North Korea Rapidly Enhancing Air Defences with New Surface-to-Air Missiles

Defence affairs - Def-Geopolitics

The Korean People’s Army Missile General Bureau tested two new surface-to-air missiles on August 23, with both fired against multiple targets to verify their capabilities, including against targets simulating the characteristics of drones and cruise missiles. 

The agency reported that the launches demonstrated the missiles’ superior responsiveness against various aerial threats, highlighting their unique operational and technical features. Photos released following he tests showed the missiles successfully hitting aerial targets. The tests were personally observed by senior figures from the ruling Korean Workers’ Party including Chairman Kim Jong Un, as well as by Air Force Commander Marshal Kim Kwang Hyok. It remains uncertain whether the missiles in question are entirely new designs, or improved variants of already existing models. 

North Korea in the 1990s initiated the development of its first indigenous road mobile long range air defence system, although the highly complex nature of the system and the lack of prior experience developing such high end air defence assets meant it only entered service in 2017, under the designation Pyongae-5. The program reportedly benefitted from considerable technology transfers from Russia, namely those used in the S-300PM system. The Korean People’s Army subsequently unveiled the Pyongae-6 system in 2020, which is considered to have comparable capabilities to the Russian S-400 system, and has continued to be modernised with new missile classes. Missiles deployed by the system benefit from twin rudder controls and double impulse flight engines, with North Korean state media reporting the “rapid responsiveness and guidance accuracy of [the] missile control system,” as well as a “substantial increase in the distance of downing air targets,” likely when compared to the Pyongae-5. 

Commenting on the rapid modernisation of the North Korean air defence network and its implications, leading expert on Korean security and author of the book Surviving the Unipolar Era: North Korea’s 35-Year Standoff with the United States, A. B. Abrams, observed in his recent work