The United States and South Korean militaries gave a demonstration of air power after the North launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile.
The launch of the solid-fuel Hwasong-19 rocket, overseen by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was the latest in the frequent missile tests the nuclear-armed regime has conducted in defiance of United Nations Security Council sanctions.
Japan’s Defense Ministry tracked the ICBM flying northeast for 86 minutes, the longest duration yet for a North Korean missile, before it splashed down in the Sea of Japan. The event drew condemnation from Japan, South Korea, and the U.S., with the latter demanding Pyongyang refrain from “further unlawful and destabilizing acts.”
Newsweek reached out to the North Korean embassy in China with an emailed request for a response.
Korean Central News Agency
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a press release that the drills were focused on countering nuclear and ballistic missile threats from Pyongyang. The allies “demonstrated their combined capabilities to overwhelm the enemy,” the statement added.
The more than 110 participating aircraft executed a range of mock combat sorties and precision bombing drills over the Yellow Sea, known in Korea as the West Sea, “in response to North Korea’s long-range ballistic missile launches.”
The U.S. contributed F-35As, F-16s, and Marine Corps MQ-9 Reaper drones, while South Korea deployed F-35Bs, F-15Ks, and KF-16s, a domestically enhanced version of the original Fighting Falcon.
Seoul is closely coordinating with its U.S. ally to monitor security developments on the Korean Peninsula, vowing to “always maintain the capability and readiness to overwhelmingly punish provocation by North Korea,” the statement concluded.
In a video shared with local media by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a Korean F-15 can be detonating a GBU-12 guided bomb. Its target was meant to replicate a North Korean transporter-erector launch vehicle like the one that appeared to be used to launch the ICBM.
In a statement aired by North Korea’s international broadcaster Voice of Korea, Kim emphasized the need to strengthen the country’s nuclear forces, citing the “dangerous tightening of their nuclear alliance and various adventuristic military maneuvers” by rivals—an apparent reference to the U.S. nuclear umbrella over South Korea and the allies’ frequent war-games simulating conflict with the North.
Kim said the “security situation” required Pyongyang to continue advancing its “modern strategic forces” and vowed never to stop “bolstering its nuclear forces,” the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported.
The launch came just hours after U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met with South Korean counterpart Kim Yong-hyun in Washington. In the press conference that followed, Kim labeled the North’s missile and nuclear programs an “existential threat” not only to Seoul but the entire region.
Austin reaffirmed the U.S.’s commitment to Seoul’s defense in line with the policy of extended deterrence and pledged that a nuclear attack by the North would end in the annihilation of the Kim regime.
Inter-Korean tensions, already at their highest in decades, became even more fraught after thousands of North Korean troops were deployed to Russia. U.S. officials have said some 8,000 are already in the border region of Kursk, where Russian forces have since August been struggling to contain a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
