We do not know
everything, or maybe even very much, about North Korea’s latest missile
test. But we know what we need to know at this moment: North Korea
probably did not join the regrettable fraternity of nuclear nations last
week, but it is going to do so soon. Another case of proliferation is
deplorable in the main — another failure of the professed post-Hiroshima
ethos. But the world the major nuclear powers insist we must live in is
full of perversities. If North Korea can now deter a nuclear attack by a
nation that repeatedly threatens one, it stands to stabilize a
frightening situation. In my read, diplomacy just took a step forward.
Pyongyang
conducted this latest test last Wednesday, when it sent an
intercontinental ballistic missile eastward into the Sea of Japan. It is
the 23rd
launch this year. Combining missile and nuclear tests, Kim Jong-un has
conducted well over 40 since, reversing his father’s policy, he began to
reemphasize the nation’s nuclear capabilities in 2011–12. There were
big advances this time: The Hwasong–15 ICBM is more powerful than
anything the North has heretofore marshaled. It has big new engines, can
travel farther, and carry a larger warhead. The commonly shared
conclusion now, as reported in the press, is that Pyongyang is a few
tests away from a credible capability of hitting Washington and
everything west of it with a nuclear weapon.
South
Korean scientists say there remain several things for the North to
demonstrate. These include the missile’s intact reentry into the earth’s
atmosphere and the North’s ability to guide the trajectory and activate
the warhead. There is no reason to doubt that Pyongyang is indeed still
short of a perfected nuclear delivery system. But the equation
nonetheless changed this week. It would be sheer recklessness to
conclude otherwise.
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