Challenge To Biden North Korea Fires 4 Missiles – Free PDF Download

What has happened?

• Two months after President Joe Biden took office, North Korea is again turning to weapons tests to wrest outside concessions.
• But the tests so far have been relatively small compared to past launches.
• That indicates Washington has a window of engagement before North Korea pursues bigger provocations.
• This week, North Korea’s neighbours reported the country fired four short-range missiles into the sea in its first missile launches in about a year.
• The launches — two on Sunday, two on Thursday — came after the North said it had rebuffed dialogue offers by the Biden administration, citing what it called US hostility.

North Korea’s strategy

• North Korea has a long history of performing major weapons tests around the time new governments take power in the United States and South Korea.
• In February 2017, less than a month after Donald Trump assumed the US presidency,
• North Korea tested a mid-range missile that observers said showed an advance in weapon mobility.
• Later in 2017, four days after current South Korean President Moon Jae-in was inaugurated, North Korea fired what it called a newly developed, nuclear-capable intermediate-range missile.
• In 2009, North Korea conducted a long-range rocket launch and a nuclear test within the first four months of the first term of the Obama
• This week’s weapons tests largely appear to follow that playbook,
• But experts believe the country held back from a more serious a provocation because the Biden administration is still evaluating its North Korea policy.
• The four missiles fired this week were all short-range and don’t pose a direct threat to the US According to South Korea’s assessment, the first two weapons launched Sunday were believed to be cruise missiles.
• But Japan said the two fired Thursday were ballistic missiles, more provocative weapons that North Korea is banned from testing by U.N. Security Council resolutions.

What does North Korea want?

• What it has always wanted: for “the United States to lift sanctions while letting it maintain its nuclear capability.”
• Because the Biden administration is unlikely do that anytime soon, some experts say North Korea may stage bigger provocations, like a long-range missile test or a nuclear detonation.
• For now, it is ramping up its rhetoric along with the short-range missile launches.
• In January, about 10 days before Biden took office, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced he would enlarge his nuclear arsenal and beef up the country’s fighting capability to cope with a hostile US policy and military threats.
• He also pressed South Korea to suspend regular military drills with the United States if it wants better ties.
• When US and South Korean militaries pressed ahead with their springtime drills this month, Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, warned the US to “refrain from causing a stink” if it wants to “sleep in peace” for the next four years.
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said Washington reached out to Pyongyang starting in mid-February, but Pyongyang hasn’t responded.
• Blinken continued to slam North Korea’s human rights record and nuclear ambitions when he visited Seoul last week.
• North Korea’s First Vice Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said her country will keep ignoring such US offers because of what she called American hostility.
• The recent launches seem to be an example of North Korea “putting Kim Yo Jong’s threats into action,
• As she said the United States can’t sleep in peace if it doesn’t accept its demands.”

What’s next?

• Experts say it’s highly unlikely for the Biden administration to back down and make concessions in the face of North Korea’s short-range missile launches.
• Biden, who has called Kim “a thug,” also isn’t likely to sit down for one-on-one talks with Kim,
• Unless he gets a pledge that North Korea will denuclearize — and officials confirm the country is sincere.
• Amid the standoff, North Korea could end up launching bigger weapons tests,
• Especially if it isn’t satisfied with the Biden administration’s North Korea policy review that is expected to be publicized soon, experts say.

Q) Which country had control of the Korean peninsula before World War II?

1. Japan
2. China
3. Russia
4. UK

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