North Korea claims to be testing the world's most advanced weapon. Experts are doubtful

North Korea says it tested a hypersonic missile on Wednesday, its second alleged test of such a weapon by the Kim Jong Un regime.

If the claims made in North Korea state media are true, and at some point the country is able to deploy a hypersonic weapon, it could have profound implications for the security situation in Asia.

But after both North Korea's first-claimed hypersonic test in September and the second this week, analysts were circumspect.

"A hypersonic missile that can defeat advanced missile-defence systems is a game changer if a nuclear warhead is mated to it," Drew Thompson, a former United States Defence Department official and a visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, said after the September test. But he cautioned, "that's a huge if. Having it and wanting it are not the same thing."

And after Wednesday's test, Cheong Seong-chang, director of the Centre for North Korean Studies at the Sejong Institute, a private South Korean think tank, said more time and refinements will be needed before Pyongyang could field a hypersonic weapon.