This week's long-range missile test by North Korea marks a distinct, if unsteady, advance in its quest to develop the capability to hit the U.S. mainland, according to two experts. <\/p>\n
The distance this missile traveled confirms that North Korea is \"no longer just a regional problem. This is a U.S. problem,\" ABC News aviation consultant Steve Ganyard, a retired Marine Corps colonel, said. <\/p>\n
\"This is the first time, if the analysis is correct, that we're seeing a North Korean weapon that can hit the United States. Not the mainland, but Alaska is very much part of the United States, and this is a very worrying development,\" he said on \"Good Morning America\" today. <\/p>\n
Ganyard previously said, \"The North Koreans launched this missile almost straight up ... because they didn't want to overfly Japan or Russia.\" <\/p>\n
\"The missile itself reached an apex of almost 1,700 miles, which means, had it been on a max-range trajectory, it could have reached Anchorage and wouldn't have been far from reaching Seattle,\" he said Tuesday on ABC News' \"World News Tonight.\" <\/p>\n
Scott Snyder, a senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that while the latest test clarified North Korea's ability to fire missiles longer distances, a number of key questions remain. <\/p>\n
\"There's still a debate whether or not North Korea has been able to make a nuclear weapon small enough to put on the head of the weapon to deliver it, and there's still a debate whether or not North Korea ... has developed re-entry technology,\" he said. <\/p>\n
Such technology would allow a missile to leave Earth's atmosphere and return without burning up, Snyder said. <\/p>\n
\"The North Koreans are claiming that they have achieved some of those technologies, but it has not yet been definitively proven, and so as a result, there's a little bit of confusion and ambiguity,\" Snyder said. <\/p>\n
\"We know they're working on it, so it's really a matter of time before they develop those technologies,\" he said. \"It's not good news.\" <\/p>\n
On the other side, the United States has been working to perfect its system designed to counter North Korea's long-range missile threat. <\/p>\n
But that system still needs work, according to Ganyard. <\/p>\n
\"The U.S. has been developing a ground-based interceptor system that's designed to knock down incoming North Korean missiles, but it's very complex science,\" he said on \"World News Tonight.\" <\/p>\n
\"It's very much like hitting a bullet with a bullet, and although the most recent test was successful, the system itself is still only barely over 50 percent reliable,\" Ganyard said. <\/p>\n
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N. Korean missile test leaves clues, doubts about its technology - ABC News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This week's long-range missile test by North Korea marks a distinct, if unsteady, advance in its quest to develop the capability to hit the U.S. Continue reading