OPINION:
You could almost hear world leaders saying, “not now, we’re busy!” Even as the coronavirus crisis intensifies around the world, North Korea’s Stalinist regime continues its belligerent antics.
“North Korea fired at least three unidentified projectiles off its east coast Monday, South Korea’s military said, two days after the North threatened to take “momentous” action to protest outside condemnation over its earlier live-fire exercises,” CBS News reported this week. “In the past 10 days, North Korea said leader Kim Jong Un supervised two rounds of live-fire artillery exercises in its first weapons tests since late November. Those launches came after Kim entered the new year with a vow to bolster his nuclear deterrent and not be bound by a major weapons test moratorium amid a deadlock in a U.S.-led diplomacy aimed at convincing Kim to abandon his nuclear program in return for economic and political benefits.”
North Korea often acts up when it feels it isn’t being paid sufficient attention on the global stage. The latest weapons tests are an annoyance and a reminder of the malignant nature of the regime. They are also probably an attempt to play for sanctions relief or more generous aid.
But they are not an immediate crisis. America, and the world, should maintain its maximum pressure campaign and let Kim Jong-un stomp his feet and get mad.
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