North Korea's Kim Jong Un orders nuclear weapons after ICBM test

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is planning to build the world's most powerful nuclear force, state news agency KCNA reported on Sunday.

The ultimate goal behind North Korea's nuclear program was to possess an absolute force, unprecedented in the century, Kim said Saturday as part of an order promoting dozens of military officials.

The order comes after North Korea said it was a test firing of a new kind of intercontinental ballistic missile ICBM on November 18.

The Hwaseong 17 missile, according to KCNA, is a huge rocket that can theoretically deliver a nuclear warhead to the United States mainland.

Kim praised the officials who developed the new missile in his comments.

He called the missile the world's strongest strategic weapon and said it represented a wonderful leap forward in the development of the technology of mounting nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles. With the development of the new ICBM, Kim said that North Korea had demonstrated to the world the confident, ever-victorious future of our state advancing toward the goal of building the world's strongest army. In a letter sent to Kim recently, scientists from North Korea's Academy of Defense Science said that the test firing was a great victory for the country and demonstrated North Korea's sovereignty.

Kim attended the launch with a child believed to be his daughter, Ju Ae.

Ankit Panda, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Pyongyang has released a video of the missile launch, the third time it has done so since 2017, only the third time it has done so since 2017.

While the test showed Pyongyang can launch a large ICBM and keep it aloft for more than an hour, North Korea still hasn't shown the ability to place a warhead atop a long-range ballistic missile projectile that is able to survive the fiery re-entry into Earth's atmosphere.

The North Koreans are refining their capabilities with repeated tests, according to analysts.