UNITED NATIONS — The United States pushed for tougher sanctions on North Korea at the UN Security Council on Wednesday, warning the isolated regime’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) had drastically narrowed the path for diplomacy.

In a hard-hitting address, US Ambassador Nikki Haley said Tuesday’s ICBM test had made “the world a more dangerous place,” and reiterated that Washington was ready to use force if need be to deal with the threat of a nuclear-armed Pyongyang.

Tuesday’s launch — styled by leader Kim Jong-Un as a gift to “American bastards” — marked a milestone in Pyongyang’s decades-long drive for the capability to threaten the US mainland with a nuclear strike, and poses a stark foreign policy challenge for Donald J. Trump.

The US president had dismissed the idea of the North possessing a working ICBM, vowing it “won’t happen,” but experts said the missile could reach Alaska or even further towards the continental US.

At the UN, Ms. Haley called the launch “a clear and sharp military escalation,” and US and South Korean forces fired off missiles Wednesday into the Sea of Japan simulating a precision strike against North Korea’s leadership.

Washington had “considerable military forces,” Ms. Haley said. “We will use them if we must.”

But the US focus, she told the council, was to push through tighter sanctions, and it would submit a new draft resolution within days.

In all, six sets of sanctions have been imposed on North Korea since it first tested an atomic device in 2006, but have failed to prevent its military advances.

New measures could target countries that continue to trade with North Korea, curb oil exports to the isolated country, tighten air and maritime restrictions and impose travel bans on its officials.

Ms. Haley singled out China — increasingly in the US administration’s crosshairs as the North’s sole major ally and economic lifeline — as key to any diplomatic solution, only days after Mr. Trump said Beijing’s efforts had failed.

“We will work with China,” Ms. Haley said, “but we will not repeat the inadequate approaches of the past that have brought us to this dark day.”

The US drive won backing from France, but raised immediate protests from fellow permanent Security Council member Russia, whose Deputy Ambassador Vladimir Safronkov warned that “sanctions will not resolve the issue.”

China’s Ambassador Liu Jieyi once more pushed Beijing’s alternative proposal for talks based on a freeze of North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests, in exchange for a halt to US-South Korean military drills — which has been rejected repeatedly by Washington and Seoul.

NUCLEAR ATTACK
Washington and Seoul are in a security alliance, with 28,500 US troops stationed in the South to protect it.

In a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of the G20 summit, South Korean President Moon Jae-In said the level of the North’s nuclear and missile capabilities was already a problem, “but the bigger problem is that the speed of progress is far faster than expected.”

Sanctions and pressure, he added, should be a means to push the North to the negotiating table, “and should not break the peace itself.”

The Hwasong-14 missile only traveled little more than 900 kilometers (560 miles) to come down in the Sea of Japan, but the altitude it reached — more than 2,800 kilometers according to Pyongyang — demonstrated it can travel far further.

South Korea’s Defense Minister Han Min-koo put its range at 7,000 to 8,000 kilometers — far enough to put US Pacific Command in Hawaii within reach.

The North, which says it needs atomic weapons to defend itself against the threat of invasion, said the test proved the missile’s reentry capabilities and it could carry a heavy nuclear warhead.

Questions remain over the missile’s precise capabilities, but concerns over its implications are mounting in the South. “A North Korean ICBM carrying a nuclear warhead is a game-changer,” the JoongAng Ilbo said in an editorial Thursday.

“What worries us is the uncertainty of whether the US would defend us if North Korea attacks Seoul. We cannot be sure if the US would risk a nuclear attack on New York or Los Angeles.” — AFP

WASHINGTON — It is every Alaskan’s nightmare: finding themselves within range of a North Korean missile. As that fear came one step closer to reality this week, America’s ability to block an incoming attack is under scrutiny.

On Tuesday the northwestern US state awoke to the news that Pyongyang had test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which — though it came crashing down in the Sea of Japan — had a probable range of over 5,500 kilometers (3,400 miles), enough to reach Alaskan shores.

The US military has faith that its high-tech defensive systems could fend off any attack from North Korea — at least for now.

“It’s something we have confidence in,” said Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis, who called the latest development a “nascent threat.”

But other observers are not so sure, rattled by the pace of Kim Jong-Un’s missile program and his stated aim of building a nuclear-tipped ICBM.

“Now more than ever, it’s imperative for Alaskans and the rest of the nation that we be prepared,” tweeted Senator Dan Sullivan, one of several Alaskan congressmen who backed a bipartisan bill last month aimed at expanding US missile defenses.

The state of 750,000 people already hosts a key element of the country’s current defense system.

The Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system — installed at Fort Greely, about 100 miles outside Fairbanks in Alaska, and California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base — will comprise 44 missile interceptors by the end of the year.

But if the backers of the Advancing America’s Missile Defense Act of 2017 have their way, the government would authorize an additional 28 ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely.

Among the bill’s co-sponsors is Alaskan Congressmen Don Young, who believes “the recent actions by North Korea, a rogue and irrational regime, underscores the importance of Alaska’s missile defense systems,” his office said in a statement.

MISSILE LEAKAGE
The catastrophic scenario of having to stop an incoming ICBM as it hurtles through space was put to the test in May, when the military successfully launched a GMD interceptor from the California base.

The missile blasted outside Earth’s atmosphere and smashed into a dummy ICBM target, destroying it in a direct collision — a move akin to hitting a bullet with another bullet.

But the GMD system has had a checkered record in previous tests — failing in earlier launches against slower-moving targets.

And it could be overwhelmed by a barrage of incoming missiles.

That is why Joel Wit, a co-founder of the 38 North program of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University, said he was not fully confident in US anti-missile capabilities.

He sees a risk that Mr. Kim could build enough missiles to overwhelm US defenses — and that one could slip through the defensive net in a phenomenon known as “leakage.”

“In the case of a conflict, leakage with nuclear weapons is not a good thing,” Mr. Wit told AFP.

Mr. Wit had previously said he didn’t think North Korea would be able to deploy any nuclear-tipped ICBMs until late 2020 or soon after, but all bets are off given the latest test.

“It’s quite possible the North Koreans could deploy much sooner than then, and do that for the shock effect,” he said.

Experts do not think Mr. Kim has managed to miniaturize a warhead to put on an ICBM, though Mr. Kim has repeatedly stated that is his goal.

“Clearly they are working on it,” Pentagon spokesman Mr. Davis said.

WHAT OTHER DEFENSES
Aside from the GMD, the US and its allies also have at their disposal what is known as the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System (AEGIS).

The ship-based system’s highly sensitive radars and sensors feed ICBM-tracking data to the GMD facilities in California and Alaska, and AEGIS is itself capable of intercepting shorter-range missiles.

Retired vice-admiral Pete Daly, who now leads the United States Naval Institute, said the AEGIS system may also one day have a limited ability to intercept ICBMs.

“There is some progression and capabilities here that folks are working on,” he told AFP.

In the meantime, the US military this year began deploying the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system to South Korea, capable of destroying short, medium and intermediate-range missiles in their final phase of flight.

The move infuriated China, which has argued the deployment would further destabilize the situation on the Korean peninsula.

The US and its allies South Korea and Japan also have Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptor batteries. But these are designed to protect against a regional threat and would have limited effect against an ICBM.

Integrating all three systems — THAAD, Aegis and Patriot — is another key proposal in the legislation championed by Messrs. Sullivan and Young. — AFP