Missile expert Joe Cirincione says the Hwasong-15 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tested by North Korea on November 29 is a “game changer” insofar as photos show a nose cone big enough to carry multiple warheads.
Cirincione’s analysis, posted Tuesday on military website Defense One, also says that the cone of the North Korean ICBM appears capable of accommodating countermeasures that US missile defenses haven’t been tested against.
“It’s the front end of the missile that changes everything,” Cirincione wrote. “These video and photos … show North Korean leader Kim Jong-un standing next to the huge, new transporter-erecter vehicle that is carrying the missile, prominently featuring its large, blunt nose cone.”
“Even a casual observer can see that the missile could carry many Kim-sized objects within the nose cone. Nuclear warheads are typically the size of an average person or smaller,” added Cirincione, whose assessments of earlier rocket launches by Pyongyang proved accurate.
He noted that the relatively huge Hwasong-15 nose cone appears to have room for decoys, chaff, jammers and other countermeasures alongside its warheads.
“How will our defensive systems function against this threat? We have no basis for confidence. Our missile defenses have never undergone stringent, realistic tests,” the analyst warned.
Another hawkish article championing the cause for war The reality is that the US has run out of options to stop Kim Jung Un’s Nuclear Weapons Program except going to WAR. Countries in Asia that will be affected most by the destruction and the nuclear fallout cannot just be quiet and subservient while the US rachets up the rhetoric of going to war and provocations against the NK regime. Just accept the fact the they already have the weapon and the means to deliver it and start from there. War is not an option. The cause for war has long past us by. The US should have acted long ago when there was minimum threat of devastation.
A good sensible article!
Long ago, like 1954 perhaps?
War will never happen no matter how tough Trump wants us to think he is, because of Hwasong-15. That the US can totally obliterate NK is nothing new, but before NK goes down in fire and fury, Kim will take along with him a couple of American cities and that is the only that is stopping the US. In a way, you can say nuclear weapons are weapons of peace.
South Korea should be pleased that NK now has ICBM capable of striking the US, because this is the only reason war has not started.