Why North Korea has scaled back its missile tests this year

The 41-year-old dictator has sharply reduced the number of missile tests but signaled a more confident era for North Korea. Now an increasingly prominent actor alongside Russia and China, Pyongyang’s focus is on solidifying its nuclear status, shifting away from seeking global attention with a flurry of missile launches.

North Korea has conducted about a dozen public weapons tests this year, a decline from the 20 to 30 annual launches in recent years. Pyongyang, in its first launch since August, said Thursday that it test-fired two short-range hypersonic missiles the prior day.

Kim is approaching the deadline for his five-year weapons plan, first detailed in early 2021, that included hypersonic technology, a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile and spy satellites. North Korea touts success on nearly all fronts, in part due to the sheer volume of tests it has carried out in past years.

Following a subdued number of weapons tests during 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic emerged, North Korea had a record-breaking year in 2022—carrying out more than 40 weapons tests, including one that featured the launch of 23 missiles in one day.

Now, Kim has chosen more ways to convey North Korea’s military strength. While Kim’s primary show of force used to be missile launches during President Trump’s first term, the North Korean leader now opts for frequent military factory visits, orders mass production of munitions and declares his country’s nuclear status.

Kim’s advancing capabilities give him more leverage in potential negotiations with Washington over Pyongyang’s nuclear program, especially with Russian technical help, which means there is less of a need to continuously fire missiles to pressure the U.S., said Hong Min, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a state-funded think tank in Seoul.

“The qualitative aspect of testing has become more important than the sheer number of launches," Hong said.

But the rarer launches have showcased major advances. This year Kim unveiled his largest-ever warship and oversaw missile launches from the ship, hinting that North Korea was developing nuclear-capable “supersonic" cruise missiles. During a May launch of short-range systems, Pyongyang simulated nuclear attacks on the U.S. and South Korean forces. In August, Kim oversaw the test of new, upgraded air-defense missiles.

On Thursday, North Korea said the two hypersonic projectiles were successfully launched the day before, and published photos of the new missiles striking an inland target. Hypersonic missiles fly at least five times the speed of sound and can be maneuvered before hitting a target, making them difficult to detect. North Korea’s hypersonic gliding warheads can be a particularly potent threat, as they are designed to evade interception—which would complicate the U.S. and its allies’ defenses, according to the Japanese government.

Despite the breakthroughs, much of the tested weaponry remains far from deployable to the battlefield and its success is often unilaterally claimed by the Kim regime, security experts say.

Protected by Moscow and Beijing from additional sanctions, Pyongyang has demanded global recognition as a de facto nuclear state, and Kim signaled that he would make a pivot to upgrading his outdated conventional forces next year. North Korea has already upgraded the accuracy of its short-range ballistic missiles by supplying them to Russia and learning from their battlefield launches.

Russian supply of oil, much of which flouts sanctions, has also allowed North Korea to operate more weapons factories for mass production, said Jeon Kyung-joo, a research fellow at the government-funded Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul.

“North Korea is readying itself for its next list of weapons goals," she said.

Write to Dasl Yoon at dasl.yoon@wsj.com