Read the full piece in the Washington Post here.
The Air Force routinely tests for the reliability of aging Minuteman III missiles, said James McKeon, a nuclear weapons analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a Washington think tank. The program is more than 50 years old but has gone through rounds of modernization, McKeon said.
McKeon also stressed the routine nature of these launches, though he said North Korea does have a tendency to frame most U.S. military action, like training exercises in South Korea and tests such as this one, as provocation.
Wednesday’s launch is another show of force in an expanding galaxy of tests, posturing and signals flowing between Washington, Seoul, Pyongyang and Beijing as North Korea’s nuclear program rapidly matures.
Read the full piece in the Washington Post here.
