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North Koreans Launch Rocket in Defiant Act North Koreans Launch Rocket in Defiant Act
(about 1 hour later)
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea defied the likelihood of more sanctions by the United Nations Security Council to launch a rocket on Wednesday, demonstrating that the government of its new leader, Kim Jong-un, was pressing ahead to master the technology needed to deliver a nuclear warhead on intercontinental ballistic missiles. SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched a long-range rocket on Wednesday morning that appeared to reach as far as the Philippines, an apparent success for the country’s young and untested new leader, Kim Jong-un, and a step toward the country’s goal of mastering the technology needed to deliver a nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile.
The Unha-3, or Galaxy-3, rocket blasted off from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in Tongchang-ri on North Korea’s western coast near China on Wednesday morning, a spokesman for South Korea’s Defense Ministry said. Both South Korean and Japanese officials said the initial indications were that the first and second stages of the Galaxy-3 rocket, called the Unha-3 by the North, fell into the sea along a route the country had previously announced. But the timing of the launch appeared to take American officials by surprise. Just an hour or two before blastoff from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station in Tongchang-ri on North Korea’s western coast, near China, American officials at a holiday reception at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Washington said they thought the North Koreans had run into technical problems that could take them weeks to resolve.
“That’s all we can confirm right now,” the spokesman said, speaking on the condition of anonymity until his government made an official announcement. For President Obama, the launching deepened the complexity of dealing with the new North Korean government, after four years in which promises of engagement, then threats of deeper sanctions, have done nothing to modify the country’s behavior.
It was not immediately known whether the rocket had succeeded in fulfilling North Korea’s stated goal of putting a satellite into orbit. In the days before the launch Mr. Obama’s aides were talking about “Iran-style sanctions” against North Korea if it ignored warnings from the West and from China to forgo the launching. “We think this time the Chinese are angry enough that they are serious about sending a message,” a senior American official said just hours before the launch. “But they’ve told us that before.”
North Korea has said its three-stage rocket would carry an earth-observation satellite named Kwangmyongsong-3, or Shining Star-3, and that it was exercising its right to peaceful activity in space. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said that the rocket succeeded in putting the satellite into orbit. Kim Min-seok, spokesman for South Korea’s Defense Ministry, said his government was trying to verify the North Korean claim. “We need to work on this together with the United States,” he said.
But Washington and its allies have said they think that North Korea’s rocket program has less to do with putting a satellite into orbit than with developing a delivery vehicle for a nuclear warhead and trying to turn the country into a more urgent threat that Washington must deal with by offering diplomatic and economic concessions. But the rocket appeared to fly along the trajectory North Korea had previously given to international maritime and aviation authorities, crossing over the western sea border between the two Koreas two minutes after blastoff. Six minutes later, it flew over waters west of the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, Mr. Kim said, citing data from antimissile ships deployed to track the missile.
While North Korea may still have other technological thresholds to cross, like the miniaturizing of its nuclear weapons, a successful launching of a satellite into orbit would suggest that the country had overcome a major hurdle in its efforts to demonstrate its potential of mating its growing nuclear weapons program with intercontinental ballistic missile capability. The rocket launching was expected to set off a flurry of diplomacy in the region. In Seoul, President Lee Myung-bak convened a National Security Council meeting to discuss its implications, as well as punishment against the North Korean regime, which is banned from launching the rocket under United Nations resolutions.
A failure would be an embarrassment for the young Mr. Kim, who has been struggling to establish himself a new North Korean leader hailed at home and feared abroad. Whether the launching was successful or not, Mr. Kim, by attempting a second rocket launching in the first year of his rule despite international condemnations, was dashing hopes among some analysts that he might soften North Korea’s confrontational stance. Instead, he was seen as intent on bolstering his father’s main legacy of nuclear weapons and long-range missile programs to justify his own hereditary rule. For the young North Korean leader, barely a year in office, the launch was important in three respects. Its success, after a test of the same rocket failed spectacularly seconds after takeoff in April, demonstrated what one American intelligence official called “a more professional operation” to diagnose and solve rocket-design problems similar to what the United States encountered in the 1960s, when both its rocket and missile programs were still in their early days. He built credibility with the powerful North Korean military, whose ranks he purged in recent months, replacing some top leaders with his own loyalists.
But he also advertised that the country, despite its backwardness and isolation, could master a missile technology that it has previously marketed to Iran, Pakistan and others. Some American officials, who have privately warned of increased missile cooperation between Iran and North Korea over the past year, have argued that the North Korean test, ostensibly an effort to launch a satellite into orbit, would benefit Tehran as much as Pyongyang.
North Korea has a long way to go before it could threaten neighboring countries, and perhaps one day the West Coast of the United States, with a nuclear-armed missile. It has yet to develop a warhead small enough to fit atop its missile, experts say, and it has not tested a re-entry vehicle that could withstand the heat of the atmosphere. Nor is it clear that the country knows how to aim a missile with much accuracy
“What’s important here is the symbolism, especially if the test seems reasonably successful,” said Victor D. Cha, a former official in the George W. Bush administration who dealt with North Korea. “It’s not as if the U.S. can describe them anymore as a bunch of crazies who could never get anywhere with their technology. And it ends the argument that Kim Jong Un might be a young, progressive reformer who is determined to take the country in a new direction.”
The missile capabilities of a country as opaque as North Korea are notoriously hard to assess. United States and South Korean officials have said that all of the North’s four multiple-stage rockets previously launched have exploded in midair or failed in their stated goal of thrusting a satellite into orbit. Nonetheless, during a visit to China early in 2011, Robert M. Gates, then Mr. Obama’s defense secretary, said that North Korea was within five years of being able to strike the continental United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile. The range of Wednesday’s test would fall far short of that goal, but suggests the North now has learned much about how to launch multistage rockets.
The ostensible goal of this launch was to put an earth-observation satellite named Kwangmyongsong-3, or Shining Star-3, into orbit. North Korea insisted that it was simply exercising its right to peaceful activity in space.
But Washington and its allies have argued that the satellite program is a cover for developing a delivery vehicle for a nuclear warhead. The North has conducted two nuclear tests, one that fizzled in 2006 and another that appears to have been more successful just a few months after Mr. Obama’s first inauguration, in 2009. That second test, one of Mr. Obama’s former aides said earlier this year, “turned the West Wing into a bunch of Korea hawks.”
A failure would have been an embarrassment for the young Mr. Kim, who has been struggling to establish himself a new North Korean leader hailed at home and feared abroad. Whether the launching was successful or not, Mr. Kim, by attempting a second rocket launching in the first year of his rule despite international condemnations, was dashing hopes among some analysts that he might soften North Korea’s confrontational stance. Instead, he was seen as intent on bolstering his father’s main legacy of nuclear weapons and long-range missile programs to justify his own hereditary rule.
Only Monday, the Korean government told the rest of the world that it had found a technical problem with its rocket and needed until Dec. 29 to fix it and carry out the launch. Outside analysts have been speculating what might be going on behind the dark cover North Korean engineers had put up around the launching pad to prevent United States spy satellites from watching.Only Monday, the Korean government told the rest of the world that it had found a technical problem with its rocket and needed until Dec. 29 to fix it and carry out the launch. Outside analysts have been speculating what might be going on behind the dark cover North Korean engineers had put up around the launching pad to prevent United States spy satellites from watching.
“A successful test would raise as a top-line national security issue for the Obama administration the specter of a direct North Korean threat to the U.S. homeland,” Victor D. Cha and Ellen Kim wrote in a recent analysis posted on the Web site of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Mr. Kim hardly needed another failure. The North’s first rocket launched since he took over after the death of his father a year ago broke apart shortly after blastoff in April, forcing his government to admit to the failure in front of the foreign journalists it had invited to watch the test. This time, North Korea did not invite foreign journalists. Nor did the government announce the launching plan to its domestic audience.Mr. Kim hardly needed another failure. The North’s first rocket launched since he took over after the death of his father a year ago broke apart shortly after blastoff in April, forcing his government to admit to the failure in front of the foreign journalists it had invited to watch the test. This time, North Korea did not invite foreign journalists. Nor did the government announce the launching plan to its domestic audience.
South Korean officials said this suggested that the government intended to cover it up if the satellite launching failed or declare the launching a success regardless of the outcome, as it had before.South Korean officials said this suggested that the government intended to cover it up if the satellite launching failed or declare the launching a success regardless of the outcome, as it had before.
The missile capabilities of a country as opaque as North Korea are notoriously hard to assess. United States and South Korean officials have said that all of the North’s four multiple-stage rockets previously launched have exploded in midair or failed in their stated goal of thrusting a satellite into orbit. Still, Robert M. Gates, then the defense secretary, said in early 2011 that North Korea was within five years of being able to strike the continental United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile. Wednesday’s unusual wintertime rocket launching came five days before the one-year anniversary of the death of the Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, on Dec. 17, which his son is attempting to mark with a fanfare aimed at showcasing his dynasty’s achievement in empowering the small and impoverished nation. Some experts believe another blast nuclear test cannot be far.
Wednesday’s unusual wintertime rocket launching came five days before the one-year anniversary of the death of the Mr. Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, on Dec. 17, which his son tried to mark with a fanfare aimed at showcasing his dynasty’s achievement in empowering the small and impoverished nation.
It also came a week before its rival, South Korea, was scheduled to elect its new president on Dec. 19.It also came a week before its rival, South Korea, was scheduled to elect its new president on Dec. 19.
Mr. Kim needed to redeem his April humiliation not only among his country’s enemies, who he feared would not take him as a worthy foe, but also among his people who have grown increasingly disenchanted with his government’s inability to resolve the prolonged economic crisis, South Korean officials and analysts said.Mr. Kim needed to redeem his April humiliation not only among his country’s enemies, who he feared would not take him as a worthy foe, but also among his people who have grown increasingly disenchanted with his government’s inability to resolve the prolonged economic crisis, South Korean officials and analysts said.
Since he took power a year ago, Mr. Kim has tried to cement his authority by implementing what analysts described as halfhearted economic reforms among some farms and factories, highlighting the perceived threats from the country’s external enemies, and most recently, raising the specter of a reign of terror through talks of “squashing rebellious elements” at home. A series of top military generals have been fired or demoted in recent months.Since he took power a year ago, Mr. Kim has tried to cement his authority by implementing what analysts described as halfhearted economic reforms among some farms and factories, highlighting the perceived threats from the country’s external enemies, and most recently, raising the specter of a reign of terror through talks of “squashing rebellious elements” at home. A series of top military generals have been fired or demoted in recent months.
“North Korea believes that a successful launching of the rocket would give more force to its claim that it is a nuclear weapons power,” South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a recent analysis.“North Korea believes that a successful launching of the rocket would give more force to its claim that it is a nuclear weapons power,” South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a recent analysis.
Although the launching was driven in part by domestic considerations, analysts said it carried far-reaching foreign relations implications, coming at a time when the new leaderships chosen or in the process of being elected in Washington, Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul were trying to form a new way of coping with North Korea after two decades of largely fruitless attempts to end its nuclear and missile ambitions. Although the launching was driven in part by domestic considerations, analysts said it carried far-reaching foreign relations implications, coming at a time when the new leaderships chosen or in the process of being elected in Washington, Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul were trying to form a new way of coping with North Korea.
North Korea’s growing nuclear and missile capabilities cut both ways for the government. They strengthen its leverage in negotiations with Washington and gives its government and people a sense of self-empowerment with a true nuclear deterrent. But they further isolate the country, which can hardly feed its own people without outside help.

Choe Sang-hun reported from Seoul, and David E. Sanger from Washington.

The United Nations Security Council considered the rocket launching a violation of its resolutions, which barred North Korea from nuclear weapons and ballistic missile technology. It had imposed a growing list of trade restrictions and financial sanctions against the North for its previous rocket tests. But doubts remained over how effective those penalties were on North Korea, which has survived decades of economic sanctions and found in China a patient patron whose desire to shore up its client regime with trade and aid appeared not to have been hurt by Pyongyang’s repeated flouting of its entreaties for restraint.
The latest rocket launching came amid signs that American officials have tried in vain to dissuade North Korea from launching rockets. In a statement in October, North Korea’s National Defense Commission said that when “midranking policy makers from the United States. National Security Council and C.I.A. recently met with us in official and unofficial settings,” they tried to assure the North Koreans that Washington had no “hostile” intent against Pyongyang. “But the reality clearly showed that the messages we received from the United States were lies,” it said, citing the United States’ agreement to let South Korea nearly triple the reach of its ballistic missiles, putting all of the North within their range.
The Washington-Seoul missile deal was to help South Korea better deter North Korea’s expanding missile capabilities. But North Korea called the deal a hostile move and said it now felt freer to test “long-range missiles for military purposes.” North Korea has tried hard to force Washington to accept it as a nuclear power, a status that it hoped would give it more leverage in its talks with the United States and its allies. North Korea aimed to use those negotiations to win a peace treaty and normalized ties with Washington, as well as massive economic aid.