AMAC Exclusive – By Ben Solis
North Korea’s first missile test of 2024, which came on January 15, has renewed fears among Asian and Western military leaders that the Hermit Kingdom may have more advanced missile technologies than previously thought, including hypersonic warheads. Meanwhile, in an alarming parallel development, President Joe Biden has continued to postpone missile defense upgrades for U.S. military bases in the Pacific.
South Korean and Japanese military officials reported shortly after the launch earlier this week that the missile flew some 620 miles from Pyongyang before splashing into the sea. After testing five long-range intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in 2023 – the most ever – along with dozens of other smaller launches, this latest test is another example of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s growing aggression.
The latest launch comes two months after Pyongyang announced that it had successfully tested new solid-fuel engines, which allow missiles to strike more distant targets (current estimates put the range of North Korea’s missile fleet at more than 3,100 miles) and fly at much higher speeds, making them harder to detect. North Korean officials also announced that the missile launched on Sunday carried a maneuverable hypersonic warhead – a claim that, if true, would mean North Korean missiles can now likely thwart existing U.S. missile defense systems.
There have also been reports that North Korea is developing long-range missiles that could even reach cities on the East Coast of the United States.
A South Korean official told me that North Korea’s latest missiles are capable of striking U.S. military bases in Japan and Guam, the latter of which is just under 1,900 miles from North Korea and is home to some 22,000 U.S. military servicemembers and families.
Three other officials and specialists with whom I spoke who are involved in U.S. missile defense in the Indo-Pacific did not conceal their concern about the pace of North Korean missile development – pointing specifically to the inability of President Biden to prioritize the development of new missile defense technologies. They further said that Biden has abandoned the core idea of missile defense.
“At first, one has to understand that threat is not just from North Korea anymore, but also China, Russia, and Iran,” one Taiwanese official told me. He and many others in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Australia have concluded that Biden has failed to strengthen and extend U.S. strategic deterrence in the Indo-Pacific.
While Kim Jong Un was largely held in check by former President Donald Trump, he began to rapidly increase investment in production of ICBMs and hypersonic technology shortly after Biden took office. According to a 2022 report from the South Korean Defense Ministry, North Korea has been working in conjunction with China and Russia to undermine the missile defense systems of the United States and its allies.
DoYoon An, a former South Korean defense official, told me that Kim “is increasing this threat hourly, not daily, striving to produce more ICBMs with the intent of reaching far beyond the region.”
Yet in response, Biden has dramatically cut funding for the Long Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR) project, which was greenlit by Trump. LRDR was designed to replace older radar systems and could provide crucial early warning for hypersonic threats like those now emerging from North Korea.
One major advantage of LRDR and related systems is their ability to detect missiles in the earliest stages of flight, known as the “boost phase,” when they are most vulnerable. Japanese aviation engineer Dr. Masaki Takahashi told me, “At its early phase, the missile is most vulnerable as its large size cannot be concealed, its slow speed cannot be accelerated, and its scorching temperature can’t be cooled down” – all factors that give missile interceptor systems the advantage.
“Predicting the trajectory of such a missile at the early phase is less complex, and the threatening capacity of the interceptor depends on the distance between the ballistic missile launcher and the intercepting platform,” Dr. Takahashi added.
Notably, Biden’s antipathy toward missile defense projects dates back decades, all the way to his opposition in the Senate to projects related to Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). In many ways SDI was the forerunner of all modern missile defense initiatives. It was as part of SDI in the 1980s that the U.S. military, in coordination with leading American universities, first began exploring the idea of using chemical lasers to down missiles – a technology that is now at the core of the most advanced missile interceptor platforms.
The first field tests of this technology came during the first Gulf War and were successful. In 2010, however, President Barack Obama canceled the chemical laser program without replacing it with another boost-phase missile defense project.
Although President Trump resumed boost-phase research soon after taking office in 2017, Biden again cut funding for the program in 2021. Biden’s seemingly inexplicable opposition to investing in missile defense technology has now continued in the White House.
With advanced missile threats growing by the day, the world is becoming more dangerous as a result and American lives are at risk.
Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.
