North Korea EXCLUSIVE: Military analyst reveals EXACTLY whether Kim can reach Washington
NORTH Korea is unable to "threaten the United States directly" with a nuclear missile,
a military analyst has claimed.
In an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk, CNN military analyst Cedric Leighton admitted
that the hermit kingdom lacks the ability to strike the mainland US due to its struggles
to "marry a small nuclear warhead with an ICBM missile".
He said: "The basic missile test that was conducted the other day is one that is very
different because it clearly showed a missile that could go a lot further than any of the
previous versions that the North Koreans had tested.
"It basically reached an altitude of almost 4,500 kilometres, that puts it at about 10
times higher than the orbit that the International Space Station is flying and really it's
higher than many satellites would be flying, so it has some significant issues that are
brought about by this.
"Even though North Korean seems to be saying that it did have a warhead on this particular
missile, there is no other indication in terms of radiation, in terms of telemetry, or in
terms of every other measure that we know about that they, in fact, did have a warhead
on there.
"If the Hwasong-15 had a warhead on it that was nuclear capable, and one would have to
assume that they would be miniaturising that warhead, that would obviously be a drag on
the missile and its ability to fly, and the weight of something like that could adversely
affect the range.
"So it could be a considerably shorter range that could potentially remove it from being
able to threaten the United States directly.
"It may still affect outlying parts of the United States such as the territory of Guam
or the state of Hawaii, but for the continental part of the United States, it may not pose
as much of a threat as many people believe right now.
"Most assessments here in the US are that the North Koreans have not quite been able
to marry the small nuclear warhead with the ICBM such as the Hwasong-15."
Mr Leighton discussed the hypothesis from South Korea's minister of reunification
who claimed that rapidly accelerating military programme from the rogue state could allow
it to strike the mainland US by the "mid-part of 2018".
He added: "Many people give a lot of credence to the statements by the South Korean minister
of reunification which basically said that the North Koreans would have that capability
by the early part or the mid part of the coming year of 2018.
"So I think what we should do as prudent observers of this event is to think that the
North Koreans are clearly working towards that goal, it is a publicly stated aim of
theirs to actually have a missile that can threaten the United States with a legitimate
nuclear warhead on it, and that kind of threat has to be taken seriously."
Despite the seemingly imminent threat imposed on the world by despot leader Kim Jong-un,
the military expert admitted that Pyongyang does not come close to the might of the US,
China and the former Soviet Union.
He declared: "The North Koreans do not have the type of arsenal that the Soviet Union
used to have or that the Chinese used to have, and they certainly can't compete with either
of those countries in terms of their modern-day weaponry.
"They also cannot compete with the United States in terms of the quality and quantity
of the nuclear weaponry.
"North Korea is basically already part of that nuclear club but the mechanisms that
they exercise for their command and control of their nuclear weapons are not as robust
and not as developed as those of other nations."
After the rogue nation tested their most powerful missile yet, there were rumours that the test
came as no surprise to South Korea that immediately retaliated with their own launch - Mr Leighton
confirmed that Asian nations, as well as the US, had received reports of an impending provocation
from the hermit kingdom.
He went on: "So a few days before the missile test there were reports that were primarily
spoken about in Asia, especially in Japan, and a bit in South Korea that there were indications
that the North Koreans were getting ready to conduct a missile test.
"Although this is something that would certainly remain classified within the United States
government, it stands to reason that they also had an indication that this would happen.
"However they chose not to publicise that because in essence I think they did not want
to egg on the North Koreans and they wanted to see if the intelligence was actually correct
and sometimes with North Korea there are a lot of what I guess one could call false-positives
when it comes to intelligence and it becomes a very challenging intelligence target.
"So in the United States at least we try to be very careful with how we assess intelligence
pertaining to North Korea.
"So I'm certain that policy makers here in the US were aware that the North Korean's
were probably planning to do something.
"There were a lot of questions in the run up to this latest missile test as to why there
had been such a long period of time between the previous missile test and the one that
just happened.
"Based on North Korean statements and general North Korean behaviour, I think most people
including myself, looked at this as not an indication as a willingness of the North Korean's
to talk, but instead a timeframe in which the North Korean's could better prepare
themselves for these tests and conduct a more successful test than they otherwise would
have been able to do."
After the sixth missile test from the hermit kingdom, Japan not only threatened to shoot
down further missiles that prime minister Shinzo Abe believed posed a danger to Japan,
but his aggressive rhetoric against Kim Jong-un appeared to have shifted another gear after
his meeting with Donald Trump - the military analyst believes Mr Abe's threats could
account for this week's missile trajectory.
Mr Leighton stated: "I think it's a very likely scenario that prime minister Abe's
rhetoric in relation to North Korea have been a factor in not only the way in which North
Korea launched the missile but also the way in which they timed that launch.
"I think the way in which the Japanese are reacting to North Korea provocations makes
it very clear that they were intent on shooting down the next missile that flew over their
territory.
"So the North Korean's, I think wisely, decided to demonstrate their capability but
to do it in such a way that would keep the missile from flying over Japanese territory.
"According to the Japanese they violated their exclusive economic zone, but that's
not the same from an international law standpoint as either violating either the territorial
waters of a country or the actual landmass of a country.
"So in this case the North Korean's kind of went up to the edge to let it be known
that they have the capability without actually making a supreme provocation such as a direct
overflight of the country of Japan."
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