SEOUL — North Korea test-fired a long-range ballistic missile today, its first since the launch of a reconnaissance satellite that failed to reach orbit and splashed into the Yellow Sea on May 31.
South Korean military officials detected the launch mid-morning local time Wednesday. The missile, hefted at a lofted angle from a site near the North Korean capital of Pyongyang, flew around 620 miles before splashing into the Sea of Japan.
North Korean state media have not yet confirmed the test. Analysts here were divided over whether the intercontinental ballistic missile was a liquid-fuel Hwasong-17 or a more advanced, solid-fuel Hwasong-18 the regime of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has hoped to deploy. Solid fuel missiles can be prepared for firing more quickly, frustrating a possible preemptive strike.
Wednesday’s launch follows public warnings in North Korean state media this week by Kim Yo Jong, Mr. Kim’s high-profile sister, against U.S. reconnaissance flights. Ms. Kim alleged that U.S. spy planes have been buzzing North Korean airspace off the isolated country’s eastern coast.
The latest launch was quickly condemned by Seoul and Tokyo, citing U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban Pyongyang from obtaining ballistic missile technologies. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who along with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is in Lithuania this week as part of an Indo-Pacific delegation of leaders to the NATO summit, convened his National Security Council via video conference and vowed to make North Korea pay for its action.
As has been the case since Russia invaded Ukraine, neither Russia nor China condemned the North Korean test Wednesday, despite their status as permanent members of the Security Council.
Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told reporters in Tokyo that the missile flew for 74 minutes — the longest flight time recorded by any weapon launched by North Korea, the Associated Press reported. The previous record of 71 minutes was registered during the test flight of the liquid-fuel Hwasong-17 ICBM last year.
But despite the hostile action, some in South Korea said the North’s reliance on continued tests of long-displayed technologies exposes the narrowness of Mr. Kim’s options when it comes to confronting the U.S. and its allies in the region.
Cucumbers and tests
One more test of a weapon already known to the enemy doesn’t send much of a message, according to Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Kookmin University.
“Sometimes a cucumber is just a cucumber,” he said. “They want to develop a reliable force of ICBMs capable of hitting the U.S. and in order to do so, they have to do a great deal of testing.”
The wide range of ballistic missiles North Korea fields — from elusive short-range sub-atmospheric models to ICBMs able to hit the U.S. mainland, a capability first showcased in 2017 — require extensive proof of capabilities to have credible deterrent value.
Alternatively, bruised national pride and past test failures may have figured in today’s test. Wednesday’s apparently successful launch could reassure Mr. Kim’s public, laboring under COVID-closed borders and difficult living conditions, that Pyongyang remains capable of holding off the country’s perceived enemies.
“Due to the failure of the satellite launch, they hurt their reputation, so they were bound to fire another test missile,” said Kim Jeong-ro, vice president of Seoul’s Council for Diplomacy on Korean Reunification. “I don’t see anything special about this missile.”
Components of the failed May satellite and its launch vehicle were recovered by South Korea’s navy and were judged to have minimal realistic utility.
If true, that would be a blow to Pyongyang. Reconnaissance satellites and data-networked artillery and missiles have proven critical in the combat in Ukraine.
Since early 2022, the Biden administration, South Korea and the region have been bracing for what would be the North’s seventh test of a nuclear bomb, perhaps a less powerful tactical nuclear weapon to complement Pyongyang’s existing nuclear arsenal.
But the Kim region has not tested a nuclear device of any kind since 2017, and the delay is starting to raise larger questions.
“I don’t think they are short of fissile materials,” said Mr. Lankov. “Most likely, they have technical issues — tactical nukes are difficult to make.”
More cautious
Analysts say Mr. Kim, unlike his father and grandfather who ran the country in the decades after World War II, has proven more risk-averse directly confronting South Korea and the U.S.
Save for a land-mine ambush in the Demilitarized Zone in 2015, North Korea under Mr. Kim, who took power in 2011, has not directly injured or killed a single South Korean.
While most — though not all — of North Korea’s deadliest attacks took place during right-leaning administrations in Seoul, the new generation of South Korean conservatives is less tolerant and more hawkish, said one expert.
“I think, Kim realized, at a very early stage, that the South Korean conservatives have a tendency to be unafraid of the consequences of war,” said Chun In-bum, a retired South Korean general. “…He is not going to risk overly challenging South Korean conservatives.”
Still, the wider world cannot assume North Korea has abandoned its hostile policies, said the Council for Diplomacy on Korean Reunification’s Mr. Kim, especially with much of the world’s attention focused elsewhere.
“In the middle of the war in Ukraine, everyone is paying attention to that region, so it is a green light for the North Koreans to test,” he said.
