New North Korean Missile Could Have Better Accuracy, U.S. Official Says

North Korea is developing a new long-range ballistic missile that has improved accuracy over its older designs, a U.S. official said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 11).

The new missile is believed to be based on a Soviet-era SS-N-6 sea-launched ballistic missile that North Korea is suspected of having acquired sometime between 1992 and 1998, the official said.  Pyongyang then added technology to modify the missile, giving it the capability to be launched from land and improved accuracy, the official said.

Based on the missile’s description, it “increases the probability that North Korea could achieve the capability of launching nuclear weapons against the continental U.S.,” said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.  Because the North Korean missile is reportedly based on Soviet-era technology, Pyongyang could deploy it “without having to farm out the testing to their buddies in Pakistan and Iran” or “blow up a lot of hardware,” he said.

“They’re going with something tried and true rather than trying to invent it themselves.  They basically let (former Soviet leader Nikita) Khrushchev pay for all the exploding rockets 40 years ago,” Pike said.

There is no indication that Russia was formally involved in the missile transfer or that Moscow has had any involvement in North Korea’s missile efforts “in at least the last five years,” the U.S. official said.

“We’ve had hints of this for several years, but it’s only within the last year that                   we’ve been able to confirm that this did exist and it’s derived from Russian                   technology,” the official said (Sonni Efron, Los Angeles Times, Sept. 12).

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New North Korean Missile Based on Russian Technology, U.S. Officials Say

North Korea has used Russian technology to develop a new ballistic missile, U.S. officials said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 9).

The new intermediate-rang missile is based on the Russian SS-N-6 sea-launched ballistic missile, which has a range of up to 3,400 miles, U.S. officials said (Reuters/Financial Times, Sept. 10).  The North Korean missile, which was first reported in the South Korean Chosun Ilbo newspaper earlier this week, is land-based and does not have the range to reach the United States, a U.S. source said.  The source added that the new missile was designed to “complement” North Korea’s existing missile forces (Maxim Kniazkov, Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Sept. 11).

In addition, there are also “indications” that North Korea may have begun small-scale production of its longer-range missile, the Taepodong 2, and may be ready to export the missile, a senior U.S. official said (Reuters/Financial Times).

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New North Korean Long-Range Missile Absent From Military Parade

A reported new North Korean long-range ballistic missile was not displayed in a military parade yesterday in Pyongyang held to mark the country’s 55th birthday, Channel NewsAsia reported today (see GSN, Sept. 9).

South Korean defense analysts had expected North Korea to unveil the new missile during yesterday’s parade, rather than test launch it, which could have further destabilized U.S.-North Korean relations, according to Channel News Asia.  A Western diplomat in Pyongyang, however, said there were no new missiles displayed in the parade.

“No new missiles, only soldiers, no (military) hardware,” the diplomat said.  “It was a pretty normal, run-of-the-mill parade as far as I could see.  Nothing special,” the diplomat added (Channel NewsAsia, Sept. 9).

Meanwhile, a Russian defense expert today dismissed reports that North Korea had developed a new long-range missile, according to ITAR-Tass.

“According to experience of the former Soviet Union and the United States, the creation of a missile of this kind must be preceded by a considerable cycle of flying tests,” said Vladimir Dvorkin, a senior adviser at the Russian Center of Political Studies.  “It should be taken into account that nearly half of the first 10 launches end in accidents, which are perfectly recorded by space means,” he said (Anatoly Yurkin, ITAR-Tass, Sept. 9).

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