North Korea launches ICBM
Missiles have capability of reaching Washington, D.C., experts say
TOKYO — North Korea has launched another intercontinental ballistic missile, its third and most advanced yet, with experts calculating that the U.S. capital is now technically within Kim Jong Un’s reach.
The launch, the first in more than two months, is a clear sign that the North Korean leader is pressing ahead with his nation’s stated goal of being able to strike the United States’ mainland and is not caving in to the Trump administration’s strategy of applying “maximum pressure.”
The missile logged a longer flight time than any of its predecessors and went farther into the atmosphere than ever before, reaching a height of 2,800 miles. The International Space Station, by comparison, is 240 miles above the Earth.
President Donald Trump, together with his counterparts in South Korea and Japan and the U.N. secretary general, condemned the latest launch. “We will take care of it,” he told reporters at the White House, calling it a “situation we will handle.”
He later tweeted that Democrats should join with Republicans to pass a spending measure to avert a government shutdown. “After North Korea missile launch, it’s more important than ever to fund our gov’t & military!”
The Pentagon said that the projectile did indeed appear to be an intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM. The latest missile “went higher, frankly, than any previous shot they’ve taken,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said.
If the missile had flown on a standard trajectory designed to maximize its reach, it would have a range of more than 8,100 miles, said David Wright, co-director of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“Such a missile would have more than enough range to reach Washington, D.C.,” Wright said.
The U.S. capital is 6,850 miles from Pyongyang. The previous intercontinental ballistic missile tested, in July, was in the air for 47 minutes and could have flown 6,500 miles were it on a normal trajectory.
The South Korean and Japanese governments both convened emergency national security council meetings after the launch, and both leaders talked to Trump by phone.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said its military also conducted a “precision strike” launch exercise in response, firing missiles into the sea.
Although it may be cold comfort, it is still unlikely that North Korea is capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the U.S. mainland.
That still requires mastering reentry technology and the difficult task of fitting a nuclear warhead into a missile and have it survive the extremes of temperature and vibrations involved with leaving and coming back into the Earth’s atmosphere.