This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, October 15, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown.

North Korea's military hardware parade unveiled some new offensive weapons and some of them would presumably be aimed at the

United States.

So how does engagement with the Hermit Kingdom change?

What are the implications for U.S. troop presence in the South and how should South Korea and China respond?

Cato's Eric Gomez and Doug Bandau comment.

Well, North Korea typically uses its parades to send messages. And this time there was a lot of new hardware in the parade.

You're never quite sure how operational it all is, but small arms, tanks, radar systems, but what was most exciting was it appears to a new

larger ICBM that the presumption is could reach the United States and might even be able

to hold a merved warhead, a multiple independent reentry.

So that suggests that they wanted us to know that they've been working on these things, well it was accompanied by a speech that was

rather peaceful and kind of indicating this was all for defense and worried about economics.

So it was an interesting mix, but everybody took no to the new hardware.

Yeah, and to echo what Doug said, I think that for the ICBM, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un did issue a policy direction a couple years ago where he said that they

would be moving toward mass production of both missile capabilities and other things associated with the nuclear deterrent.

And it seems like this was, you know, this is a good sign for that to roll out a new model, to presumably have the ability to heavily

modify the vehicles carrying them, if not to produce their own vehicles for them.

Previously, they've been relying on just a handful of things

imported from China almost a decade ago.

So the fact that they're making that kind of progress

is, I think, notable. that's

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