A new report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) found that North Korea constructed a missile base near the Chinese border that is capable of hitting the United States.
The report, which calls itself the “first in-depth open-source study confirming the base,” believes the base holds “brigade-sized unit equipped with a total of 6-9 nuclear capable Hwasong-15 or -18 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), or an as yet unknown ICBM, and their transporter-erector-launchers (TEL) or mobile-erector-launchers (MEL).”
Such contents “pose a potential nuclear threat to East Asia and the continental United States,” CSIS warns.
“Current assessments are that during times of crisis or war, these launchers and missiles will exit the base, meet special warhead storage/transportation units, and conduct launch operations from dispersed pre-surveyed sites,” the report adds.
CSIS explains that the base’s construction likely began around 2004 and was operational around 2014. “This ten-year construction timeline, when taken in context with the construction of the other strategic ballistic missile belt’s missile bases, suggests a considerable level of North Korean developmental planning that is rarely appreciated outside the Korean Peninsula,” the report notes.
The discovery of the base comes as North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un called for the buildup of the country’s nuclear arsenal, demanding “rapid expansion” of the weapons program amid recent joint military drills between the United States and South Korea.
Korean Central News Agency quoted Kim as saying the situation requires North Korea to “make a radical and swift change in the existing military theory and practice and rapid expansion of nuclearization.”
