Pentagon Report: North Korea Still Trying to Make Nuke to Reach US

Nation Might Eventually Figure Out How, Report Warns Congress

A new Pentagon report on North Korea, coming weeks after everyone was seemingly all North Korea’d out, comes with the same ominous but ultimately vague warning that the nation is still “working” on a nuclear missile to reach the United States.

Of course, North Korea doesn’t have the missile part down, and the administration seems pretty split on where they have the nuclear part down. The report, which was mandated by Congress for public release in the last military spending bill, provides no timeline for anything.

But they could “eventually” come up with a missile that has that long of a range, since it is something within the realm of human technology, and they also could conceivably figure out how to miniaturize the warhead. Efforts to put satellites in orbit are a big part of learning how to fire a rocket that far.

North Korea’s ability to put satellites up is slap-dash at best though, with the people who recover the rockets often shocked by how primitive they actually are, though they did work at least one time. Accuracy is expected to be a huge problem for them, and the re-entry technology needed for a missile would be another, though, so eventually could well mean quite a long time.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.