Experts Say Launch Won’t Bring North Korea Much Closer to ICBM

Japan has deployed PAC-3 missile batteries in the heart of Tokyo to shoot down any incoming rocket debris

A Man watchs a television broadcast reporting the North Korean missile launch at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, on March 26, 2014. Chung Sung-jun/Getty Images

TOKYO—Japan has deployed PAC-3 missile batteries in the heart of Tokyo to shoot down any incoming rocket debris. South Korea is reportedly mobilizing two Aegis-equipped destroyers. The U.S. is already gunning to punish Pyongyang for what it says will be a ballistic missile test in the guise of a space launch.

Whatever lifts off from North Korea’s western coast space center this month, one thing is certain — since rockets and missiles inevitably have overlapping technologies, it will run afoul of U.N. resolutions that have been in place for years to bar North Korea from testing any technology that could be used to develop long-range ballistic missiles.

But maybe it’s time to take a deep breath.

According to many experts, the North’s rockets look a lot more like what the North says they are — space launch vehicles, or SLVs — and they aren’t necessarily helping Pyongyang get that much closer to having a reliable, long-range missile capable of dropping a nuclear weapon on the United States any time soon.

This photograph provided by the Israeli Ministry of Defense on Monday Dec. 21, 2015 shows a launch of David's Sling missile defense system. Ministry of Defense via AP