North Korea displayed a lot of missiles – including big ones – at a bombastic military parade over the weekend. But what do we really know about Pyongyang’s missile capabilities? Defence expert Melissa Hanham explains.
Kim Jong-un put on quite a show to mark the 105th anniversary of the birth of his grandfather Kim Il-sung, North Korea’s founding leader. More new hardware was on display than ever before, including new inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
To its domestic audience, it was a demonstration of technological might and prosperity. To outsiders it was a threat: be you near or far you will eventually be in range.
The Kim Jong-un years have seen increasingly frequent missile tests, all defying UN sanctions, but have they made any difference to the North’s capabilities?
The birth of North Korea’s missile programme
North Korea’s ballistic missile programme grew out of one of the most widely proliferated missiles of all time: the Scud.
In 1979, then Egyptian President Anwar Sadat transferred a small number of the Soviet missiles to North Korea as part of a broader agreement to co-operate on missile technology.
North Korea then reverse-engineered the Scud and began producing and testing their own missiles, called Hwasong-6 and Hwasong-7.