North Korea's latest missile launch 'raises alarms' it's serious about shooting down US planes

North Korea's latest launch of a long-range missile is dangerously raising the risk that the nuclear-armed state will make good on its threat to shoot down US spy planes operating near its waters, analysts have said.

The sanctions-hit North fired what was believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) from an area near Pyongyang on Wednesday morning. After being launched from a lofted trajectory, the missile flew some 1,000km before splashing into the water, according to South Korea's military.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and leaders of Nato's other Indo-Pacific partner countries criticised the launch while on the sidelines of the Nato summit in Lithuania, calling for a joint response to missile and nuclear threats.

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"[The missile launch] again shows that the security of the Atlantic and the Pacific regions are inseparable," Yoon said.

Yang Moo-jin, a political-science professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said Wednesday's launch was intended as a warning to the US for its reconnaissance flights, and the impending arrival of a nuclear submarine in the South.

"This move alarmingly raises the possibility of the North carrying out its threat to shoot down US spy planes" flying over its exclusive economic zone, although international laws grant other countries the freedom of navigation and overflights in the zone, Yang said.

The North's first ICBM launch in about three months followed a series of warnings from Pyongyang to Washington over US spy planes flying near the North's waters and an imminent arrival of an American nuclear submarine in the South.

It came barely a day after Kim Yo-jong, the powerful sister of the North's leader Kim Jong-un, issued a statement alleging a US spy aircraft entered North Korea's exclusive economic zone.

She threatened that North Korea would take "clear and resolute actions" against US surveillance flights within the North's maritime economic zone beyond the inter-Korean sea border, and said a "shocking" incident could occur.

On Monday, a spokesperson for North Korea's defence ministry accused the US spy aircraft of recently intruding into its airspace, threatening there was no guarantee such a plane would not be shot down.

The US and South Korea dismissed the North's accusations and urged it to refrain from any acts or rhetoric that raises animosities.

It is noteworthy that Kim Yo-jong said on Monday she was "delegated" to give the US these warnings, meaning she was following orders, said political-science professor Park Won-gon from Ewha University.

"North Korea tends to follow through with actions when Kim Yo-jong says she is delegated by the leader to make such a warning," he told This Week in Asia.

In 2020, Kim Yo-jong said she was "delegated" to warn that an inter-Korean liaison office in the North's border city of Kaesong would be destroyed.

The office was soon blown up in a dramatic display of anger against then-South Korean President Park Geun-hye for taking a hard line on the North, bringing inter-Korean exchanges to a screeching halt, the professor said.

On Monday, the North's defence ministry denounced the US plan to send a strategic nuclear submarine to the Korean peninsula in the near future for the first time since 1981, warning the move could "incite the worst crisis of nuclear conflict in practice".

At a summit in April 2023, South Korea and the US agreed to "further enhance the regular visibility of strategic assets to the Korean peninsula, as evidenced by the coming visit of a US nuclear ballistic missile submarine" to the South.

Yang said the submarine's arrival was likely to take place around July 18, when the inaugural meeting of the US-South Korea "Consultative Group" to discuss "extended deterrence" against the North opens in Seoul.

In a statement issued on Monday, a spokesperson of the North's Defence Ministry noted that North Korea had shot down a US EC-121 reconnaissance plane in 1969, killing all 31 Americans on board and a US helicopter in North Korea in 1994, killing one of two pilots.

"You cannot compare current tensions to the past ones when the North had no nuclear weapons. To avoid a nuclear war, we must give diplomacy a chance again, rather than blindly continuing with sanctions and pressure that have produced little results for decades," Yang said.

Wednesday's launch appeared also to be intended as a morale booster after the North lost face by admitting to the failure of its much-vaunted space satellite launch last month, analysts say.

It also came ahead of the 70th anniversary of the signing of the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean war on July 27, celebrated as Victory Day in North Korea.

Leif-Eric Easley, international studies professor at Ewha University, said Washington and Seoul recognised the need to increase alliance cooperation to reassure the South Korean public and deter North Korean aggression.

"Visible visits by US strategic assets do not change the capabilities involved in the defence of South Korea but do demonstrate political will to coordinate the implementation of extended deterrence," he said.

"However, Pyongyang is seizing upon the movement of American aircraft and submarines as an excuse to brandish and further develop its own weapons."

Additional reporting by The Korea Times

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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