Four years ago Donald Trump said he would never allow the North Koreans to threaten the continental US. So what was the message being sent by the Pyongyang regime when it paraded a huge new intercontinental missile this month?
Trump’s promise was already looking threadbare the year after he made it when North Korea tested the Hwasong-15, an ICBM with a range estimated at 13,000 kilometres – sufficient to reach any part of the US. The North Koreans haven’t yet carried out a test to prove that range, but with less than two weeks to go to polling day, they have done something rather more clever.
Now they have paraded an entirely new ICBM, provisionally designated the Hwaseong-16. It’s a lot larger than the Hwaseong-15 ( ‘Increased Deterrence’, Jane’s Defence Weekly, 21 October). It is certainly a major achievement and most likely based on the Hwaseong-15. Given the rockets’ relative sizes, the Hwaseong-16 could probably deliver one large thermonuclear warhead or several small warheads over a distance that would cover the whole of the US. On that basis, Trump’s claim of never allowing the North Koreans to get to such a point seems still more dubious.
