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North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, leads a military parade in Pyongyang, and the nuclear-armed country displays its latest and greatest weapons, including giant new ICBMs, as thousands of unmasked troops defy the threat. of the coronavirus. / Agence France-Presse
SEOUL – The gigantic new missile that North Korea unveiled at a military parade is an explicit threat to US defenses and an implicit challenge to both the current US president and the next, analysts say, warning that Pyongyang could test the weapon on next year.
Leader Kim Jong Un watched the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) pass through Kim Il Sung Square, named after his grandfather, in Pyongyang at the climax of an unprecedented nighttime parade on Saturday.
Analysts agreed that it was the world’s largest mobile liquid-fueled highway missile, and it was most likely designed to carry multiple warheads in independent re-entry vehicles (MIRVs).
Jeffrey Lewis of the Middlebury Institute for International Studies said it was “clearly destined to overwhelm America’s missile defense system in Alaska.”
If the ICBM carried three or four warheads, he added on Twitter, the United States would have to spend about $ 1 billion on 12-16 interceptors to defend against each missile.
“At that cost, I’m pretty sure North Korea can add warheads faster than we can add interceptors.”
The missile was estimated to be 24 meters long and 2.5 meters in diameter, and specialist Markus Schiller said it was large enough to carry 100 tons of fuel, which would take hours to load.
It was so big and heavy that it was practically unusable, he added: “You can’t move this thing with fuel and you can’t fill it up at the launch site.
“This makes absolutely no sense, except for threat equation games, like sending the message of ‘now we have a mobile ICBM with MIRV, be very scared.’
North Korean observers regularly warn that the devices Pyongyang puts on a show at its parades may be mock-ups or models, and there is no proof that they work until they are tested.
But the missile was carried on an enormous 11-axis transporter-erector-launcher never seen before, much larger than the eight-axis Chinese-made vehicles the North has used so far.
“The truck can be a scarier story than the missile,” said Melissa Hanham of the Open Nuclear Network.
“If the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea produces its own chassis indigenously, then there are fewer limitations on the number of ICBMs they can launch.”
Red lines
Shortly before his inauguration in 2017, Donald Trump tweeted that North Korea developed a weapon capable of reaching parts of the US.
He spent the first year of his presidency, in which North Korea launched an ICBM with the range to do just that, in an ever-increasing war of words with Kim before an extraordinary diplomatic bromance developed between them.
But nuclear negotiations have stalled since the collapse of its Hanoi summit earlier last year on sanctions relief and what the North would be willing to give up in return.
The ICBM was proof that North Korea had continued to develop its arsenal throughout the diplomatic process, analysts said, and gave Pyongyang added weight to demand a return to the negotiating table.
“Like it or not, North Korea is a nuclear power and is probably the third nuclear power capable of attacking American cities, the third after Russia and China,” Andrei Lankov of Korea Risk Group told AFP.
Kim was sending the United States a message that the capabilities of the North were improving and that “if you don’t want to make a deal now, at some point later you will have to make a deal that will be worse for you, the international community,” he said. . additional.
More than 12 hours after the end of the parade aired on North Korea’s state television, Trump had yet to tweet about it, nor had his Democratic rival Joe Biden.
Trump has made much of Kim’s promise not to conduct any more ICBMs or nuclear tests, and Shin Beom-chul of the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy said that by showing the missile rather than launching it, Pyongyang failed to cross. its red. lines.
“But it also indicates that North Korea could launch a pitch if Trump is re-elected and ignores the North Korean issue,” he said, adding: “If Biden is elected and he doesn’t listen to North Korea, he will move on.” . a launch “.
/ MUF
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