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Pentagon says North Korean missiles that can hit US may soon be in production

A senior commander believes Kim Jong-un is ‘eager to transition his weapons programme from development to serial production and fielding’

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North Korea test-fired the Hwasong-19 intercontinental ballistic missile in 2024. Photo: KCNA via KNS/AFP
Bloomberg
North Korea may be poised to move into production its intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the US, the Pentagon’s commander of continental defences told a Senate panel.
Kim Jong-un’s regime “probably can deliver a nuclear payload to targets throughout North America while minimising our ability to provide pre-launch warning due to the shortened launch preparation time lines afforded by its solid-propellant design,” Air Force General Gregory Guillot, the head of US Northern Command, said in written testimony on Thursday to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Guillot cited the October test launch of the Hwasong-19 ICBM with solid fuel, which can be deployed and prepared for launch faster than a missile with liquid propellant.

Rhetoric about the new ICBM by North Korea “suggests Kim is eager to transition his strategic weapons programme from research and development to serial production and fielding, a process that could rapidly expand North Korea’s inventory” while narrowing Guillot’s confidence in his command’s capacity to defend against ballistic missiles, the general said.

Questions remain within the American military. When pressed at a Brookings Institution event in November whether the Hwasong-19 test indicated North Korea could pair a nuclear warhead with an ICBM that could withstand the rigours of launch, flight and descent through the atmosphere, Admiral Samuel Paparo, head of US Indo-Pacific Command, said “we’ve not yet seen that capability, but we just see continued testing towards that.”

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Guillot’s comments are likely to bolster arguments by missile defence advocates to bankroll President Donald Trump’s pledge to create an all-encompassing “Iron Dome” umbrella to protect the US from attack.
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