North Korea's real nuclear threat

North Korea has progressed from having a few old Soviet Scud missiles bought from Egypt in the 1970s to becoming a fully-fledged member of the exclusive nuclear club with intercontinental ballistic missiles to match. It has been a dedicated pursuit by successive dynastic regimes in Pyongyang, accelerated by Kim Jong-un, the present leader, at the expense of the North Korean people. “From a humanitarian perspective it’s heartbreaking to see that what wealth North Korea has it is literally dumping into the ocean,” said Ian Williams, deputy director of the missile defence project at the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He was referring to the latest multiple launch of short-range missiles and one intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which splashed into the Sea of Japan. There was nothing new in terms of technology from the test launches, he said. “But what was new was the volume of launches – 23 short-range and one ICBM which failed in its second stage,” he said. “It shows they have a manufacturing production line that’s humming along, so we have to assume they can amass them very quickly. This is by a country whose GDP is on a par with Uganda,” he said. North Korea has now launched more than 60 missiles this year, 23 of them on Wednesday, the most in a single day, a hypersonic missile in January and a claimed test of its largest-ever ICBM called Hwasong-17 with a potential range of 9,300 miles. The size of the missile indicates it could carry multiple, manoeuvrable warheads. The US said it was actually an older Hwasong-15 but this missile still has an estimated range of more than 8,000 miles, capable of reaching anywhere in the US if fired on a flatter trajectory. Pyongyang has also developed submarine-launched ballistic missiles, the Pukkuksong-4 and Pukkuksong-5, with ranges of more than 1,800 miles. “We have to assume they have minituarised nuclear warheads to fit on the end of their missiles. The technology has been around since the 1950s and 1960s, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they mastered it themselves although they may have had help; there are a lot of people around the world who know how to build nuclear weapons,” Williams said. “The greatest dangers we face from North Korea fall into two areas: one is its artillery which is embedded in many of the mountains on their side of the demilitarised zone, and, more formidable, is its nuclear-armed missiles,” said Andrew Krepinevich, a US defence analyst and former Pentagon official. “Given open source information on the number of nuclear warheads in their possession – 20 or so – we could face the challenge of dealing with a ‘haystack’ attack in which North Korea launches a salvo of, say, 40 missiles but only a small number of which are actually armed with nuclear weapons,” he said. “Yet we would be compelled to intercept all 40 which would deplete our inventory of missile interceptors. Assuming they have 20 nuclear warheads and they can fit them on missiles, North Korea has enough missiles to fire several such salvoes until it finally overwhelms its adversaries’ defences,” he said.