North Korea Test Launches ICBM, Capable of Hitting US, With Record-Setting Flight

North Korea is increasingly back in the news amid soaring tensions on multiple fronts, especially following accusations that it sent some 10,000 of its troops to Russia to prepare for possible deployment to fight in Ukraine.

Pyongyang on Thursday test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) for the first time in almost a year. What’s more is that the flight is widely being described as a North Korean rocket’s longest ever flight time.

Given that nuclear warhead-capable ICBMs can reach several thousands of miles away, such a missile would have the capability of hitting the continental United States. And the timing has not been lost on anyone, coming a mere days before the US presidential election.

“I affirm that the DPRK will never change its line of bolstering up its nuclear forces,” Kim Jong Un declared.

The following detailed description and analysis of the launch’s implications was provided by NBC:

The missile was launched from a site near the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, at 7:10 a.m. local time (6:10 p.m. Wednesday ET), South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. Spokesperson Lee Sung-joon said the missile was fired “at a very high altitude” and traveled more than 600 miles before it landed in the sea off North Korea’s east coast.

The launch might have been held so close to the U.S. election to strengthen North Korea’s negotiating leverage and grab attention, Lee said.

He said the weapon might have been fueled by solid propellants, which allow missiles to be launched faster and move more discreetly than liquid-fueled ones, and that it might have been fired from a 12-axle launch vehicle, which was revealed last month and is North Korea’s biggest mobile launch platform. 

This might also be response to recent threatening language and warnings issued by US, NATO, and Ukrainian officials related to reports of North Korean troops in Ukraine.

For example the US warned a UN security council meeting on Wednesday that North Korean troops will “come home in body bags”.

Washington is also busy reaffirming the South Korea that it calls under America’s nuclear umbrella, according to treaties:

“I assured Minister Kim today that the United States remains fully committed to the defense of the ROK and our extended deterrence commitment remains ironclad,” Austin said. “That commitment is backed by the full range of America’s conventional missile defense, nuclear and advanced non-nuclear capabilities.”

He added that the US and South Korea will be returning “to large scale exercises” and “strengthening [their] combined readiness and our interoperability.”

North Korea successfully tested its longest-ever intercontinental ballistic missile, with a potential range of 15,000 km, that could bring the entire mainland of the United States within range https://t.co/SL1xbwdmcn pic.twitter.com/XzLYDblsdx

— Reuters (@Reuters) October 31, 2024

And yet it is drills just like these which Kim Jong Un has cited over and over again as being justification enough to expand his nuclear arsenal.

Pyongyang and Moscow are also in parallel deepening their defense ties, having inked their own pact this summer, and the Kremlin has cited this as the legal basis for North Korean troops being hosted in Russia.