North Korea showed off what appeared to a series of new missiles and launchers at its huge annual military parade in a clear message that it is ready to defend itself as a nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier approached the region. The apparently new long-range and submarine-based missiles were the stars of the military parade that marked the 105th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, the grandfather of the country’s current leader Kim Jong-un.
As Kim watched, row after row of military bands and goose-stepping soldiers marched alongside tanks and missiles. Amid all the military show of force, experts detected what looked like two new intercontinental ballistic missiles (some analysts said only one was really new), which would technically raise the possibility that Pyongyang could strike the mainland United States. Still, analysts say North Korea often shows off mock-ups of new technology it has yet to master and the consensus is it is still some time away from being able to fire an intercontinental missile that can cross the Pacific.
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The show of military might came as the U.S. Navy sent the USS Carl Vinson strike group to the region. “The Vinson was sent out to make a statement. North Korea responded by showing off the most new missile hardware we’ve ever seen in a parade before,” Melissa Hanham, senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California, told CNN.
While Kim himself didn’t speak during the Day of the Sun parade, other top officials made sure Pyongyang’s message was heard loud and clear. “We’re prepared to respond to an all-out war with an all-out war,” Choe Ryong Hae, seen as the country’s second most powerful official, warned. “We are ready to hit back with nuclear attacks of our own style against any nuclear attacks.” State news agency KCNA also said the Trump’s “serious military hysteria” had reached a “dangerous phase which can no longer be overlooked.”
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In an interview with the Associated Press, North Korea’s vice foreign minister specifically mentioned Trump’s tweets have contributed to the rising tensions. “Trump is always making provocations with his aggressive words,” Han Song Ryol said.
The military parade came a day after China warned that diplomacy was needed to defuse rising tensions that could quickly escalate into a full-blown crisis. “The United States and South Korea and North Korea are engaging in tit for tat, with swords drawn and bows bent, and there have been storm clouds gathering,” China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, said. “If they let war break out on the peninsula, they must shoulder that historical culpability and pay the corresponding price for this.”
In an editorial, China’s Global Times newspaper said North Korea likely felt the shockwaves from the 11-ton “mother of all bombs” that the United States dropped in Afghanistan on Thursday. “It would be nice if the bomb could frighten Pyongyang, but its actual impact may just be the opposite,” read the editorial that said Trump “may go down in history as the ‘war president’.”
