North Korean missile launches are not a test for the nuclear threat; it is an indication of military exercises in South Korea, according to KCNA

US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement Thursday that Washington “strongly condemns” North Korea’s ballistic missile tests, saying they were a “flagrant violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions and needlessly raises tensions and risks destabilizing the security situation in the region.”

The director of theEast Asia Nonproliferation Program believes North Korea’s announcements signaled potential progress in its missile program.

“What I find notable is that these launches are not framed as tests of the missiles themselves, but rather of the units that launch them. That suggests these systems are deployed,” Lewis said on Twitter.

Among the key military installations in South Korea is the US Army’s Camp Humphreys, the largest US military installation outside of the United States with a population of more than 36,000 US servicemembers, civilian workers, contractors and family members.

According to the South Korean Defense ministry, on Wednesday, North Korea launched 23 different short-range missiles.

There are multiple reasons for an announcement made Monday, according to a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University.

Besides providing a “patriotic headline” for domestic consumption on the 77th anniversary of its ruling party, “it is making explicit the nuclear threat behind its recent missile launches,” Easley said.

He said that the KCNA report may be an indication of a forthcoming nuclear test for the kind of tactical warhead that Kim visited in the field.

Last week, it pointed to 12 days of “National Defense” field exercises. While the allies insist the drills are defensive in nature, they are aimed at defeating threats from North Korea.

Kim further emphasized that Pyongyang will thoroughly monitor enemies’ military movements and “strongly take all military countermeasures” if needed, KCNA stated.

Task Force 70 and the United States-Japan Security Situation in the Low-Area and Near-Asymptotic Region of the Korean Peninsula

The Task Force 70 stated in a statement that the US Navy’s aircraft carrier strike group participated in several days of trilateral and bilateral exercises with South Korean and Japanese units.

“Our commitment to regional security and the defense of our allies and partners is demonstrated by our flexibility and adaptability to move this strike group to where it is needed,” said Rear Adm. Michael Donnelly, commander of Task Force 70/Carrier Strike Group 5.

In Friday’s statement attributed to an unidentified person, a North Korea’s Foreign Ministry claimed that the United States and South Korea had created an “unstable atmosphere” with their military exercises. The United States used sanctions and threat of military action to pressure North Korea to disarm, according to the report.

The security environment in Japan is becoming more severe according to Japan’s Joint Staff, and they said the drills with the US Navy are making them better at responding to threats.

There have been new tensions on the peninsula, with the North flying warplanes near their border and South holding a live-fire drill.

North Korean aircraft approached the no-fly zone straddling the border between 10:30 p.m. Thursday and 12:20 a.m. Friday, according to the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a move that Pyongyang followed up just hours later with its 27th missile launch of the year.

“Artillery firing in the maritime buffer zones is a clear violation of the September 19 military agreement, and the launch of short-range ballistic missiles is also a violation of UN Security Council resolutions,” the JCS said.

The flurry of military activity on both sides of the border came just hours after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned his nuclear forces are fully prepared for “actual war.”

Kim gave his first statements about North Korea’s missile program in several months, after he oversaw the test of long-range cruise missiles over waters west of the Korean Peninsula.

The sanctions target 15 individuals who “contributed to bringing supplies related to the funding of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction and missile development,” South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a news release.

South Korean military officials said Friday that North Korea fired two missiles into the east coast of the Korean Peninsula.

The US military said it was aware of the North Korean launch, which “does not pose an immediate threat to US personnel or territory, or to our allies,” according to a statement from the US Indo-Pacific Command.

Thursday’s launches take the count of North Korean missile tests to at least 30 so far this year, according to a CNN tally – though the count of individual missiles is far higher.

The number of stealth fighter jets included in the South Korean deployment on Friday had also maintained a readiness posture, the statement said.

CNN reports that experts say that Kim could be sending a message to the world by showing off his weapons during a time of heightened global conflict.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog said “everybody is holding its breath about” a potential North Korean nuclear test, which could provide further “confirmation of a program which is moving full steam ahead in a way that is incredibly concerning.”

We are following this very closely. The director-general said they hoped it didn’t happen, but there were signs that it was going in another direction.

North Korea’s alleged high-altitude ballistic missile failed to cross over South Korea at the end of a three-day drill

North Korea’s suspected launch of its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) failed on Thursday, according to a South Korean government source, as Pyongyang intensified its battery of missile tests against a backdrop of US and South Korean military drills that had been scheduled to end on Friday.

The joint exercises involve several hundred aircraft and thousands of service members from both countries according to the US Defense Department.

The Japanese Prime Minister’s office originally said it was going to fly over the northern prefectures of Miyagi, Yamagata, and Niigata when the presumed ICMB launch triggered warnings. The missile didn’t cross over Japan according to the Defense Ministry.

According to a South Korean government source, it was most likely the Hwasong 17 which was successfully test fired on March 24.

That launch set a new standard for Pyongyang, recording the highest altitude and longest duration of any North Korean missile ever tested. The missile hit a maximum altitude of 6,248.5 kilometers (3,905 miles) and flew a distance of 1,090 kilometers (681 miles), according to a report from the Korean Central News Agency at the time. The flight time was 68 minutes, the report added.

It could, at least theoretically, put the entire US mainland in range of a North Korean nuclear warhead, but there’s a lot of unknowns about the missile’s capability to deliver a nuclear payload on target.

A ballistic missile is launched using a rocket or rockets, then travels outside of Earth atmosphere, gliding in space before reentry and then descending powered only by gravity to its target.

A missile designed to hit the mainland United States would need a smaller nuclear warhead than a cruise missile.

Seoul responded Wednesday by launching three air-to-surface missiles from F-15K and KF-16 fighter jets, targeting an area the same distance north of the NLL.

The UN would be putting pressure on China and Russia to improve sanctions against North Korea, US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told CNN.

Some residents sought shelter in South Korea and Japan on the two days when projectiles and a suspected intercontinental missile triggered alert.

“North Korea staged a very threatening provocation at a magnitude we’ve never seen before,” says Kim Jeong-dae, a former defense official and visiting professor at Yonsei University in Seoul.

“First, they launched missiles from all around the country — east, west, south, north,” he explains. The strategy of striking the source of attack seems intended to be undermined by this. He adds that the quantity of projectiles suggests that North Korea has produced ample stockpiles of weapons.

“And the region where the North Korean missile fell,” he adds, “has many fishing boats catching squid,” suggesting that it could put South Koreans’ livelihoods at risk, and “pose existential threat to South Korea, if need be.”

Pyongyang has fumed at the U.S. deployment of “strategic assets” such as aircraft carriers and nuclear-powered submarines to the area around the Korean peninsula to deter and respond to North Korean provocations. Pyongyang has called the deployments a threat to regional stability.

In order to force the U.S. to make concessions, it’s a part of a plan to beef up its nuclear and missile arsenals. Washington doesn’t think these will happen.

North Korea’s “active nuclear bomber” continued with large-scale training for the upcoming U.N. Security Council training summit in Kushush-Klein

South Korea scrambled about 80 fighter jets after detecting a large number of North Korean warplanes during a four-hour period Friday, the country’s military said, in a further escalation of regional tensions.

Later, after meeting with his South Korean counterpart at the Pentagon, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin accused North Korea of “irresponsible and reckless activities.”

“We’ve said before these kinds of activities are destabilizing to the region potentially. So we call on them to cease that type of activity and to begin to engage in serious dialogue,” Austin said.

The UN Security Council is expected to have a meeting on Friday to discuss the missile launches. The US Mission to the UN, the US, UK, France, Albania, Ireland and Norway had called for an open meeting.

North Korea hates such displays of American military might at close range. The B-1B was referred to as a “nuclear strategic bomber” by the North despite being transitioned to a conventional weaponry in the mid 1990s.

The allies resumed large-scale training after North Korea’s weapons testing became more frequent, in order to take advantage of the U.N. Security Council’s differences over Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Vigilant Storm had been initially scheduled to end Friday, but the allies decided to extend the training to Saturday in response to a series of North Korean ballistic launches on Thursday, including an ICBM that triggered evacuation alerts and halted trains in northern Japan.

U.S. Response to South Korea’s Drone Attack on a “Terrorist State”: Implications for North Korea and the War on South Korea

North Korea has touted its drone program, and South Korean officials have previously said the North had about 300 drones. In 2014, several suspected North Korean drones equipped with Japanese-made cameras were found south of the border. Experts said they were low-tech but could be considered a potential security threat.

The military responded by firing warning shots and launching fighter jets and attack helicopters to shoot down the North Korean drones. The Defense Ministry did not know whether any of the North Korean drones were shot down after the attack helicopters fired a combined 100 rounds.

One of the South Korean fighter jets scrambled on Monday, a KA-1 light attack plane, crashed during takeoff but its two pilots both ejected safely, defense officials said. They said they also requested civilian airports in and near Seoul to halt takeoffs temporarily.

The White House National Security official stated that the U.S. officials were “reviewing the situation with the Republic of Korea.”

“We recognize the need of the ROK to protect its territorial integrity,” said the official, who was not authorized to be identified and commented on condition of anonymity. “The U.S. commitment to the defense of the Republic of Korea remains ironclad.”

Kim has called for the development of drones that can cover up to 500 kilometers deep into enemy territory. The North’s state media said he watched a drone attack drill on a real South Korean target.

North Korea had earlier released low-resolution photos of South Korean cities as viewed from space, but some experts in South Korea said the images were too crude for surveillance purposes. Such assessments infuriated North Korea, with Kim’s powerful sister Kim Yo Jong issuing a series of derisive terms to insult unidentified South Korean experts and express her anger.

North Korea is to hold a key ruling Workers’ Party conference this week to review past policies and set policy goals. According to some experts, North Korea will likely reiterate its vow to bolster its nuclear and missile arsenals, as well as its continued military training with South Korea.

Analysts say North Korea would eventually use its improved nuclear capabilities to win international recognition as a legitimate nuclear state, relax international sanctions and get other concessions.