WASHINGTON: North Korea’s latest rocket launch saw it shoot an intercontinental ballistic missile higher than ever before, prompting US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to warn that Pyongyang could soon threaten « everywhere in the world. » The worrying assessment once again calls into question America’s anti-missile capabilities, and whether
WASHINGTON: North Korea’s latest rocket launch saw it shoot an intercontinental ballistic missile higher than ever before, prompting US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to warn that Pyongyang could soon threaten « everywhere in the world. »
The worrying assessment once again calls into question America’s anti-missile capabilities, and whether it and its allies can protect themselves from the threat of a nuclear-tipped ICBM.
HOW HIGH?
Defense officials did not elaborate on Mattis’s remark about the missile’s elevation, but on Jul 4, in a test that Kim Jong-Un called a gift for the « American bastards, » a North Korean rocket soared to an altitude of 2,802 kilometers and flew 933 kilometers.
According to David Wright, a co-director and senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, news reports the missile reached more than 4,500 kilometers in altitude would give it a massive range.
« If these numbers are correct, then if flown on a standard trajectory rather than this lofted trajectory, this missile would have a range of more than 13,000 kilometers, » Wright wrote on his organization’s blog.
« Such a missile would have more than enough range to reach Washington, DC, and in fact any part of the continental United States. »
After the Jul 4 launch, experts had said Alaska was in range, so the latest test marks a dramatic and rapid increase in North Korea’s potential reach.
