This picture released by North Korea';s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on September 4, 2017, shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un attending a meeting with a committee of the Workers' Party of Korea about the test of a hydrogen bomb at an unknown location.OFFUTT AIR FORCE BASE, Neb. – North Korea on Thursday conducted another ballistic missile test, reports of which surfaced just after America's top officer for nuclear warfare acknowledged that the most recent nuclear device exploded by the Hermit Kingdom was likely a hydrogen bomb.
Local news agencies reported that a missile fired from North Korea flew over Japan and that local residents received emergency text messages directing them to seek shelter immediately.
"It put millions of Japanese into the duck and cover [and] landed out into the Pacific," Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Thursday.
When asked how the U.S. would respond, Mattis said, "I don't want to talk about that yet," adding, "steady as she goes."
Mattis spoke to reporters during a trip to nuclear facilities in North Dakota and here, home to U.S. Strategic Command, that was ostensibly a part of a government-wide review of U.S. nuclear weapons but also seen as a subtle signal to Pyongyang of America's nuclear deterrent abilities.
It also follows North Korea's sixth nuclear weapons test earlier this month, which U.S. officials say is its largest ever, representing a significant jump in the Hermit Kingdom's ability to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of destroying entire cities.
"The size that we observed and saw tends to me to indicate that was a hydrogen bomb, and I have to figure out what the right response with our allies was to that," Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of STRATCOM, said of the Sept. 3 nuclear test, speaking with reporters less than an hour before news of the missile test broke. "It was significantly larger than anything else we've seen before."
Hyten would not say declaratively that the test was a hydrogen bomb, which is far more destructive than an atomic bomb, adding that he isn't a nuclear scientist. But he confirmed that STRATCOM detected in this latest test the distinctive two stages of a hydrogen bomb, produced by the initial blast and subsequent implosion.
"When I look at a thing that size, as a military officer I have to assume that's a hydrogen bomb," Hyten said.The test also comes at a troubling time for international attempts to undermine North Korea's ability to develop a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting targets with precision. Kim Jong Un has made developing nuclear weapons a signature goal of his regime and has sharply increased the tempo of nuclear and missile tests.
Hyten has said previously that "it's just a matter of when, not if," Pyongyang's scientists and engineers perfect the technology, though he added Thursday that producing nuclear weapons capable of hitting a target without breaking up in flight represents the most difficult part of perfecting the weaponry.Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Wednesday the most recent North Korean nuclear test was approximately 100 kilotons in size, which is also indicative of a hydrogen bomb, though he declined to comment then on further details.
"We have a pretty good idea of what happened," he said.
Hyten called the recent test "very concerning" but believes the U.S. has the ability to successfully deter North Korea from using a nuclear weapon.
"Do we have the ability to deter North Korea from developing capabilities that could potentially threaten us? That's a difficult question," he said. "Do I, as U.S. STRATCOM, have the ability for the U.S. to deter an adversary from attacking the U.S. with nuclear weapons? Yes. Because they know the response is going to be the destruction of their entire nation. I think that does provide a very powerful deterrent."
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