One monitoring group now thinks North Korea could be capable of a nuclear attack on San Diego within a year or two after the nation’s July 4 launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile showed a surprising level of technological advancement.

38 North is a group at Johns Hopkins University’s US-Korea Institute which monitors and analyzes activity in North Korea, particular when it comes to the country’s weapons of mass destruction. San Diego was featured in a blog post published on Monday analyst John Schilling titled “What is True and Not True About North Korea’s Hwasong-14 ICBM.”

https://twitter.com/38NorthNK/status/884515836123336708

Early assessments of the “Hwasong-14 ICBM” launched concluded that — if fired at a different trajectory — it could have reached Alaska. Schilling said so too. On Monday, he posted a technical evaluation on the “emerging reality.”

“After the frenzy of technical speculation over the successful launch of North Korea’s Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the dust seems to be clearing and the emerging reality is that the North has an unreliable missile that can reach Alaska or Hawaii with a single nuclear warhead, and would be lucky to hit even a city-sized target,” Schilling wrote. “However, with a year or two of additional testing and development, it will likely become a missile that can reliably deliver a single nuclear warhead to targets along the U.S. West Coast, possibly with enough accuracy to destroy soft military targets like naval bases.”

38 North’s analysis found that the same missile from July 4 on a different trajectory — it was launched at a very high angle so as not to overshoot Japan — could have reached a distance of 7,000 to 8,000 kilometers (4349 to 4970 miles). But Schilling writes that “it can probably do a bit better than that when all the bugs are worked out.”

“A range of as much as 9,700 kilometers (6027 miles), approximately the distance from North Korean launch sites to the US naval base at San Diego, would be possible with a 500 kg payload,” he wrote. “We’re pretty sure North Korea can actually build nuclear warheads about that size.”

Naval Base San Diego is located on 1,600 land acres and 326 acres of water and is home to the Pacific Fleet, which consists of 46 Navy ships.

The 38 North analysis adds that in perhaps five years, North Korea could be able to incorporate decoys to challenge U.S. missile defenses.

“Let’s hope US missile defenses are up to that challenge,” Schilling writes.

To read the full technical assessment by 38 North, go here:

What is True and Not True About North Korea’s Hwasong-14 ICBM: A Technical Evaluation

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin

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