However, in order to launch a nuclear attack on its neighbours, it needs to be able to make a nuclear warhead small enough to fit on to a missile. Ross said the United States called on North Korea to “refrain from actions that further raise tensions in the region.” 
 
 The top U.S. diplomat for East Asia said late last month that Washington would speed up deployment of the U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system to South Korea given the pace of North Korea’s missile tests, and it would be stationed there “as soon as possible.” 
 
 South Korea and the United States have agreed to deploy the anti-missile system in the South to counter the North’s threat. The United States believes that North Korea has the capability to develop nuclear weapons, as shown by its four nuclear tests since 2006. According to that information leaked to the Washington Post, US intelligence officials now believe North Korea's claim that it has the technology to fit its missiles with nuclear warheads. What is known is that given their nuclear efforts with plutonium and uranium in the past decade, they have produced enough nuclear fuel to build some nuclear devices, but estimates vary among think tanks as to how many weapons they could build if they wanted to.
– US defense agencies detected an attempted missile launch in western North Korea late Friday, near the city of Kusong, Reuters reports. The object—believed to be a Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile—failed immediately after launch, per South Korea's military. American and South Korean defense agencies declined to provide any further details, but both governments condemned the act as unprovoked aggression. The missile test is the first since North Korea's latest underground nuclear test, which took place on Sept. 9. While it's murky whether North Korea actually has nuclear warheads, so far it hasn't verifiably demonstrated the technical capability, even if it does have them, to mount those weapons on long-range missiles that could strike the US mainland. The missile launch follows a week of joint US-South Korean war games, which the North has called a dry run for an invasion, Stars and Stripes reports. The presence of the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier, which arrived in Busan, South Korea, hours before the failed missile launch, lends a further show of muscle to repeated US commitments to defend South Korea against northern aggression.