By Franz-Stefan Gady
A new report provides scenarios of North Korea’s future delivery systems capabilities.
Yesterday, the U.S.-Korea Institute at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington D.C. published a compelling report entitled “The Future of North Korean Nuclear Delivery Systems,” (PDF) arguing that North Korea’s missiles have sufficient reliability and range to hit principle targets in Japan and South Korea. The authors of the report, however, are less certain that Pyongyang’s ICBM’s will be capable of hitting the continental United States, given various technical hurdles that would need to be overcome first.
“North Korea’s current delivery systems consist of about 1,000 ballistic missiles and a small number of light bombers able to reach most targets in South Korea and Japan,” the authors write. This includes a large stockpile of Scud ballistic missiles, the Nodong medium-range ballistic missile, the KN-02 Toksa short-range ballistic missile (based on the old Soviet SS-21 model) and approximately 60 Il-28 light bombers. The range of the various missiles are estimated at 300-1,500 km.
Read the full story at The Diplomat