North Korea's Missile Program: Seven Decades of Launches and the New Hypersonic Race

A single launch is noise, but the arc it belongs to is one of the most documented military buildups of the modern era: from Soviet-supplied Scuds and the 1998 Taepodong-1 overflight of Japan, through the 2017 ICBM and Hwasong-15 tests that triggered 'fire and fury' rhetoric, the 2018-19 diplomatic thaw that produced no denuclearisation, and the post-2021 pivot to hypersonic glide vehicles, submarine-launched systems and solid-fuel ICBMs. Layered onto this is a genuine regional arms race, with South Korea's own missile guidelines lifted in 2021 and its hypersonic test-fires, Japan's counterstrike debate, and deepening DPRK-Russia military ties. The 12 October 2026 salvo, framed by Seoul as a response to its own hypersonic test, is the latest data point in a cycle of test, sanction, negotiation, and re-escalation. This timeline was generated automatically by TimeStrands AI from Wikipedia research. Facts are sourced; framing may be imperfect.