North Korea EXCLUSIVE: Is Kim Jong-un’s DEADLY arsenal capable of striking Donald Trump?

In an exclusive interview with Express.co.uk, CNN military analyst Cedric Leighton admitted that the hermit kingdom lacks the ability to strike the mainland US due to its struggles to “marry a small nuclear warhead with an ICBM missile”.

He said: “The basic missile test that was conducted the other day is one that is very different because it clearly showed a missile that could go a lot further than any of the previous versions that the North Koreans had tested.

“It basically reached an altitude of almost 4,500 kilometres, that puts it at about 10 times higher than the orbit that the International Space Station is flying and really it’s higher than many satellites would be flying, so it has some significant issues that are brought about by this.

“Even though North Korean seems to be saying that it did have a warhead on this particular missile, there is no other indication in terms of radiation, in terms of telemetry, or in terms of every other measure that we know about that they, in fact, did have a warhead on there.

“If the Hwasong-15 had a warhead on it that was nuclear capable, and one would have to assume that they would be miniaturising that warhead, that would obviously be a drag on the missile and its ability to fly, and the weight of something like that could adversely affect the range.

“So it could be a considerably shorter range that could potentially remove it from being able to threaten the United States directly.

“It may still affect outlying parts of the United States such as the territory of Guam or the state of Hawaii, but for the continental part of the United States, it may not pose as much of a threat as many people believe right now.

“Most assessments here in the US are that the North Koreans have not quite been able to marry the small nuclear warhead with the ICBM such as the Hwasong-15.”

Mr Leighton discussed the hypothesis from South Korea’s minister of reunification who claimed that rapidly accelerating military programme from the rogue state could allow it to strike the mainland US by the “mid-part of 2018”.

He added: “Many people give a lot of credence to the statements by the South Korean minister of reunification which basically said that the North Koreans would have that capability by the early part or the mid part of the coming year of 2018.

“So I think what we should do as prudent observers of this event is to think that the North Koreans are clearly working towards that goal, it is a publicly stated aim of theirs to actually have a missile that can threaten the United States with a legitimate nuclear warhead on it, and that kind of threat has to be taken seriously.”

Despite the seemingly imminent threat imposed on the world by despot leader Kim Jong-un, the military expert admitted that Pyongyang does not come close to the might of the US, China and the former Soviet Union.

He declared: “The North Koreans do not have the type of arsenal that the Soviet Union used to have or that the Chinese used to have, and they certainly can’t compete with either of those countries in terms of their modern-day weaponry.

“They also cannot compete with the United States in terms of the quality and quantity of the nuclear weaponry.

“North Korea is basically already part of that nuclear club but the mechanisms that they exercise for their command and control of their nuclear weapons are not as robust and not as developed as those of other nations.”

After the rogue nation tested their most powerful missile yet, there were rumours that the test came as no surprise to South Korea that immediately retaliated with their own launch – Mr Leighton confirmed that Asian nations, as well as the US, had received reports of an impending provocation from the hermit kingdom.

He went on: “So a few days before the missile test there were reports that were primarily spoken about in Asia, especially in Japan, and a bit in South Korea that there were indications that the North Koreans were getting ready to conduct a missile test.

“Although this is something that would certainly remain classified within the United States government, it stands to reason that they also had an indication that this would happen.

“However they chose not to publicise that because in essence I think they did not want to egg on the North Koreans and they wanted to see if the intelligence was actually correct and sometimes with North Korea there are a lot of what I guess one could call false-positives when it comes to intelligence and it becomes a very challenging intelligence target.

“So in the United States at least we try to be very careful with how we assess intelligence pertaining to North Korea.

“So I’m certain that policy makers here in the US were aware that the North Korean’s were probably planning to do something.

“There were a lot of questions in the run up to this latest missile test as to why there had been such a long period of time between the previous missile test and the one that just happened.

“Based on North Korean statements and general North Korean behaviour, I think most people including myself, looked at this as not an indication as a willingness of the North Korean’s to talk, but instead a timeframe in which the North Korean’s could better prepare themselves for these tests and conduct a more successful test than they otherwise would have been able to do.”

After the sixth missile test from the hermit kingdom, Japan not only threatened to shoot down further missiles that prime minister Shinzo Abe believed posed a danger to Japan, but his aggressive rhetoric against Kim Jong-un appeared to have shifted another gear after his meeting with Donald Trump – the military analyst believes Mr Abe’s threats could account for this week’s missile trajectory.

Mr Leighton stated: “I think it’s a very likely scenario that prime minister Abe’s rhetoric in relation to North Korea have been a factor in not only the way in which North Korea launched the missile but also the way in which they timed that launch.

“I think the way in which the Japanese are reacting to North Korea provocations makes it very clear that they were intent on shooting down the next missile that flew over their territory.

“So the North Korean’s, I think wisely, decided to demonstrate their capability but to do it in such a way that would keep the missile from flying over Japanese territory.

“According to the Japanese they violated their exclusive economic zone, but that’s not the same from an international law standpoint as either violating either the territorial waters of a country or the actual landmass of a country.

“So in this case the North Korean’s kind of went up to the edge to let it be known that they have the capability without actually making a supreme provocation such as a direct overflight of the country of Japan.”