North Korea’s New Hwasong-16B Hypersonic Glider Heralds a New Missile Era

On April 2, North Korea unveiled the lengthy awaited successor to its Hwasong-12 “Guam Killer” intermediate vary ballistic missile. The take a look at launch of the Hwasong-16B adopted years of studies on the testing of related applied sciences facilitating a generational leap in efficiency. 

With an estimated vary of 4,000-5,000 kilometers, North Korea’s intermediate vary missiles – starting with the Hwasong-10 within the 2000s – have been prized for his or her capacity to strike key U.S. army amenities very important to sustaining the nation’s capacity to mission energy throughout the Pacific. Most notable amongst these are Andersen Air Pressure Base and Guam Naval Base, with a 4,300-km vary additionally placing increasing air pressure amenities on Wake Island inside attain. Missile strikes disabling or destroying these amenities would critically restrict U.S. forces’ capacity to launch air, naval, or floor assaults in opposition to targets within the Western Pacific, making this functionality extremely enticing for Pyongyang within the context of its decades-long confrontation with Washington. 

The significance of amenities on Guam specifically has been highlighted by the central position that they’ve had in a number of standoffs with each North Korea and China, in addition to by the great investments the US is planning to broaden missile defenses on the territory. This significance was highlighted by North Korean chief Kim Jong Un throughout floor testing of solid-fueled engines for a brand new intermediate vary missile, possible the Hwasong-16B, in March particularly to focus on such amenities. 

The “army strategic worth of this weapon system is appreciated as essential as ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missiles] from the safety surroundings of our state and the operational demand of the Folks’s Military, and the enemies know higher about it,” he said on the time. 

The Hwasong-16B improves on its predecessor in two elementary methods. The primary is using a stable gasoline composite, mirroring developments seen throughout the Korean Folks’s Military’s arsenals. Using stable gasoline permits missiles to be saved totally fueled and thereby cuts the time required to arrange for launch to a fraction of that of liquid-fueled missiles. That is significantly essential since cell transporter erector launchers carrying the nation’s ballistic missiles are anticipated to be precedence targets for U.S. and allied air assaults in wartime, and are at their most weak when stationary in open floor getting ready for launch. 

Whereas solid-fueled ballistic missiles have been fielded for many years overseas, together with on intermediate vary ballistic missiles such because the Chinese language DF-26, the Hwasong-16B’s second main enchancment over its predecessor is way extra revolutionary: particularly the mixing of a hypersonic glide car (HGV).

North Korea first test-launched an HGV in September 2021. Now North Korea has change into the primary nation on the earth to operationalize an HGV on an intermediate vary missile. Though China and Russia each at present subject HGVs, these have been deployed solely from medium vary ballistic and cruise missiles, such because the Chinese language DF-17, and from intercontinental vary ballistic missiles, such because the Russian RS-28 Sarmat. 

Hypersonic glide automobiles are able to maneuvering in each pitch and course, together with lateral maneuvers far exterior the environment. This maneuverability, mixed with speeds of over Mach 10 even of their terminal levels, and for longer ranged automobiles effectively over Mach 20, poses severe difficulties for enemy air defenses. The fielding of a missile just like the Hwasong-16B is a possible recreation changer for regional safety, not solely as a result of it locations a really large space of the Pacific with attain of strikes that go away little warning time and are close to inconceivable to intercept, but additionally as a result of it has the potential to speed up the proliferation of comparable property within the area.

Since its withdrawal from the Intermediate Vary Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, the US has been anticipated to deploy medium and intermediate vary floor to floor ballistic and/or cruise missiles in East Asia. With the bilateral treaty between Washington and Moscow having prevented the US from deploying such missile techniques itself, China and North Korea’s rising missile capabilities have been extensively thought-about to have been a major issue within the U.S. choice to withdraw – thus permitting it to match their property with its personal comparable ones. 

In an analogous vein, North Korea’s introduction of the world’s first intermediate vary HGV has the potential to extend U.S. curiosity in fielding comparable property within the Pacific, which may in flip lead China to do the identical. Whereas China has already demonstrated mastery of the required applied sciences, it might have initially avoided operationalizing them on an intermediate vary missile, or a minimum of doing so brazenly, with a purpose to keep away from an escalated arms race with the US.

Whereas the Hwasong-16B’s introduction is a really vital growth in and of itself, and throws the viability of the US’ unprecedented missile protection buildup on Guam into severe query, its potential broader implications for regional safety stay far higher. With China having raised rising issues relating to U.S. plans to deploy missile launchers with beforehand prohibited vary within the mid and western Pacific, escalation of the missile race with HGVs might be significantly extra regarding nonetheless for Beijing. Such glide automobiles may also notably be used for anti-shipping functions, as demonstrated by China with its medium vary DF-17, offering a big incentive to the U.S. to pursue growth as an uneven response to the more and more unfavorable stability of energy at sea. 

In the end whereas Washington’s withdrawal from the INF Treaty was a serious turning level for the potential deployment of missile forces in East Asia, the Hwasong-16B has set a brand new bar with its capabilities, which the world’s two preeminent army powers might effectively now be extra inclined to match.