North Korea: How is its nuclear-weapons threat expanding?
Summary
Kim Jong Un vows to continue advancing an arsenal that has the potential to hit anywhere in the USNorth Korea sees its nuclear program as essential to regime survival, serving to deter a US-led invasion. Decades of denuclearization talks, economic sanctions and diplomacy have done little to slow Pyongyang’s advance to becoming a self-declared nuclear state.
The Kim Jong Un regime is on a historic pace of weapons tests this year—including a return to major provocations for the first time since 2017. Pyongyang conducted a full-range intercontinental ballistic missile launch on March 24 that again demonstrated it had the capability of striking the U.S. mainland. On Oct. 4, North Korea flew an intermediate-range missile over Japan, triggering emergency alerts to citizens.
Pyongyang developed its weapons program brazenly, flouting sanctions and breaking promises to halt nuclear production. In 2003 it withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the main global commitment to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.
Two high-profile summits in 2018 and 2019 between Mr. Kim and then-President Donald Trump didn’t produce a denuclearization deal. Pyongyang turned back to shorter-range weapons tests over the past three years or so, refining technology intended for regional threats, not for targets halfway around the world. But it has pivoted back to significant provocations in 2022. North Korea has finished preparations to conduct its first nuclear test in five years, U.S. and South Korean officials have said.
What are North Korea’s nuclear capabilities?
The U.S. Army in July 2020 said North Korea might now have 20 to 60 nuclear bombs and the ability to manufacture six bombs each year. In May 2021, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Army Gen. Mark Milley said North Korea possesses the technical capacity to “present a real danger to the U.S. homeland as well as our allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific," according to written testimony provided to U.S. lawmakers.
Pyongyang has yet to show it can reliably strike the U.S. with a nuclear weapon. That requires developing a warhead that can survive the enormous pressure and heat of re-entering the atmosphere. And in its tests the North has launched ICBMs at a steep angle—in part to keep them from splashing down in U.S. territorial waters—which leaves doubts about whether the technology could traverse an actual flight, with its flatter trajectory. It also needs to develop and test a reliable targeting system.
North Korea has conducted six nuclear tests. The most recent one, in September 2017, produced an estimated yield as high as 100 kilotons, according to a South Korean lawmaker—or roughly five times that of the atomic bomb the U.S. dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945. Mr. Kim, as part of the country’s five-year strategic weapons policy, wants to develop an ability to put multiple nuclear warheads on a single missile.
In September, North Korea passed a new law allowing pre-emptive nuclear strikes if the leadership comes under attack. Mr. Kim said at the time that he would never abandon the country’s nuclear weapons to counter the U.S.
What is an ICBM?
ICBMs—short for intercontinental ballistic missile—have existed for decades and gained prominence during the Cold War. They are designed to travel from one continent to another, generally having a minimum range of roughly 3,400 miles, or about 5,500 kilometers. But some ICBMs can travel more than 10,000 miles, allowing more circuitous routes. Only a handful of countries, including the U.S., Russia and China, possess land-based ICBMs, with a broader group able to launch them from submarines.
The massive missiles can travel up to 15,000 miles an hour. ICBMs take a suborbital path, traveling out of the Earth’s atmosphere then descending on a target. ICBMs can carry nuclear warheads, among other types of weaponry.
Can North Korea’s missiles reach the continental US?
The Hwasong-15 missile, launched in November 2017, could potentially strike anywhere in the U.S., according to an assessment by the U.S. Forces Korea, which oversees the roughly 28,500 American personnel in South Korea.
Missile experts estimate its range at 8,100 miles, and say a North Korean ICBM could hit the U.S. mainland less than 30 minutes after launch. Pyongyang is more than 5,000 miles away from the U.S. West Coast.
In January 2021, Mr. Kim outlined a goal of extending the flight range to about 9,300 miles. The March 2022 full-range ICBM test showed that potential range, South Korea’s military told lawmakers. Seoul and Tokyo have divided assessments over whether the latest ICBM test was a modified Hwasong-15 or the next-generation Hwasong-17. But the launch’s flight stats aren’t disputed.
The country’s shorter-range weapons have repeatedly shown the North has ample ability to hit South Korea and Japan—each home to overseas U.S. military bases. For the Oct. 4 test over Japan, the Kim regime’s intermediate-range missile flew roughly 2,800 miles. The American military bases in Guam, for instance, are roughly 2,000 miles from North Korea.
What type of missiles does North Korea have?
North Korea has a diverse arsenal of ballistic missiles. In early 2021, Mr. Kim outlined his country’s top strategic weapons priorities, including a nuclear-powered submarine, hypersonic missiles, more powerful ICBMs and spy satellites.
The vast majority of North Korea’s weapons tests in recent years sought to strengthen shorter-range missiles, much of which can become nuclear capable, weapons experts say. Pyongyang has claimed successes firing weapons from submarines and train cars, plus an ability to maneuver missiles to dodge U.S. or South Korean defenses.
Many of the newly unveiled missiles rely on solid, rather than liquid, fuel, a shift that makes the weapons more mobile and often quicker to deploy. But the ICBMs, for now, rely on liquid fuel, meaning it must be accompanied by a caravan of vehicles for transportation and fueling before launch—making it easier to spot and potentially thwart.
North Korea remains a “disruptive player on the regional and world stages," according to an annual threat assessment from the U.S. intelligence community, which was released in March.
When was the last time North Korea fired missiles?
North Korea has shifted back to weapons provocations. It began 2022 with the highest frequency of missile tests in the country’s history, including a medium-range missile and a full-range ICBM launch.
Mr. Kim, in an overture to peace talks in April 2018, had promised to refrain from nuclear or ICBM tests. By the start of 2020, the dictator revealed he no longer felt bound by the self-imposed moratorium. But an actual return to major provocations didn’t occur for more than two years after that pronouncement.
North Korea has accelerated the country’s weapons development throughout Kim Jong Un’s more-than-decade rule. In the three years before the Singapore summit in 2018, North Korea unleashed more major missiles than in the three previous decades. Of the country’s more than 110 missile launches and nuclear tests, more than 80 have been conducted since Mr. Kim took power in late 2011, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank with a database going back to 1984.
What has the US response been to North Korea’s missile tests?
Washington and Pyongyang have held denuclearization talks since President George H.W. Bush was in the White House and North Korea was still led by founder Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Un’s grandfather. Prior deals sought to freeze production, allow on-site inspections or dismantle facilities in return for aid or other resources. But the arrangements broke down after the North refused to comply or engaged in a military provocation.
Mr. Trump took a different approach, shifting negotiations customarily left to working-level officials to leader-level diplomacy. The Trump administration played down North Korea’s resumption of weapons tests in spring 2019, because they didn’t include ICBMs or nuclear bombs. The absence of long-range tests, Mr. Trump and senior officials said, was a sign the U.S. approach was successful. Others, like former U.S. national security adviser John Bolton, said the tests violated United Nations restrictions.
North Korea has ignored repeated offers by the Biden administration to meet without preconditions at any time and anywhere. That includes outreach as recently as July.
During a parliamentary speech in September, Kim Jong Un accused Washington of trying to remove Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons to topple his regime. “There will never be any declaration of giving up our nukes or denuclearization, nor any kind of negotiations or bargaining to meet the other side’s conditions," Mr. Kim said at the meeting.
Without a nuclear deal that eases sanctions—which limit the North’s access to foreign banks and global trade—Mr. Kim can’t deliver on his promise to revitalize a North Korean economy that has crumbled during the pandemic. Living conditions have slid so much that Mr. Kim has apologized a number of times for the policy failure, a gesture previously unheard of in North Korea.
South Korea’s new president, Yoon Suk-yeol, took office in May. He is a conservative who backs a more confrontational stance to North Korea’s weapons tests and human-rights violations. It is a break from the country’s current president, the left-leaning Moon Jae-in, who pursued a pro-engagement policy. Under Mr. Yoon, South Korea has routinely labeled North Korea’s missile tests as provocations, sought to improve ties with Japan and resumed large-scale field drills with the U.S. after a nearly four-year hiatus.
What is President Biden’s stance on North Korea?
Mr. Biden has referred to North Korea as the U.S.’s greatest foreign-policy threat. He has advocated mixing pressure with what he calls principled diplomacy. He has declared an end to holding summits without preconditions, which he said amounts to embracing a thug. Mr. Biden said he would sit down with Mr. Kim only if Pyongyang were sincere and pledged to reduce its nuclear arsenal.
He reiterated that approach for talks during a May visit to South Korea. Asked on that trip what message he had for Mr. Kim, the U.S. leader said, “Hello. Period."
In January 2021, Mr. Kim called the U.S. his country’s biggest enemy. North Korean state media last mentioned Mr. Biden by name in 2019, when it called him a “fool of low I.Q." and compared him to a rabid dog that “must be beaten to death."
The Biden administration said in April 2021 it had completed a policy review on North Korea that examined every facet of Washington’s approach to the Kim regime over the years. At the same time, Biden officials have lashed out at North Korea’s human-rights violations, reupped sanctions and stressed the eventual goal of denuclearization. But they have also reached out to North Korea to resume talks.
In response to Pyongyang’s ballistic-missile tests, the U.S. in early 2022 sanctioned a handful of North Koreans involved in arms procurement. The Biden administration has since taken similar actions, targeting Russia-based individuals and entities for aiding the Kim regime’s missile program. Washington also proposed new sanctions with the United Nations, though it has faced opposition from Beijing and Moscow, the Kim regime’s key allies.
According to Seoul’s spy agency, North Korea’s demands to come back to talks include relaxing sanctions, so the Kim regime can export minerals and import more refined fuel. But the must-have list includes fine suits and premium liquor, too, according to the August 2021 assessment, shared in a briefing with South Korean lawmakers.
South Korean and U.S. officials have discussed offering humanitarian assistance to North Korea, including Covid-19 aid, specifying that any relief wouldn’t be conditioned on progress with denuclearization talks. As of October 2022, North Korea hadn’t accepted Covid-19 vaccines offered by international aid groups. But South Korea’s spy agency said in September that the North had begun a mass Covid-19 vaccination campaign at unspecified border areas.