DPRK: ICBM Is Warning to Beast-Like US Imperialists

Less than a month after their first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch on July 4, North Korea has fired off another.

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The North has referred to this latest test as a warning to the “beast-like U.S. imperialists.”

According to state news agency, KCNA, the test-launch sent “a grave warning to the U.S.” that it “would not go scot-free if it dares provoke.”

The statement also described Pyongyang’s weapons programs as a “precious strategic asset that cannot be bartered for anything” which puts on display the North's “tremendous might”.

“If the Yankees brandish the nuclear stick on this land again despite our repeated warnings, we will clearly teach them manners,” KCNA warned.

On Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson responded stating that North Korea’s launch was a “blatant violation” of multiple UN security council resolutions.

Tillerson directly pointed fingers at China and Russia, assigning “unique and special responsibility” for this latest show of North Korea’s “belligerent” pursuit of nuclear weapons.

“As the principal economic enablers of North Korea’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development program, China and Russia bear unique and special responsibility for this growing threat to regional and global stability,” he said.

Earlier this month Beijing had rejected culpability when they denounced U.S. President Donald Trump statement that they were responsible for doing more to rein in its ally.

“I think this either shows lack of a full, correct knowledge of the issue, or there are ulterior motives for it, trying to shift responsibility,” Geng Shuang, a foreign ministry spokesman, told reporters.

On Saturday, China’s foreign ministry called on Pyongyang “to respect United Nations security council resolutions and stop all acts that could worsen tensions on the Korean peninsula”.

China also “urged all the relevant parties to act with caution” to de-escalate the situation.

The Guardian reported that last week a top U.S. military officer said, in a security forum in Aspen, Colorado, that conflict with North Korea was not “unimaginable.”

“What’s unimaginable to me is allowing a capability that would allow a nuclear weapon to land in Denver, Colorado – that’s unimaginable to me. And so my job will be to develop military options to make sure that doesn’t happen,” explained Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

Jeffrey Lewis, a North Korea specialist at the Middlebury Institute of international studies, said a military strike against North Korea is unthinkable considering the ICBM tests, which shows Pyongyang capabilities.

“The North Koreans wanted to demonstrate that ... if there was a war they could definitely launch [missiles] in the dead of night from some place we don’t expect so we wouldn’t have a chance to fire at them before they got off the ground.”

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“What I think this change is that it forces the US to confront something that we have said for a long-time is unacceptable … [that] they can target New York and LA and there is not much we can do about it.”

“The window for [military action] has closed. People are jumping up and down and screaming [in Washington] not because they are getting ready to attack but because they don’t really have that option anymore and they accept that it has gone,” Lewis added.

“Attacking a nuclear-armed state is usually a bad idea – which is why countries build nuclear weapons. That is kind of the appeal.”