NO LAUGHING MATTER: Almost exactly 24 hours after senior U.S. officials dismissed North Korea’s Sunday launch of anti-ship cruise missiles as “normal military activity,” Kim Jong Un’s regime upped the ante with a second test of two short-range ballistic missiles.

Unlike the cruise missile firings off North Korea’s west coast, the launch of two ballistic missiles into the East Sea at 7 a.m. today Korea time (6 p.m. Wednesday EDT) was a clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions and seemed to usher in a new era of confrontation between Washington and Pyongyang, as the Biden administration signaled a resumption of large-scale military exercises and an end to diplomacy based on flattery and economic incentives.