Missile test potentially ominous

NUCLEAR TENSIONS

On Friday morning, a North Korean ballistic missile flew over the Japanese island of Hokkaido and into the Pacific Ocean. Alarmingly, it came just a day after Pyongyang said that Japan “should be sunken into the sea.”

However, as sirens sounded in Japan, Americans quickly grew concerned that the real threat revealed by this latest missile test was not just against Japan, but also the U. S. territory of Guam.

North Korea’s missile, believed to be an intermediate- range Hwasong-12, had flown 2,300 miles in a little more than 17 minutes, according to South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff. That range means that Guam, which lies 2,100 miles from North Korea, is now in reach.

“North Korea demonstrated that it could reach Guam with this missile,” David Wright, co- director of the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, wrote in a blog post.

Pyongyang has made a number of threats against Guam, an island territory of 160,000 people. In early August, a North Korean military spokesman said that the country was considering a plan to fire missiles into the sea around Guam.

It’s an ominous thought. Guam might have only 14 minutes to react if a North Korean missile was about to strike, officials have said.

The island territory, which is around 4,000 miles west of Hawaii, is an important strategic hub for U.S. power in the Pacific. It is home to both Andersen Air Force Base and Naval Base Guam; bases which contain not only 6,000 troops but also long-range bombers, ships and submarines.

There are still a number of unknown variables in the test, including the size of its payload and how a heavier payload would affect its flight. In his blog post, Wright adds that it is also unlikely that the missile is accurate enough to hit a military base on Guam.

On Friday, the U.N. Security Council condemned North Korea’s “highly provocative” test of an intermediaterange missile, and U.S. national security adviser H.R. McMaster called Friday on nations to aggressively enforce recent U.N. sanctions to increase economic pressure. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, said: “We will defend our people and our civilization from all who dare to threaten our way of life.”