North Korea’s latest missile advances mean it is now much harder for the U.S. to prevent Kim Jong Un from launching nuclear weapons.
Pentagon insiders and North Korea watchers on Capitol Hill say Kim’s ability to deploy solid-fuel rockets—if proven—would complicate American efforts to launch preemptive strikes and that the Hermit Kingdom has entered a new phase of nuclear power.
The North recently claimed that it flight-tested a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile for the first time. The new missiles would be a breakthrough in the country’s efforts to build a harder-to-detect weapon that threatens the continental United States.
