North Korea test-fired a new, smaller ballistic missile from a submarine, state media said yesterday, a move that analysts said could be aimed at more quickly fielding an operational missile submarine.
The statement from state media came a day after South Korea’s military reported that it believed North Korea had fired a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) off its east coast, the latest in a string of North Korean missile tests.
Washington urged North Korea to refrain from further “provocations,” with White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Tuesday saying that the US remained open to engaging diplomatically with the North over its weapons programs.
Photo: AP
Pyongyang has so far rejected those overtures, accusing the US and South Korea of talking diplomacy while ratcheting up tensions with their own military activities.
South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Chung Eui-yong yesterday called for Washington to ease sanctions if the North returns to talks.
“Action must be taken as soon as possible to stop North Korea from further developing nuclear and missile capability,” he told the South Korean parliament. “I think considering relaxing sanctions can surely be an option.”
The US and the UK planned to raise the North’s latest test at a UN Security Council meeting yesterday, diplomats said.
The “new-type” SLBM was launched from the same submarine used in a 2016 test of an older SLBM, the North’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.
North Korea has a large fleet of aging submarines, but has yet to deploy operational ballistic missile submarines beyond the experimental Gorae-class boat used in the tests.
Photographs released by KCNA appeared to show a thinner, smaller missile than North Korea’s earlier SLBM designs, and could be a previously unseen model first showcased at a defense exhibition in Pyongyang last week.
A smaller SLBM could mean more missiles stored on a single submarine, although with a shorter range, potentially putting nuclear-armed North Korea closer to fielding an operational ballistic missile submarine (SSB).
“Though a smaller North Korea SLBM design could enable more missiles per boat, it could also enable smaller less challenging SSB designs, including easier integration/conversion on pre-existing submarines,” Joseph Dempsey, a defense researcher at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, wrote on Twitter.
Still, the development was expected to have only a limited effect on Pyongyang’s arsenal until it made more progress on a larger submarine that has been seen under construction.
“It just means they’re trying to diversify their submarine launch options,” said Dave Schmerler, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California. “It’s an interesting development, but with only one submarine in the water that can launch notionally one or two of these it doesn’t change much.”
Kim Dong-yup, a former South Korean navy officer who teaches at Seoul’s Kyungnam University, said that the missile could be an advanced version of the KN-23, a short-range ballistic missile first tested in 2019, citing its range, visual resemblance and stated guidance technologies.
KCNA said that the new SLBM featured advanced capabilities including “flank mobility and gliding skip mobility.”
The SLBM “will greatly contribute to putting the defense technology of the country on a high level and to enhancing the underwater operational capability of our navy,” KCNA added.
Schmerler said that “glide skip” is a way to change a missile’s trajectory to make it harder to track and intercept.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant