Tornado Alley (PROG)

[B402]

North Korea confirms ICBM test; warns of ‘long’ US confrontation

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2022/3/25/north-korea-confirms-icbm-test-warns-of-long-us-confrontation

Ambitions exceed self-defence’

The latest launch comes at a particularly delicate time.

Yoon Suk-yeol, South Korea’s newly-elected conservative president who has promised a more robust policy towards Pyongyang, is due to take office in May, while the attention of the US, the South’s key ally, is focused on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“The Kim regime is determined not only to keep South Korea hostage to military threats that can evade Seoul’s missile defenses and preemptive strike capabilities; it aims to expand its nuclear reach over the American homeland to deter Washington from coming to the defense of U.S. allies,” Leif-Eric Easley, associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said in an email. “North Korea is nowhere near initiating aggression on the scale of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But Pyongyang’s ambitions likewise exceed self-defense as it wants to overturn the postwar security order in Asia.”