China Helped North Korea Target American Cities
Today, Kim Jang-soo, South Korea’s new national security director, said North Korea may fire off a missile as soon as Wednesday. The launch will undoubtedly be a test of an intermediate-range missile, not an attack.
North Korea last week moved two missiles, which were subsequently loaded onto mobile launchers, to its east coast. Many expect the missiles, which have been subsequently moved to hidden locations, will be fired in trajectories arcing over Japan.
The Pentagon is not at the moment especially concerned about Pyongyang’s longest-range missile, the Taepodong-2, a variant of the successfully tested Unha-3 rocket. It takes weeks to transport, assemble, fuel, and prepare the Taepodong-2, giving U.S. forces many opportunities to destroy the missile on its large launch pad.
The Pentagon, however, is worried about Pyongyang’s mobile missiles, even though they have shorter ranges. It is telling that Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on March 15 cited the North’s newest launcher, the KN-08, as a reason for the administration’s decision to deploy 14 additional interceptor missiles in Alaska.
The KN-08 sits on an eight-axle mobile vehicle—a transporter-erector-launcher in military lingo—that can hide and shoot, so America’s costly missile defense system is considered necessary because of the hard-to-find KN-08s. China transferred to North Korea at least six of those mobile launchers, a clear violation of Security Council sanctions.
Some media reports in South Korea and Japan state that the two missiles now on the move are KN-08s. Seoul, however, believes they are Musudans, which have a range of only 2,500 miles, and perhaps less.
Whatever is true, Washington policymakers have been reluctant to confront the implications of the Chinese effectively using the North Koreans to target U.S. cities. Beijing, by supplying the mobile launchers, substantially increased the North’s ability to attack the American homeland.