Here we go again. In violation of a stack of United Nations sanctions resolutions, North Korea has just launched a rocket into space. Pyongyang is describing this latest blast-off as a satellite launch. But the requisite technology is also useful for developing intercontinental ballistic missiles, which is almost certainly what’s really going on. This launch comes just a month after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test, which Pyongyang advertised as a hydrogen bomb — meaning a weapon of even greater destructive power than the atomic bombs North Koreas has been testing since 2006.
In plain English, what does this portend? North Korea is working on long-range missiles that could deliver a nuclear strike on the United States. At the very least, such weapons could greatly enhance North Korea’s leverage in its longtime racket of nuclear extortion. There is also the deeply unpleasant possibility that at some point North Korea might use such weapons. There is also the growing danger that other countries (Iran comes to mind), observing the relative impunity with which North Korea has been pursuing its missile and bomb projects, will be quite rationally inclined to follow suit — or perhaps purchase Pyongyang’s presumably advancing nuclear missile technology and wares.
What are President Obama and his team doing about this? Secretary of State John Kerry has denounced this weekend’s test launch as — you guessed it — “unacceptable,” calling it “a major provocation.”
