The South Korean Joint Chiefs’ Report on North Korea’s Launches of an Intermediate-Force Ballistic Missile and a High-Speed Ground-to-Ground Intercontinental Missile

The launches — all supervised by Kim — included a nuclear-capable ballistic missile launched under a reservoir in the northeast; other ballistic missiles designed to launch nuclear strikes on South Korean airfields, ports and command facilities; and a new-type ground-to-ground ballistic missile that flew over Japan, KCNA reported. It said North Korea also flew 150 warplanes for separate live-firing and other drills in the country’s first-ever such training.

The South’s joint chiefs said the missile flew approximately 2,796 miles to the east, reaching an altitude of 603 miles and a top speed of Mach 17, before landing in the Pacific Ocean. A body traveling at Mach 1 is traveling at the speed of sound. The speed of sound is twice that of Mach 2.

The Hwasong-17 was the most advanced intercontinental missile that was successfully tested on March 24, the South Korean government source said.

North Korea will continue to conduct missile tests until modernization is done. Lewis doesn’t think a nuclear test explosion is far away.

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 is an increase due to it being provocative to fire a missile over your neighbor.

It could have been disastrous if the test had failed, causing the missile to fall short. 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.

In the past, US planes have been grounded as a ‘precaution’ following North Korean missile launches. Several pilots on commercial jets saw a North Korean missile reentering the Earth’s atmosphere as it was about to hit the Sea of Japan.

“For the Japanese especially, it feels like a violation of their sovereignty,” Lewis said. “If Russia fired a missile over Florida, we would have a fit.”

Robert Ward, senior fellow for Japanese Security Studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, pointed to the multiple security threats faced by Japan, from an aggressive Russia to its north and China to its south.

North Korea had no intention of testing nuclear targets in South Korea with a ballistic missile: a joint response to North Korea and the US

Lewis, the expert at the Middlebury Institute, added that North Korea will likely continue developing weapons such as ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missile until “they get to a point where they’re satisfied with that – then I think they’ll probably express an interest in talking again.”

Analysts noted that with Monday’s reports, North Korea broke six months of silence on its testing program. Before that, an announcement and images of the tests were usually made available the next day.

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 said the missile’s flight indicated a test of exploding a nuclear weapon above the southeastern city of Busan, where the Reagan docked. He said the missile tested appeared to be a new version of North Korea’s highly maneuverable KN-23 missile, which was modeled on Russia’s Iskander missile.

After a quiet six months, North Korean state media broke its silence on Monday and claimed the missile tests were a way to demonstrate their readiness to fire nukes at targets in South Korea.

After a phone call with US President joe Biden, the Japanese Prime Minister stated that the launch posed a grave challenge to peace and stability of Japan, the region and the international community.

A professor at Ewha Womans University said that North Korea could be waiting until after the Chinese Communist Party Congress in October to conduct a more significant test.

However, a South Korean government source told CNN that officials believe the missile fired Thursday only succeeded in separating at the second stage, and seems to have failed after that, falling into the sea between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. The launch reached a maximum altitude of approximately 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles), according to the Defense Ministry, which is a third of the record height set in March.

A spokeswoman for the White House’s 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.” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan spoke with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts on Tuesday to discuss “robust joint and international responses” and reinforced Washington’s “ironclad commitments” to the defense of its allies, Ms. Watson said.

Kim expressed conviction that the nuclear combat force of his military would perform their duties of defending the North’s dignity and rights by keeping their strongest nuclear response posture and further strengthening it.

President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea met with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in New York last month on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly. The two leaders discussed security cooperation in the face of North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile threat. The United States, Japan and South Korea have conducted their first trilateral anti-submarine and missile-targeting exercises in over a year.

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 emphasized deterrence over diplomatic engagement, raising concerns over potential 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 senior people, “We can deal with whatever the threat the West, the US and South Korea can come up with,” he said.

The South Korean missile launch over the East Sea on Tuesday October 5, 2022: “The first time we have fought a war without a nuclear weapon”

Two US Marine Corps fighter jets and two Japan Air Self-Defense Force fighter jets were flying over the East Sea on Tuesday in response to the North Korean launch.

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. Missiles that can fly around 200 miles can also be referred to as Army Tactical Missile Systems.

Kirby told CNN’s Pamela Brown on “The Trouble Rooms” that this was the first time he had done this in response to provocations by the North.

“There is simply no practical plan at this point, especially in the short term, to bring North Korea to the negotiating table and to 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 outbreak pushed North Korea further into isolation. Aid workers and diplomats fled the country completely, due to its already-vivid situation. In 2020 and 2021, there were just four and eight missile launches, respectively.

It may be the right time for this, since Kim claimed victory over Covid in August and the US administration has focused on showing unity with South Korea.

Due to political considerations, the North Korean engineers and generals were unable to test their toys for a long time.

“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 was the director of operations at the Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii. Kim “launches missiles to generate attention towards himself, but also to create pressure for Japan and the United States to engage him,” he said.

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 Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier was sent by the Americans. South Koreans are launching these missiles, which are not necessarily working well,” said Lankov, referring to a South Korean missile on Wednesday that crashed right after launch. “What is the impact of all these American aircraft carriers cruising around Korea? Pretty much nothing.”

The North Korean missile launches: a warning to South Korea and to Russia about the possibility of a third term in the United States and its relations with China

The use of technology in the North does not match the widespread use in other parts of the globe, and it provides vital opportunities to glean intel for the US and its allies.

“Since so much of what North Korea does is driven by the leader himself, you really have to get inside his head, and that’s a hard intelligence problem,” said Chris Johnstone, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Russia and China have blocked a UN vote against North Korea before, but this was the first time that they had used their veto power.

The law showed that North Korea wants to strengthen relations with Russia and China, said a professor at the University of North Korean Studies.

The US and South Korea practiced firing an army tactical missile system on October 5 at an undisclosed location.

The KCNA, the state-run media in North Korea, didn’t talk about the launches for months before their last report in March.

The most significant event on the Chinese political calendar is the meeting of the party elite, with China’s leader expected to be appointed to a third term in power, further cementing his position as the most powerful Chinese leader in decades.

Kim can’t afford to distract from the Party Congress because he depends too much on Chinese aid. “So although China can’t dictate to him what he must do … he will not cause them problems.”

The North’s statement on the 77th birthday of its ruling Workers’ Party is seen as an attempt to burnish Kim’s reputation as a strong leader at home while he pushes to enlarge his weapons arsenal to wrest greater concessions from its enemies.

In the event of a war with South Korea, they practiced the loading of a nuclear warhead on a missile, which would be used in neutralizing airports in South Korea.

Viewing the drills as a military threat, North Korea decided to stage “the simulation of an actual war” to check and improve its war deterrence and send a warning to its enemies, KCNA said.

Cheong Seong-Chang at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea said the missile launches marked the first time for North Korea to perform drills involving army units tasked with the operation of tactical 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 said that it’s likely that the North Koreans want to make it hard for their enemies to detect their missile launches in advance and conduct strikes.

KCNA said when the weapon launched from the reservoir was flying above the sea target, North Korean authorities confirmed the reliability of the explosion of the missile’s warhead, apparently a dummy one, at the set altitude.

There were a lot of photos on the launches. One of them showed Kim and his wife Ri Sol Ju, both wearing ochre field 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.

Kim was quoted as saying that the US and the South Korean regime’s steady, intentional and irresponsible acts of escalating the tension would only invite our greater reaction.

South Korea’s Camp Humphreys missile launches: a nuclear test and the role of military countermeasures for the defense of its allies and partners

The units that launched the missiles are the ones that framed these launches as a test rather than a test of the missiles themselves. That suggests these systems are deployed,” Lewis said on Twitter.

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.

A professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul said there were multiple reasons for the announcement by North Korea.

It is making explicit the Nuclear Threat behind its recent missile launches by providing a patriotic headline for domestic consumption on the 77th anniversary of its ruling party.

He believes that the KCNA report is a sign of a forthcoming nuclear test for a warhead that would arm the units 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 report claimed the missiles flew for almost three hours over the sea before hitting their target.

North Korea’s missile launch violates the South-South Joint Chiefs of Staff and missile exercises, and a joint training exercise involving the US F-35B stealth jet

The details of the reports can’t be trusted according to the associate professor of international studies. “The Kim regime is sometimes surprisingly transparent about weapons development goals, but it also tends to exaggerate strength and capabilities.”

Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said North Korean missile tests show a progressing program even if current strengths are exaggerated.

A cruise missile has a jet engine that powers it during flight, stays inside Earth’s atmosphere and is maneuverable with control surfaces similar to an airplane.

Missiles that are capable of hitting the mainland in the United States have bigger warheads than cruise missiles, but still need a smaller nuclear warhead.

“Policymakers in Seoul, Tokyo and Washington should not allow domestic politics and other challenges such as Russia’s war in Ukraine to prevent them from increasing international coordination on military deterrence and economic sanctions” on Pyongyang, he said.

There are a number of new tensions between the Koreas, including the North flying warplanes near their border, and the South holding a live-fire drill.

North Korean aircraft approached the no-fly zone straddling the border between 10:30 p.m. Thursday and 12:20 a.m. Friday, according to the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a move that Pyongyang followed up just hours later with its 27th missile launch of the year.

The South Korean military confirmed to CNN that an artillery exercise had taken place 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the border but said it did not violate an agreement with the North regulating such exercises. Seoul claims instead that Pyongyang violated the agreement earlier Friday by firing 170 rounds of artillery into the sea off its west coast.

15 people who brought supplies related to North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction and missile development are targeted by the sanctions.

According to a statement by the South Korean government, the missiles flew for more than a century with an altitude of about 15 miles.

South Korea and the US are about to conduct joint air force training involving the US F-35B stealth jet.

The U.S. response to the “Vigilant Storm” exercises: a test of nuclear warfare for South Korea and the threat of North Korea

The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog said on Thursday that everybody is waiting for a possible North Korean nuclear test, which could provide further confirmation of a program which is moving full steam ahead.

“We are following this very, very closely. We hope it doesn’t happen, but there are indications that go in a different direction.

The joint exercises, named “Vigilant Storm,” began on Monday and involve 240 aircraft and “thousands of service members” from both countries, according to the US Defense Department.

The projectiles, including a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile, have triggered alerts, prompting some residents to seek shelter in two countries — South Korea and Japan — on both days.

It could, at least theoretically, put the entire US mainland in range of a North Korean nuclear warhead, but there’s a lot of unknowns about the missile’s capability to deliver a nuclear payload on target.

The count of North Korean missile tests so far this year is 30, according to a CNN tally, but individual missiles are far higher.

He says that the area where the missile fell has many fishing boats catching squid, suggesting that it could put the livelihoods of South Koreans at risk.

Last week, it pointed to 12 days of “National Defense” field exercises. The allies insist that the drills are defensive in nature, but they are really to defeat threats from North Korea.

South Korea scrambled about 80 fighter jets after detecting a large number of North Korean warplanes during a four-hour period Friday, the country’s military said, in a further escalation of regional tensions.

North Korea should stop threatening nuclear collisions and start talking about their actions, insisting that the United Nations Security Council is up to the president’s word

These activities are potentially destabilizing to the region. Austin said that they called on them to stop that activity and start talking.

A United Nations Security Council meeting is expected to take place on Friday to discuss Pyongyang’s recent missile launches. According to a spokesperson for the US Mission to the UN, the US, UK, France, Albania, Ireland and Norway had called for an open meeting.

The US Ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said in an interview that she was against the actions of North Korea.

Thomas-Greenfield said the UN would try to get China and Russia to improve their sanctions. She did not deny that President Joe Biden would raise the issue of sanctions with China’s president at the G20 but she said it was up to him.