Is the U. S. president ready to put some muscle behind his tough talk?<\/b>
\nDonald Trump famously boasted that \u201cI could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn\u2019 t lose any voters.\u201d I wonder if that offer is good for a North Korean long-range missile hitting the same spot?
I ask, because North Korea\u2019s state media is now hinting that it will test a long-range missile capable of hitting New York \u2014 and trolling Donald Trump in the process.
You may recall that back in January, some media outlets got the idea that North Korea might test an intercontinental-range ballistic missile (ICBM) , prompting Trump to unleash a two-part Twitter tirade:
North Korea\u2019s reaction to the tweets was fairly muted at the time, though state media eventually released a statement suggesting it would test its missiles when Kim Jong Un pleased. A period of silence followed. In hindsight, it\u2019s clear North Korea wasn\u2019 t backing down. North Korea just had a busy missile test plan for the 2017, and it wasn\u2019 t about to alter it just because some buffoon was hate-tapping ill-tempered tweets.
Over the course of 2017, North Korea has been working its way through flight tests for all the new missiles shown off in the April 15 military parade to commemorate Kim Il Sung\u2019s birthday. So far, North Korea has tested a new land-based variant of its solid-fueled medium-range ballistic missile, a new intermediate-range ballistic missile, a short-range Scud modified for greatly improved accuracy, and most recently an anti-ship cruise missile. According to the database of tests compiled by my colleagues, North Korea has been popping off a missile launch about once a week.
At this brisk pace, the Democratic People\u2019s Republic of Korea has checked off all the new missiles displayed in the parade except for two: the apparent ICBMs displayed at the end.
As if on cue, North Korea has now turned back to Donald Trump\u2019s tweet. Last week, North Korea\u2019s Rodong Sinmun newspaper carried an article that noted:
\u201cTrump blustered early this year that the DPRK\u2019s final access to a nuclear weapon that can reach the U. S. mainland will never happen.
But the strategic weapons tests conducted by the DPRK clearly proved that the time of its ICBM test is not a long way off at all.\u201d
And, in case that wasn\u2019 t perfectly clear, the article also stated: \u201cThe DPRK is about 10,400 km far away from New York. But this is just not a long distance for its strike today.\u201d
North Korea wasn\u2019 t ready in January to test an ICBM. That now seems to have changed.
What sort of ICBM is North Korea likely to launch? As I have noted elsewhere, most attention has focused on the missile that North Korea has been showing off since 2012, which the United States calls the KN-08. North Korea conducted a test of the KN-08\u2019s engine last year. If the missile works \u2014 a fairly big if, to be honest \u2014 it would have the range to reach New York.
But there is also the possibility of a surprise. North Korea showed off two different heavy vehicles carrying canisters large enough for an ICBM, sending the clear message that there are multiple ICBMs under development. Other options include an ICBM based on the new engine that powered the Hwasong-12 or a larger solid-fueled ballistic missile. Each of these would be a surprise, in the sense that it represents a capability North Korea has yet to demonstrate. But then again, there is a first time for everything.
North Korea has said that the missile will \u201csoar into the sky with dynamism\u201d \u2014 although a first ICBM test is, more likely than not, likely to fail spectacularly. Rocket science is, after all, hard. But that first test will be a warning, a wake-up call that America\u2019s long-running policy of attempting to scold the North Koreans into disarmament is at an end.
The Rodong Sinmun commentary argued that Washington\u2019s \u201chostile policy will end\u2026 when the DPRK conducts the test-fire of ICBM capable of precisely striking any place of the U. S. mainland.\u201d While I don\u2019 t expect Trump\u2019s level of hostility will decline, the phrase \u201chostile policy\u201d is a North Korean term of art. And the Rodong Sinmun commentary is correct in a specific sense: North Korea\u2019s test of an ICBM will complete the development of a nuclear arsenal with a defined strategic role. It is the final step in building an arsenal that can deter and, to use another term of art, repel an American invasion. If deterrence were to fail, and an invasion were underway, North Korea already plans the widespread use of nuclear weapons against U. S. forces in South Korea and Japan. U. S. officials have repeatedly said that such a threat is not credible: \u201cPerhaps he\u2019s got an enhanced capacity to conduct a nuclear attack\u201d one U. S. official noted, \u201cand then immediately die.\u201d Or, as Trump told Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, \u201cWe have a lot of firepower, more than [Kim] has, times 20 \u2014 but we don\u2019 t want to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n