korea and Japan are protected from North Korea’s missile tests.
The command said they had “ordered increased intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance activities in the Yellow Sea, as well as increased readiness of our ballistic missile defenses in the region.”
Earlier this month, the US military held drills in and around the Korean Peninsula to demonstrate its readiness in the wake of North Korean activities, including simulating ballistic missile defense systems.
The U.S. Army’s 35th Air Defense Artillery Brigade moved to a remote location, “manned its wartime defensive position, deployed the Patriot missile system, and conducted anti-aircraft and anti-missile operations under a simulated combat scenario,” U.S. Forces Korea said in a press release.
And at sea, F-35 and F/A-18 fighter jets taking off from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, along with US Air Forces based in the region, put on a show of force in the Yellow Sea off South Korea’s west coast, according to a statement by the 7th… US Navy Fleet in Japan.
This story has been updated to clarify the location of the missile.