Washington’s plan to reinforce its missile defense appears to be aimed at staying ahead of increasing threats by North Korea, which officials and analysts see as fast progressing on its path to a nuclear weapons state.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Friday the Pentagon will install 14 new ground-based interceptors at its bases in Alaska and California by September 2017. That marks a nearly 50 percent increase in the country’s missile defense capability with 30 units currently in place.

The $1 billion project is the latest in a series of measures from Washington since Pyongyang’s Feb. 12 test of fission devices. The communist state in December successfully launched a rocket presumed to have a range of more than 10,000 kilometers, theoretically sufficient to reach the U.S. mainland.

Hagel reaffirmed another ongoing program to deploy a second radar unit in Japan to provide improved early warning and tracking of a North Korean missile liftoff.

The steps are designed to “stay ahead of the challenge posed by Iran and North Korea’s development of longer-range ballistic missile capabilities,” he told a news conference.

“The United States has missile defense systems in place to protect us from limited ICBM attacks, but North Korea in particular has recently made advances in its capabilities and is engaged in a series of irresponsible and reckless provocations.“

Given Washington’s fiscal woes and budget sequester, the announcement reflects a brewing security crisis on the peninsula in the aftermath of the regime’s third nuclear test, said Yoon Duk-min, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy. 

“The U.S. cannot stand idly by when North Korea claims it has an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching its territory,” he told The Korea Herald.

Part of the costs will be financed by scrapping the final phase of a separate missile defense scheme in Europe, which has been sternly opposed by Russia.

While it may fuel an already heated regional arms race involving China, the decision could pave the way for a fresh round of nuclear arsenal reduction talks between Washington and Moscow, Yoon said.

“It could be a bargaining chip for the U.S. in negotiations with Russia, though China may be unhappy despite the system’s defensive nature,” he added.

Pentagon officials said they were particularly concerned about a mobile missile launcher featured in a military parade last April in Pyongyang, which will make it easier to move around and harder to spot.

Adm. James Winnefeld, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the North’s missile development “went just a little bit faster” than his government might have expected.

“We believe the KN-08 (missile) does have the range to reach the United States,” he said.

The plan comes amid spiraling tension following new U.N. sanctions over North Korea’s third atomic test and South Korea-U.S. joint military drills.

In its latest barrage of threats, the North’s foreign ministry said Saturday that its nuclear program is not a “bargaining chip” for economic aid but an “all-powerful sacred sword” to counter the U.S.

“If they think that we have acquired our nuclear weapons to trade them for economic benefits, it will be nothing but an utterly ridiculous miscalculation,” a ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

U.S. offers “may work for other countries but to us, they only sound like a dog barking,” it said.

The statement appeared to target calls from Tom Donilon, U.S. President Barack Obama’s national security advisor, on the North to follow Myanmar in changing course and receiving economic assistance and foreign investment.

In an apparent show of force, Pyongyang test-fired two units of KN-02 short-range missiles into its eastern waters during its own exercises last week, Seoul officials said.

The regime has declared its exit from the 1953 armistice, threatened “diversified precision nuclear strikes” on Seoul and turned South Korean border islands into a “sea of fire.”

In a telephone conversation with Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se on Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry reaffirmed the robust alliance to cope with the nuclear standoff with the North and other regional and global issues.

He plans to visit Seoul next month to facilitate policy coordination with the new Park Geun-hye government and fine-tune her May trip to Washington and the agenda for her first summit with President Obama.

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)