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A missile is fired from a North Korean naval vessel during the test-firing of a new type of anti-ship cruise missile, in this photo from February. Photo: Reuters

New | Inside North Korea’s nuclear arsenal: new research says ‘hundreds’ of missiles can target neighbours

Nuclear-armed North Korea already has hundreds if not thousands of ballistic missiles that can target its neighbours like Japan and South Korea, US researchers said yesterday.

North Korea
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Nuclear-armed North Korea already has hundreds if not thousands of ballistic missiles that can target its neighbours like Japan and South Korea, US researchers said yesterday.

But Pyongyang will need foreign technology to upgrade its arsenal and pose a more direct threat to the United States, the researchers from Johns Hopkins University’s US-Korea Institute and National Defence University’s Centre for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction said.

These are the latest findings of a programme investigating what secretive North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability will be by 2020 – in an attempt to shed some light on what kind of threat Pyongyang poses.

What they found was that the potential capability of delivering weapons further makes the reclusive socialist state appear more advanced than other countries at a similar early stage of the development of their nuclear arsenals.

Unlike Iran, the current focus of international nuclear diplomacy, North Korea has conducted atomic test explosions. Its blood-curdling rhetoric and periodic missile tests have set the region on edge and there is no sign of negotiations restarting to coax it into disarming.

“The current force is more than able to accommodate any future growth in the North’s nuclear weapons arsenal, including a worst-case projection of 100 nuclear weapons by 2020,” the report said.

Aerospace engineer John Schilling and a research associate at the Johns Hopkins institute, Henry Kan, say Pyongyang’s current inventory of about 1,000 missiles, based on old Soviet technology, can already reach most targets in South Korea and Japan.

The ballistic missiles that are capable of reaching Japan and South Korea included the Nodong missiles with a range of 1,200-1,500 kilometres and the Scud missiles with a range of 300-600 kilometres, according to the report posted on the institute’s website 38 North.

North Korea may be able to launch a limited number of Taepodong long-range ballistic missiles, which are said to be able to reach the US mainland, the report by the The North Korean Futures Project said.

“However, such a weapon would represent more of a political statement than an operational capability,” as it has problems such as vulnerability to preemptive attacks due to its installation on a launch pad on the ground and low technical reliability, it said.

North Korea only has “a limited ability” to deliver a nuclear warhead to its target due to a lack of testing, it said.

Meanwhile the chief of the US military’s command in change of mainland defence said North Korea already has the ability to miniaturise a nuclear warhead to be delivered by an intercontinental missile called KN-08.

“Our assessment is that they have the ability to put a nuclear weapon on a KN-08 and shoot it at the homeland,” Admiral Bill Gortney, commander of the Northern Command, told reporters at the US Defence Department.

The KN-08, displayed in military parades, is said to be capable of being launched from a road-mobile vehicle and would therefore be difficult to monitor via satellite.

For now, the emphasis is on sanctions and military preparedness. Defence Secretary Ash Carter visits Japan and South Korea this week amid speculation the US wants to place a missile defence system in South Korea against North Korean ballistic missiles, which Seoul is reluctant about as it would alienate China.

READ MORE: US defence chief seeks to 'transform' ties with Japan on first Asia visit

The US has already deployed anti-missile radar in Japan.

“North Korea has already achieved a level of delivery system development that will allow it to establish itself as a small nuclear power in the coming years,” the researchers wrote in the paper.

But despite the North’s 2012 success in launching a rocket into space –the clearest sign yet it has the potential to reach the American mainland –Pyongyang faces greater technical challenges in developing effective intercontinental missiles that could fire a nuclear weapon across the Pacific at the United States.

Foreign assistance could be critical for overcoming the technological and engineering hurdles it now faces in developing better missiles, including progress on high-performance engines, heat shields, guidance electronics and rocket motors that use solid fuel instead of liquid fuel, the report said.

And that’s become tougher as North Korea’s international isolation has intensified since its first nuclear test explosion in 2006.

According to a recent estimate by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, the North likely has enough fissile material for at least 10 weapons, and that could increase to between 20 and 100 weapons by 2020.

Whereas the basic designs and production systems are now in place for Pyongyang’s nuclear programme, technological innovations on the missile front has been slower, the analysis says.

North Korea has failed to make the kind of advances that Iran and Pakistan have made, although both countries relied on North Korean assistance for missiles in the 1990s.

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