Latest North Korean launch: Less about the capability, more about the message

North Korea’s Tuesday morning missile firing, in which it sent an intermediate-range ballistic missile soaring over Japan, didn’t demonstrate any new capability, but it did display renewed contempt for international efforts to pressure Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has said he has no intention of negotiating away what he sees as the only way to guarantee his grip on power, but Washington routinely treats bellicose, and sometimes over-the-top, statements from the North as empty bluster.

“The U.S. should clearly understand its rival. Its threats may work on some countries, and some others have yielded to the bluffing of the U.S.,” said an article in North Korea’s official Rodong Sinmun, the daily of the Workers’ Party of Korea. “The DPRK remains unshakable in its stand not to put its nuclear deterrent on the negotiating table nor flinch even an inch from the road of bolstering the nuclear force.”

Both the U.S. and North Korea have been accused of bluffing in the latest round of rhetorical brinkmanship: Kim by threatening to send a volley of missiles into the waters off Guam, and President Trump by threatening “fire and fury,” and warning a military solution is “locked and loaded.”

Far from backing down, as both Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently suggested, North Korea appears to be doubling down.

To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, the “missile is the message,” and it’s a big middle finger.

“The world has received North Korea’s latest message loud and clear: This regime has signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior,” said Trump in a three-sentence statement issued by the White House Tuesday, following the launch. “Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime’s isolation in the region and among all nations of the world. All options are on the table.”

The missile fired 6 a.m. Tuesday morning was believed to be a road-mobile Hwasong-12, with a range of up to 3,000 miles, the same type missile North Korea threatened to send through Japanese airspace toward the U.S. territory of Guam.

But the method, launch site, and trajectory of the launch also sent an in-your-face message.

“It’s the first time they have flown over Japan since 2009, so it is more of an intrusion on Japanese sovereignty, more of a direct threat,” said Bruce Klingner, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

Firing the solid-fueled missile from the back of a mobile launcher parked on a runway at Pyongyang’s international airport also demonstrated that North Korea is capable of hitting Japan, South Korea, and even Guam, 2,100 miles away, from anywhere in the North with little or no warning.

But now that each side has called the other’s bluff, the prospect of war seems no closer, and certainly no more appealing to either side.

When the president says, “all options are on the table,” that’s fairly pro forma language, said Klingner, a former CIA deputy division chief for the Koreas.

“It’s less inflammatory than the fire and fury,” Klingner said. “Military options are always on the table, in the sense that if North Korea were to attack the south, we would have a military response. … But I don’t see it as indicative of a preventative attack.”

But by the same token, North Korea’s actions seem to be calibrated to push right up against a red line without crossing it, said Alison Evans, an analyst with IHS Markit, a global research firm.

“North Korea has so far carefully managed its actions, as opposed to its rhetoric, opting for lower-risk options and relying on the US and its regional allies’ restraint,” Evans said. “This is indicated by the latest missile launch, which was fired over a U.S. ally, rather than towards Guam as originally threated by North Korea, and which was calculated to fail to threaten any U.S. military assets in Japan.”

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