North Korea Was Aiming at Hawaii

According to this report, the long range missile fired by North Korea (that failed shortly after lift-off) was aimed near Hawaii:

A North Korean missile launched on Wednesday was aimed at an area of the ocean close to Hawaii, a Japanese newspaper reported on Friday.

Experts estimated the Taepodong-2 ballistic missile to have a range of up to 6,000 km, putting Alaska within its reach. Wednesday's launch apparently failed shortly after take-off and the missile landed in the sea between the Korean peninsula and Japan, a few hundred kilometres from the launch pad.

But data from U.S. and Japanese Aegis radar-equipped destroyers and surveillance aircraft on the missile's angle of take-off and altitude indicated that it was heading for waters near Hawaii, the Sankei Shimbun reported, citing multiple sources in the United States and Japan.

North Korea may have targeted Hawaii to show the United States that it was capable of landing a missile there, or because it is home to the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific fleet, the paper said.

How would the U.S. forces have reacted if that missile had stayed on track? Not only would we have had to try and knock it down in flight, but would probably have had to launch some type of reaction strike. There's talk that another missile of the same sort is being prepared. We may be forced to eliminate their ability to launch those things by taking out the missile bases.