North Korea tests more missiles, but experts warn against taking threats at face value

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."This might suggest that 2022 is shaping up to be a year of military provocations and high tensions between the US and North Korea.

North Korea is testing hypersonic weapons. Should the West be worried?
WORLD
North Korea is testing hypersonic weapons. Should the West be worried?
Nuclear negotiations between the two have been stalled since then-President Trump walked away from negotiations in 2019, nearly three years ago. South Korea is holding presidential elections in March, and the US has midterms in November, leaving both prone to ballistic distractions.

But some experts caution not to take Pyongyang's rhetoric about its weapons tests at face value.

"They are in fact testing weapons according to an existing plan, although the tests are presented as a reaction to events, such as South Korea's presidential election," says Lee Ho-ryung, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, a government think tank in Seoul.

"It usually takes about three years from planning a weapon's development, to testing it," Lee explains. "So, to calculate back, North Korea has used the time since the breakdown of the 2019 Hanoi summit to develop these weapons."

North Korea declared it had completed its nuclear deterrent in 2017, having developed both atomic bombs and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM).

With these in hand, Kim Jong Un declared a testing moratorium on both in 2018 and, at the 2019 summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, tried to strike a bargain with then-president Donald Trump to shutter his main nuclear reactor in exchange for sanctions relief.

But when the deal fell through, Lee says, Kim came up with a plan to upgrade North Korea's arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles. "And now that three years have passed, this is the moment it needs to do a lot of testing."

Upgrading the North's arsenal includes building weapons intended to penetrate enemy missile defenses, such as hypersonic missiles. North Korea tested two earlier this month, the second of which South Korea's military says reached speeds of 10 times the speed of sound.

The North is also developing weapons which give Pyongyang "second strike capability," or that can survive or escape initial enemy attacks, such as missiles launched from trains or submarines. The country also seeks to build bigger, longer-range missiles that can reach all of the continental US and deliver multiple nuclear warheads."...