If it can make them small enough and light enough to fit onto its missiles, it could nuke Tokyo, Seoul and most other major metropolises in Asia in a matter of minutes.
If Russia were quick to agree to cut 100 missiles, it might suggest its missile stocks were larger than the Americans had guessed.
But also like a lot of missiles, it came with its fair share of fall-out.
But if North Korea believed it could gain some strategic leverage over Washington through its display of new missiles, it needed to do a better job of covering its tracks, the analysts said.
Not only is North Korea much further along than Iraq in building nuclear weapons but, by virtue of its longer-range missiles, it has a greater delivery capability.
The message to Iran would be that even if it developed a nuclear weapon and mounted it atop its growing fleet of missiles, it could be countered by antimissile systems.
NO ONE, not even Russia, China and France, the members of the UN Security Council keenest to see sanctions on Iraq lifted, believes the Iraqi government has told inspectors from the UN's Special Commission (UNSCOM) the full truth about its chemical and biological weapons and the missiles it built before the Gulf war.
Here's a scouting report so far on China's style of muscle-flexing: THE NEIGHBORHOOD: TIME FOR THE BIG STICK For decades countries around Asia have been wary of China's resurgence — tracking how many ships and missiles it was acquiring, and how it was using its influence as an investor.
Although North Korea has tested many of its short-range Scud and medium-range Rodong missiles, it has never flight-tested the longer-distance Musudan, believed by experts to have a range of 1,550 miles to 2,500 miles.
"If China increases the number of missiles it has, would India think it has to increase its missiles?" said a senior United States official familiar with the analysis being prepared.
For its part, the United States seems determined to strike any missiles it finds in the south or the north to ensure that an attack could be swift, decisive and uninterrupted.
