In the last year, North Korea has been launching a lot of missiles.
They're all just tests, but they're meant to send a message.
North Korea is armed and dangerous.
They've demonstrated missiles that can destroy Seoul and Tokyo.
Hit US bases in the Pacific.
And now one that can reach Alaska.
US officials have confirmed that over night North Korea has launched
an intercontinental ballistic missile,
an ICBM.
Capable of reaching Alaska.
Kim Jung Un called it a gift to the Trump Administration.
This is the end goal or at least towards the end goal for North Korea.
It’s called the Hwasong-14. it’s the newest member of North Korea’s arsenal, and their
first working Intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM.
It's the kind of thing that the US and Russia have thousands of, and had used as
a threat against each other during the Cold War.
North Korea has been working on one of its own for a while and they now appear to have one.
The North Koreans have had nuclear bombs since 2006, and they could certainly attack their
neighbors, but they’ve had no real way to deliver them to a distant target.
They could try and drop one from an airplane, but it would likely be shot down well before
getting to the target.
The most effective way to use a nuclear bomb is to attach it to a missile.
Different delivery systems determine how far the target can be.
North Korea already has a huge arsenal of short and medium range missiles.
But it DIDN’T have a working ICBM, which can hit a target up to 15,000 kilometers away
because it’s actually multiple missiles in 1.
Stacked on top of each other, each missile is used one-by-one to push the warhead into
space.
Then once it’s over a target, this final 4th section re-enters the atmosphere and detonates.
This is a very hard thing to engineer and tests of a previous long-range missile, the
Taepodong-2, failed repeatedly.
BUT ON JULY 4, 2017, North Korea successfully tested an ICBM called the Hwasong-14, a missile
capable of reaching Alaska.
It reached a distance of about 930 kilometers, flew for nearly 40 minutes, and successfully,
re-entered, splashing down in the Sea of Japan.
This is a major milestone for North Korea.
Analysts calculate that if North Korea wanted to use the Hwasong-14 in a real attack, they
would launch it at a lower angle, giving it a range of more than 5,500km, putting Alaska
in range.
But this still doesn’t mean North Korea can nuke Alaska today.
The Pentagon says the North Koreans cannot fit a nuclear bomb on the Hwasong-14 and have
it reliably detonate.
The Hwasong-14 is a relatively small ICBM, meaning it can’t carry a very heavy nuclear
bomb.
In order for it to make it to Alaska, the North Koreans would have to figure out how
to “miniaturize” the bomb. And there’s no evidence the North Koreans can
do this yet.
But the Hwasong-14 test is still very serious, because it shows that North Korea is rapidly
improving its ICBM technology and that it’s determined to build one, no matter who tries
to stop them.
So, this raises the question - Why is North Korea so dead set on building an ICBM?
The North Koreans first got nuclear technology in the 1950s, when their ally, the Soviet
Union, helped them build nuclear reactors for energy.
At the time, they were protected from their enemies, South Korea and the US, by the massive
nuclear arsenal of the Soviet Union.
But in 1993, when the Soviet Union collapsed, that protection went away.
So, North Korean dictator Kim Sung Il / Kim Jung il took matters into his own hands and
started using the nuclear reactors to make weapons.
The US didn’t want an aggressive, rogue state to have nuclear weapons, so 3 consecutive
US presidents all tried different tactics to get north korea to stop.
Clinton negotiated, Bush suspended negotiations and threatened them, and
Obama simply tried
to wait North Korea out.
But every single plan failed to stop the nuclear program — and there’s a reason for that.
See, the Kim dynasty believes their only option for security is to have proven nuclear capabilities.
They saw the US invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein because they thought he might have
nukes.
They also saw Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi negotiate with the US and give up his nuclear
program, only to be killed by US-backed rebels.
The Kim dynasty is determined not to be next.
So they’ve gone on to build an arsenal of missiles for their nuclear bombs.
The No Dong is functional today and has a range of 1,500km.
And North Korea’s SCUD missiles are highly effective within 1,000 km.
This puts North Korea’s main enemies, South Korea and Japan within range as well as the
62,000 US troops stationed there.
In fact, North Korea wants to make that loud and clear.
And it does so by successfully testing these short range missiles - a lot.
The tests provide a chance for them to improve their missiles but more importantly, they
send a political message.
South Korea and Japan wouldn’t attack North Korea because they’ve seen the missiles
that could devastate some of their largest cities.
Also…they don’t have any nuclear weapons of their own.
So what’s keeping North Korea from attacking its sworn enemies?
The US - which has promised to protect South Korea and Japan with the largest ICBM arsenal
in the world.
This puts North Korea at a disadvantage.
It knows the US can obliterate it, but it can’t reach the US just yet.
This is why the US can safely to cut off North Korean trade and enact other punishments.
And this brings us back to why North Korea has been trying so hard to build an ICBM;
it’s what they need to tip the scales in their favor.
Right now, North Korea can only attack US allies but if it can successfully test any
of these ICBMs, it would be the same as telling the US “if you nuke us, we’ll nuke you”.
If the US knows North Korea can target an American city, it‘ll be less likely to come
to the aid of South Korea or Japan This would effectively break up the alliance that’s
designed to keep North Korea in check.
But the implications of this would go far beyond the Korean peninsula.
Suddenly in charge of their own protection, South Korea and Japan would potentially develop
nuclear weapons of their own -- something Donald Trump once said he would be fine with.
This would trigger a process called nuclear proliferation and it’s exactly what the
US has been trying to prevent since the Cold War.
Right now, there are 9 countries with known nuclear weapons of their own, while 190 states
that maintain a non-nuclear status because of the Non-proliferation treaty.
But the success of a North Korean ICBM could change that.
If South Korea and Japan start looking to change their nuclear status, it could encourage
other countries to do the same.
So experts are urging the US to take action now while it still can.
President Trump is pressing China to help.
See, China continues to trade and have a diplomatic relationship with North Korea, essentially
keeping the regime alive.
So if Trump can get China to leverage or cut off that support, North Korea might decide
that it’s not worth continuing to pour money into developing better ICBMs.
But for now, as North Korea continues to test and parade missiles, tensions continue to
rise.
Three US presidents have said they’d prevent the North from building better nukes and missiles.
Three US presidents have failed.
At least for now, it looks like Donald Trump will be the fourth.