North Korea has ‘world’s most powerful’ missile, but experts say it’s too big to use in war

North Korea boasted Friday that the new intercontinental ballistic missile it just tested is “the strongest in the world,” a claim seen as pure propaganda after experts deemed it too big to be useful in a war situation.

The ICBM launched Thursday flew higher and for a longer duration than any other weapon North Korea has tested.

But foreign experts say the test could not prove North Korea has mastered some of the last remaining technological hurdles to having functioning ICBMs capable of hitting the continental US.

North Korea’s Central News Agency identified the missile as a Hwasong-19, calling it “the world’s strongest strategic missile” and “the most sophisticated weapon system.”

According to the official media outlet, leader Kim Jong Un observed the launch and described it as an expression of North Korea’s determination to respond to external threats to North Korea’s security.

The color and shape of the exhaust flames seen in North Korean media Photos from the launch suggest the rocket uses pre-charged solid fuel, making weapons more maneuverable and harder to detect than liquid propellants that generally require pre-fueling.

But experts say the photos show that the ICBM and its launch vehicle are both too large, raising a serious question about their mobility and survivability in wartime.

“What happens when rockets get bigger? The vehicles are also getting bigger. As transporter-erector launchers become larger, their mobility decreases,” said Lee Sangmin, an expert at South Korea’s Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.

The Hwasong-19 was estimated to be at least 30 meters long, while advanced US and Russian ICBMs are less than 20 meters long, said Chang Young-keun, a missile expert at the Korea Research Institute for National Strategy in Seoul.

He suggested that the size of the missile likely helped South Korean intelligence services detect the launch plan in advance.

“In the event of a conflict, such exposure makes the weapon a target for pre-emptive strike by adversaries, so there would be a major survivability problem,” Chang said.

Lee Illwoo, an expert at the Korea Defense Network in South Korea, said North Korea may have developed a larger missile to carry larger and more destructive warheads or multiple warheads.

If that is the case, Lee said North Korea could have used liquid fuels because they generate greater thrust than solid fuels.

He said some advanced liquid propellants can be stored in rockets for a few weeks before launch.

Lee said North Korea may have placed a dummy, empty warhead on the Hwasong-19 to help it fly higher.

In recent years, North Korea has reported steady progress in its efforts to acquire nuclear missiles.

Many foreign experts believe that North Korea likely has missiles capable of launching nuclear attacks on all of South Korea, but it does not yet possess nuclear missiles capable of striking the US mainland.

The hurdles it still has to overcome, according to experts, include ensuring its warheads survive the heat and stress of atmospheric reentry, improving altitude control and guidance systems for the missiles, and being able to field multiple warheads on a single missile to defeat missiles. defenses.

“Acquiring reentry technology is currently the main goal in North Korea’s missile development, especially for ICBMs, but instead they continue to increase the range. This may suggest that they still lack confidence in their reentry technology,” said Lee Sangmin.

Chang said state media coverage of the launch Friday did not include details about the technological aspects of the Hawsong-19 and was aimed at publicity.

Other North Korean claims about its weapons capabilities have been met with widespread outside skepticism.

In June, North Korea claimed to have tested a multi-nuclear missile in the first known launch of such a weapon, but South Korea said the weapon exploded instead.

When North Korea said in July it had fired a new tactical ballistic missile capable of carrying “a super-sized nuclear warhead,” South Korea said the claim was an attempt to cover up a launch failure.

North Korea’s missile program remains a major regional security problem, with the country openly threatening to use its nuclear missiles against its rivals.

In a joint statement Thursday, the foreign ministers of South Korea, the US and Japan condemned the ICBM launch as a violation of UN Security Council resolutions and said they were committed to strengthening their position. attempts to block North Korea’s illegal revenue generation financing its missile and nuclear programs.

South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Friday it has imposed unilateral sanctions on 11 North Korean individuals and four organizations over their alleged role in procuring missile parts and generating foreign currency to finance Pyongyang’s weapons program.

The sanctions are largely symbolic, as financial transactions between the Koreas have been suspended for years.

Also Friday, South Korea and the US conducted their first-ever joint live-fire exercise using unmanned aerial vehicles as part of efforts to demonstrate their preparedness.

According to the South Korean Air Force, the RQ-4B “Global Hawk” reconnaissance aircraft and the American MQ-9 Reaper attack drone were mobilized for the training.

South Korea and the US have expanded their regular military exercises to counter North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats.

Observers say Thursday’s launch, the North’s first ICBM test in nearly a year, was largely intended to draw U.S. attention just days before the U.S. presidential election and to respond to international condemnation over North Korea’s reported deployment of troops to Russia in support of the war against Ukraine.

North Korea’s reported troop deployment highlights the growing military cooperation between North Korea and Russia. South Korea.

The U.S. and others worry that North Korea will seek high-tech, sensitive Russian technology to perfect its nuclear and missile programs in exchange for joining the war between Russia and Ukraine.