Latest North Korean missile has greatly increased range
The ICBM fired on Friday could reach such cities as Los Angeles, and perhaps Chicago, analysts estimate.
PYONGYANG, North Korea — North Korea on Friday test-fired its second intercontinental ballistic missile, which flew longer and higher than the first, according to its wary neighbors, leading analysts to conclude that a wide swath of the U.S., including Chicago and Los Angeles, is now within range of Pyongyang’ s weapons.
Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said the missile, launched late Friday night, flew for about 45 minutes — about five minutes longer than the ICBM North Korea test-fired July 4. The missile was launched on a high trajectory, which limited the distance it traveled, and landed west of Japan’s island of Hokkaido.
“We assess that this missile was an intercontinental ballistic missile, as had been expected,” Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said in Washington.
Analysts had estimated that the North’s first ICBM could have reached Alaska, and said Friday that the latest missile appeared to extend that range significantly.
David Wright, a physicist and co-director of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in Washington that if reports of the missile’s maximum altitude and flight time are correct, it would have a theoretical range of at least 6,500 miles. That means it could have reached Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago, depending on variables such as the size and weight of the warhead that would be carried atop such a missile in an actual attack.
Bruce Klingner, a Korean and Japanese affairs specialist at the Heritage Foundation think tank in Washington, said, “It now appears that a significant portion of the continental United States is within range” of North Korean missiles.
The U.S. and South Korea responded Saturday by conducting joint live-fire exercises. The U.S. 8th Army said the training event utilizing the Army Tactical Missile System and South Korea’s Hyunmoo Missile II was conducted to demonstrate their “precision firing capability” and “exercise assets countering North Korea’s missile launch.”
Washington and its allies have watched with growing concern as Pyongyang has made significant progress toward its goal of having all of the U.S. within range of its missiles to counter what it labels as U.S. aggression.
There are other hurdles, including building nuclear warheads to fit on those missiles and ensuring reliability. But many analysts have been surprised by how quickly leader Kim Jong Un has developed North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs despite several rounds of U.N. Security Council sanctions that have squeezed the impoverished country’s economy.
President Donald Trump has said he will not allow North Korea to obtain an ICBM that can deliver a nuclear warhead. But this week, the Defense Intelligence Agency reportedly concluded that the North will have a reliable ICBM capable of carrying a nuclear weapon as early as next year, in an assessment that trimmed two years from the agency’s earlier estimate.
Suga, the Japanese spokesman, said Japan has lodged a strong protest with North Korea. “North Korea’s repeated provocative acts absolutely cannot be accepted,” he said.
The French Foreign Ministry condemned the launch and called for “strong and additional sanctions” by the United Nations and European Union. “Only maximal diplomatic pressure might bring North Korea to the negotiating table,” the ministry said in a statement.
France’s U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre told AP: “This is a 4G threat: global, grave, given and growing. That’s why we call for a firm and quick reaction including the adoption of strong additional sanctions by the Security Council.”
A spokesman for Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday that Dunford met at the Pentagon with the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. Harry Harris, to discuss U.S. military options in light of North Korea’s missile test.
The spokesman, Navy Capt. Greg Hicks, said Dunford and Harris placed a phone call to Dunford’s South Korean counterpart, Gen. Lee Sun Jin.