North Korea’s Newest Missile Launch 

By Jaehyun Lee, Sungjin Choi 

North Korea fired two hypersonic missiles for a test of their new ‘hypersonic missile system,’ into their mountains. Following the fires, the US Indo-Pacific Command immediately condemned the launches as ‘unlawful and destabilizing.’ Is Pyongyang trying to bring tension to the Korean peninsula, with the 2025 Gyeongju APEC summit less than a week away? Or does the test convey any political message at all?

On Oct. 22, 2025, North Korea performed its first ballistic missile tests in five months, days before US president Donald Trump was expected to visit South Korea for the 2025 APEC summit. The missile was launched from Pyongyang, the capital city of North Korea, and targeted its mountain ranges in its northeastern region. According to AP news, the flight distance of the missile is assumed to be 350km. The actual details of the missile are limited, not being able to know the missile’s official model or designation. 

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been sharply accelerating the pace of testing weapons since his nuclear diplomacy with Trump fell apart in 2019. But last month, Kim suggested he could return to talks with the US, if they drop their demand of denuclearization for North Korea. However, this missile test may imply that Kim Jong-un does not look forward to peace talks with the US, yet. 

The timing of this test is noteworthy. It occurred less than a week before the 2025 APEC summit in Gyeongju, South Korea. North Korea may have wanted to showcase their capabilities to gain political leverage ahead of other nations. The test might hold a message not to ignore North Korea. 

Analysts suggest that this may be a calculated move to assert military strength. David Maxwell, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noted that “North Korea is using this launch to gain leverage and signal that it cannot be ignored, especially ahead of major diplomatic events like APEC.” His remarks imply that the timing was chosen to pressure regional powers and draw attention of the global nations. 

These launches are not technically new. North Korea has had a long history of firing missiles, from SRBMs (short-range ballistic missiles) to ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) over the East Sea or their domestic test ranges. For Pyongyang, it’s clearly an act of brinkmanship; they get to be internationally recognized as a military power, and can create tension in the region to get a greater say in regional diplomacy.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is an American think-tank that provides data on North Korea’s missile tests, from 1984 through Apr. 23, 2023. Below is a chart that shows how the number of launches have soared abruptly in recent years.

The statistics from May 2023 and on further support this trend. A report from TIME records over 13 more missile launches in 2023 alone, not mentioning the unidentified number of cruise missile and ballistic missile tests. What has driven the Kim regime to prioritize missile development and significantly increase the number of tests in recent years? 

The 2024 Annual Threat Assessment(ATA) of the US intelligence community(IC) serves to answer this question. According to the ATA, North Korea’s recent behavior has mostly been a countermeasure to the growing number of joint drills between South Korea and its East Asian Allies-Japan and the US- and the aggressive stance of the South Korean government. Considering South Korea’s harder stance on North Korea in 2024, accentuating ‘peace through power,’ the sudden increase of tests between 2021 and 2022- around the time South Korea implemented its hostile North Korean policies- can be explained by claims made in the ATA. Following this logic, as South Korea has again expressed that it wants some peaceful dialogue with their Northern neighbors, the number of North Korean missile launches should have decreased. 

And the answer? Slightly. This week’s launch was the first in five months, a clear decrease from the heavy launches of 2022-2024. However, that does not mean North Korea has any intention of ending their missile program. The Kim regime fully understands that missile might is a key guarantor of their security and a stakeholder in East Asian diplomacy. Or at least, that is what the ATA prospects. Whether it’s interdicting contact with foreign countries and isolating the Kims', or bringing them out of their hermit state with appeasement- the world will have to seek ways to end their reliance on missiles.