After repeated failed tests of its intermediate range ballistic missile over the past few months, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) attempted this morning to once again demonstrate its ability to strike with nuclear weapons, launching two Musudan missiles within four hours. The first missile traveled a mere 95 miles (about 150km) before crashing into the sea off the east coast of the Korean peninsula.

The second flew a more impressive 250 miles (about 400km). There is some disagreement about whether that launch was a complete success, however. North Korea did not previously announce the test or issue a warning to the UN's civil aviation authority of the launches, so it is possible that the missile was aimed at an intentionally closer target area. The real measure of whether the test qualified as a success would be its trajectory—if the missile reached a sufficient altitude to reach more distant targets.

The Musudan, also known as the BM-25, has been estimated previously to have a range of between 2,500 and 4,000km (1,500 to 2,500 miles). Based on 1960s-era Soviet technology with some homegrown tweaks (including a larger fuel supply for extending range), kits for the Musudan were allegedly sold to Iran by North Korea. But despite the fact that North Korea has had Musudan missiles for over a decade, there have been no flight tests of the system in the past—likely because the North Korean regime believed that the Soviet-era design was already proven to be reliable.

However, posturing by the current North Korean regime likely pressed the DPRK's military into a series of test launches this year ahead of a meeting between high-ranking North Korean officials and Chinese president Xi Jingping earlier this month. In May, a Musudan missile exploded on launch, marking the fourth straight launch failure in a row, though North Korea apparently successfully tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile in April.

Much of whether the second missile launch could be considered a success depends on exactly what North Korea was trying to demonstrate—other than the fact that the regime was willing to continue to provoke its neighbors and the United States. Kim Dong-yub, a former South Korean naval officer and researcher at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies, told the North Korea news and analysis service NK News that “if the test was carried out to see the Musudan’s capability of loading a nuclear warhead, aimed at using it to threaten Guam, then it should be considered a failure as it only reached 400 kilometers. But under the pretense that the Musudan is already a proven system, if the North carried out the launch to test the ballistic re-entry system and the successful detonation of the warhead—to make the point that they are capable of striking the US mainland—then this is another story.”