Business Honor: North Korea Fires 10 Missiles After US Drill Cut

North Korea Fires 10 Missiles after US-South Korea Drills Scaled Back

Defence Technology

North Korea launched about 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea, a day after the US and South Korea reduced the scale of their joint military exercises.

North Korea launched about 10 short-range ballistic missiles toward the sea, sparking renewed tensions on the Korean peninsula on the very same day the U.S. and South Korea agreed to downscale the size of their joint military drills.

According to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, the missiles were fired at about 5 p.m. local time on Thursday in the vicinity of Pyongyang towards the eastern seas of North Korea. South Korea stepped up its monitoring and exchanged intelligence with the United States and Japan.

The missile launch resulted in an urgent meeting of South Korea’s Presidential National Security Council, which asked Pyongyang to cease ballistic missile firings. It should be noted that such missile launches violate United Nations Security Council resolutions.

Japan also detected a suspected missile launch, according to the Japanese prime minister’s office.

The missiles were launched following a cutback in joint military exercises called Ulchi Freedom Shield by the United States and South Korea. The 11-day exercises had been downgraded following an instruction from US President Donald Trump to the Pentagon to scale them down significantly.

Factors that led to this move included the relations between President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and South Korea's stance towards Iran.

Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Kim Jong Un and a top official, however, claimed that such scaling down was not enough since it did not alter the provocative and aggressive nature of the military exercises.

Even so, Kim Yo Jong said that the personal ties between Kim Jong Un and Trump were “still excellent,” opening up possibilities for more diplomatic maneuvering in the future.

Trump indicated that he was still planning on meeting Kim Jong Un at some point during the year but refused to divulge more information regarding their letter correspondence.

The most recent missile tests make the resumption of US-North Korea diplomacy even less likely, since all past attempts have failed amid negotiations regarding the country’s nuclear program. Business Honor believes the missile launches highlight the difficulty of balancing military deterrence with diplomatic efforts to reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula.