New York Times:
If North Korea wanted to rattle the United States and China with its missile test this week, the launch itself was more fizzle than bang.
Instead of showing off the North’s technological prowess just before President Trump was to host President Xi Jinping of China for their first summit meeting, the missile fired on Wednesday flew a mere 37 miles, according to the South Korean military.
North Korea, which typically gushes over important missile tests — especially those attended by its leader, Kim Jong-un — has been silent about this one, indicating either that it was not important enough to merit Mr. Kim’s presence or that it was a failure.
American and South Korean officials initially said they believed that the North had launched its Pukguksong-2, a newly developed, nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile that uses solid-fuel technology, which makes it easier for the country to hide its weapons and deploy them on short notice.
But some news outlets, citing unidentified United States officials, floated a different theory: that the missile was a more mundane Scud-ER, or a Scud with an extended range, and had spun out of control and plunged into the sea nine minutes after its launch.
On Thursday, South Korean and American officials stuck to their initial assessment that the missile appeared to have been a Pukguksong-2, while stressing that the finding was preliminary. “Initial assessments are just that: initial and subject to changes,” said Cmdr. Dave Benham, a spokesman for United States Pacific Command, adding that the command was unlikely to comment further.
For many analysts, neither assessment explained the short distance that the missile had traveled.
Although North Korea has a spotty record with missile tests, it appeared to have mastered its skills with Scuds. The last time it tested midrange Scud-ERs, in March, it launched four of them simultaneously. They flew an average of 620 miles, some of them splashing down into waters inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
When North Korea first tested its Pukguksong-2 in February, it was confident enough with the system to fire it from a mobile launch vehicle deep inside the country. The missile flew 310 miles across North Korea and fell into waters off its east coast.
The United States Pacific Command said that the missile fired on Wednesday was a Pukguksong-2 but that it had been deployed from “a land-based facility” near Sinpo, a port on the east coast of North Korea, rather than a mobile launch vehicle inland.
“If the missile launched on Wednesday was a failure, it’s hard to believe that it involved either a Pukguksong-2 or Scud-ER,” said Kim Dong-yub, a missile expert at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University in Seoul.
Mr. Kim said it was more reasonable to believe that the North was testing a modified version of either the Scud-ER or Pukguksong-2 or a new missile, even an early version of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
When it was developing its first submarine-launched ballistic missile last year, North Korea accumulated technology incrementally, with a series of tests in which projectiles flew only short distances or exploded soon after launching, analysts said.
The United States has been conducting an electronic and cyberwarfare campaign aimed at sabotaging Pyongyang’s missile tests in their opening seconds. But it was impossible to determine whether that program had affected the launch on Wednesday.
South Korean analysts and military officials noted that Sinpo was where the North developed its first submarine-launched ballistic missile, or SLBM, called Pukguksong-1. Pukguksong-2 was built from the SLBM.
The Pukguksong series was a breakthrough for North Korea. Unlike almost all of its other ballistic missiles, including the Scuds, that use liquid fuel — which could take hours to load, a process that can usually be detected by satellites — the Pukguksong missiles use solid-fuel technology, meaning Pyongyang can hide them in its numerous tunnels and launch them on very short notice…
