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U.S. Army soldiers install their missile defense system called Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, at a golf course in Seongju, South Korea,  The  second North Korean test launch  of an ICBM within four weeks should convince South Korea to allow deployment of a full THAAD anti-missile battery, the Pentagon said Monday. South Korea has permitted the U.S.  Army  to install two Terminal High Altitude Area Defense launchers on a former golf course south of Seoul, but South Korean President Moon Jae-in has delayed placement  of a full battery of six launchers pending an environmental study that has no timeline. The Pentagon maintained that North Korea’s test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile last Friday, following on a similar test launch July 4, had altered the security calculus on the peninsula and made the case for immediate deployment of the full THAAD battery. “A lot of people question the need for THAAD; they question the requ...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un watches the test of a new-type anti-aircraft guided weapon system organised by the Academy of National Defence Science in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) May 28, 2017. KCNA/via          North Korea fired a missile on Friday in an unusual late-night test launch, and details announced by Japanese officials and media suggested it could be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). The launch from North Korea's northern Jangang province took place at 11:41 p.m. (1441 GMT), an official at South Korea's Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. The U.S. Defense Department confirmed the launch, saying it was making further assessments.       "As a result of their launches of ICBM-level missiles, this clearly shows the threat to our nation's safety is severe and real," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that the...

file photo, a man watches a TV news program showing a file image of a missile launch conducted by North Korea, at the Seoul Railway Station  The Defense Intelligence Agency now estimates that North Korea could have an ICBM with a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the U.S. mainland by next year, The Washington Post  reported  Tuesday. The estimate by the DIA significantly shortened the timeframe for when North Korea could develop the technology for miniaturizing a nuclear warhead to fit atop an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) and survive re-entry into the atmosphere. Previous estimates said that North Korea was at least three years away from having the capability. The new confidential assessment by the DIA followed  the July 4 missile test  that North Korea claimed was an ICBM. U.S. Pacific Command initially said the missile appeared to be of intermediate range but later concluded that it had the range of an ICBM capable of hitting Alaska. The DI...

As Donald Trump’s first three weeks in office come to a close, critics are pointing out that his iconic slogan, “Make America Great Again” is starting to look more and more like an attempt to bring American society back to the 1950s. What most people haven’t realized yet is that his vision of turning back the clock also applies to America’s nuclear arsenal. Just this past week, CQ Roll Call  reported  that a blue-ribbon Pentagon panel urged the Trump administration to make the U.S. arsenal more capable of fighting a “‘limited’ atomic war.” According to the report, “The Defense Science Board … urges the president to consider altering existing and planned U.S. armaments to achieve a greater number of lower-yield weapons that could provide a ‘tailored nuclear option for limited use.’” The strategy behind limited nuclear use sounds deceptively simple. You need to escalate a conflict just  enough  to end it. As the theory goes, using low-yield nuclear weapons aga...

The half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has reportedly been assassinated in Malaysia, South Korean media and Malaysian police say. The announcement was first made by the Yonhap News Agency, South Korea's largest news agency, on Tuesday, which said 45-year-old Kim Jong-nam, the eldest son of late former leader Kim Jong-il, was “killed” in Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Monday. It added, citing an unnamed South Korean government source, that he lost his life after being attacked by two unidentified female agents with “poisoned needles.” Shortly after Yonhop’s report, South Korea's TV Chosun, a cable television network, citing multiple unnamed government sources, confirmed the assassination of Jong-nam by female assailants, adding that they had fled the crime scene and were still at large. On Tuesday evening, Malaysian police confirmed the death of Jong-nam, saying he had planned to travel to the autonomous region of Macau, which lies on the sout...

The leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, in an undated photo. Military experts in the region say that the country is still years away from achieving capabilities that it has claimed, like striking the continental United States, as well as its military bases in the Pacific. KOREAN CENTRAL NEWS AGENCY, VIA AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES SEOUL, South Korea —  North Korea  said on Monday that it had successfully tested a new nuclear-capable intermediate-range ballistic missile, claiming important progress in being able to strike its enemies with long-range missiles tipped with nuclear warheads. Confirming  the missile test  detected by the United States and South Korean authorities on Sunday, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency said it had launched an intermediate-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile named Pukguksong-2, or Polaris-2. North Korea’s leader,  Kim Jong-un , inspected the test, the news agency said. ...

Terrell Jermaine Starr Last night, the U.S. Air Force test-launched an unarmed Minuteman III ICBM from the Vandenberg Air Force Base. It’s not an event that happens every day, but it’s done to verify the reliability and accuracy of the weapons system. While it could be seen as a message to a belligerent North Korea, it’s still a test of a system wildly outdated compared to what Russia is arming up with. The missile, equipped with a reentry vehicle, flew 4,200 miles to a test range near the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. It was pulled at random from a silo at Minot Air Force Base, in North Dakota, then transported and reassembled at Vandenberg. There are no more details on how the test went. See the video below: Though, given how North Korea  recently announced  that it is developing an ICBM that can reach the U.S. mainland, the Minuteman III launch may have just been a message to Pyongyang that Washington can strike it with little notice. A...