In this 2022 the regime has carried out more than fifty tests of this type | Tension on the Korean peninsula is at its highest
North Korea launched an unidentified ballistic missile into the sea on Saturday Japan in what is the umpteenth show of regime force in a year in which it has carried out a record number of tests of this type.
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement that Pyongyang launched a ballistic missile of an unknown type at the moment into the East Sea (the name given to the Sea of Japan in the two Koreas) while the Japanese Defense Ministry spoke of apparently ballistic projectile and the Japan Coast Guard mentioned that would have already fallen into the wateralthough without detailing where specifically.
The test comes at a time when tension is at its highest on the Korean peninsula and just a day after Seoul conducted a test for a future solid-fuel space rocket with which it wants to speed up the deployment of military reconnaissance satellites.
This year North Korea, immersed in a five-year weapons modernization plan and still completely closed to the outside due to the pandemic, has carried out practically fifty projectile launches of different types and, especially in the second half of the year, these tests have been carried out to replicate the South and the US. Faced with the regime’s refusal to resume diplomacy and its insistence on strengthening its arsenal, Seoul and Washington resumed their major military maneuvers since May and have chosen to respond to Pyongyang’s tests with the rotating deployment of strategic assets Americans on the peninsula, which has led to and hastened a action-reaction cycle that experts view with concern.
This latest release also comes at a time when the North Korean single party is holding a important plenary session in Pyongyang to set its 2023 agenda and the regime is expected to publish leader Kim Jong-un’s closing speech on January 1, which could include messages for the US or South Korea.