North Korean ICBM Launch May Have Been Fake. It’s Still Important.

When North Korea conducted its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile test to date​ last week​, it said it launched the Hwasong-17, its newest and biggest ICBM. In a propaganda blitz, the country’s state media released a Hollywood-style video of its leader, Kim Jong-un, personally guiding the test launch in a sleek leather jacket and sunglasses at Pyongyang International Airport.

South Korea​ now says it may have been a ruse.

In a report to the National Assembly on Tuesday, the South Korean Defense Ministry endorsed what some analysts had already suspected: North Korea actually fired its older Hwasong-15 ICBM — which ​was tested in 2017 — and exaggerated Mr. Kim’s weapons achievements by falsely claiming a successful Hwasong-17 launch.