North Korea’s successful test of a relatively short-range missile appears to have been a concerted effort by the nation, according to analysts, to continue to improve its missile technology without somehow provoking a US military attack.
The US has been threatening to attack North Korea for some time, deploying warships into the area around the Korean Peninsula and talking up the idea of unilaterally attacking North Korea as a “solution” to North Korea’s development of missiles and nuclear weapons.
There’s been growing speculation that the US might use another successful test by North Korea as a pretext to attack, which is likely why this most recent test was of something too short range to pose a practical threat to the US, hoping it would improve their retaliatory capabilities without sparking an outright attack.
That’s likely to become a recurring theme for North Korea, as certainly the US threat won’t be going away any time soon, with Trump rejecting South Korea’s new president in calls to restart diplomacy. North Korea then sees its future dependent on being able to continue to strengthen its retaliatory capabilities, but carefully avoiding anything so grand it provokes a US strike.