MPSC 2022 Prelims Paper-I · Question 75 of 100

Correct — option (3), North Korea. The Hwasong-12 is a North Korean ballistic missile, developed and operated by the Korean People's Army Strategic Force. The name itself is the clue a prepared candidate uses: Hwasong is the Korean word for Mars, and North Korea designates its ballistic missile family by that name with a type number, so the full designation of this weapon translates as Mars type 12. Once the naming convention is known, the question answers itself, because no other country in the region uses it. Technically the Hwasong-12 is a single-stage, liquid-fuelled intermediate-range ballistic missile, with an estimated range of between about three thousand seven hundred and six thousand kilometres; its engine is understood to derive from Russian RD-250 technology. The range classification matters and is the detail most often got wrong: an intermediate-range missile is not an intercontinental one, and the Hwasong-12 should be kept distinct from the Hwasong-14 and the later members of the series, which are intercontinental ballistic missiles. The weapon first flew successfully in May 2017 and was tested again in August and September of that year. It then reappeared in the news in the period this paper draws on. On 30 January 2022 North Korea launched a Hwasong-12 on a lofted trajectory — that is, fired steeply upward rather than out to its full range, so as to demonstrate capability without overflying another country — reaching an apogee of about two thousand kilometres and coming down some eight hundred kilometres away in the Sea of Japan. North Korean state media described the launch as an evaluation of the quality of serially produced Hwasong-12 missiles, which implied that the type had moved from development into manufacture, and the test was widely reported as the country's longest-range launch since 2017. That is why an examination written in August 2022 asks about it: the launch fell squarely within the window of current affairs the paper draws on, and it was reported in every Indian newspaper. The answer to be marked is option (3).

• (1)China — China is not the operator of the Hwasong-12, and its own missiles carry entirely different designations. The Chinese ballistic missile family is the Dongfeng series, the name meaning East Wind, with type numbers attached in the same way — the DF-21, the DF-26 and the DF-41 are the members most often named in reporting — and its submarine-launched missiles belong to the Julang series. Knowing that much is enough to eliminate this option without knowing anything about the Hwasong-12 itself, and the general point is worth generalising: most missile questions in a current affairs paper can be answered from the naming convention alone, because states name their weapons systematically and the names are distinctive. China's relevance to the Korean question is diplomatic rather than technical — it is North Korea's principal economic partner and its position on the United Nations Security Council shapes what sanctions can be imposed — but that relationship does not make Chinese any of the systems North Korea tests.
• (2)Japan — Japan is on the receiving end of this story rather than its author. The Hwasong-12 launch of 30 January 2022 came down in the Sea of Japan, some eight hundred kilometres from its launch point, and North Korean missile tests are a standing security concern for Japan for the plain geographical reason that the sea between the two countries is narrow relative to the ranges involved. Japan's own defence posture has been shaped since 1947 by Article 9 of its Constitution, under which the Japanese people renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes; its forces are constituted as Self-Defense Forces, and it has not developed a strategic ballistic missile force of the kind the Hwasong series belongs to. Its response to North Korean launches has been in missile defence, in intelligence sharing with the United States and South Korea, and in diplomacy — not in a competing programme of its own.
• (4)South Korea — South Korea is the most tempting of the three wrong options, for the obvious reason that a candidate who recognises Hwasong as a Korean word but does not know which Korea uses it has a one-in-two chance and no way to improve it. The discriminator is the naming convention: Hwasong is the designation used by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the north for its ballistic missiles, and the series runs from the short-range types derived from the Soviet Scud through this intermediate-range weapon to the intercontinental Hwasong-14 and its successors. South Korea, in the south, is the country these missiles are aimed to deter or threaten, and it operates within a very different framework — an alliance with the United States, forces stationed on its territory, and a missile programme constrained for decades by agreements with Washington. When a question turns on which of two similarly named states is meant, the safest route is through the specific name in the stem rather than through general impressions about the region.

North Korea's ballistic missile programme is organised around a family of weapons designated Hwasong, the Korean word for Mars, with a type number appended; the family runs from short-range systems derived from the Soviet Scud through medium and intermediate types to intercontinental missiles. The Hwasong-12 is the intermediate-range member most often in the news: a single-stage, liquid-fuelled missile with an estimated range of roughly three thousand seven hundred to six thousand kilometres, operated by the Korean People's Army Strategic Force, its engine understood to derive from Russian RD-250 technology. It flew successfully for the first time in May 2017 and was tested again in August and September of that year, and it returned to the news on 30 January 2022 with a launch on a lofted trajectory that reached an apogee of about two thousand kilometres and travelled some eight hundred kilometres into the Sea of Japan; North Korean state media presented it as a check on the quality of serially produced missiles. The vocabulary that surrounds these events is examinable in itself. Ballistic missiles are classified by range — short-range up to about a thousand kilometres, medium-range to about three thousand, intermediate-range to about five and a half thousand, and intercontinental beyond that — and the Hwasong-12 sits in the intermediate band while the Hwasong-14 and later types are intercontinental. A lofted trajectory is a launch fired unusually steeply, so that the missile reaches a very high apogee and falls a short distance away; it allows a state to demonstrate the energy of a system without flying it over another country's territory, and North Korea uses it routinely. The wider context is the international effort to constrain the programme through United Nations Security Council resolutions and sanctions, and the repeated failure of negotiations to halt it.

Defence and security items appear in every MPSC current affairs section, and questions about missiles are among the most common because a missile test is a dated, single-country event that can be turned into a one-line question with no ambiguity. The Commission asks them in three shapes: which country tested or operates a named system; what type or range class the system belongs to; and, for Indian systems, what the name means and which agency developed it. All three are answered efficiently from a single table of missile names by country, and the table is short enough to be worth memorising outright. India's own entries are the ones most often asked — the Agni series of strategic missiles, Prithvi, Akash, Nag, BrahMos, Astra and the K series for submarine launch, developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation — and the foreign entries most likely to be set are North Korea's Hwasong, China's Dongfeng, Pakistan's Shaheen, Ghauri and Abdali, and Russia's better-known systems. The reason a table works so well here is that states name weapons systematically, so the name usually identifies the country by itself. This question is a clean demonstration: a candidate who knows nothing about the Hwasong-12's range or its engine can still answer it correctly from the single fact that Hwasong is North Korea's designation, and can also see that the two options offering China and Japan are eliminated by their own naming conventions.

• The Hwasong-12 is a North Korean intermediate-range ballistic missile operated by the Korean People's Army Strategic Force; Hwasong means Mars, and the designation translates as Mars type 12.
• It is single-stage and liquid-fuelled, with an estimated range of about three thousand seven hundred to six thousand kilometres, and its engine is understood to derive from Russian RD-250 technology.
• It first flew successfully in May 2017 and was tested again in August and September of that year; the Hwasong-14 and later members of the series are intercontinental ballistic missiles, a different range class.
• On 30 January 2022 North Korea launched a Hwasong-12 on a lofted trajectory, reaching an apogee of about two thousand kilometres and landing some eight hundred kilometres away in the Sea of Japan; state media described the launch as an evaluation of serially produced missiles.
• A lofted trajectory is a deliberately steep launch that demonstrates a missile's energy without flying it over another country's territory, and North Korea uses it routinely for tests of longer-range systems.

• Confusing the two Koreas when the missile name is Korean; Hwasong is the North Korean designation, and the naming convention is the only reliable discriminator
• Calling the Hwasong-12 an intercontinental ballistic missile; it is intermediate-range, and the intercontinental members of the family are the Hwasong-14 and later types
• Assuming a lofted-trajectory test shows a short-range weapon; the steep launch is used precisely to demonstrate a long-range system without overflying another country
• Attributing a strategic missile programme to Japan, whose forces are constituted as Self-Defense Forces under Article 9 of its Constitution and which has developed missile defence rather than a strategic strike force

Missile questions in MPSC papers take a small number of forms: which country operates a named system, what its range class is, what its name means, and which agency developed it. For Indian systems the last two are asked most often; for foreign systems the first is almost the only one asked, as here. The whole topic is therefore covered by a table of names against countries, with a second column for range class and a third, for Indian entries, for the developing agency. It is one of the highest-yield tables in the whole current affairs syllabus because it is short, changes slowly and generates a question in most papers. Add to it the vocabulary of the subject — ballistic against cruise, lofted trajectory, apogee, first stage and second stage, submarine-launched — because a question sometimes tests the term rather than the weapon. And note the date of any test that made the news in the year before the examination, since the reason a system appears in a paper at all is almost always a recent launch.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Hwasong series of ballistic missiles belongs to which country, and what does the name mean ?

  • (a)China; East Wind
  • (b)North Korea; Mars
  • (c)South Korea; Guardian
  • (d)Japan; Rising Sun

  Answer(b) North Korea; Mars. Hwasong is the Korean word for Mars, and North Korea designates its ballistic missiles by that name with a type number, so the Hwasong-12 is Mars type 12. East Wind is the meaning of Dongfeng, the designation of the Chinese ballistic missile family, whose members include the DF-21, DF-26 and DF-41. Recognising a state's naming convention is usually enough to answer a missile question without knowing anything about the weapon itself.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  A missile fired on a lofted trajectory reaches a very high apogee and falls a relatively short distance away. Why is such a trajectory used ?

  • (a)Because the missile lacks the fuel to fly to its full range
  • (b)To demonstrate the missile's energy and capability without flying it over another country's territory
  • (c)Because guidance systems fail at low altitudes
  • (d)To place a satellite into a stable orbit

  Answer(b) To demonstrate the missile's energy and capability without flying it over another country's territory. A steep launch converts range into altitude, so observers can infer what the missile could achieve on a normal trajectory while the impact point stays in nearby waters. North Korea used exactly this profile for the Hwasong-12 launch of 30 January 2022, which reached an apogee of about two thousand kilometres and came down some eight hundred kilometres away in the Sea of Japan.