by Paul Serran

Pyongyang goes hypersonic?

While the world is reeling from the wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine, the Korean Peninsula is turning into an even bigger powder keg.

With ‘Rocket Man’ Kim Jong Un’s regime developing massive missile capabilities, including nuclear weapons, the region is turning into a potential hot-spot for trouble.

Today (22), it arises that North Korean state media is alleging that its latest missile tests on Sunday involved a new weapons system of ‘great significance’.

Photographic evidence suggests that Pyongyang launched a missile described as hypersonic, reported to have been the Hwasong-11E-1 hypersonic SRBM (short-range ballistic missile).

Associated Press reported:

"North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said the weapon’s development would strengthen the country’s war readiness and give its enemies an ‘incurable headache’, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said. He did not describe what the weapon was.

Kim observed Sunday’s tests with his teenage daughter, widely seen as a potential successor."

Kim Jong Un in 2025 watching missile launches

"The launches extended a recent run in military displays, including live-fire exercises and the commissioning of a new warship, as Kim continues to flaunt his growing nuclear program despite U.S. calls to revive diplomacy.

Following years of intensified testing, Kim now has an extensive arsenal of nuclear-capable missiles, including long-range weapons potentially capable of reaching the U.S. mainland and shorter-range systems designed to overwhelm missile defenses in South Korea and Japan."

Space.com reported:

"Hypersonic vehicles travel at least five times faster than the speed of sound and are highly maneuverable. They are therefore much harder to track and intercept than ballistic missiles, which, though very fast, follow predictable trajectories.

The United States and a number of other countries have been developing hypersonic weapon systems for a number of years now, so it’s no big surprise that North Korea is working on one as well.

[…] [North Korean state media] said that Kim described the system as a type of ‘ultra-modern defense technology’ that ‘would give the enemy an incurable headache and a very cruel and unavoidable blow’, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap."