Why does Seoul routinely low-ball North Korea’s missile range?
There’s more than one reason South Korea may have to massage the figures – and it doesn’t necessarily mean it is blind to the threat
When North Korea fired its latest intercontinental ballistic missile on November 29, experts said it was the regime’s longest range ICBM to date, with an estimated reach of up to 13,000km – putting the entire US mainland within reach of Pyongyang’s nuclear arsenal.
“It went higher frankly than any previous shots they have taken,” US Defence Secretary James Mattis said during a meeting with Republican congressional leaders.
“Kim Jong-un declared with pride that now we have finally realised the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force, the cause of building a rocket power,” announced Ri Chun-hee, the famously melodramatic news presenter for Korean Central Television, North Korea’s state-owned broadcaster, adding that it was “a priceless victory won by the great and heroic people” of North Korea.
But South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff estimated that the projectile only had a range of about 10,000km – barely enough to cover the 9,528km from Pyongsong, where the missile was fired, to Los Angeles.
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This would put the US west coast and parts of the Midwest within reach, but none of the east coast.
