North Korea new weapon tests making countries uncomfortable
Admittedly it isn’t easy to keep track of North Korea and their rocket launches these days.
Precisely when they launch a weapon almost every other day, as we have seen over the previous fortnight.
Back-to-back weapon tests of North Korea create menace among other nations:
The launches in seclusion no longer cause the headlines they used to, but if we see the latest tests overall, there is much we can learn.
North Korea avenges the US and South Korea for holding their largest army drills in years. The allies have been rehearsing how to beat the North in the event of an invasion. This is not a plan its leader, Kim Jong Un, enjoys.
Only this is not a standard North Korean protest. Previously, it has replied to such drills by launching off a mix of short, medium, and long-range missiles and possibly some artillery shots.
This time, around two weeks, Pyongyang fired its most powerful intercontinental ballistic projectile, which can go anywhere on the US mainland, in theory.
It has launched missiles from a sub and from what seems to be an underground silo. Its army has forged a nuclear onslaught on a South Korean airfield.
And Kim Jong Un has revealed a new underwater drone, which he says can launch nuclear weapons underwater to release a “super-scale radioactive tsunami” and kill enemy warships.
That is a diverse lineup.
From the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Critic Ellen Kim explained it to me as “the North Korean counterpart of a fashion show” – a nod to the Dior-style jacket Mr Kim’s child was seen sporting at one of the launches.
Analysts, including Ms Kim, are affected by the collection’s diversity that has been trodden this season. Pyongyang has revealed new, more refined weapons, which can be launched from sea and land to target the US, South Korea, and Japan.
