The performance of a missile is mainly measured by its range and accuracy. Range, the more important measure, indicates how far a distance the missile is able to travel before it reaches its target. Accuracy involves how precisely the missile hits its target. However, accuracy is of little relevance when discussing North Korea’s missile capabilities. In the case of IRBMs, the likelihood that a North Korea missile can hit some region of Japan or the U.S. mainland is in itself a serious threat. Therefore, the threat as perceived by neighboring nations is very grave despite the fact that North Korea’s missiles are believed to suffer from dismal accuracy and would most likely inflict no critical damage.

Moreover, the level of concern with which the international community regards North Korea missile threat is justified by the fact that in the absence of intervention, North Korea will continually improve its missiles technology to attain longer ranges and higher accuracy. In particular, the very likelihood of a missile equipped with nuclear warheads hitting some region within a nation’s territory poses a serious threat, even if the missile misses its mark by a wide margin. One other concern involving North Korea’s development of missiles is the export of such missiles to other nations.

With these developments, North Korea is assumed to have possessed an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, beginning in the 2000’s. In particular, North Korea demonstrated its ICBM capability, though only in part, by launching a long-range rocket on April 5, 2009. The technology for the launched rocket North Korea claimed to be the Eunha-2 space launch vehicle carrying the country’s communication satellite Gwangmyeongseong-2 into orbit can also be applied to ICBM development. It was observed that the rocket flew 3,100 kilometers. (Some estimate it traveled 3,900 kilometers.)