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North Korean leader Kim Jong-un speaks at a ceremony marking the delivery of 250 new tactical ballistic missile launch platforms to front-line units on Aug. 4, 2024, in Pyongyang, according to a report by the state-run Rodong Sinmun on Aug. 5. (KCNA/Yonhap)

On Monday, North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper devoted its front page and following two pages to a ceremony held Sunday night to celebrate the delivery of 250 new tactical ballistic missile launchers to front-line troops.

In his speech at the event, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un boasted of the country’s success in “improv[ing] the practical effectiveness” of its strategic nuclear weapons, adding that this has enabled North Korea to “possess a sure and overwhelming strength with which to contain the enemy’s provocative moves against us.”

It can be inferred that the new launchers, which will be deployed to new artillery units located near the Military Demarcation Line, the de facto border with South Korea, are capable of firing tactical nuclear weapons.

A close inspection of the photos published by the Rodong Sinmun and the Korea Central News Agency allows us to identify the 250 new tactical ballistic missile launchers as those to be used for “Hwasong-11 Ra” close-range ballistic missiles. 

Jo Chun-ryong, the secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea Central Committee, reported to Kim at the ceremony, where he characterized the new missile launchers as “powerful up-to-date tactical strike weapon[s] of [North Korea’s] style.”

Kim declared that this development signaled that the North had achieved its “first-stage goal of building missile forces in the first-line units on the front.” 

“Every year we will show the whole world without filtering the procedure of the change of generations of our military hardware with new ones,” he went on. “It is because this has enough special effect on deterring war.”

“As the relationship of the US-led alliance is, in terms of its nature and character, evolving into a nuclear-based military bloc, the military security environment surrounding the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is facing drastic changes, both strategically and structurally,” Kim said in his speech, saying the world has reached a dangerous point in which US “vassal states” have “grown reckless enough to share its nukes.”

North Korea’s state-run Rodong Sinmun reported on Aug. 5 that a ceremony had been held the night before in Pyongyang to mark the delivery of 250 new tactical ballistic missile launchers to front-line troops. (KCNA/Yonhap)

“Witnessing the rapidly-changing global security environment and the reckless expansion of the US-led military bloc system, we have come to the 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,” the North Korean leader went on. 

Kim emphasized that “genuine peace” can only be guaranteed by amassing “immense strength,” and proclaimed that North Korea’s strength will “continue to evolve.”

“Let us bear in mind once again that absolute and matchless self-defence capability provides a sure guarantee for independence, justice and peace,” Kim reiterated.

While Kim did state that both “negotiations and confrontation” are on the table, he also asserted that North Korea “must be more thoroughly prepared to cope with the latter,” explaining that “this is the review and conclusion we have derived from the 30-odd years of dealing with the US, and it is the keynote of our consistent policy towards the US.”

Kim has staunchly emphasized the importance of power and North Korea’s will to confront the US since the collapse of the second US-North Korea summit in February 2019 in Hanoi.

However, it is important to note that, despite his emphasis on confrontation and power, he also mentioned “negotiations.” This shows that North Korea is willing to consider negotiations in the face of the US presidential election, slated to be held on Nov. 5.

Both the Rodong Sinmun and KCNA published photos showing Kim’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, attending the ceremony. This marks Ju-ae’s first public attendance in 83 days following her participation in the May 14 ceremony celebrating the opening of Pyongyang’s Jonwi Street.

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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