North Korea recently raised tensions by announcing the launch of a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) with a new solid-fuel propulsion system. Pyongyang appears to be aiming to quickly field strategic weapons before this year’s U.S. presidential election.
Speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons, a source inside North Korea told Daily NK on Tuesday that during the Ninth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea, which was held at the end of 2023, leaders emphasized several times that war could break out sometime this year in talks with senior cadres in the military.
“War won’t wait for our weapons systems to be completed. We must develop methods for the immediate deployment of weapons under development, regardless of the time frame for the completion of our five-year national defense development plan,” senior military cadres were told.
During the Eighth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea in 2021, North Korea unveiled a five-year plan for developing defense science and weapons systems with eight specific military targets, including hypersonic missiles, submarine- and ground-launched solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-powered submarines, underwater weapons, military reconnaissance satellites, and drones.
North Korea’s first test launch of a hypersonic missile was the Hwasong-8 in September 2021. At the time, Pyongyang touted the safety of vials of liquid fuel. The North test-fired more hypersonic missiles on Jan. 5 and Jan. 11, 2022, but there were no further developments for about two years.
Then, on Nov. 15, 2023, North Korea announced that it had “developed high-thrust solid-fuel engines for new-type intermediate-range ballistic missiles [. . .] and successfully conducted the first static firing test of the first-stage engine on November 11 and that of the second-stage engine on November 14.”
On Jan. 15, two months later, North Korea test-fired a hypersonic IRBM with a solid-fuel booster rocket, according to state-run media:
“On the afternoon of Jan. 14, the DPRK Missile Bureau test-fired a solid-fuel medium-range ballistic missile loaded with a hypersonic maneuverable guided warhead. [It was successfully conducted.”
“The test-fire was aimed at verifying the glide and maneuvering characteristics of [an] intermediate-range hypersonic maneuverable controlled warhead and the reliability of [the] newly developed high-thrust multistage solid-fuel engines.”
While the 2022 liquid-fueled IRBM grafted a hypersonic warhead onto the Hwasong-12 IRBM, the latest launch reportedly upgrades the rocket’s propulsion system to a solid-fuel engine.
North Korea appears to be trying to accelerate the timeframe for combat-ready deployment by improving weapons systems it has already developed, which means not only making them faster and longer-range but also minimizing the chance of them being shot down.
Daily NK’s source in North Korea said these efforts are aimed at “enabling us to be ready for war at a moment’s notice with our current weapons systems.”
Supporting Trump’s re-election?
North Korea’s actions appear to be tied to the upcoming U.S. presidential election.
“North Korea is rushing to complete its nuclear capabilities within the year and will try to settle the nuclear issue with the U.S. after the presidential election. The North may continue to take steps to provoke the U.S. until the election, based on its view that Trump’s election would serve its interests more than Biden’s,” Park Won-gon, a professor at Ewha Womans University, told the Daily NK in a phone interview.
“After every North Korean provocation, Trump will try to highlight the failure of the Biden administration’s foreign policy,” Park predicted.
Coincidentally, North Korea’s hypersonic missile launch took place the day before the first Republican presidential primary in the U.S. While speaking at a rally on Jan. 14, Trump used the missile launch as an opportunity to tout his diplomatic accomplishments as president.
“Kim Jong-un [is] very smart, very tough, but he liked me, and I got along really well with him, and we were safe,” Trump remarked.
Trump seemed to be trying to distinguish his foreign policy from that of Nikki Haley, his former ambassador to the United Nations and his main rival in the Republican Party primaries, while also attacking Biden for struggling to come up with a signature policy on North Korea.
Translated by David Carruth. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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January 18, 2024 at 05:30AM
by DailyNK(North Korean Media)