South Korea has unveiled its 'monster missile' Hyunmoo 5, which will be deployed by the end of the year for national security, marking a major conventional arsenal upgrade against its northern counterpart on the Korean Peninsula.

South Korea is set to deploy its 'monster missile' Hyunmoo 5 by the end of the year, marking a major conventional arsenal upgrade against its northern counterpart on the Korean Peninsula.
Earlier, North Korea tested the Hwasong-11E short-range ballistic missile (SRBM).
In a rare acknowledgment of the high-powered missile, South Korea’s Defense Minister Ahn Kyu-baek said that to achieve a “balance of terror” to counter the threat posed by North Korea, South Korea needs “a significant number” of Hyunmoo 5 missiles.
As a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), South Korea cannot possess nuclear weapons and relies on the U.S. nuclear umbrella for protection against nuclear-armed North Korea.
However, given the provocations from North Korea, it has become necessary for South Korea to develop next-generation, more powerful conventional missiles amid growing threats.

Hyunmoo 5

The high-powered ground-to-ground ballistic missile, called the "monster missile" because of its size, Hyunmoo 5 weighs about 36 tons.
It is capable of carrying an eight-ton bunker-buster warhead that can penetrate even underground fortified bunkers. The missile is about 16 meters long and has a range of 600 km to 5,000 km.
The idea of Hyunmoo 5, which was first unveiled during the Armed Forces Day ceremony in October 2024, originated back in 2010 after several deadly attacks by North Korea.
However, due to U.S. restrictions on South Korean missile payloads aimed at reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the project was halted until 2017.
In 2017, after North Korea tested its hydrogen bombs claiming to have tested a thermonuclear weapon, the U.S. under President Donald Trump lifted these restrictions on South Korea.

South Korea

Officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), it is a country in East Asia. It occupies the southern half of the Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and the Sea of Japan to the east.
It has a population of about 52 million, with half of it living in the Seoul metropolitan area, the ninth most populous metropolitan area in the world; other major cities include Busan, Daegu, and Incheon.
After Japan’s surrender in World War II ended Japanese rule, Korea was divided into two zones: a Soviet-occupied northern zone and a U.S.-occupied southern zone.
After reunification talks failed, the southern zone became the Republic of Korea in August 1948, while the northern zone became the communist Democratic People’s Republic of Korea the following month.