SOUTH Korea has only minutes to respond to a North Korean nuclear strike but experts say there may not be enough time in a wartime scenario, it has been revealed.
North Korea launched a new missile this week called the Hwasong-15 missile - a new type of device experts say is capable of hitting Washington.
South Korea responded swiftly by firing missiles, six minutes later, into the waters off eastern Korea to demonstrate Seoul’s readiness for war.
But, security analysts say South Korea may not be able to respond as swiftly or accurately in a real wartime scenario.
Yang Uk, a senior defence researcher at Seoul think tank, the Korea Defense and Security Forum, said: “What we saw Wednesday was an active response to a North Korean missile launch that South Korea calls its ‘kill chain’ system.”
The kill chain is part of a larger defence system designed to pre-emptively strike the North’s missile system during a nuclear attack.
But, a retired senior South Korean official said the South lacks a military satellite that can watch the North.
However, the US and Japanese satellites share images with South Korean officials in real time.
The recent missile was launched from Pyongsong, about 20 miles from Pyongyang.
This was the first time the North used this missile site.
The South’s response was calibrated to match the distance to the launch site to show it could hit the site if it chose to do so.
But, detecting missile tests is an imperfect science, involving misses as well as hits.
In a war scenario, North Korea is likely to take more steps to conceal its movements.
For example, the North may deploy decoy launchers which will make it difficult to pinpoint the exact launch site.
Analysts said North Korean officials install devices onto missiles that generate signals and send them to control towers.
The South has a way of tapping into these signals and tracking the missiles, they said.
But, in a real missile launch, the North Koreans may not choose to install them, according to deputy director of the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University, Jo Dong-joon.
This means the South may have no way of tracking a hostile missile.
The retired military official also said the South has a network of human intelligence in the North that may have tipped off Seoul about this week’s launch.
He would not give further details for “security reasons”.
Details of the South’s spy network in the North are unclear, but local media report that the South has lost most of its human network in North Korea in recent years.
But, the recent response by South Korea is seen as a success, especially considering the short time the military needed to return fire.
Also, the response was instigated entirely by South Korea without any aid from the US or Japan.
This year, South Korea installed a US operated Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence antimissile battery that can shoot down short and medium-range missiles.
But, the battery only has a short range and cannot cover the whole of the country.