And at a party congress in January, Kim redoubled his accumulation of nuclear weapons, offering a long list of weapons that he said he planned to develop. They included “multiple warhead” nuclear missiles, “hypersonic” missiles, ICBM missiles launched from land and from solid-fuel submarines, and “ultra-modern tactical nuclear weapons”.
It is not yet clear whether North Korea has mastered the technology necessary to send an intercontinental nuclear warhead into space and then guide it back through Earth’s atmosphere to its target. North Korea has yet to prove that its warhead can survive the intense heat and friction created by reentry.
Their weapons are getting more sophisticated.
When North Korea resumed missile testing in 2019 following the collapse of talks between Kim and Trump, the tests included three new weapons, codenamed KN-23, KN-24 and KN-25 by outside experts.
Each of them marked breakthroughs in North Korea’s short-range ballistic missile program.
Unlike their older missiles that used liquid fuel, the three new missiles used solid fuel. The new solid fuel weapons, mounted on mobile launchers, are easier to transport and hide and take less time to prepare. And at least two of them, KN-23 and KN-24, could perform low-altitude maneuvers, making interception difficult.
At a military parade earlier this year, North Korea displayed what looked like a larger, improved version of the KN-23. Photos released by North Korean media indicate that it was the weapon tested on Thursday.
The new missile was developed to be larger than KN-23 in order to carry a larger warhead and more fuel.
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