North Korea Faked Its Launch of a Powerful New Missile, South Says

SEOUL — For North Korea, a successful intercontinental ballistic missile test needs to achieve two things. 

First, the launch should help bolster the country’s ability to hit a far-flung adversary like the United States, which involves firing a projectile into suborbital space and ensuring that it doesn’t burn up like a meteor before falling on its target. Second, it needs to be seen for it to have any deterrent effect or propaganda value.

Pyongyang sought to do both last week when it tested what it said was a powerful new ICBM—and made a pair of flashy videos about it. The footage showed the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, donning aviator shades and counting down to the launch of what North Korean state media said was the mighty new Hwasong-17.

But South Korea has called its Northern neighbor’s bluff. What was launched on March 24 was actually a Hwasong-15, an older and smaller ICBM last tested in 2017, the South Korean defense ministry told VICE World News on Wednesday.

The alleged switcheroo was staged to make up for a failed test of the Hwasong-17 on March 16 that broke up shortly after liftoff from Sunan International Airport in the North Korean capital, South Korean politicians said.

“Pyongyang residents must be shocked” by the debris, South Korean lawmaker Ha Tae-keung told reporters on Tuesday, summarizing what the defense ministry said in a closed-door briefing. “It may have affected the public sentiment.”

North Korea’s state media didn’t report on the failed March 16 launch, but they did give the March 24 test plenty of coverage, including the release of the videos starring Kim sporting a leather jacket and slicked-back hair.

But it was also the same videos that fueled skepticism about North Korea’s claim of successfully launching a Hwasong-17, the largest known ICBM in the country’s arsenal.

The South Korean ministry determined that it was an old missile partly based on its flight path and supposed inconsistencies in the videos, between Kim’s shadow and how it should have fallen around the purported time of the launch.

An earlier analysis of the footage by NK Pro suggests that it was filmed more than a week before the March 24 launch.

The Pentagon said Tuesday that it was still analyzing the test and did not publicly deny or confirm North Korea’s claims.

Still, what was not in question was that Kim Jong Un’s regime tested an ICBM capable of striking the U.S. mainland.

“We remain concerned about the North Koreans, their attempt to continue to improve their nuclear capability, as well as their ballistic missile capability. It’s provocative. It poses a threat to security on the peninsula and to the region, to our allies and partners,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Tuesday.

The missile tested on March 24 reached an altitude of 3,882 miles and flew 677 miles before falling in the waters between Korea and Japan, according to North Korean state media. Both the Hwasong-15 and Hwasong-17 have a range that could deliver nukes to continental U.S.

The South Korean defense ministry has also said that it detected renewed activity at the North’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site that suggests a possible nuclear test on the horizon. 

Pyongyang had conducted all six of its previous nuclear tests at the site, and a new one could take place as soon as next month, on or around the 110th anniversary of Kim’s grandfather and North Korean founder Kim Il Sung’s birth on April 15.

The frequent missile tests in North Korea this year came as Kim signaled his intent to beef up its military capabilities to fend off threats.

“Only when one is equipped with the formidable striking capabilities, overwhelming military power that cannot be stopped by anyone, one can prevent a war, guarantee the security of the country and contain and put under control all threats and blackmails by the imperialists,” Kim was quoted as saying in a Monday report by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The provocations could pose another vexing foreign policy challenge to U.S. President Joe Biden, who has been busy dealing with the Ukraine crisis since Russia invaded its neighbor on Feb. 24.

Follow Junhyup Kwon on Twitter.