Map: This Is How Far Those North Korean Missiles Can Actually Reach
ASIA--PACIFIC, 8 Apr 2013
Max Fisher – The Washington Post
North Korea has redeployed some of its missiles to the country’s eastern coast, a provocation and implicit warning that it just might carry through on some of its recent threats.
How far can those missiles actually reach? We can’t say for sure because we don’t know what kind of missiles they are. But there appear to be two most likely possibilities: either it’s the Musudan missiles, as the South Korean military says, or it’s the KN-08, as reported in the Japanese press, or its both. Fortunately, neither is particularly scary for the United States.
First off, here’s a map showing how far North Korea’s various missile systems can reach. The outermost green circle indicates the range of the Musudan: It includes Japan and South Korea but not Guam or Hawaii and certainly not the U.S. mainland.
The Musudan, though tested, is not thought to be particularly accurate. Still, it could cause some terrible mayhem in South Korea or even Japan if it were launched.
What about the range of the KN-08? Well, here’s the thing about that: It sure looks like an intercontinental ballistic missile, and North Korea claims it can reach about 6,000 miles, which puts Los Angeles in range, except that no one knows if it works because it’s never been tested. And that means it probably can’t hit squat at long range, if it can even take off.
New ICBM models aren’t like iPhones; you don’t just take them out of the box and expect them to function properly. They have to be rigorously, painstakingly tested. Markus Schiller, an expert in the North Korean military, told Global Security Newswire that it was “totally impossible” for the KN-08 to be operational without tests. Even countries that have successfully built and launched ICMBs before, which North Korea has not, wouldn’t expect a new model to work perfectly on the first try. The KN-08 was just unveiled last April in a military parade in Pyongyang and has never been test-launched. Analysts aren’t even sure that it’s real.
The most bullish analysis of the KN-08′s potential threat that I’ve seen this week, published in the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, speculated that North Korea had only moved them to the coast so that, in the event of a test launch, they would be less likely to fall onto North Korean soil.
Go to the Original – washingtonpot.com
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 8 Apr 2013.
Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: Map: This Is How Far Those North Korean Missiles Can Actually Reach, is included. Thank you.
If you enjoyed this article, please donate to TMS to join the growing list of TMS Supporters.
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License.
What is the real intention of North Korea now?
Consider several factors:
1. The new UN Security Council Resolution 2094 of 7 March 2013 blocks the money transfer to NK. The money from outside NK is the vital income survival line for NK.
2. NK is preparing for the launch of a nuclear missile(s) (in the name of the test), aiming possibly at South Korea, Japan and/or Guam (US).
3. The situation in Pyongyang is peaceful. No problem has been reported from Pyongyang regardless of the NK government’s warning to foreign embassies in Pyongyang about the danger in NK.
4. “15th of April” is the birthday of Kim Il-sung so that the NK government is preparing for the ceremony. Many representatives of relevant Korean organizations abroad are invited to the ceremony to be held in Pyongyang.
5. The young leader, Kim Jung-un, is surrounded by generals, in their 70s, who worked under Kim Il-sung and Kim Jung-Il. These generals learned political and military survival manipulation techniques from their previous two leaders.
6. Kim Jung-un has just decided to restart the nuclear reactor in Yongbyon/Nyongbyon.
7. By demolishing/exploding less important part (the cooling tower) of the nuclear reactor in Yongbyon/Nyongbyon in 2008, Kim Jung-Il (Kim Jun-un’s father) deceived the United States. Then, he received 2. 5 million US dollars as the demolition fee from the United States. Will Kim Jun-un use the same or similar deceptive technique this time in order to receive some fee from the United States? Note that the nuclear reactor in Yongbyon/Nyongbyon employs the light water system which is essentially the same type of the Koodankulam nuclear reactor system.
8. – NK armed force personnel: Active personnel: 1.1 million. Reserved personnel: 8.2 million. (Note that NK’s population is “24 million”.)
– Compare: Russian armed force personnel: Active personnel: 1.0 million. Reserved personnel: 2.0 million. (Note that Russia’s population is “300 million”.)
– Compare: China’s armed force personnel: Active personnel: 2.3 million. Reserved personnel: 0.8 million. (Note the population of China is “1 billion 334 million”.) Source of this section: Wikipedia.
9. How does Kim Jun-un feed NK’s huge armed force when NK’s income survival line is blocked, not to mention how to feed the common N.Koreans? (The population of NK is 24 million.) See, for instance: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/09/business/north-korea-economy-explainer/index.html?iid=article_sidebar and http://www.nkeconwatch.com/
All information here in this comment is as of 9 April 2013.
May peace be with the East Asia and Pacific. May peace be with the whole world.