North Korea’s Recent Missile Test (and What It Means)
On Sunday morning, North Korea conducted yet another missile test, this one being the first of Moon Jae-In’s (South Korea’s newly elected President) administration.
A CNN article about the topic reads: “North Korea’s missile test on Sunday was the country’s most successful yet, according to analysts, who say Pyongyang may now have a weapon capable of hitting a key US military base in the Pacific.” Since this is so important, I’ll break it down for you.
Why Does This Matter?
According to KCNA (a state-run media source in North Korea), the Hwasong-12 missile was able to reach a height of 1,312 miles, which would be the highest of any of North Korea’s other seven tests this year. According to a Yonhap, a news agency in South Korea, the missile was launched from Kusong, a city northwest of Pyongyang. According to John Schilling, an aerospace engineer who writes a blog for Johns Hopkins University, if the missile were fired in a different direction, it could have hit a U.S. Air Force base in Guam, which is around 2,200 miles away from North Korea.
According to CNN, “Pyongyang has long threatened to develop a nuclear-tipped missile that could reach the United States, a distance of around [4,800 miles]. But Tong Zhao, an analyst with the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy, said Sunday’s test may give Pyongyang ‘a regional nuclear deterrence’ option, meaning it might no longer need to pursue a weapon to reach as far as the US mainland.”
What Does This Mean For Russia?
U.S. officials say that the missile fell around 60 miles from Russia’s coastline. Monday, Vladimir Putin said the launch was “counterproductive, damaging, and dangerous”, but also implied that the U.S. shouldn’t intimidate North Korea.
A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that “[c]oncern was expressed about the escalation of tension, including in connection with the launch”.
How Might the U.S. React?
President Trump’s administration has already prioritized North Korea’s threat, and has sent warships and submarines to the waters off the Korean Peninsula. Sean Spicer, White House Press Secretary, said “[l]et this latest provocation serve as a call for all nations to implement far stronger sanctions against North Korea”.
Americans, as a whole, have very different ideas about how we, as a nation, should go about solving the North Korea problem. An interesting survey, commissioned by the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/05/14/upshot/if-americans-can-find-north-korea-on-a-map-theyre-more-likely-to-prefer-diplomacy.html), shows that those who were able to accurately locate North Korea on a map were more likely to prefer diplomatic solutions, over an escalation of violence.
Obviously North Korea poses a threat, but perhaps military action isn’t the right way to go. We have many options in diplomacy, especially through allies of North Korea like China and Russia, and should pursue those before escalating tensions.