A flurry of recent missile tests shows North Korea continuing to advance its weapons programme, which it says is necessary to defend itself against a possible US invasion.
In September alone, state media reported a new hypersonic missile had been tested as well as a train-based ballistic missile and a new long-range cruise missile. In January this year - just days before President Biden took office - North Korea had unveiled a new submarine-launched ballistic missile at a military parade, calling it "the world's most powerful weapon". This weapon's actual capabilities remain unclear, as it is not known to have been tested. North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un has pledged to expand the country's nuclear arsenal and military potential, outlining a list of desired weapons.
The country has managed to significantly advance its arsenal despite being subject to economic sanctions.
Throughout , North Korea tested several missiles demonstrating the rapid advances in its military technology. The Hwasong was thought to be able to reach as far as 4,km 2, miles , putting US military bases on the Pacific island of Guam well within striking distance. Later, the Hwasong demonstrated even greater potential, with a range of 8,km although some studies suggested it could travel as far as 10,km if fired on a maximum trajectory.
This would have given Pyongyang its first truly intercontinental ballistic missile, capable of reaching New York. Eventually, the Hwasong was tested, peaking at an estimated altitude of 4,km - 10 times higher than the International Space Station.
If fired on a more conventional "flatter" trajectory, the missile could have a maximum range of some 13,km, putting all of the continental US in range. In October , North Korea unveiled its new ballistic missile. It has not yet been named or tested. Like the Hwasong, it is a two-stage liquid fuelled missile, but with a greater length and diameter. It could possibly allow for multiple warheads. It is believed to be able to deliver a nuclear warhead to anywhere in the US, and its size had surprised even seasoned analysts when it was put on show in In January , North Korea unveiled another missile - a new type of submarine-launched ballistic missile which it declared to be "the world's most powerful weapon".
The unveiling of the new missiles appeared to be a message to the Biden administration of the North's growing military prowess, say experts. In March this year, it carried out a launch of what it called a "new-type tactical guided projectile", which is said was able to carry a payload of 2. The weapon has not been formally identified. Analysts at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies told Reuters that it appeared to be "an improved variant" of a previously tested missile, the KN Several estimated that millions — plural — would die.
Even more frightening, most of the people I spoke to said they believed Kim would use nuclear weapons against South Korea in the initial stages of the fighting — not just as a desperate last resort. The experts I spoke to all stressed that Kim could devastate Seoul without even needing to use his weapons of mass destruction.
The North Korean military has an enormous number of rocket launchers and artillery pieces within range of Seoul. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service estimates that Kim could hammer the South Korean capital with an astonishing 10, rockets per minute — and that such a barrage could kill more than , South Koreans in the opening days of the conflict. And retired South Korean Gen. In-Bum Chun, who spent 40 years in uniform thinking about a confrontation with North Korea, underscored that Kim also has a different kind of weapon: 25 million people — including 1.
This would be a hard and bloody war. What follows is a guide to what a conflict with North Korea might look like. But many leading experts fear the worst.
And if all of this sounds frightening, it should. In a startlingly blunt letter to Rep. Estimates of the exact numbers of US troops that would take part in a push north vary widely, but current and former military planners uniformly believe it would require vastly more forces than took part in the invasions of Iraq or Afghanistan.
A South Korean military white paper from , for instance, said the US would need to deploy , ground troops to South Korea if war broke out.
Bruce Bennett, a senior researcher at the RAND Corporation who has spent decades studying North Korea generally and the Kim family specifically, believes those numbers are on the high side, but he thinks the US would need to send at least , troops into North Korea. By way of comparison, that would be significantly more troops than the US had in either Iraq or Afghanistan at the peaks of those two long wars.
The assessment says the Pentagon would also need to send 2, warplanes and other aircraft to South Korea. So what would happen if US and South Korean troops started pouring into North Korea while American planes launched wave after wave of airstrikes? The consensus view is that Kim would try to level the playing field by using his vast arsenal of chemical weapons, which is believed to be the biggest and most technologically advanced in the world.
Kim is estimated to have between 2, and 5, metric tons of deadly nerve agents like sarin , which can cause paralysis and, ultimately, death. With so many artillery pieces and rocket launchers trained on Seoul, Kim has the ability to quickly blanket the densely packed city with huge amounts of nerve agents.
The human toll would be staggeringly high: The military historian Reid Kirby estimated last June that a sustained sarin attack could kill up to 2.
It would be mass murder on a scale rarely seen in human history. Kim also has large quantities of VX , an even deadlier chemical weapon, and has already shown a willingness, and ability, to use it against civilian targets abroad. Retired Lt. The fact that they were able to use it so precisely — to kill only one person and not even injure the two handlers — indicates a high degree of technical skill and a clear willingness to use a weapon of mass destruction against civilian targets.
That needs to be factored into the equation when we think about what Kim would do to preempt an attack or retaliate for one. The Pentagon already assumes that its airbases in and around South Korea would be among the first places Kim tried to hit with chemical weapons like sarin. But they worry an attack could nevertheless make it significantly harder for the US to launch air raids against the North by causing panic and chaos on the bases that house the American warplanes, bombers, and troops.
Retired Air Force Lt. Washington would also try to kill senior North Korean military commanders and government officials, including Kim. They try to game out all the various ways North Korea could hit the facilities, and to prepare accordingly. The Pentagon has a sizable military presence in neighboring Japan, and the island of Guam is a US territory that is home to more than , American citizens.
Andrew Weber, formerly the assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs, told me that the US and South Korea would also need to be prepared for Kim to use biological weapons against both military and civilian targets. They are some of the most frightening substances on earth, and Weber expects some of them to be used against South Korean ports, airfields, and cities as a way of killing large numbers of civilians and troops while causing terror on a nationwide scale.
North Korea could theoretically fire missiles with payloads of anthrax or other biological weapons into South Korea, or use drones to disperse the lethal substances from the air. The researchers wrote that Kim could also have some of his citizens secretly bring the weapons into the South:. North Korea has , special forces; even a handful of those special forces armed with BW would be enough to devastate South Korea. What is alarming about human vectors is that they do not need sophisticated training or technology to spread BW amongst the targets, and they are difficult to detect in advance of an attack.
It is theoretically possible that North Korean sleeper agents disguised as cleaning and disinfection personnel could disperse BW agents with backpack sprayers. But just days after the lines were restored, Kim Yo Jong warned that the planned military drills between South Korea and the United States will undermine prospects for better inter-Korean ties.
North Korea has long bristled at joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States, which the allies describe as defensive in nature, and often responds to them with its own weapons tests. In the past few years, however, South Korea and the United States have canceled or downsized some of their training to support now-dormant diplomacy aimed at ending the North Korean nuclear crisis or because of the COVID pandemic. North Korea has suspended its nuclear and long-range missile tests since , when leader Kim Jong Un initiated diplomacy with South Korea and then-President Donald Trump while attempting to leverage his nuclear weapons for badly needed sanctions relief.
After the talks fell through in , North Korea ramped up tests of new short-range, solid-fuel weapons to improve its ability to deliver nuclear strikes and overwhelm missile defense systems in South Korea and Japan.
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