An underwater test-fire of strategic submarine ballistic missile is pictured in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang on April 24, 2016. KCNA/via REUTERS/File Photo. ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. EDITORIAL USE ONLY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THIS IMAGE. SOUTH KOREA OUT.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reacts during a test launch of ground-to-ground medium long-range ballistic rocket Hwasong-10 in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on June 23, 2016. REUTERS/KCNA TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY ATTENTION EDITORS – THIS PICTURE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. REUTERS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS IMAGE. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NOT FOR SALE FOR MARKETING OR ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS. NO THIRD PARTY SALES. NOT FOR USE BY REUTERS THIRD PARTY DISTRIBUTORS. SOUTH KOREA OUT. NO COMMERCIAL OR EDITORIAL SALES IN SOUTH KOREA. THIS PICTURE IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY REUTERS, AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS.
The North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un is not smiling for nothing. He and his military have been continually and consistently saber-rattling while South Korea and the United States have to watch every threat unfolding every month for months. Now monitoring week by week is an alarming and critical situation.
In the latest in these provocative displays of brinkmanship, North Korea has once again fired three ballistic missiles on Tuesday July 18th which flew between 300-360 miles into the sea off its east coast.
The U.S. military said it detected launches of what it believed were two Scud missiles and one Rodong, a home-grown missile based on Soviet-era Scud technology.
What is alarming is that the three missiles launched on Tuesday were a show of force and not just improving its missile capability. A reminder and a warning to the Republic of Korea what they are possibly up against.
North Korea and South Korea are technically still at war since their 1950-53 conflict that ended in an armistice; a temporary suspension of hostilities by agreement but certainly not a peace treaty.
“The launches came nearly a week after South Korea and the United States chose a site in the South to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) anti-missile system to counter threats from the North.” We are ratcheting up; not good.
“In addition to the decision to base a THAAD system in South Korea, the United States recently angered North Korea by blacklisting its leader Kim Jong Un for human rights abuses.”
“The threat to our national security is growing very quickly in a short period of time,” South Korean Prime Minister Hwang Kyo-ahn told Parliament on Tuesday.
In a time of such worry and heartbreak with consistent global ISIS terror attacks, we are also monitoring a very tentative and dissolute power of great threat with a larger scale of demonstrative destruction.
©Natalie Keshing Editor-in-Chief of NatsWritings.com or NatalieKeshing.com
