North Korea Tests ICBM
North Korea tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile on 4 July 2017, launching a Hwasong-14 on a steeply lofted trajectory that put it about 2,800 kilometres up and 930 kilometres downrange into the Sea of Japan. Flown on a normal trajectory, the same performance implies a range of roughly 6,700 kilometres — enough to reach Alaska. A second test that month extended it to something over 10,000 kilometres, bringing much of the continental United States into range, and the Hwasong-15 in November went further still. The year also brought the sixth nuclear test, in September, with a yield estimated at well over a hundred kilotons and claimed by Pyongyang as a hydrogen bomb small enough to mount on a missile. The technical significance was that North Korea had crossed from a regional threat to one capable of striking the American homeland, which is the threshold that changes the calculus of any war on the peninsula. Re-entry vehicle survival remained unproven and remains the principal open question. The rhetorical exchange that followed was extraordinary by any diplomatic standard. Donald Trump promised fire and fury and referred to Kim Jong-un as rocket man; Kim's statement called Trump a dotard, sending readers worldwide to dictionaries. The Security Council imposed its most severe sanctions yet, capping oil imports and banning coal, textile and seafood exports, with Chinese and Russian support. The confrontation reversed abruptly in 2018 into summitry, which produced no limits at all. Testing resumed at scale from 2022 and now includes solid-fuel ICBMs, which are far harder to detect before launch. Deterrence, not disarmament, is the working assumption of every government concerned.
- Year: 2017 CE
- Category: Military
