Kim Jong Uns new long-range missile

On the occasion of the 75th anniversary celebrations of the ruling Korean Labor Party, Pyongyang managed to fool the global public once again. Instead of holding the largest parade in the country’s history in terms of the amount of military equipment presented in the morning or late afternoon, it was held shortly after midnight on Saturday. It should have been the first night parade in North Korea. At first, no one outside the isolated country noticed anything.

At the military parade in Pyongyang on Saturday, a new long-range missile much larger than the previous Hwasong-15 flagship, which was already said to be able to reach all American cities, was unveiled.

AP

The celebrations around the central and bright Kim-Il-Sung-Platz were broadcast by state media with a time delay on Saturday night. A new long-range missile that is already known as the largest in the world has attracted special attention.

Pyongyang’s strongman was moved to tears

The ruler Kim Jong Un, dressed in a gray western suit, was cautious in his speech and even showed emotions. When he thanked the soldiers for protecting the country, he wept. Now, emotions and tears are not uncommon in Korean society. However, one has not necessarily been aware of such emotions among the North Korean rulers in public. Kim avoided provoking the United States. Rather, he emphasized that the arsenal was used solely to deter and protect himself. North Korea’s doctrine is not to carry out a first attack, otherwise the regime will be destroyed.

Political scientist Vipin Narang, who conducts research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, interpreted the parade as a sign that North Korea is becoming a “normal” nuclear power. The arsenal has been expanded again. In a central passage of his speech, Kim emphasized that, compared to the parade five years ago, the military had become “surprisingly more modern.”

He was referring to the new long-range missile, which was first introduced and which, according to an article published on the 38North.org website by military experts Vann Van Diepen and Michael Elleman, is between 25 and 26 meters long; the diameter should be between 2.5 and 2.9 meters. It would be up to 4.5 meters longer and about half a meter thicker than the previous flagship model, the Hwasong-15, which was first tested in November 2017. After that it was said that anywhere in the United States could get attacked with this guy.

Van Diepen and Elleman assume in their first calculations that the new long-range missile can carry a warhead weighing between 2,000 and 3,500 kilograms; the capacity of the Hwasong-15 is estimated at 1,000 kilograms. It can be assumed that North Korea is now working on developing reentry vehicles with multiple technically demanding independent targets. These are multiple warheads for ICBMs. This allows a single launcher to attack multiple targets at the same time. The defensive measures of the attacked country become more difficult due to the number of warheads.

According to Jeffrey Lewis, a researcher at the Middlebury Institute for International Studies in Monterey, North Korea wants a chance to bypass the US missile defense system stationed in Alaska. It is cheaper for Pyongyang to make more nuclear warheads than for Washington to install interceptor missiles, the scientist writes on Twitter.

The US missile defense system fires four interceptor missiles at a warhead. If each long-range missile is equipped with three or four explosive charges, twelve to sixteen interceptor missiles are needed, Lewis calculates. However, this will generate significant costs for the United States. The last time Washington bought fourteen missiles, it cost taxpayers a billion dollars.

However, despite the introduction of these new long-range missiles, one must remain skeptical because they have never been tested. Missile expert Robert Schmucker of the Technical University of Munich says that testing is the decisive criterion for a serious weapons program, and the nature of the tests and successes provide insight into the content and progress of the program.

It is also important that the rocket is first transported to the launch pad and then refueled; the new model is a liquid fuel rocket. Due to the longer preparation, this increases the probability that other countries can expose the operation and deactivate the missile.

Eleven-axis mobile rocket launch pad

Another find from the parade is likely to cause the United States much more headache than the new long-range missile: It was featured on an eleven-axis mobile rocket launch pad. In December last year, Kim announced that it would begin mass production of such Erector Launchers (TEL) conveyors.

And Lewis, along with his colleague David Schmerler, has shown on the basis of satellite images that the March 16 factory near Pyongyang, where mobile rocket launch pads are also produced, has been expanded. If the North Korean rulers can produce such TELs on their own, the country will be able to fire multiple missiles equipped with nuclear warheads. This makes it more difficult for the attacked country to fight them.

In the run-up to the parade, it was speculated that North Korea might conduct a missile test. Kim ignores it. Your goal should not be to upset US President Donald Trump. However, if there is a change of power in the White House, there are many indications that Pyongyang will provoke the new president with evidence to raise the bar for possible negotiations.