North Korea’s “Carrier-Killer” May Be No Such Thing
John Schilling | 38 North
Details are still scarce on last Friday’s missile test, but it appears to have been the missile provisionally named “KN-17” and described in sensational press reports as a “Carrier-Killer.” We have seen this missile before, certainly in the April 15 parade celebrating Kim Il Sung’s birthday, and possibly in two previous tests. All of these tests were reported by allied intelligence agencies as failures, and none were accompanied by the propaganda footage with which North Korea reports successful missile tests and demonstrations. Still, the North usually does manage to recover from test failures, and the consequences of an anti-ship ballistic missile in North Korean hands are worth considering. But we should also consider the possibility that the missile is intended for use against targets on land, which is a more plausible near-term threat.
DPRK Will Bolster Nuclear Deterrence at Maximum Speed: Foreign Ministry Spokesman
KCNA Watch
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK in a statement Monday said that the touch-and-go situation, created on the Korean peninsula due to the U.S. DPRK-targeted joint military exercises for aggression and the military threat, has left a serious lesson.
What War With North Korea Would Look Like
Jon Wolfsthal
The Trump administration continues to talk with regional leaders in Southeast Asia about how to address rising tensions with North Korea. Many analysts say the possibility of a clash is improbable, but with U.S. naval fleets off the Korean Peninsula and tough diplomatic talk, relations are on a fine line. That raises the question: What would war with a nuclear-powered North Korea even look like?
Nuclear Warhead Modernization Needs Funding Increase, GAO Finds
Aaron Mehta | Defense News
The National Nuclear Security Administration is underestimating how much funding it needs to update and maintain America’s nuclear warheads, a government watchdog has concluded. A new Government Accountability Office report on the NNSA, a quasi-independent branch of the Department of Energy that manages the nuclear stockpile, warns that the agency has five major modernization programs that will be underfunded in the coming years — which in turn could lead to program delays.
Iran, EU to Build Advanced Nuclear Safety Center
PressTV
Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi made the remarks in a joint press conference on Saturday with European Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete, who is in Tehran to take part in the first-ever Iran-EU Business Forum on Sustainable Energy. Salehi added that the nuclear safety center would extend services to regional countries as well.
Under Trump, A Looming North Korean ICBM Threat Brings Alliance 'Decoupling' Fears Back to East Asia
Ankit Panda | Diplomat
It hasn’t been a good week for allied reassurance in Northeast Asia for the United States. I wrote last week about how Trump damaged the alliance with off-the-cuff suggestions that South Korea ought to cough up $1 billion for the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system and that the South Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) should be renegotiated. Things haven’t improved much since then. Despite U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster’s attempts to control the damage over the weekend, Trump likely aggravated matters when he told Bloomberg on Monday that he would be “honored” to meet Kim Jong-un, the authoritarian leader of a regime in North Korea responsible for untold human suffering and rights abuses.