The United States should assume North Korea can already hit the country with a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile, President Trump’s top military adviser said Tuesday.
The regime has yet to fully test some of the technology needed for reliable ICBMs, such as re-entering the atmosphere and stabilizing the long-range missiles, but will no doubt develop those engineering solutions, Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“Frankly I think we should assume today that North Korea has that capability and has a will to use that capability,” Dunford said.
North Korea has recently tested two ICBMs and also held another nuclear test despite threats from Trump, international condemnation and United Nations sanctions.
Dunford said there is a consensus among senior Defense Department leadership based on intelligence assessments that North Korea will soon perfect its missile technology and have reliable and fully developed long-range nuclear weapons by late 2018.
“Whether it is three months, or six months, or 18 months it is soon, and we ought to conduct ourselves as thought it is just a matter of time, a matter of a very short time, before North Korea has that capability,” he said.
