North Korea missile tests signal ‘business as usual’

2014-03-04

Analysis by Martin Sieff

The North Korean military test-fired four projectiles a day after the historic reunion of families separated for more than 60 years since the Korean War, signaling a return to business as usual for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

“The North fired four projectiles which we presume were short-range ballistic missilesfrom Kitdaeryong in Anbyon, Kangwon Province in a northeasterly direction into the sea,” a South Korean Defense Ministry official in Seoul told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper in comments reported on Feb. 28. “We presume the missiles to have a range of more than 200 kilometers [120 miles].”

North Korea fired two more missiles off its eastern coast four days later. South Korean officials said those missiles had a longer range – 500 kilometers [300 miles]. Defense ministry officials said they are on high alert and are monitoring the launches. They called on North Korea to stop testing missiles.

The launches were intentional and “a kind of provocation,” South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim Min-seok said, according to South Korea’s official Yonhap news agency. South Korean officials think the missiles were Scud-type, Spokesman Kim said. Pyongyang launched the missiles in response to the regular United States-South Korean joint military exercises that began on Feb. 24, he said according to Yonhap.

More than 12,500 U.S. troops participated in the exercises which include Key Resolve, a computer-based simulation, and Foal Eagle, which involves air, ground and naval drills.

North Korea had demanded that the regular joint exercises be cancelled, “claiming that they are a rehearsal for a war against it,” Yonhap said. North Korea test fired the missiles in Kitdaeryong, a mountainous area about 40 kilometers [24 miles] south of Wonsan where trucks carrying missiles and launchers are easily concealed, the Chosun Ilbo said.

South Korea, Japan take measured response

South Korean President Park Geun-hye took a measured response to the latest incident.

“The government and military authorities believe Pyongyang has no intention of seriously dampening an ongoing cross-border detente given that the missiles had a short range and were not fired toward the South,” the Chosun Ilbo said.

The Japanese government was equally steady in its reaction. There would be no increase in the alert levels of the country’s defense forces, senior spokesman Yoshihide Suga said.

“At this point in time, we are not thinking that this has affected our country’s security or that an emergency has happened,” he said in comments carried by the BBC.

The test-firings marked “the North’s first firing of a Scud missile since 2009,” South Korean spokesman Kim said. This “poses a threat to South Korea as the whole Korean Peninsula is in range,” he said.

Kim Jong-un is adhering to the pattern of carefully calibrated defiance that had characterized the weapons tests of his father and predecessor, Kim Jong-il, Ralph Winnie told Asia Pacific Defense Forum. Winnie is vice president of the Eurasian Business Coalition.

“There is a rationality behind such moves by Pyongyang,” he said. “North Korea fears being ignored and dismissed. There has long been a widespread sense that they can only gain the leverage they believe they need in diplomatic negotiations and seeking economic concessions if they are seen as developing their own weapons programs. They are determined to maintain the sense in the United States and among their neighbors that they cannot be ignored.”

North Korea has 3 types of Scud missiles

North Korea “has three types of Scud missiles – the Scud B with a range of 300 kilometers [180 miles], the Scud C with a range of 500 kilometers [300 miles] and the Scud D with a range of 700 kilometers [420 miles],” Yonhap news agency reports.

North Korea’s missile launches are seen as response to the start of the annual joint exercises, but they were not the only responses.

On Feb. 24, “the first day of the drills, North Korea briefly violated the tense western sea border three times, following [the previous] week’s firing of what military sources believed to be a new type of rocket larger than 300mm-caliber from a multiple rocket launcher,” the South Korean news agency said.

In fact, North Korea’s series of responses to the latest joint exercises appeared carefully calibrated to express their usual anger, but without risking any further escalation.

South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman Kim noted that there had been no indications of any other missile launches or any other form of provocation against South Korea, Yonhap said.

The “North has banned its fishing boats from operating in the East and Yellow Sea, and put its troops in the border region on ‘special alert,’” other South Korean government officials told Yonhap.

The timing of the missile launches suggested that North Korea wanted to signal it had not gone soft in its reaction to the regular joint U.S.-South Korean exercises, but that it did not want to jeopardize the cautiously improved relations indicated by its approval of the families reunion, the first set of meetings of the kind to have been held in four years. The test missiles were only fired after the reunion meetings were completed.