The two launches this morning follow the ICBM from two days ago. Kim Yo Jong, sister of the North Korean leader: “The frequency will depend on the joint military exercises of Seoul and Washington.” 70% of the South Korean population says they are in favor of their own atomic arsenal.
Seoul () – Tension is rising on the Korean peninsula. Following the launch two days ago, North Korea this morning launched two new missiles into the eastern sea. The deterioration of the situation had already begun a long time ago, but in the last week events have accelerated.
Last Saturday Pyongyang made the first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile of 2023 after the barrage of launches that led to last year. Experts believe that this missile would have been capable of affecting the entire territory of the United States. The launch was preceded on Friday by a statement from the North Korean Foreign Ministry that raised the tone against South Korea and the United States, stating that the country is determined to pursue strong and resolute countermeasures to stop plans for joint military exercises. of the two allies.
Following the missiles on Saturday and this morning, Pyongyang has threatened to do not stop. In a statement from the North Korean news agency KCNA, Kim Yo Jong, sister of leader Kim Jong Un and a senior North Korean official, stated that “how often we will use the Pacific Ocean as our firing range depends on the actions of the US Army.”
Today’s launch took place one day after the US-South Korean air exercises, which in turn were made in response to Saturday’s release. Pyongyang has always strongly criticized these exercises because it considers that they are actually “invasion tests” of the North.
According to experts, Pyongyang’s decision to resume missile launches would be related to the increasingly palpable tension between the two Koreas (the government of Seoul has returned for the first time in 5 years to describe the North as “enemy” in official defense documents), but above all with the joint exercises between the two allied democracies. This week South Korea and the United States will begin to define the concrete steps to operationally implement the nuclear deterrent that Washington is already extending to the South today. Military representatives of the two countries will meet at the Pentagon on Wednesday for a drill, during which they will begin to study possible action plans in the event of a nuclear attack by the North.
North Korea’s launches in recent days should therefore be interpreted as an attempt to intimidate the two allies, to warn them of their own missile capabilities and to dissuade them from the idea that it might be militarily feasible to attack the North without suffering the consequences. During the parade held in Pyongyang two weeks ago, Kim Jong Un displayed a vast nuclear arsenal that even the United States would probably have trouble neutralizing.
Faced with this complicated situation, South Korean public opinion is leaning decidedly in favor of owning its own weapons. According to some surveys, around 70% of the current population would be in favor of a South Korean nuclear arsenal. What moves the opinion of the citizens of the South is above all the awareness that the North is not willing to denuclearize; but there is also some skepticism about the real military commitment of Washington to defend the South when the entire US territory is already in the crosshairs of Kim Jong Un. However, Biden continues to affirm the determination of the United States to observe the alliance treaty, opposing the nuclearization of the South and offering greater guarantees in the field of deterrence as an alternative.
