- A top US Army general warned that North Korea is on its way to developing a key nuclear capability.
- Gen. Paul LaCamera also said this week that Pyongyang's next nuclear test is only a matter of time.
A top US Army general is warning that North Korea is on its way to developing a key nuclear capability and cautioned that a future weapons test is inevitable.
Gen. Paul LaCamera, the commander of US Forces Korea, delivered testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday about the security environment in northeast Asia and the status of North Korea's weapons development program, which he described as "concerning."
LaCamera noted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's statements earlier this year, when he said that his country needs to build up its stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons and develop intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) so it can carry out a rapid nuclear counterstrike if necessary.
Kim "believes a nuclear deterrent is the best means to preserve his regime and coerce the international community to lift sanctions," LaCamera said, according to a written statement of his remarks. "He is determined to operationalize his nuclear arsenal and is developing a credible second-strike capability."
Having a second-strike capability means that a nuclear-armed state's nuclear strike capabilities will survive even if the country gets nuked by another military, giving it the ability to retaliate with its own counterstrike. The US, for example, maintains this by having several options to carry out a nuclear strike, like land-based silos, bombers, and submarines that collectively make up the nuclear triad.
Last year, North Korea passed legislation that allowed its forces to pre-emptively strike first with nuclear weapons if it detected an imminent threat to the country's leadership, a vague premise for a first strike. The law overhauled one from years prior that stated Pyongyang could use nukes only as a retaliatory measure.
LaCamera also said North Korea is slated to carry out a seventh nuclear test at some point in the future. "Without outside influence, it is not a matter of 'if' DPRK will detonate another nuclear device but 'when,'" he said.
North Korea conducted six nuclear tests between 2006 and 2017, and each underground test produced explosive yields progressively larger than the one before it. It's been widely expected that a seventh test will take place sometime soon.
LaCamera's testimony came a week after North Korea tested a solid-fueled missile for the first time, signaling an important step forward in its weapons program. State-run Korean Central News Agency said the ICBM — which is known as Hwasong-18 — will "fulfill its mission of an important war deterrent."
Photographs published by state media last week show Kim, military figures, and his daughter Kim Ju Ae inspecting the missile and watching the launch unfold. Ju Ae has become a regular figure at North Korea's military-oriented events in recent months after spending years cloaked in mystery.
North Korea fueled speculation about the Hwasong-18 at a military parade in early February, during which the authoritarian regime unveiled what appeared to be a new design for a solid-fueled ICBM. Unlike North Korea's liquid-propellant ICBMs, which require more time to set up, solid-fueled missiles are more dangerous because they can be safely fueled in advance and launched with little to no warning.
Experts previously told Insider that Pyongyang had indicated in recent years that its weapons program was heading toward the use of solid-fuel for its missiles. And others said the same recently.
Jeffrey Lewis, the director of the east Asia nonproliferation program at the Center for Nonproliferation studies, called the Hwasong-18 a "Minuteman knock-off," referring to the American-made ICBM, and noted that the recent test was a troubling yet predictable development.
"This is a natural technical evolution that any country would make," he said in a recent podcast. "The minute they started parading road-mobile ICBMs, I certainly knew they would eventually want to have solid-propellant road-mobile ICBMs because they're just so much more flexible."