Ummm... you realise they've had Seoul under tube artillery range for over half a century, right? That's more than enough of a deterrent, the ICBM capability is about getting up to their usual trick of extorting food and money in return for not building any more of them. That, and a sales demonstration for the countries like Pakistan who want to buy it.

Being able to launch satellites is no big deal either - plenty of countries will launch them for cash while asking few if any questions.

The interesting thing will be the effect this (and the recent Israeli Iron Dome demonstration) have on uptake of ABM systems. The technology isn't terribly hard (even Israel and India have managed to develop their own systems capable against IRBMs, and the Americans and Soviets had working anti-ICBM systems in the 1970s with Gorgon/Gazelle and Spartan/Sprint. Nike Zeus demonstrated skin-skin ICBM kills as early as 1962 (not sure on the exact date - Spanky has run off to the US with my copy of Shield of Faith, which will have the exact dates in it).

Do you know they have eating dogs for the anorexic now? - Phil the Greek