Latest news with #Hwasong-19
Newsweek
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Newsweek
US Prepares South Korea To Face Nuclear Attack by North
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The United States has recently provided military training to South Korea, its treaty ally in Northeast Asia, for operating under a nuclear attack that might be launched by North Korea. Newsweek has reached out to the North Korean Embassy in China for comment by email. Why It Matters North Korea is one of the nine countries armed with nuclear weapons. Its leader, Kim Jong Un, has pledged to keep the country's nuclear arsenal, which is estimated to have around 50 warheads, to strengthen deterrents against the U.S. and its South Korean and Japanese allies. This photo provided by the North Korean government shows what it says is a test launch of new intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-19 on October 31, 2024, at an undisclosed site in North Korea. This photo provided by the North Korean government shows what it says is a test launch of new intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-19 on October 31, 2024, at an undisclosed site in North Korea. KCNA via AP Facing North Korea's nuclear threats, the U.S. has been rotating its military assets, including aircraft carriers, heavy bombers, and nuclear-armed submarines, to the Korean Peninsula as a show of force while pursuing the goal of the "complete denuclearization of North Korea." What To Know From April 15 to 16, the U.S. Army Nuclear and Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Agency, which provides nuclear and countering weapons of mass destruction expertise and analysis, conducted the first training course in South Korea, the U.S. Forces Korea revealed. The training, formally known as the Nuclear Weapon Effects Course-Korea, took place at a South Korean Strategic Command facility in Seoul. The command was launched in October 2024 to counter nuclear and weapons of mass destruction threats posed by North Korea. The course aimed at equipping participants with "knowledge and skills necessary to operate effectively in and through a nuclear environment," the U.S. Forces Korea said in the press release on Tuesday, which can strengthen deterrence against "nuclear-armed adversaries." The Korean Service Corps 22nd Company conducts its annual Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNE) training at Camp Humphreys in South Korea on April 7, 2025. The Korean Service Corps 22nd Company conducts its annual Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNE) training at Camp Humphreys in South Korea on April 7, 2025. Spc. Caelum Astra/U.S. Army A total of eight South Korean members, assigned to the Strategic Command and the Defense Ministry, took part in the training, as well as five people sent by the U.S.-South Korea joint warfighting headquarters, the Combined Forces Command, according to the press release. South Korean admiral Kim Myung Soo, who serves as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the country's top military officer, on Thursday visited a bunker buster missile unit, which operates the domestically developed Korean Tactical Surface to Surface Missile. During the visit, the admiral urged for what he called "overwhelming capabilities" to deter potential provocations from North Korea, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff reported. What People Are Saying The U.S. Forces Korea said: "The training content is also directly applicable to Alliance tabletop exercises and wargames focused on conventional-nuclear integration, and enhancing the combined joint force's strategic understanding." U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said: "North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is pursuing stronger, strategic, and conventional capabilities that can target U.S. forces and allies in the region, as well as the U.S. homeland, to bolster North Korea's leverage and stature, defend its regime, and achieve at least tacit recognition as a nuclear weapons power." What Happens Next It remains to be seen when North Korea will carry out a new round of provocations, such as launching ballistic missiles, as the U.S. is enhancing its military presence in Northeast Asia.
South China Morning Post
14-03-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Trump's remarks on North Korea could spark Seoul's nuclear rethink
Comments by US President Donald Trump recognising North Korea as a nuclear power could prompt the South to reassess its place under the American nuclear umbrella that has so far provided deterrence against its arch rival, observers warn. Advertisement While addressing North Korea as a 'nuclear power', Trump said on Thursday he still had a good relationship with its ruler Kim Jong-un , with whom he met three times in his first term. 'I would … I have a great relationship with Kim and we'll see what happens, but certainly he's a nuclear power,' the American leader said after being asked by reporters during an Oval Office meeting with Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte whether he had plans to reestablish relations with the hermit regime. Trump met Kim three times, including in Singapore in 2018 and in Hanoi the following year, but failed to seal a deal on North Korea's denuclearisation due to differences in details on such an agreement. Since then, Pyongyang has consistently refused dialogue with Washington. Advertisement After testing the Hwasong-19 solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile in October last year, Kim declared he would never diverge from the path of 'strengthening nuclear deterrence' under any circumstances.
Asia Times
18-02-2025
- Politics
- Asia Times
N Korea missile puts all of US mainland in nuclear attack range
North Korea is building its missile capabilities to strike the US mainland, threatening to overwhelm US defenses and intensifying fears of a strategic shift in the Korean Peninsula's power balance. In a statement this month before the US Senate Armed Forces Committee, General Gregory Guillot, head of US Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), said that North Korea's growing intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capabilities pose a direct threat to the US mainland, with its latest solid-propellant Hwasong-19 missile likely capable of delivering a nuclear payload to targets across North America. The new missile's solid-fuel design significantly reduces launch preparation time, complicating preemptive detection and interception efforts. Guillot warned that North Korea's rapid transition from missile development to serial production could soon outpace US ballistic missile defenses, particularly if North Korea expands its arsenal beyond current estimates. He also highlighted the risk of technological exchanges between North Korea and Russia, with potential quid pro quo arrangements bolstering the former's advanced strategic weapons program. These developments and broader strategic cooperation between US adversaries increase the likelihood of simultaneous multi-domain threats to the US homeland, further stressing existing missile defense systems. In response, Guillot underscored the urgent need for next-generation missile defenses, including the timely deployment of the Next-Generation Interceptor (NGI) and improved domain awareness technologies to counter increasingly sophisticated adversary missile threats. In a November 2024 article for 38 North, Vann Van Diepen says North Korea's Hwasong-19 ICBM represents a significant advance in the country's strategic missile capabilities, likely incorporating a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) system. Van Diepen states that the larger solid-fuel Hwasong-19, compared to the Hwasong-18, has improved boost capability that increases payload capacity without extending range, as the previous ICBM can already reach the US mainland. He notes that the Hwasong-19's launch footage shows a probable post-boost vehicle (PBV), essential for MIRV deployment. He notes that while further testing is required to ensure the MIRVs survive atmospheric reentry, a successful MIRV-equipped Hwasong-19 would increase the number of warheads per missile, improve second-strike resilience and jeopardize US missile defense. However, Thomas Newdick points out in a June 2024 article for The War Zone that while it may be technically feasible for North Korea to place multiple warheads on a missile, putting them on multiple targets is more complex. Newdick states that it isn't clear whether North Korea has mastered the capability to accurately put a warhead on a target after release from a ballistic missile. The ongoing Ukraine war may have been an enormous boon to North Korea in that area. This month, Newsweek reported that North Korean ballistic missiles used against Ukraine have become more accurate since last year, now hitting within 50 to 100 meters of their targets, compared to earlier in the conflict, where they had an accuracy of 1 to 3 kilometers. As North Korea moves to serialized ICBM production, it raises the possibility of overwhelming limited US missile defenses. Politico reported in February 2023 that North Korea might have more ICBMs than the US has interceptors after displaying 10-12 Hwasong-17 ICBMs during a nighttime parade in Pyongyang. Politico notes that if North Korea could fit four warheads on each missile, those missiles could hypothetically overwhelm the US Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, which has only 44 interceptors. Adding to the problem of limited interceptors, the GMD has shown just 55% effectiveness in highly scripted tests and has often needed three interceptors to intercept a single warhead. Cognizant of US missile defense limitations, in January 2025, US President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order to build a US 'Iron Dome,' a next-generation missile defense system incorporating space-based interceptors (SBI) to defeat hypersonic weapons, ballistic and cruise missiles, and other next-generation aerial attacks. However, experts are divided over the feasibility of the US Iron Dome project and whether it would increase deterrence or instability. In a Breaking Defense article this month, Ankit Panda says that the US Iron Dome does not solve the vulnerability problem and merely incentivizes US adversaries to find new delivery methods for nuclear weapons, such as nuclear torpedoes or fractional orbital bombardment (FOB) systems. In line with that, North Korea has developed the 'Haeil' nuclear-armed underwater drone designed to infiltrate enemy waters and detonate to create a radioactive tsunami to destroy enemy ports and ships. However, it is not clear whether North Korea's Haeil is a real weapon or a propaganda ploy. Further, Jessica West and Victoria Samson mention for Breaking Defense that space-based interceptors could fuel arms races and derail international norms against the militarization of space. In a January 2025 American Enterprise Institute (AEI) article, Todd Harrison says that while the cost to build a system of 1,900 SBIs could reach US$11-27 billion, such a constellation could only intercept two incoming missiles while all other interceptors remain out of range. Harrison stresses the absenteeism problem in which low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellites spend most of their time above the wrong part of Earth. Such uncertainty in North Korean nuclear capabilities and US missile defenses is in line with varying views about the former's position when it comes to its nuclear arsenal. While it is believed that North Korea aims to use its nuclear weapons for coercion to achieve political and military objectives, Hwee-rhak Park and Wooyun Jo mention in a December 2024 article in the peer-reviewed Defense & Security Analysis journal that North Korea has two goals in building its nuclear arsenal: first, to break US nuclear extended deterrence (NED) in the Korean Peninsula, and second, to reunify the Korean Peninsula under its regime. Park and Jo mention that the US may renege on its NED posture in the Korean Peninsula, fearing nuclear retaliation by North Korea against the US mainland. They say that the US may respond with tactical nuclear weapons only as long as North Korea limits the use of nuclear weapons on South Korean military targets. In the worst-case scenario, Park and Jo say that North Korea could launch several nuclear weapons against South Korean cities to cripple or demoralize the latter's warfighting capabilities before advancing ground forces into the latter's territory to force a surrender. At the same time, they say North Korea can endeavor not to attack US forces in South Korea while threatening a nuclear attack against them should they take offensive action, forcing a US withdrawal from the Korean Peninsula. However, they stress that using nuclear weapons against the US or South Korea would be a life-or-death decision by the North Korean regime. Given those possibilities, Park and Jo recommend that the US and South Korea strengthen nuclear deterrence measures, such as the constant deployment of US nuclear ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) near the Korean Peninsula, deployment of nuclear gravity bombs and missiles in Guam, enter a nuclear-sharing agreement and prepare US and South Korean forces to fight a nuclear war.
South China Morning Post
14-02-2025
- Politics
- South China Morning Post
Pentagon says North Korean missiles that can hit US may soon be in production
Published: 10:02am, 14 Feb 2025 North Korea may be poised to move into production its intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the US, the Pentagon's commander of continental defences told a Senate panel. Kim Jong-un 's regime 'probably can deliver a nuclear payload to targets throughout North America while minimising our ability to provide pre-launch warning due to the shortened launch preparation time lines afforded by its solid-propellant design,' Air Force General Gregory Guillot, the head of US Northern Command, said in written testimony on Thursday to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Guillot cited the October test launch of the Hwasong-19 ICBM with solid fuel, which can be deployed and prepared for launch faster than a missile with liquid propellant. Rhetoric about the new ICBM by North Korea 'suggests Kim is eager to transition his strategic weapons programme from research and development to serial production and fielding, a process that could rapidly expand North Korea's inventory' while narrowing Guillot's confidence in his command's capacity to defend against ballistic missiles, the general said. Questions remain within the American military. When pressed at a Brookings Institution event in November whether the Hwasong-19 test indicated North Korea could pair a nuclear warhead with an ICBM that could withstand the rigours of launch, flight and descent through the atmosphere, Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of US Indo-Pacific Command, said 'we've not yet seen that capability, but we just see continued testing towards that.' 01:34 North Korea launches new hypersonic missile test ahead of Trump's return to White House North Korea launches new hypersonic missile test ahead of Trump's return to White House Guillot's comments are likely to bolster arguments by missile defence advocates to bankroll President Donald Trump's pledge to create an all-encompassing 'Iron Dome' umbrella to protect the US from attack.
