Bluffing America: Expert Reveals How North Korea’s First ICBM Kept its Safe Despite Never Flying or Entering Service

On April 15, 2012, North Korea unveiled its first class of intercontinental range ballistic missile, the Hwasong-13, which was paraded through Kim Il Sung Square in central Pyongyang during a military parade that day. Although the country had for years been developing short, medium and intermediate range missiles, which could strike American military targets in South Korea, Japan and on Guam respectively, an intercontinental range missile had the potential to be a game changer for the balance of power between the two states. Such a missile would for the first time allow Pyongyang to initiate strategic nuclear strikes on cities on the United States mainland.&nbsp;With the United States having intensively firebombed population centres across Korea during the Korean War, and come close to launching nuclear strikes on multiple occasions both during the war and in the following decadees, the ability to similarly hold American cities at risk had long been prized by the East Asian state’s leadership, particularly in the post-Cold War era when U.S. adversaries which had lost Soviet protection were successively targeted to devastating effect.&nbsp;Two years before the missile’s unveiling, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates had warned that development of a road-mobile ICBM by the country “constitutes a direct threat to the United States.”<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/26/article_6833b828590e48_89868165.webp" title="Hwasong-13 ICBMs in Kim Il Sung Square" >The appearance of the Hwasong-13, although very much still an evolving design in its early prototype stages, quickly caused significant concern in the Western world, with Gates’ successor Defence&nbsp;Secretary&nbsp;Chuck Hagel observing on March 15, 2013 that “North Korea in particular has recently made advances in its capabilities… Specifically, North Korea announced last month that it conducted its third nuclear test, and last April displayed what appears to be a road-mobile ICBM.” He further cited the successful launch of a satellite on December 12 as an indicator that the country had made advances in ICBM-related technologies. Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral James A. Winnefeld Jr. similarly revealed that North Korea’s first ICBM had emerged as a threat “a little bit faster than we expected.The importance of the Hwasong-13 to North Korean security, despite the missile never being flight tested or entering service, was highlighted by expert on the U.S.-North Korean conflict and author of the recent book <a href="https://www.claritypress.com/product/surviving-the-unipolar-era-north-koreas-35-year-standoff-with-the-united-states/" target="_blank">Surviving the Unipolar Era: North Korea's 35 Year Standoff with the United States</a>, A. B. Abrams, who observed: “The possibility remained that it may have been displayed to increase American and allied concerns regarding a&nbsp;possible intercontinental range strike capability.” Abrams cited Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who “summarised shortly after leaving office that North Korea had achieved nuclear deterrence long ago, as the U.S. must assume any launched ICBM could reach and detonate on American soil, noting that they had effectively played their nuclear hand to the hilt by capitalising on deterrence without even proving full capability.”<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/26/article_6833b7db16e517_44605114.webp" title="Later Enhanced Variant of the Hwasong-13" >While North Korea would in 2017 <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/korean-missile-saved-asia-nuclear-war" target="_blank">demonstrate</a> the capability to strike the U.S. mainland using the Hwasong-14 and Hwasong-15 ICBMs, these were significantly more advanced designs than the Hwasong-13 which used a different engine. The fact that the Hwasong-13 never proceeded to flight testing raised the possibility that its unveiling may have been intended primarily as a means of deterring the United States with an ambiguous strike capability, fuelling concerns of a slight possibility that the country could launch nuclear strikes against American cities if provoked. Abrams observed to this effect:&nbsp;“The value of an ambiguous ICBM capability was increased by the fact that North Korea’s nuclear testing, its demonstrations of missile technologies on other platforms, and the rapid improvement of these systems significantly raised the possibility that the Hwasong-13 was at least partially operational; these developments led the Pentagon to conclude in early 2015 that, despite the ICBM not being flight tested, North Korea possessed the ability to mount a miniaturised nuclear warhead on it—a conclusion publicly confirmed in April—and in the years preceding North Korea’s irrefutable demonstration of a fully capable intercontinental-range nuclear strike capability, the Hwasong-13’s contribution to the country’s security was not insignificant, especially as the narrowing window for preventative military action raised the stakes, with even a slight possibility of nuclear retaliation against American cities serving as a powerful deterrent and reinforcing caution against initiating hostilities.”<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/05/26/article_6833b854139911_09453140.png" title="North Korea`s First ICBM Launch on July 4, 2017 – Hwasong-14">The Hwasong-13 may have thus made a vital contribution to buying time for North Korea at a time when the Western world was very <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/mattis-you-re-going-to-incinerate-a-couple-million-people-america-s-insane-plan-to-drop-80-nuclear-bombs-on-north-korea" target="_blank">actively considering</a> attacking the country, allowing it to develop a much more viable missile deterrent over the following decade. Since flight testing its first two ICBM designs in 2017, North Korea has gone on to operationalise <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/north-korean-surprise-icbm-drill-hwasong15" target="_blank">enhanced variants </a>of the Hwasong-15, and to bring the more capable <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/nkorea-icbm-test-diverse-arsenal-longest" target="_blank">Hwasong-17</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/hwasong18-short-notice-nkorea-solid-fuel-icbm" target="_blank">Hwasong-18</a>&nbsp;and Hwasong-19 ICBMs into service. New technologies operationalised have ranged from solid fuel engines to multiple reentry vehicles, with hypersonic glide vehicles, which have already been integrated onto the country’s intermediate range missiles, expected to also be intended for integration onto ICBMs. Had the country faced a full scale attack earlier on, none of these developments would have been possible. It remains uncertain, but possible, that the Hwasong-13 was unveiled primarily to fuel concerns in the United States regarding a possible already existing intercontinental range nuclear strike capability, even if rudimentary. Whether this was the program’s intention or not, the fact that the Hwasong-13 never proceeded to flight testing meant this was effectively the missile’s primary function and legacy, making a significant contribution to the country’s security without ever entering service.