North Korea conducted a series of weapons tests this week that suggest the country is seeking to draw lessons from the war in the Mideast to sharpen its military deterrence against the United States and South Korea.
The North Korean military said on Thursday that among the weapons tested were missiles carrying cluster-munition and graphite-bomb payloads, much like weapons that have appeared in the Middle East. Iran has launched missiles with cluster-munition warheads at Israel. And a widespread blackout in Tehran last month in led to online speculation that graphite bombs may have been used; the Pentagon has not commented.
That North Korea is testing similar weapons signals that the country is trying to learn from the Mideast war, much as it has from Russia’s war against Ukraine, and that it is incorporating those lessons into its own war plans, military experts said.
What Weapons Did North Korea Test?
In tests conducted from Monday through Wednesday, the official North Korean news agency said, North Korea’s military demonstrated several advancements in its arsenal. South Korean officials confirmed that North Korea carried out multiple weapons tests this week.
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A short-range ballistic missile known as the Hwasong-11A or KN-23 was used to test a cluster-bomb warhead and destroy an area equivalent to 10 football fields, the North Korean state media said. A cluster warhead disperses dozens of small bombs across a wide area, inflicting far greater damage than a conventional single-explosive payload.
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North Korea also tested carbon-fiber graphite bombs, also known as blackout bombs, which are designed to disable an enemy’s electrical grid by setting off extensive short-circuits.
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As part of its ongoing effort to strengthen air defenses against the superior air power of U.S. and South Korean forces, the country tested a mobile short-range antiaircraft missile system.
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It also tested the maximum thrust of a new missile engine built with “low-cost materials,” state media said, reflecting its drive to offset its disadvantages against the United States and South Korea through sheer volume of missiles and rockets.
What Are the Implications?
Several short-range ballistic missiles fired during the tests flew between 150 and 434 miles off the east coast of North Korea, South Korean officials said. Seoul did not specify which weapons were involved, but its presidential national security office convened a meeting with top defense officials on Wednesday to assess the implications for South Korean security.
“North Korea has been watching the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and incorporating key weapons systems used there into its own ability to deter and fight war,” said Hong Min, an expert on the North Korean military at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a government-funded think tank in Seoul.
North Korea has benefited before from armed conflicts abroad. It has supplied both weapons and soldiers to Russia in support of its war against Ukraine, receiving economic assistance and weapons technology in return, according to South Korean officials and analysts. Last month, North Korea unveiled new tanks equipped with systems to intercept anti-tank missiles and drones, technology South Korean experts suspect came from Russia.
The war in Ukraine, the U.S. director of national intelligence noted in an annual threat assessment in March, “will continue to have spillover effects in other parts of the globe, as shown with North Korean troops gaining valuable warfighting experience and military technology from Russia.”
Why Is North Korea Testing These Weapons Now?
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, has suspended virtually all diplomacy with Seoul and Washington since the collapse of his nuclear talks with President Trump in 2019. Since then, he has pursued closer ties with Russia and China and doubled down on expanding his military prowess. He traveled to Beijing in September to attend a military parade alongside Xi Jinping, China’s leader, and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday for a two-day visit.
North Korea’s latest round of weapons tests serves “multiple purposes,” said Yang Moo-jin, former president of the Seoul-based University of North Korean Studies. They accelerate a five-year program that Mr. Kim enacted to build up his North Korea’s defenses and deepen his country’s hostility toward South Korea. Mr. Kim has long sought to use the threat of instability on the Korean Peninsula as diplomatic leverage against Washington.
Under the five-year plan, which was adopted at a Workers’ Party congress in February, North Korea called for the mass production and deployment of short-range ballistic missiles to “greatly increase the density and durability of concentrated attack” against South Korea, which it designated as its “most hostile enemy state.”
In a statement on Tuesday, Jang Kum-chol, first vice minister of North Korea’s Foreign Ministry, called South Korea’s leaders “world-startling fools” for expecting any improvement in inter-Korean relations.
Choe Sang-Hun is the lead reporter for The Times in Seoul, covering South and North Korea.
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