Topic: Korea
Posted by: blog/robertooghe

I was looking into the actual range of the TD-2, as I was discussing with Josh yesterday, and indeed as he said, according to the BBC, it has a range of only about 6,000 km (3,730 miles).

Yet, according to the AP, they gave it closer to 15,000 km, or about 9,300 miles — significantly more threatening to the US were these things to work. This seems to be a pretty big discrepancy for something so relevant.

I dug a little deeper, and found various estimates over the years 1995-2001. Infer what you will about how much is actually known...:

November 1995: "Among Third World countries hostile to the United States, North Korea has the most advanced ballistic missile program. One of its missiles in development, the Taepodong-2, is assessed to have a range of 4,000-6,000 kilometers."
-"Emerging Missile Threats to North America During the Next 15 Years," Secret DCI National Intelligence Estimate, President's Summary

July 1998: "[The Taepodong-2] could reach major cities and military bases in Alaska and the smaller, westernmost islands in the Hawaiian chain. Light-weight variations of the TD-2 could fly as far as 10,000 kilometers, placing at risk western U.S. territory in an arc extending northwest from Phoenix, Arizona, to Madison, Wisconsin."
-Rumsfeld Report (Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States)

January 2001: "North Korea is developing the Taepodong-2 (ICBM), which could deliver a several-hundred kilogram payload to Alaska and Hawaii, and a lighter payload to the western half of the United States. A three-stage Taepodong-2 could deliver a several-hundred kilogram payload anywhere in the United States."
-"Proliferation: Threat and Response," Defense Department

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