Read the full piece in the LA Times here.
Philip E. Coyle III, a retired nuclear weapons design executive for the Energy Department and a former senior Pentagon official, said North Korea’s two-stage Hwasong-14 missile, which flew 45 minutes and reached an altitude of 1,850 miles in space in late July, is significantly smaller than the three-stage U.S. Minuteman III.
Although it appears that the unarmed Hwasong-14 could reach the U.S. mainland, a heavy nuclear warhead would significantly reduce its range.
“I assume what North Korea means by miniature is that it is small enough to be carried by their rocket,” Coyle said. “But this North Korean rocket does not have a lot of payload-carrying capacity.”
