Fact Check: How to read North Korea’s latest missile test

The projectile, launched from either a submarine or an offshore rig, landed in the waters of Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

A report on N Korea firing what seems to have been a submarine-launched ballistic missile is broadcast on S Korean TV in Seoul on Wednesday. (Reuters)

On Wednesday morning, North Korea testfired a medium-range missile from an undersea platform — its 11th missile test in 2019, and its first submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) test since August 2016.

WHAT, WHEN, HOW: Japan said the missile was fired from a point in the Sea of Japan 17 km northeast of the North Korean naval base of Wonsan a little after 7 am, or 3.30 am India time. The projectile, launched from either a submarine or an offshore rig, landed in the waters of Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Jeong Kyeong-doo, the Defence Minister of South Korea, said the missile flew 450 km in a trajectory that peaked at 910 km high.

HOW BIG A THREAT: As it has done earlier too, North Korea fired the missile in a very steep trajectory; had the launch followed a more standard trajectory, it could have travelled 1,900 km, standard for a medium-range missile. Such a missile would reach South Korea and Japan easily, especially if it were launched from a submarine with a significant range. North Korea’s 1990s vintage Romeo-class submarines are thought to be able to travel 7,000 km, or about the distance to the United States territory of Hawaii. A saving grace, from the perspective of the West, is that these diesel-electric powered machines are extremely noisy, and can probably be detected.

WHAT TEST INDICATES: Commentators have underlined the apparent range and capabilities of the missile, and the fact that it demonstrates continuing progress on Pyongyang’s SLBM programme, long recognised as a very potent threat. It is difficult to anticipate the time and place of a submarine-borne strike, and SLBMs are seen as extending crucial second-strike capabilities to militaries faced with a nuclear attack. However, it is not certain that North Korea’s submarine programme is very advanced as yet.

The missile test came days ahead of the planned resumption of nuclear talks between North Korea and the United States. Negotiators from the two sides are scheduled to meet on Saturday — and several analysts said Wednesday that Pyongyang was trying to raise the stakes and send out the signal that it will return to the table on its own terms, and expected Washington to back off from its demands for full denuclearisation.

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