South Korea wants to double its ballistic missile firepower to better defend against the threat from nuclear-armed North Korea.
South Korea is looking to increase its ballistic missile firepower to a 1-ton conventional warhead, but even that is below the amount the North is known to have in its arsenal.
The Seoul government reportedly asked for the increase during talks with U. S. officials, suggesting the extra missile payload would help it counter the rising threat from North Korea, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported Monday.
Under a 2012 deal between the U. S. and South Korea, missiles are limited to a range of 800 kilometers (nearly 500 miles) and warheads of 500 kilograms (roughly half a ton) . With the bigger warhead, South Korean ballistic missiles could pack more power at a time when the nuclear-armed North Korea is stepping up its own missile development.
«That could double the amount of conventional explosives on top, which would allow them (South Korea) to destroy some targets that they currently can’t destroy, » said Joel Wit, senior fellow at the U. S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and co-founder of Washington’s 38 North think tank. He said that could include destroying more of the North’s «hardened targets like command posts and bunkers.»
It comes at a time when the North also is known to be trying to miniaturize its nuclear weapons to fit them to a missile, including a long-range ballistic missile capable of reaching the U. S. mainland.
«They’re clearly on a path to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the United States and to match that with a nuclear weapon, » Marine Corps Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in remarks at the Aspen Security Forum in Aspen, Colorado.
Dunford said the North Koreans today are capable of «a limited missile attack. We are capable of defending against a limited missile attack for our forces in South Korea, our South Korean allies, our Japanese allies, our forces in Okinawa, our forces in Guam, and the American homeland and in Hawaii.
