XPost: ga.motss, alt.culture.alaska, nf.general
XPost: alt.tv.infomercials

North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile on
Friday that, for the first time, appeared capable of reaching
the West Coast of the United States, according to experts — a
milestone that American presidents have long declared the United
States could not tolerate.

The launch, the second of an intercontinental missile in 24
days, did not answer the question of whether the North has
mastered all the technologies necessary to deliver a nuclear
weapon to targets in the lower 48 states. But just a few days
ago, the Defense Intelligence Agency warned the Trump
administration that the North would probably be able to do so
within a year, and Friday’s test left little doubt that Kim Jong-
un, the North Korean leader, is speeding toward that goal.

The missile launched on Friday remained aloft for roughly 47
minutes, according to American, South Korean and Japanese
officials, following a steep trajectory that took it roughly
2,300 miles into space. It then turned and arced sharply down
into the sea near the northernmost Japanese island, Hokkaido.

If that trajectory had been flattened out — a step the North may
have avoided for fear of provoking an American military response
— the missile could have put a number of major American cities
at risk, experts say. The Pentagon was quick to declare that the
“North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) determined the
missile launch from North Korea did not pose a threat to North
America.” That statement, while true, ignored the potential long-
term implications of the launch.

“Depending on how heavy a warhead it carries, this latest North
Korean missile would easily reach the West Coast of the United
States with a range of 9,000 to 10,000 kilometers,” or 5,600 to
6,200 miles, said Kim Dong-yub, a defense analyst at the
Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in
Seoul. “With this missile, North Korea leaves no doubt that its
missile has a range that covers most of the United States.”

North Korea’s official news agency said Saturday that Kim Jong-
un had called the test a “stern warning” to the United States.
He also boasted that the North was “capable of the surprise
launching of an intercontinental ballistic missile at any time
and from anywhere and that all of the mainland United States is
within the range of our missiles.”

The United States has gone to extraordinary lengths — feeding
flawed parts into the North Korean production system and
mounting internet attacks to cause test failures — to slow North
Korea’s missile program. A few hours before the test, Congress
approved the latest round of sanctions to squeeze the North.

While there have been some tactical successes, they have not
stopped the weapons program. And Mr. Kim, determined to show the
United States that he would not waver from his goal, has stepped
up the pace of testing. In his remarks on Saturday, Mr. Kim said
that the threat of sanctions or military action against the
North “only strengthens our resolve and further justifies our
possession of nuclear weapons.”

In a break with past practice, the White House turned out a
statement in the name of President Trump, but it made no mention
of the distance the missile flew or its implications. It read
like many of President Barack Obama’s and President George W.
Bush’s statements at similar moments.

“By threatening the world, these weapons and tests further
isolate North Korea, weaken its economy, and deprive its
people,” Mr. Trump said. “The United States will take all
necessary steps to ensure the security of the American homeland
and protect our allies in the region.”

Mr. Trump hoped to end North Korea’s provocations with the help
of China, and he thought he had an agreement with President Xi
Jinping to pressure Mr. Kim. But over the past two months, Mr.
Trump discovered, as his predecessors did, that the Chinese are
more concerned about preventing the collapse of North Korea’s
government, and the chaos that would ensue, than they are in
trade and energy sanctions that might truly change its behavior.

On Saturday, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned
the North Korean missile test, but it also urged other countries
to avoid responding in ways that could set off any tit-for-tat
retaliation.

“China opposes North Korea engaging launch activities that
violate Security Council resolutions and the universal wishes of
the international community,” a Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesman, Geng Shuang, said in comments issued on the
ministry’s website.

Mr. Geng urged North Korea to abide by the United Nations
Security Council resolutions banning its missile and nuclear
tests, and said that North Korea should “halt any actions that
may lead to a further escalation of tensions on the peninsula.”
But Mr. Geng added, “At the same time, it is hoped that all
parties act prudently, and prevent a spiraling escalation of
tensions.”

Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin
University in Beijing, said that the Chinese government would
interpret the test as affirmation of its view that Mr. Trump’s
policies toward North Korea were failing.

But China has not been able to change Mr. Kim’s behavior either,
Mr. Shi said. China has not demonstrated an ability “to persuade
Kim Jong-un to abandon what he is determined to do,” he said.

For Mr. Trump, the launch poses one of the biggest challenges of
his presidency. Like Bill Clinton, Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama before
him, Mr. Trump declared that the North would not succeed in
obtaining a missile that could put American cities at risk. “It
won’t happen,” he declared in a Jan. 2 tweet, not long after Mr.
Obama warned him that the North would probably pose the most
urgent national security threat he would face.

American officials, led by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, have
been careful not to threaten to carry out a pre-emptive strike
on the North’s nuclear and missile capabilities, which Mr.
Mattis has warned could reignite the Korean War. Cyberattacks,
while more politically palatable, are of uncertain
effectiveness. And sanctions have done little.

Now, outside experts said, it has happened. David C. Wright, a
senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, an anti-
proliferation group in Cambridge, Mass., said in a blog post on
Friday that the missile appeared to have an effective range of
at least 6,500 miles — putting Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago
well within range. He wrote that Boston and New York “may be
just within range, and Washington “may be just out of range.”

But such estimates are always subject to uncertainty. North
Korea’s aim is famously poor and it is unclear how long it would
take the country to build a workable nuclear warhead that can
survive re-entry into the atmosphere.

And Dr. Wright cautioned that Western analysts have no idea how
much the payload on the missile weighed. “If it was lighter than
the actual warhead the missile would carry,” he noted, the
calculated ranges for a real warhead would be shorter.

The Pentagon confirmed only that the missile was an ICBM, which
means that it was capable of traveling at least 5,500
kilometers, or about 3,400 miles. Pentagon officials said that
it was airborne for more than 40 minutes.

Hours after the test, the United States and South Korea launched
ballistic missiles off the east coast of the South on Saturday
to test their abilities to counter the North. The drill involved
the United States Army Tactical Missile System and the South’s
Hyunmoo-2 missile.

It was not disclosed how many missiles were launched, but a
video released by the United States’ Eighth Army showed three
fired from missile-launch vehicles.

The exercise was in direct response to the North Korean missile
test, Pentagon officials said.

North Korea conducted its first test of an intercontinental
ballistic missile, the Hwasong-14, on July 4, calling it a “gift
package for the Yankees.” South Korean officials said that the
July 4 test demonstrated that the missile was capable of
reaching Alaska, but that it remained unclear whether the North
had the capability of launching a nuclear strike against the
contiguous United States.

On Saturday in Seoul, the South Korean military said in a
statement the latest test involved “a more advanced ICBM-class
missile” than the July 4 launch.

The South Korean military said that Friday’s missile was
launched from Jagang Province, a mountainous north-central area
of North Korea bordering China, at 11:41 p.m. local time.

South Korea’s new president, Moon Jae-in, called an emergency
meeting of his National Security Council and ordered his
military to conduct joint ballistic missile tests with the
United States military in a “strong show of power,” his office
said. Similar missile exercises were held after the North’s July
4 launch.

The growing North Korean threat also prompted Mr. Moon to
reverse his decision to halt deployment of an advanced United
States missile defense system known as Thaad. In a statement
issued early Saturday, he told his military to push ahead with
it.

North Korea is a closed society, and the secrecy of its
government makes it difficult to tell exactly how far its
weapons programs have advanced. But experts believe it is not
yet capable of making nuclear warheads suitable for mounting on
ICBMs.

South Korean defense officials have said since the July 4 test
that it was too early to determine whether North Korea had
mastered long-range missile technology, especially re-entry,
when a warhead must survive intense heat and the destruction of
its outer shell as it plunges through the atmosphere from space.

Correction: July 28, 2017
An earlier version of this article misspelled the given name of
North Korea’s leader. He is Kim Jong-un, not Kim Jung-un.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/world/asia/north-korea- ballistic-missile.html
 

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)