via newsreportonline.com - Missile analysts remain uncertain and even doubtful that North Korea has cleared all the technical hurdles to build a reliable nuclear-tipped ICBM. But the test on Friday night left little doubt that the country, although cut off from most of the global economy and hit with several rounds of United Nations sanctions, was getting closer to its goal of arming itself with long-range missiles that can deliver nuclear warheads to the United States.
South Korea fears that by building nuclear missiles that can reach major American cities, North Korea is trying to weaken the United States’ resolve over whether to intervene on the South’s behalf should war break out on the Korean Peninsula.
On Saturday, Mr. Moon called for strengthening South Korea’s deterrence capabilities, while stressing the importance of the military alliance with the United States.
“We must actively look for measures to secure our military’s own forces to deter and effectively deal with North Korea’s nuclear threats,” Mr. Moon said after an emergency meeting of his National Security Council on Saturday.South Korea wants to build ballistic missiles that can deliver more powerful payloads to targets in North Korea, including the location of its leadership and its missile and nuclear sites, most of which are hidden deep underground, defense officials here said. A key hurdle to the South Korean ambition has been a treaty the South signed with Washington in the 1970s in return for American help in building its missiles.
Under the deal, South Korea is allowed to build ballistic missiles with a range of up to 497 miles but is barred from tipping them with warheads weighing more than 500 kilograms, or half a ton, because of concerns about a regional arms race. South Korea wants to double the upper limit of the payload to a ton, officials here said.
(South Korea can already load warheads weighing up to two tons on ballistic missiles with shorter ranges, but those missiles cannot reach key missile bases in northern North Korea.)
The South Korean demands reflected growing regional jitters over how the North’s growing missile capabilities may affect Washington’s defense commitment to its allies in the region. On Saturday, Mr. Moon warned that the latest North Korean test could lead to “a fundamental change in the security structure in Northeast Asia.”
“U.S. policy for 21 years has been to prevent this day from coming, and now it has,” said Adam Mount, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress in Washington, referring to the North’s ICBM test on Friday.
“North Korea didn’t test an ICBM to launch a bolt from the blue against Washington; they’re hoping to split the United States from its allies.”
Barry Pavel, director of the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security, said North Korea could use a nuclear-tipped ICBM capability to “target the United States and deter U.S. security cooperation with its close Asian allies.”
“Once it is assured that it has a ‘nuclear shield,’ North Korea is likely to act much more aggressively in every other area of its foreign and military policies,” said Mr. Pavel. In “Rolling Back the Growing North Korean Threat,” the Atlantic Council’s memo to Mr. Trump published last month, Mr. Pavel and the co-author Robert A. Manning said that such North Korean aggressions could include “increasingly dangerous provocations and the sale of weapons of mass destruction to other nations and terrorist groups for much-needed cash.”
Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson on Friday reaffirmed that the United States “will never accept a nuclear-armed North Korea nor abandon our commitment to our allies and partners in the region.” At the United Nations Security Council, Washington is urging China and Russia to agree to a new set of economic sanctions against North Korea, including severely curtailing the country’s access to oil supplies from the outside.
China and Russia supply nearly all of North Korea’s oil imports and also host tens of thousands of the North workers. A bulk of the workers’ earnings end up in the coffers of the North Korean leadership, according to human rights groups and defectors. (ontinueReading
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