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By Micah McCartney
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A previously unidentified North Korean missile base that can host long-range systems—including those capable of striking the continental United States—has been identified, according to a new report.
Newsweek has contacted the North Korean Embassy in Beijing and the Pentagon for comment via email.
Why It Matters
Despite United Nations sanctions, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's regime has continued to test increasingly sophisticated intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), including systems it says can deliver nuclear warheads.
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The program has heightened tensions with South Korea and has driven the U.S. and, increasingly, Japan to deepen security cooperation. Pyongyang cites those moves as provocations to justify advancing its missile and nuclear programs.
What To Know
The hardened base, which has not been publicly acknowledged by North Korea, is in a valley near the village of Sinpung-dong, in north Pyongyang province, about 17 miles from the Chinese border.
The site would expand a network of 15 to 20 undeclared ballistic-missile bases and related support, maintenance, and missile and warhead storage facilities, according to an analysis of open-source satellite imagery published on Wednesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a think tank in Washington, D.C.
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Construction is believed to have begun around 2004, with major work largely complete and the base believed to be operational by 2014.
Key features include barracks, an underground facility and two hardened, drive-through missile checkout bays where launchers can undergo maintenance, systems checks and arming.
The reinforced shelters—concealed under tree and brush cover—measure about 115 by 57 feet, large enough to accommodate all known transporter erector launcher types and multi-vehicle mobile erector launcher systems for rapid deployment.
"During times of crisis or war, these launchers and missiles will exit the base, meet special warhead storage/transportation units, and conduct launch operations from dispersed pre-surveyed sites," the report said.
CSIS assessed the garrison as a brigade-size unit. It cited open-source information, reporting on Korean People's Army organizations involved in the ballistic-missile program and past interviews with North Korean defectors. That would imply three missile-firing battalions and six to nine nuclear-capable ICBMs, such as the Hwasong-15 or Hwasong-18.
The site does not appear to have the fixed air-defense positions commonly found at missile bases. However, it lies within 9 miles of a surface-to-air missile site and four air-defense artillery batteries, and the resident unit likely fields light antiaircraft guns and shoulder-fired air-defense missiles, CSIS said.
What People Are Saying
Victor Cha, the Korea chair at CSIS and a co-author of the report, told The Wall Street Journal: "North Korea puts these missile bases near the Chinese border to make it harder for the U.S. to contemplate taking them out."
North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong Un said during a speech commemorating a new tactical ballistic missile system on August 4, 2024: "Witnessing the rapidly-changing global security environment and the reckless expansion of the U.S.-led military bloc system, we have come to a conclusion that the nuclear forces of our state and its nuclear posture should be more thoroughgoing and perfect, and we feel its necessity every day and every minute."
What Happens Next
CSIS said satellite imagery showed ongoing development at the site.
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