US expert agrees with South Korea's description of North Korean rockets as SRBMs

The Korean Central News Agency released Wednesday photos of North Korea's new tactical guided missile being launched in a demonstration firing a day before. Yonhap

The guided rockets that North Korea claimed to have fired in recent weeks are no different from missiles, a U.S. expert said Tuesday, endorsing South Korea's assessment that what the communist nation fired were short-range ballistic missiles.

Vann H. Van Diepen, a former U.S. State Department and intelligence official with expertise on weapons of mass destruction issues, made the case on 38 North, a website providing analysis on North Korea.

He said that the difference between a rocket and a missile is in part political because the South wants to highlight the North's violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions in its four rounds of launches since July 25. The North, he said, wants to underscore that the tests do not violate the resolutions and are not inconsistent with its pledge to refrain from long-range missile tests.

"From a technical standpoint, however, a 'guided' rocket is a 'missile' (the presence of guidance is what distinguishes a 'rocket' from a 'missile'), and a missile that 'has a ballistic trajectory over most of its flight path' is a 'ballistic missile,'" Van Diepen said.

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"The new DPRK 'guided, multiple launch rocket system' qualifies on both counts, so the South Koreans are correct," he said, referring to the North by its formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Van Diepen also said the South Korean military's assessment that the July 31 projectiles flew 250 km suggests the North has added at least 60 km to its current 190 km-range multiple launch rocket capabilities.

The author was comparing the KN-09 multiple launch rocket system to the new system that has been identified as KN-25.

"The new system's apparent longer range gives North Korea the capacity to extend the capabilities the KN-09 already provides at least another 60 km into the ROK ― an incremental increase in DPRK capabilities," he said.

ROK stands for South Korea's official name, the Republic of Korea.

"It also could threaten the same area as the KN-09 while having another 60 km of North Korean territory within which to hide," he added.

In terms of the potential threat to the U.S. and its allies, Van Diepen said the new system will provide a "modest increase" in the threat by subjecting more U.S. and South Korean targets in South Korea to attack.

The new system could also increase the intensity of attacks, give the North more flexibility in choosing between multiple launch rockets and "real" short-range ballistic missiles, and further complicate the task of U.S. and South Korean missile defenses, he said. (Yonhap)

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