North Korean Missile Launch Fails, and a Show of Strength Fizzles

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched a ballistic missile Sunday morning from near its submarine base in Sinpo on its east coast, but the launch failed, according to the South Korean military.

The timing was a deep embarrassment for the North’s leader, Kim Jong-un, because the missile appeared to have been launched to show off his daring as a fleet of American warships approached his country to deter provocations.

“U.S. Pacific Command detected and tracked what we assess was a North Korean missile launch at 11:21 a.m. Hawaii time April 15. The launch of the ballistic missile occurred near Sinpo,” said Cmdr. Dave Benham, a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Command.

The missile blew up almost immediately, and the type of missile involved was still being assessed, he said.

“U.S. Pacific Command is fully committed to working closely with our allies in the Republic of Korea and in Japan to maintain security.” Benham said.

On Saturday, what analysts say were three types of intercontinental ballistic missiles rolled through Pyongyang, the North’s capital, as the country tried to demonstrate that its military reach is expanding at a time of heightened tensions with the United States.

During the parade in Pyongyang, Mr. Kim watched from a platform surrounded by elderly military officers as long columns of goose-stepping soldiers marched through a large plaza, accompanied by a fleet of tanks, missiles and rocket tubes.

Saturday was the 105th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, the country’s founder, Kim Jong-un’s grandfather and the man the younger Mr. Kim tries to emulate, in looks and action. Kim Il-sung’s birthday, called the Day of the Sun, is the North’s most important holiday and a key moment for scoring propaganda points.

The United States, China and other regional powers had feared that North Korea might mark the occasion by conducting its sixth nuclear test or by launching an intercontinental ballistic missile. The United States sent a naval strike group to the coast of the Korean Peninsula in a show of force that has become a first, wary showdown between Mr. Kim and President Trump.

But no seismic tremor emanated on Saturday morning from the North’s nuclear test site, where recent satellite photographs have shown what appeared to be preparations for an underground detonation.

Instead, Mr. Kim seemed to have decided to celebrate his grandfather’s birthday not with a nuclear test or a missile launching, but with a military parade meant to demonstrate his missile capabilities. He is acutely aware that the threat that he could soon possess — a missile that could strike the continental United States — is Washington’s biggest concern, and both the number and the variety of missiles he showed on Saturday seemed to be sending the message that a pre-emptive strike against his facilities would be fruitless.

Over the past three years, a covert war over the missile program has broken out between North Korea and the United States. As the North’s skills grew, President Barack Obama ordered a surge in strikes against the missile launches, The New York Times reported last month, including through cyber and electronic-warfare techniques. It is unclear how successful the program has been, but despite the show of force on Saturday the North’s launch-failure rate has been extraordinarily high.

To military analysts scrutinizing North Korea’s broadcast of the parade, the most noteworthy element seemed to be three types of long-range ballistic missiles, one of them apparently new.

While the North has repeatedly claimed that it can strike the United States with a nuclear warhead, it has never flight-tested an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of crossing the Pacific.

In addition, some analysts doubt that the country has mastered the skills to build a warhead that can survive re-entry from space, or one small enough to mount on a long-range missile. They said the intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, that had been displayed in recent North Korean military parades might have been mock-ups of systems still under development.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/15/w...g-un.html?_r=0





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