Kim Jong Un’s Long Game Starts With Short-Range Missiles

SEOUL—It was always more a question of when, not if, North Korea would return to weapons provocations. Now that it has, the Kim Jong Un regime is poised to unsheathe new weaponry that it has quietly developed in recent years.

First came a cruise-missile test in March that President Biden played down. Days later, Pyongyang unleashed a pair of ballistic missiles that Mr. Biden and other leaders decried as a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.

North Korea in recent weeks also engaged in increased activity at facilities suspected of making plutonium and uranium, key materials for nuclear weapons, according to satellite imagery analyzed by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C.

Moreover, satellite pictures of a port on North Korea’s East Coast showed movement near the port’s submarine-launch quay, indicating the regime could soon roll out a new missile-launching submarine, according to an analysis by 38 North, a website focusing on North Korea.

The activities suggest the regime is returning to a delicate but familiar dance.

The activity didn’t feature nuclear or long-range missile tests, but North Korea eked out learnings elsewhere: It has unveiled at least five new types of launch systems, honed short-range weapons designed to evade U.S. missile defenses and upgraded its ability to launch missiles from submarines.

Virtually all of the tests involved weapons with ranges of around 600 kilometers, or roughly 370 miles, a distance that covers all of South Korea—but falls short of reaching Tokyo or Beijing. Many of the tested weapons were upgraded versions of existing missile technology.

Last week’s launch of two ballistic missiles, based on state-media photographs, appeared to be improved versions of what national security experts refer to as Pyongyang’s KN-23 missiles, which resemble Russian Iskander missiles that can carry nuclear bombs.

“The missile demonstrated improvements in surprise, accuracy and ability to evade U.S. and South Korean missile defense systems,” said Kim Jung-sup, an ex-Seoul national security official who recently joined the Sejong Institute, a think tank near Seoul.

In the past few years, North Korea has also tested another new short-range missile that resembles the U.S. Army’s tactical missile system, known as the ATACMS, and a guided artillery rocket that North Korea watchers refer to as the KN-25 missile.

The past two years of weapons tests also carry another similarity: Nearly all of them rely on solid-fuel motors. In contrast with liquid-fuel motors, weapons that rely on solid-fuel technology can be deployed more quickly and be better for evading enemy detection.

North Korea now fields about 15 to 70 nuclear warheads, with the ability to produce the raw materials needed for between two to 20 additional atomic bombs a year, according to multiple reports and remarks from North Korea experts during the past year.

Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at Rand Corp., a think tank based in Santa Monica, Calif., said North Korea could likely produce nuclear material for 10 to 20 bombs a year, rather than two, since the more conservative estimates assume North Korea has only one or two sites for that purpose.

The November 2017 ICBM test showed that Pyongyang could hit the U.S. mainland. But much remains unproven, including whether its long-range weapons could withstand re-entry into the atmosphere.

At an October military parade, Pyongyang showcased a new ICBM, believed to be the largest of its kind in the world. It relies on liquid-fuel technology, though it appears large enough to carry multiple nuclear warheads, weapons experts say.

Then in January, the North unveiled a submarine-launched missile that it called the “world’s most powerful weapon.” Such missiles are tougher to detect than their land-based counterparts.

Earlier versions of the submarine-launched missiles have shown they could hit U.S. bases in Okinawa, Japan, North Korea experts say. Newer models may be able to hit farther targets like Guam, a Pacific island that hosts U.S. military bases, they say.

At the end of this cycle, there will be a stalemate with North Korea again, said Cho Tae-yong, a former South Korean deputy foreign minister, who worked as the counterpart to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken when the latter served in the Obama administration.

“North Korea, after all, is the land of lousy options,” Mr. Cho said.

Photo: People at a railway station in Seoul last week watched a video of a North Korea missile launch.
PHOTO: AHN YOUNG-JOON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/kim-jong-uns-long-game-starts-with-short-range-missiles-11617291813