[WHY] Why does North Korea keep firing missiles?

North Korea

Published: 23 Dec. 2023, 08:00

[WHY] Why does North Korea keep firing missiles?

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, left, accompanied by his daughter Ju-ae, center, watches the launch of a Hwasong-18 solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in a drill at an undisclosed location in a photo released by the Rodong Sinmun on Tuesday. [NEWS1]

On Dec. 18 at 8:24 a.m., North Korea fired what it later said was a Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that reached an altitude of 6,518 kilometers (4,050 miles) as it flew around 1,000 kilometers over 73 minutes before landing in the East Sea.

But it’s not the first or even the 10th time the North has launched a ballistic missile this year.

Pyongyang has launched at least 36 missiles in 2023, including a rocket that carried its first spy satellite into orbit last month.

Some of these missiles included the liquid-fuel Hwasong-15 and Hwasong-17 ICBMs the regime had already tested the previous year when it launched more than 70 ballistic missiles — but they also included some new ones, including two Hwasong-18 solid-fuel ICBMs launched in April and July.

The ICBMs are not the only missiles in the North’s dizzying and growing arsenal, which include the KN-23, KN-24 and KN-25 short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) and its Pukguksong line of submarine-launched ballistic missiles, which are in various stages of development or deployment.

Experts have deliberated over the years whether the North’s missile launches, and particularly tests of ICBMs, were intended to extract economic concessions from South Korea and the United States in return for a halt to the launches or to force Washington to abandon its security commitment to Seoul by threatening the U.S. mainland.

But a growing consensus now is that the North’s missile launches are as much intended to advance the credibility of its deterrence capabilities as they are to achieve the regime’s stated foreign policy objective of forcing the United States to withdraw militarily from the Korean Peninsula.

Why is the North firing missiles at such a high frequency?

The language in Pyongyang’s propaganda regarding the North’s missiles suggests a deeper focus on demonstrating the regime’s ability to conduct successful launches with little notice.

In one such example from Feb. 18, the North’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency said the regime fired a Hwasong-15 ICBM in a “surprise launching drill,” which it emphasized was “suddenly organized without previous notice under an emergency firepower combat standby order given at dawn.”

The KCNA also said that the drill demonstrated Pyongyang’s ability to launch a “fatal nuclear counterattack on the hostile forces” and constituted “clear proof of the sure reliability of our powerful physical nuclear deterrent.”

Ankit Panda, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment’s Nuclear Policy Program, believes that the frequent missile launches belie a shift in their purpose from testing to focusing on the missiles’ reliability.

“We’ve seen the North Koreans move away from primarily testing missiles — that is, verifying if their technical performance is up to standards — and more broadly carrying out regular operational drills involving their missile systems,” he told the Korea JoongAng Daily.

“They do, of course, still carry out developmental tests for new weapons, but the frequency of exercises is much greater than in the past.”

Toby Dalton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Korea JoongAng Daily that while “there might be longer gaps between tests to evolve design and work on quality assurance” in a “typical testing and development program,” North Korea has done “an awful lot of testing in a short period of time, which raises questions about how much they’re learning from each test.”

Why so many different kinds of missiles?

One aspect of the North’s arsenal that often goes unaddressed is just how unusual — and expensive — such different kinds of missile development are for a regime as impoverished as Pyongyang.

According to a report issued by Seoul’s Korean Institute for Defense Analyses (KIDA) in December last year, the total cost of the ballistic missiles launched by the North in 2022 is likely to have exceeded $560 million, which would have been more than enough to feed North Korea's population that year.

While SRBMs are the cheapest, the price for components per short-range missile still ranges between $3 million and $5 million, according to the KIDA.

By contrast, each ICBM launch likely costs Pyongyang between $20 million and $30 million, bringing the price tag of the North’s eight ICBM launches in 2022 to $240 million — only $10 million less than 50 SRBM launches that year.

“It is puzzling that the [North] has demonstrated such a range of systems,” says Adam Mount, senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists, in an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily. “Normally, smaller powers will tend to prioritize a small handful of reliable systems to make the most of their resources. By contrast, the regime is demonstrating by not fully testing a wide range of advanced and even speculative systems.”

According to Mount, the North’s development of multiple missile systems could be aimed at “trying to complicate how the [South Korea-U. S.] alliance plans for the future, to limit the risk that some of these systems are compromised, or may just be trying to portray themselves as a sophisticated nuclear power.”

Dalton, who acknowledged that “clearly there are technology development aspects of the launches,” also said that some of the North’s missile systems “are unlikely to be built and go into the stockpile,” with many launches “presumably tied to demonstration and validation.”

Mount echoed this sentiment but added, “Even if some of these programs are abandoned, many will be completed and deployed. The arsenal will keep growing.”

What is the North’s intended message behind its ongoing missile spree?

While Pyongyang previously adopted moratoriums on missile launches in return for conciliatory overtures from Seoul and Washington, such as scaling down or ending joint exercises, comments by leader Kim Jong-un and other key members of the regime since 2020 suggest the North no longer regards its weapons programs as symbolic or as means of extracting concessions.

That attitude was underlined by Kim Yo-jong, Kim Jong-un’s powerful sister, who said that “no one barters their destiny for corn cake” as she rejected the South’s offer of wide-ranging economic aid in exchange for the North abandoning its weapons.

“North Korea has developed a doctrine and procedures for the use of nuclear and conventional weapons in battle theaters and now believes its security depends on these capabilities,” said Mount, referring to the regime’s formal adoption of a constitutional amendment enshrining its policy on nuclear weapons use in September last year.

In his speech regarding the law on Sept. 9, Kim Jong-un said that the country’s status as a nuclear weapons state was “irreversible” and that there will “never be any declaration of giving up our nukes or denuclearization” in future negotiations.

The law not only delineated Kim’s sole authority over decisions involving the use of nuclear weapons, but it also noted that “a nuclear strike shall be launched automatically and immediately” according to an “operation plan decided in advance” if the leader’s command and control “is placed in danger owing to an attack by hostile forces.”

“While Pyongyang clearly used its missile test programs in the past as a way to manipulate their relationship with Seoul and Washington, these programs are no longer political or symbolic,” Mount said, noting that the North’s missile arsenal is “diverse and sophisticated” and involves “testing a wide variety of systems with an eye on deployment.”

According to Dalton, the inherent messaging from Pyongyang through testing is to demonstrate its deterrence capabilities and the regime’s survivability in the event of war.

“What they’re saying is, ‘Our missiles are improving in accuracy, ability to penetrate missile defenses and survivability. Our readiness is high, and we’re prepared to use nuclear missiles according to our doctrine. Hostile policy from the United States and South Korea won’t force us to denuclearize, but rather drives us to achieve greater capability.”

According to Panda, the North’s missile testing is backed by “good military rationales” and is “simply part of augmenting their broader conventional and nuclear deterrence.”

“The North’s missile launches aren’t necessarily intended to provoke or otherwise draw a response from South Korea and the United States,” he said.

But while the North’s missile launches may be aimed at enhancing the credibility of its deterrence capabilities, the relative weakness of the North’s conventional forces — which have atrophied as the regime poured resources into its nuclear weapons and missile forces — could make it more determined to use nuclear weapons, and the means of delivering them, should armed hostilities break out.

“By far, the most alarming new weapons are the short-range nuclear-capable missiles, such as the KN-23, which has had the most extensive new test program,” said Mount.

Like the Russian Iskander SRBM system, the KN-23 flies in a quasi-ballistic trajectory, flattening out below an altitude of 50 kilometers, which could evade South Korean and U.S. missile defenses in a potential war on the peninsula.

“It's alarming because the regime’s security doesn’t depend on escalation control or preemption,” he said, adding, “The weapons show the regime has convinced itself that nuclear deterrence depends on nuclear warfighting. Of all the nuclear weapons in the world, the KN-23 is the most likely to be used.”

What can South Korea and the United States do to curb the North’s missile launches?

In think tank circles that cover security issues arising from Pyongyang’s pursuit of illicit weapons, the North has often been called the “Land of Lousy Options,” with only unpalatable or ineffectual choices left for consideration by leaders in Seoul and Washington who seek to rein in the regime’s weapons tests and launches.

“Without a great deal more diplomatic leverage, there is little Seoul or Washington can do to stop Pyongyang from launching missiles,” Mount said. “Building that leverage would mean offering more incentives and engagement than either country is willing to provide at this point.”

In his comments, Dalton noted that there is “no plausible option” to stop the testing “short of negotiations with North Korea to freeze its nuclear and missile activities.”

“The irony is that the longer the United States, South Korea and Japan sustain their denuclearization policy, the greater North Korea’s weapons capabilities become,” he added.

Short of sweeping concessions from either side, however, the North’s missile launches — and even the development of ICBMs — do not change the U.S. extended deterrence commitment to South Korea, according to Mount.

“American officials know that alliances expose the United States to some risk, but they also believe strongly that this alliance is in the country’s best interests and also the right thing to do,” he said, adding that “as the threat from North Korea rises, their resolve to defend both countries only strengthens further.”

Dalton noted that although “a North Korean ICBM changes the potential damage that the United States could receive, that potential has been there for decades, first with Russian and then Chinese nuclear missiles,” and that fears over decoupling are “baked into” extended deterrence relationships.

“In the event of a military conflict on the Korean Peninsula, the United States will be committed to the fight by virtue of U.S. forces present and involved,” Dalton said. “The single greatest commitment we can make on South Korea’s behalf is the continued stationing of large numbers of military personnel — that is the most important deterrent and the most important insurance against decoupling the alliance.”

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]