North Korea’s 23rd Mock Missile Launch During the 2017 Japanese-Peripheral Shock-Ballistic Missile Campaign

This marks North Korea’s 23rd missile launch this year, including the most ballistic missiles fired in a single year since leader Kim Jong Un took power in 2012. By comparison, Pyongyang conducted four tests in 2020 and eight in 2021.

The missile flew over 2,858 miles, with a altitude of over 1000 kilometers and a top speed of Mach 17 making it seventeen times faster than sound, according to Japanese officials.

Two experts told CNN these flight details suggest the missile fired was likely a Hwasong-12 – an intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) last tested in January.

Lewis said a nuclear test could come at any moment, and that North Korea would keep conducting missile tests until the current round of modernization was done.

However, Lewis emphasized, such risks are statistically low, especially that far out in the Pacific and that high above Japan as it flew overhead. It’s an escalate because you want to fire a missile over your neighbor.

And if the test had failed, causing the missile to fall short, it could have endangered major population areas. The missile flew over Japan’s Tohoku region, according to Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, which is home to more than 8 million people.

South Korean and US fighter jets fly over the Korean Peninsula in response to North Korea’s missile launch on October 4 at an undisclosed location. At an undisclosed location.

“For the Japanese especially, it feels like a violation of their sovereignty,” Lewis said. If Russia deployed a missile over Florida, we’d be ready for it.

Robert Ward is the senior fellow for Japanese Security Studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and he pointed out the multiple security threats faced by Japan.

The North Korean missile launches: what they have to say, what they don’t know, and what they can tell us about their nuclear program

“The North Koreans are in no mood to talk. They’re in the mood of testing and blowing things off,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

Earlier this month, North Korean state media broke six months of silence over this year’s spate of missile tests, claiming they were meant to demonstrate Pyongyang’s readiness to fire tactical nuclear warheads at potential targets in the South.

Joseph Dempsey, research associate for defense and military analysis at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, added that Tuesday’s flight path could just make for a better test.

Kim has spearheaded an aggressive weapons development program that far outstripped efforts by his father and grandfather, both former North Korean leaders – and experts say the country’s nuclear program is at the heart of Kim’s ambitions.

South Korean and US officials have been warning since May that North Korea may be preparing for a seventh nuclear test – its first since 2017 – with satellite imagery showing activity at its underground nuclear test site.

Following a 25-minute phone call with US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said North Korea’s latest launch posed “a grave challenge to peace and the stability of Japan, the region and the international community” and that Biden shared this view completely.

Schuster and Lankov think that Kim might wait until after China’s Communist Party congress later this month, since the two countries have a friendly relationship.

The test was seen as a direct challenge to South Korea’s effort to strengthen its alliance with the United States and improve ties with Japan, a former colonial ruler of Korea with longstanding historical disputes with Seoul. The missile flew about 2,800 miles, the longest distance ever traveled by a North Korean missile, officials in Tokyo and Seoul said.

A spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council called the launch dangerous and reckless. Unlike the South Korean government, she described the North Korean weapon as “a long-range ballistic missile.” Jake Sullivan was in charge of national security for the US and spoke to his Japanese and South Korean counterparts on Tuesday to let them know he was up to speed on the situation.

What do you need to know about how North Korea is ramping up its nuclear weapons program, why they are doing so, and what can the US do to counter them?

The summits between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung Un over the North’s nuclear ambitions happened as a result of those tensions. Despite the fact that negotiations have stopped, North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons.

The US military said it was aware of the North Korean launch, which “does not pose an immediate threat to US personnel or territory, or to our allies,” according to a statement from the US Indo-Pacific Command.

In South Korea a new conservative government that took office in May has made it an priority to deterrence and has expressed worries over possible cycles of escalation and counter-escalation, including more missile tests from North Korea.

“It’s a very paranoid regime – (Kim) is as worried about the people under him as he is worried about regime change from the outside,” said Schuster. With the tests, Kim is telling his own people, “we can deal with whatever the West, the US and South Korea can come up with.”

The US and South Korea initially responded to the provocation with a precision bombing exercise on Tuesday, which involved a South Korean F-15K fighter jet firing two air-to-surface munitions at a virtual target in a firing range west of the Korean Peninsula, per the South Korean Joint Chiefs.

A surface-to-surface missile is fired into the sea off the east coast in this handout picture provided by the Defense Ministry, South Korea, October 5, 2022.

Wednesday’s launch included four ATACMS missiles, the statement by the South Korean Joint Chiefs said. Such weapons can fly around 200 miles, or about320 kilometers, and are known as Army Tactical Missile Systems.

John Kirby said that the launch was intended to demonstrate the readiness of the US and its allies to respond to provocations by the North.

It is not a viable plan at the moment to bring North Korea to the negotiation table and pursue denuclearization.

The aggressive acceleration in weapons testing has sparked alarm in the region, with the US, South Korea and Japan responding with missile launches and joint military exercises.

Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit, pushing North Korea further into isolation. The already-impoverished country sealed its borders entirely, with foreign diplomats and aid workers fleeing en masse. In 2020, there were four missile launches, and eight in 2021.

First, it could simply be the right time after the events of the last few years, with Kim declaring victory against Covid in August, and a new US administration in place that has focused on shows of unity with South Korea.

“They’ve been unable to test for quite a few years due to political considerations, so I’d expect North Korean engineers and generals to be very eager to make sure their toys are going to work well,” said Andrei Lankov, a professor at South Korea’s Kookmin University.

“They want to remind the world that they should not be ignored, that they exist and their engineers are working around the clock to develop both nuclear weapons and delivery systems,” said Lankov.

Carl Schuster, a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii, echoed this sentiment. He said Kim launches missiles to generate attention towards himself, but also to createpressure for Japan and the US to engage him.

Wednesday marked the 26th missile test of either cruise or ballistic missiles by the Kim regime this year, according to a CNN count, though analysts stressed that the KCNA reports should be treated with caution as North Korean state media had previously overstated the success of such launches.

He added that Kim’s weapons testing serves a dual purpose: apart from making a statement to the international community, it also boosts his own image domestically and cements the regime’s power.

Despite the US and its allies’ quick military response this past week, experts say there’s little they can do to stop or prepare for North Korea’s weapons tests.

The missile tests are in retaliation for the naval drills between South Korean and U.S. forces, which included the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan.

The North has nothing but problems: How the North is trying to protect himself in the face of the 77th birthday of the Workers’ Party

The North lacks the use of technology that facilitates economic and societal advances and gives the US and its allies opportunities to get information from it.

Chris Johnstone, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that since so much is driven by the leader himself, you really have to get inside his head.

In May, Russia and China vetoed a US-drafted UN resolution to strengthen sanctions on North Korea for its weapons testing – the first time either country had blocked a sanction vote against the North since 2006.

The law also demonstrated North Korea’s hopes of strengthening its ties with China and Russia, said Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul.

An Army Tactical Missile System is fired during a military training exercise between the United States and South Korea.

However, in terms of wider public perception, KCNA, North Korea’s state-run media, has made no mention of missile launches for months – since its last report of a launch in March.

The meeting of the party elite is the most important event on the Chinese political calendar, with the most powerful Chinese leader expected to be named to a third term in power.

Kim needs Chinese aid to keep his country alive, meaning he won’t be able to detract from the Party Congress. “So although China can’t dictate to him what he must do … he will not cause them problems.”

The statement that the North released on its ruling Workers’ Party’s 77th birthday is thought to be an attempt to burnish Kim’s reputation as a strong leader at home as he pushes to get more concessions from his government, in order to survive the H1N1 swine flu

“Our nuclear combat forces … proved again their full preparedness for actual war to bring the enemies under their control,” Kim said in a report by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The KCNA report said the recent drills, from September 25 to October 9, were designed to send a “strong military reaction warning to the enemies” and to verify and improve the country’s fighting capabilities.

According to a private institute in South Korea, the missiles launched by North Korea were the first for army units that were tasked with the operation of nuclear weapons.

The North’s public launch of a missile from under an inland reservoir was also the first of its kind, though it has previously test-launched missiles from a submarine.

Kim Dong-yub, a professor at Seoul’s University of North Korean Studies, said North Korea likely aims to diversify launch sites to make it difficult for its enemies to detect its missile liftoffs in advance and conduct preemptive strikes.

North Korean authorities verified the explosion of the missile’s warhead when it flew above the sea target, according to the Korean Central News Agency.

North Korea released a slew of photos on the launches. One of them shows Kim and his wife Ri Sol Ju, both wearing jackets, frowning while covering their ears. Some observers say the image indicated Ri’s elevated political standing because it was likely the first time for her to observe a weapons launch with her husband.

“The South Korean military was aware of the situation in real time and maintained a readiness posture by closely cooperating with the US while strengthening surveillance and vigilance,” Kim said at a briefing on Thursday.

“What I find notable is that these launches are not framed as tests of the missiles themselves, but rather of the units that launch them. Lewis said that suggests that the systems are deployed.

South Korea’s Camp Humphreys missile launches, a nuclear test and its kilo-nuclear launch

Among the key military installations in South Korea is the US Army’s Camp Humphreys, the largest US military installation outside of the United States with a population of more than 36,000 US servicemembers, civilian workers, contractors and family members.

Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said Pyongyang had “multiple motivations” for making an announcement Monday.

Besides providing a “patriotic headline” for domestic consumption on the 77th anniversary of its ruling party, “it is making explicit the nuclear threat behind its recent missile launches,” Easley said.

He said that the KCNA report could be a sign of a nuclear test for the kind of tactical warhead that Kim visited in the field.

Kim further emphasized that Pyongyang will thoroughly monitor enemies’ military movements and “strongly take all military countermeasures” if needed, KCNA stated.

A US Navy aircraft carrier strike group participated in several days of bilateral and trilateral exercises with South Korean and Japanese units that ended Saturday, a statement from the US Navy’s Task Force 70 said.

“Our commitment to regional security and the defense of our allies and partners is demonstrated by our flexibility and adaptability to move this strike group to where it is needed,” said Rear Adm. Michael Donnelly, commander of Task Force 70/Carrier Strike Group 5.

Japan’s Joint Staff said the security environment around Japan was becoming “increasingly severe” and that drills with the US Navy were strengthening the alliance’s capability to respond to threats.

The cruise missiles tested on Wednesday flew over the sea for almost four hours before hitting their target, claims the KCNA report.

South Korean Air Force Tests and Non-Fly Zone Crossing for the 27th Missile Launch of the South Korean War and a Joint Air Force Training with the US

The details of the reports can’t be trusted, as noted by the associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University. The Kim regime is sometimes transparent about its goals, but it also exaggerates strength and capabilities.

Kim said that if current strengths are exaggerated, the current North Korean missile tests show a progressing program.

A cruise missile is powered by a jet engine and can be maneuvered with control surfaces similar to an airplane.

A missile designed to hit the mainland United States can have a smaller nuclear warhead than a cruise missile.

He said that policymakers in Tokyo, Seoul and Washington should not allow domestic politics to stop them from increasing international coordination on military deterrence and economic sanctions.

There is a new conflict between the Koreas with the North flying warplanes near their border and the South conducting a live-fire drill.

The no-fly zone was crossed by North Korean aircraft between 10:30 p.m. Thursday and 13:20 a.m. Friday, just hours before its 27th missile launch of the year.

The military in South Korea told CNN that it did not violate an agreement with the North to only conduct exercises 10 kilometers from the border. The agreement was broken by the firings of 170 rounds of Artillery into the sea off its west coast.

The South Korean government is expecting the sanctions to have a negative effect of blocking illegal fund transactions with North Korean agencies and individuals.

According to the statement by South Korea, the missiles traveled for about 140 miles and flew over 15 miles before landing on their intended target.

Next week, South Korea is set to conduct a large-scale joint air force training with the US involving the US’ F-35B stealth jet, according to the South Korean Air Force.

US nuclear tests in the early 2020s: Is there still a possibility of a North Korean test, as predicted by the UN?

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog said “everybody is holding its breath about” a potential North Korean nuclear test, which could provide further “confirmation of a program which is moving full steam ahead in a way that is incredibly concerning.”

We are following this very closely. We hope it doesn’t happen but indications unfortunately go in another direction,” said IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi.