https://www.defensenews.com/news/pentagon-congress/2017/07/28/pentagon-detects-north-korea-missile-launch/WASHINGTON — Top U.S. generals are weighing ”military response options” following a North Korean missile test that analysts believe, for the first time, showed a capability to strike the continental United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Following the launch Friday morning, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joe Dunford, and Commander, U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Harry Harris called the Republic of Korea Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Gen. Lee Sun-jin, according to the Pentagon.
“During the call Dunford and Harris expressed the ironclad commitment to the U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance,” a Pentagon release stated. ”The three leaders also discussed military response options.” Harris joined Dunford in his Pentagon office to make the phone call.
Hours after the launch, there is increasing consensus among analysts that the preliminary characteristics of the launch show the capability to exceed 10,000 km in range, a distance capable of potentially threatening New York or San Diego.
Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis issued an statement on the launch from the Defense Department.
“The U.S. Department of Defense detected and tracked a single North Korea missile launch today at about 10:41 a.m. [Eastern Daylight Time],” said Davis, reading the official statement. “We assess that this missile was an intercontinental ballistic missile, as had been expected.”
Davis said the missile was launched from Mupyong-ni, and said it traveled “about 1,000 kilometers before splashing down in the Sea of Japan.”
Mupyong-ni “is an arms plant up in the far north of North Korea, north of Pyongyang,” Davis said. The missile “splashed down inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone, about 88 nautical miles from Hokkaido,” Davis told reporters at the Pentagon.
“We’re working with our interagency partners for a more detailed assessment,” he said.
North American Aerospace Defense Command assessed the launch and “determined it was not a threat to North America,” Davis said.
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, told Defense News that the decision to do a night launch from a new location “demonstrates that we can’t preempt them” from future launches.
Most worryingly, Lewis noted the reported 45-minute flight time of the missile and other data, which would “be consistent” with longer-range estimates of the weapon’s capabilities — perhaps putting its range in the 10,000 km range — distance enough to put continental U.S. locations at risk.
“Preliminary reports [are] consistent with computer models showing that the missile can hit targets in CONUS,” he said.
David Wright, co-director of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Global Security Program, wrote on his website that the launch characteristics show that a number of major U.S. cities may now be in range.
“Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago appear to be well within range of this missile, [and] Boston and New York may be just within range,” Wright wrote. “Washington DC may be just out of range.”However, Wright stressed that “it is important to keep in mind that we do not know what payload the missile carried on this test. If it was lighter than the actual warhead the missile would carry, the ranges would be shorter than those estimated above.”
