The sad history of the Musudan, a missile once hyped as a game-changer for North Korea, shows why skepticism is always warranted when assessing Pyongyang’s military might.

After being rolled out to great fanfare in July 2013, the Musudan wasn’t even test-fired until April 2016, during Kim il Sung’s 104th birthday celebration. The test failed. Two weeks later, another test, another failure. Later the same day, there was a third test. The Musudan, which is supposed to have a 2,500-mile range, flew 200 meters before crashing.

During a May 2016 test, the Musudan had an even shorter flight — it exploded on the launch pad. The missile didn't have its first fully successful launch until June 2016. And since then, there have been more failures. Four years after its debut, the U.S. intelligence community estimates the Musudan has an 88 percent failure rate, crashing, toppling, failing to launch, or exploding.

"The Musudan," said one senior U.S. intelligence official, "comes equipped with a fire extinguisher."