N. Korea missile becomes real threat
/ Graphic by Cho Sang-won
By Jun Ji-hye
North Korea’s latest launch of the Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) shows that Pyongyang has fixed its problems after six test firings since April.
This raises concerns that the threat of the North’s operational IRBMs, which could strike any target in Japan and also reach Guam, home to U.S. naval and air bases, has become a reality.
After five consecutive failures including one conducted at 5:58 a.m. Wednesday, the North is believed to have succeeded in launching the missile to some extent in its sixth attempt conducted at 8:05 a.m. the same day.
The sixth missile flew about 400 kilometers, a far longer distance compared to the other missiles previously launched.
A military official, asking not to be named, said, “Combined with North Korea’s submarine-launched ballistic missile program, an operational Musudan IRBM can pose a considerable threat.”
If the missiles work properly, they pose a serious threat to U.S. units that would be dispatched to the Korean Peninsula in an event of a war, the official said.
Deployed in 2007 without any tests, the Musudan missiles are believed to have a range of 3,000 to 4,000 kilometers.
Though the sixth missile flew only about a tenth of the expected maximum range, the military did not rule out the possibility that the North could have deliberately aimed short by using an acute high-arc trajectory, due to Japanese concerns.
A day earlier, Japan’s Defense Minister Gen Nakatani ordered the country’s Self-Defense Forces to destroy any North Korean missile that entered Japanese airspace.
Kim Jin-moo, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis, told reporters, “The North appears to have made considerable progress in its IRBM technology.”
He noted that the missiles fired Wednesday flew 150 kilometers and 400 kilometers, respectively, while the previous ones exploded right after being launched.
“The possibility cannot be ruled out that the North tested a miniaturized nuclear warhead mock-up, (not the missile itself),” he said, noting that how far the missile flew would be meaningless if this was the case.
South Korea and the United States militaries are currently conducting in-depth analysis on whether the last launch was a success.
Officials said allies are also analyzing whether the missile carried the imitation warhead, and whether this was damaged if the missile was reentering the atmosphere.
The government called an emergency meeting of the National Security Council at Cheong Wa Dae, showing that the launch was considered a serious provocation.
The Musudan, also known as the BM-25, is the North’s indigenous variant of the Russian SS-N-6 submarine-launched ballistic missile, known in Moscow as the R-27, according to observers.