Norks continue to burn their rocket inventory

NY Times:

One day after a surprise nuclear test drew angry and widespread condemnation, North Korea continued its defiance of the international community on Tuesday by test-firing two more short-range missiles, a South Korean government official said.

The missile firings came just hours after South Korea said it would join an American-led operation to stop the global trafficking in weapons of mass destruction, an action the North has previously said it would consider a declaration of war. The missiles launched Tuesday were surface-to-ship and surface-to-air projectiles, a government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. The South Korean news agency Yonhap said the missiles each had a range of 80 miles. They were apparently launched from a base on the central eastern coast into the sea opposite Japan, further rattling nerves in the region.

The South Korean Defense Ministry declined to confirm the report.

After its nuclear test on Monday, the North test-fired three short-range missiles, also off its east coast. An intelligence official in Seoul said that move indicated Pyongyang was “getting its back up” about the possibility that United States military aircraft would fly close to North Korea in an attempt to collect radiation data from the nuclear blast.

South Korea’s long-delayed participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative, the anti-weapons of mass destruction trafficking program, followed a statement on Monday by the United Nations Security Council that unanimously condemned the nuclear test. The council called it a “clear violation” of a previous resolution and also vowed to craft a new resolution that could impose further sanctions on the increasingly isolated North.

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For a country as poor as North Korea to be wasting strategic assets like rockets you have to think they see more value to demonstrations than to inventory. It comes off looking more like impotent rage and bluster. What will be their followup when the world defies them again and produces more condemning resolutions at the UN?

The fact is that neither side at this point is willing to do anything that will make a difference in the respective position of the other.

CNN reports on the rockets fired today.

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"We should be clear that these are short-range missiles. They are in the realm of anti-ship or anti-aircraft missiles, not missiles designed to target cities or other country population centers," said analyst Daniel Pinkston of the International Crisis Group, which describes itself as an independent non-profit group committed to preventing and resolving deadly conflict.

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The Norks are clearly not impressed by the UN action. They have to know that China has their back.