Skip to footer

Why the US test-fired another intercontinental ballistic missile

The Minuteman 3, capable of carrying a nuclear bomb, was launched from a base in central California to an atoll in the Pacific Ocean. 

|
2nd Lt. William Collette/US Air Force/AP
In this image taken with a slow shutter speed and provided by the US Air Force, an unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile launches during an operational test just after midnight, Wednesday, May 3, 2017, at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The US has about 450 of the missiles and they are routinely tested. But the latest tests come amid rising tensions with North Korea, which has tested its own nuclear missiles – including some designed to reach the United States.
  • By Staff Associated Press

| Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

An unarmed missile capable of sending a nuclear bomb across the world was launched Wednesday from a coastal California military base amid rising tensions between the US and North Korea.

The unarmed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missile blasted off from a silo at 12:02 a.m. from Vandenberg Air Force Base and delivered a single re-entry vehicle to a target about 4,200 miles (6,800 kilometers) away at Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, the Air Force Global Strike Command said.

The test took 10 months to plan. It was the latest aimed at checking the readiness and accuracy of a weapon system that forms part of the US nuclear force. The US has about 450 of the missiles. Each can travel about 8,000 miles (12,900 kilometers).

It was the second such launch in seven days from the base in central California on the coast between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Last week's launch had been delayed from the fall.

The launches came amid US expressions of concern about North Korea's nuclear capability.

New missile tests by North Korea and its progress toward developing a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the United States have made the isolated communist dictatorship one of the top US national security concerns.

The US has sent warships to the region to deter North Korea from conducting another nuclear test

But President Trump on Monday said he might be willing to meet with that country's dictator, Kim Jong Un.

"If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it," Mr. Trump told Bloomberg News.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Why the US test-fired another intercontinental ballistic missile
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Military/2017/0509/Why-the-US-test-fired-another-intercontinental-ballistic-missile
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe