AnalysisNorth Korea's diversifying missile arsenal complicates South's defense

North Korea is displaying an increasingly diverse missile arsenal this year, firing from different platforms — on land, aboard warships and, according to Pyongyang, underwater from a submarine — while testing weapons designed to carry heavier warheads, maneuver to evade interception and inflict damage over wider areas.

The frequency of missile tests has also increased, with 16 ballistic missile launches recorded through Oct. 12, which exceeds the six recorded in all of 2025 and 12 in 2024.

But what's more threatening than the frequency of ballistic missiles is diversification, with cruise missile tests added on seven occasions through Oct. 14, involving land-based launchers, destroyers and, purportedly, a submarine.

The expanding arsenal gives North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s military more options to approach targets from different directions and coordinate strikes, placing greater demands on South Korean and U.S. defenses even as questions remain over Pyongyang's technological claims.

Widening range of weapons

This year's ballistic launches began near Pyongyang on Jan. 4 with suspected Hwasong-11 Ma hypersonic missiles.

North Korea then fired large-caliber rockets on Jan. 27 and 600-millimeter super-large rockets, known as KN-25, from Sunan on March 14.

Testing intensified in April — a suspected ballistic missile’s track disappeared shortly after launch on April 7, followed by two separate firings the next day, including what the North claimed was a Hwasong-11 Ga, or KN-23, cluster-warhead test. Hwasong-11 Ra missiles were then fired on April 19.

North Korea went on to test close-range ballistic missiles on May 26 and tactical ballistic missiles with special-purpose warheads on June 25.

August brought further firings of ballistic missiles on Aug. 6 and 12, followed by suspected KN-25 rockets on Aug. 20.

Ballistic missiles also featured in a combined exercise on Sept. 12, before a claimed Hwasong-11 Ma-1 hypersonic test on Sept. 20.

The sequence continued with a claimed hypersonic intermediate-range missile launch on Oct. 3 and launches of different ballistic missile types on Oct. 12.

Separately, the destroyer Choe Hyon fired strategic cruise missiles on March 4 and 10.

A mobile short-range anti-aircraft missile system was tested during the April 6–8 weapons-testing series, followed by strategic cruise and anti-ship missile launches from Choe Hyon on April 12.

Tactical cruise missiles with claimed artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted guidance were tested alongside guided artillery rockets on May 26.

The destroyer Kang Kon tested a strategic cruise missile on July 3, while tactical cruise missiles joined rockets and attack drones in the Sept. 12 exercise.

On Oct. 14, Pyongyang tested two cruise missile types purportedly launched from a submarine. The precise underwater launch platform remain unconfirmed.

Greater destructive potential

Asked how much North Korea’s missiles have advanced and how serious a threat they pose, experts said combat data from Russia’s war against Ukraine has helped Pyongyang improve their accuracy and ability to pinpoint targets in South Korea.

North Korea has deployed troops to fight alongside Russian forces and also supplied ballistic missiles.

“North Korea has significantly improved their accuracy using data obtained from the war in Ukraine. This year’s launches can be seen as drawing on those accumulated findings,” said Yang Uk, a research fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies.

“Years of development have made the Pyongyang’s missiles more reliable, with recent efforts focused on hitting targets more precisely,” he added.

A security think tank analyst described this year’s tests as efforts “to make missile performance more consistent by incorporating combat experience and technology or information from Russia.”

“Greater missile accuracy inevitably increases North Korea’s ability to strike targets in South Korea precisely,” said the analyst, who asked not to be named.

Specific launches also suggest Pyongyang is developing weapons that can carry heavier warheads and evade interception, according to other experts.

Shin Jong-woo, secretary-general of the Korea Defense and Security Forum, identified one missile tested on Oct. 12 as the Hwasong-11 Da-2.5, assessing that it carried a 2.5-metric-ton warhead.

“They demonstrated they could fire such a powerful warhead nearly 1,000 kilometers,” Shin said.

Hong Min, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, pointed to the Sept. 20 and Oct. 3 hypersonic missile tests as signs of efforts to evade interception at different ranges.

“It goes beyond showcasing individual weapons to demonstrating an entire family of systems,” Hong said.

Warheads that scatter smaller explosives or mines could also cause damage over wider areas and disrupt roads or airfields, a threat highlighted by the April 19 Hwasong-11 Ra test.

Pyongyang claimed five missiles struck an area of 12.5 to 13 hectares, although the damage area was not independently verified.

Questions remain over capabilities

Despite those advances, experts remained skeptical that North Korea had secured a reliable capability to strike the U.S. mainland, a central goal of its missile program.

“It is still nowhere near being able to consistently strike the U.S. mainland. That is not an easy capability to acquire,” Yang said.

Kwak Jin-o, a research professor at Pai Chai University, cautioned against overstating the gains from the Ukraine war.

“Expecting North Korea to perfect its missiles through experience in a single war is asking too much,” he said.

The extent of North Korea’s progress in maneuvering also remains unverified.

For instance, Pyongyang claimed the missile launched on Oct. 3 flew approximately 1,000 kilometers, compared with South Korea’s assessment of more than 700 kilometers and Japan’s estimate of about 680 kilometers.

The North Korean leader’s powerful sister, Kim Yo-jong, also claimed AI-assisted low-altitude maneuvering.

"Those claims and differing flight-distance estimates do not establish whether the weapons achieved their stated maneuvering capabilities," Kwak said.

South Korea’s Defense Intelligence Agency assessed that stable hypersonic gliding technology remained insufficient despite technical progress.

Seoul tests own hypersonic technology

Meanwhile, South Korea conducted its first domestically developed hypersonic glide vehicle test on Oct. 8.

The system is still under development.

The Joint Chiefs of Staff assessed that existing South Korean and U.S. defenses could detect and intercept the North’s recently launched missiles.

But Shin warned that coordinated attacks involving missiles, rockets and drones could “paralyze our military’s air defenses.”

Hong called for stronger low-altitude surveillance, closer real-time information sharing among Seoul, Washington and Tokyo, and improvements to multilayer defenses.