5 Things You NEED To Know About North Korea’s Nuclear Missiles

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3. They’ve Tested Missile That Could Reach USA

Then news broke that North Korea could possess missiles capable of striking the continental US. A test launch in May of the Hwasong-12 missile ended successfully after reaching an altitude of 2,111.5 km, putting all of East Asia and even Guam under the threat of nuclear missile attack. In July, North Korea tested two Hwasong-14 missiles that reached even greater heights, one reaching 2,802 km and the other 3,724.9 km, and possibly putting US cities like Los Angeles and New York in range.

While those distances don’t seem to be in-range of North Korea, you must understand that these missiles were not tested on an ideal flight-path; they were fired straight up and then angled to come down in the Sea of Japan. Had those missiles been angled correctly to fly across the globe, they could easily reach the continental US.

2. They May Be Getting Supplies From Russia, China

Despite being under economic sanctions from every country on Earth, North Korea has still managed to acquire materials necessary to both create an atomic bomb and the missile capable of delivering it to the United States. All signs seem to point to Russia and China as their partners in crime.

The Hwasong-14 uses the RD-250 rocket engine developed by Ukraine for the Russian R-36 missile. Ukraine has denied all reports of supplying the engines and instead points the blame at Russia for supplying these engines via the black market, possibly even supplying an entirely intact R-36 missile.

Meanwhile, China provided North Korea with the WS51200 Wanshan Special Vehicle, a giant truck capable of transporting North Korean missiles as well as firing them from any location within the country. China says the vehicles were intended for civilian use, but it seems hard to believe the country wasn’t aware the trucks would be used in the North Korean Missile program.

1. They Have Miniaturized Warhead Capable Of Being Put In Missile

There’s no point in building an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) if it can’t deliver a warhead, which was a problem North Korea couldn’t deal with until very recently.

While North Korea reportedly developed an atomic bomb several times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima, it was large, cumbersome, and impossible to mount on the tiny end of a ballistic missile. Since then, the Washington Post reported last August that the North has developed a weapon small enough to mount inside their current generation of missiles that could potentially strike at targets within the United States.

This has drastically upped the stakes in the American president’s war of words with Kim Jong-Un, and if cooler heads don’t prevail, it could spell the end of civilization as we know it.